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#but we're back now sorta. with lore
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Why did you choose NOW to butt in? Why not follow the death cultists that can ABSOLUTELY destroy the world 99% of the time?
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Quincy: "Besides, how was I supposed to know he was working with these 'death cultists'? It's not like he told us anything useful. All we've known for a long time is that he wants power--there's loads of powerful deities and artifacts in the Main Realm, and even beyond. It's like finding a needle in an astronomically large haystack, and constantly finding Nothing upon Nothing is just...I'm kind of at my wit's end here. Cut me and the others some slack, ok? ...Oh, and I saw what you said about some 'long hallway'. I was hoping you could be more precise. You seem to know what's been happening, so surely you'd have more information, right?"
They paused, sighing.
Quincy: "...Sorry. I'm not trying to be rude. This is just...a lot more than you realize, and now that I know Void Termina's involved...I really don't work well under this much pressure, huh..."
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bogleech · 1 month
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If you're still taking mortasheen questions - Can you tell us any lore stuff about the ultimate bioconstructs like hestermoan?
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Mortasheen's original three "legendaries," Hestermoan, Tormanshee and Mothneaser, all have names that are anagrams of "Mortasheen," which itself is the name of a disease spread by the Nuckelavee in folklore. They were imagined to be three "kaiju" that would be completely frightening and disturbing with none of the whimsy or silliness of other Mortasheen monsters, and also broadly represent their three common categories: a physical attacker, a mental attacker, and a bioweaponry wielder. Hestermoan is the biggest and strongest and basically Mortasheen's "Godzilla," Tormanshee was meant to have a nasty Silent Hill kind of vibe and spreads "madness" while Mothneaser collects your blood and turns it into other monsters. They're so old by now, they conflict with a lot of the "style guide" i have in my head. I know I just said that was kind of their point, but there's other internal guidelines I impose on the setting that I'd like them to follow by the time I introduce them into the RPG, and they might change a bit drastically, but hopefully they'll keep the same vibe.
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Tormanshee in particular was based on one of the very oldest Mortasheen monsters, a simple embryo in a floating bubble, which I then brought back as the "tormite" here and tied them together, also giving Tormite one huge open eye so it can also read as a floating eyeball.
Now for the RPG I'm using Tormite again as the lowest-level and most common psychokinetic creature, though I turned it back into a sleeping embryo thing with its eyes closed:
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If you liked the "simultaneous eyeball" gimmick, don't worry! I'm doing a thing with that! I don't know what yet, but one idea is that they kind of "wake up" and then they start to evolve various forms from there.
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I think Tormanshee will still connect with them somehow, too, like their "termite queen," but my design ideas for it are a whole lot more elaborate. They still have the "silent hill pregnancy demon" vibe but with a whole lot more body, kind of from a "what if this was also an ultraman kaiju or an evangelion angel" angle.
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The more current concepts I had for Hestermoan are odd enough I don't want to spoil it, and it was originally going to be included in the first book - sorta - but we're holding off on it for now and may release them as free supplemental monsters. I also kind of like the idea of doing so because it has a similar feeling to Mew and other "secret" legendary Pokemon. Maybe their first release would even be through a really silly and gimmicky exclusive medium, before they get released as free public downloads.
My newer concepts for Mothneaser are all over the place, but it still has nothing whatsoever to do with moths. I just really like the sound of the name. All three still have the lore that they wake up only when the city's existence is threatened. This is monumentally rare because the city is the size of a continent and it's alive enough to regenerate from almost anything.
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taehyunsluvr · 6 months
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⋆ ˚。⋆୨୧˚ Boy Next Door ˚୨୧⋆。˚ ⋆
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warnings: sub!soobin, afab!reader, dom!reader, making out, friends to strangers to lovers, nerd!soobin, nicknames (noona, soobie), kinda leg riding?, first time, pervert!soobin, not proofread
a/n: short, kinda a random idea but fits him. We all know he'd he such a boob guy. Theres lore guys theres lore okay trust me
!!MDNI!!
Everyone labels him the "nerd" of the neighborhood because he's kind of the guy everyone uses for homework answers. Your friends, they can be a bit harsh. They sorta.. kinda.. bully him? That sounds realllyyy bad but really all they do is tease him from time to time. For small things like his glasses, the way he dresses, yk the usually things. And yeah, you've laughed along a few times. It felt wrong, but it was worth it to be friends with them.
Though he's always kinda been your friend, secretly. He helped you out with math when you were practically failing, listened to your endless rants about whatever drama was going down at school, and never asked for anything back. Thats just all he was though, always there, kind of like part of the scenery of your life you never really paid much attention to.
Then randomly at school, Soobin comes up to you. He's looks of nervous, which honestly wasn't that weird for him. He purposefully tried to meet you when your friends were getting snacks during your break.
"Y/n," he mutters, "there's something I really need to tell you." You just stare at him. You were kind of annoyed because if your friends saw you they would never shut up about you talking to him. "I like you, more than a friend like. I've felt this way for a while but didn't say anything because I know how it is with your friends..I know you laugh with them, and it's cool but we're graduating soon so I didn't want to miss the opportunity." You didn't really give him an answer. You just stared at him, mouth open slightly and with a confused expression before he walked away.
It pissed you off that he just HAD to tell you. It was awkward as HELLL and now you couldn't even ask him for help with work. And not to mention finals were like in a week. And now you stood in your kitchen, pissed of because your mom told you 5 minutes ahead of time that the Choi's would be coming to your house to have dinner. Was this a joke? Well you wanted to make the best of it. At least you could play around with him for the time you had. You tried slightly with your outfit and makeup, but no too hard. When the door opened and his family entered, you were sitting on the couch. You got up to greet them all, glancing at Soobin. He had his usual black framed glasses on, and a plain outfit.
"Hey you came." You waved slightly to him. He VERY awkwardly waved back, looking at his feet avoiding eye contact. "Mom we'll be in my room." Now this would sound suspicious if it wasn't for the fact that you've known each other since you've worn diapers. You both made your way up your stairs, and into your room. "You can sit on my bed if you want." He nodded silently. "Soo.. anything new with you?" You wanted to talk about something, ANYTHING to break this awkward suffocating feeling. It wasn't just awkward, but you were also still pissed. You weren't pissed at the fact that he abruptly confessed, but more by the fact that he didn't let you give a proper response. He constantly avoided you at school and pretended not to be home when you brought stuff over to his house for his family. Did he think he was alone with his feelings?
"Some people started a rumor at school.." He said breaking the silence again. "They said we're a couple. You raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah? You sure you didn't start the rumor yourself?" You teased. He looked genuinely bothered. You scoweled. "What? Does it make you that unfomfortable that people think we're dating?" He quickly retorted, "N-no..! I just thought it might make you.. annoyed"
"Ill decide for myself how I feel, thanks, I dont need you deciding that."
"thats not what I meant.. I'm sorry noona.." He said repentually.
"I never even got to respond to you that day. Maybe the rumors would have been true if you let me speak." You said moving slightly closer to him on your bed. He looked confused.
"My answer is I like you too, and I do want to date you. So does that answer suit you? Or were you expecting rejection?" he paused. He felt a bit embarrassed when you so bluntly expressed your feelings to him. He wasn't expecting a positive reaction, so he felt hesitant on if he should speak or stay quite.
"H-huh?" He couldn't tell if you were teasing him or not. "If you're actually serious then why didn't you just tell me then?"
"Because you didn't give me the opportunity to. Well its good we got that out of the way. I'm actually really excited now. We can do tons of fun couple things." She said facing him.
"We-w-what?" The whole mood shifted. A moment ago you guy's were all serious, which was totally out of character for you. Soobin was taken by surprise as you leaned closer. "What 'couple things' are you talking about..?" His voice broke as he spoke.
"we could play around and.." she leaned closer to whisper to him, "I would even.. let you touch them." She leaned back away from him and laughed hysterically while cupping her chest in her hands.
Soobin felt his entire face immideitatly turn red and his heart rate shoot up. He felt like he could die from embarassment as he felt his body heat up because of the teasing. He could only slightly nod. "W-well I guess.. we can do that.."
"Oh so you're admitting to being a pervert?"
"I-it's.. not like that" He said answering quickly. "I'm not.." it was a joke you often said to him before.
"You've thought about it before haven't u? How they felt?"
"W-well.. um.. yeah.. I have thought about it.. but that doesn't make me a perv.." His face flushed even more than before.
"It totally does. But your wish is my command." She took his big hand and placed it on her chest. Soobin immediately felt a sudden warmth on his hand. It was like every nerve was being stimulated, and his breath began to become more heavy as his heart rate increased. You never knew boobs turned guys on this much. Or maybe it was just Soobin..
"You like it right?" You teased.
"W-well, I mean.. they're- they look really soft and I.." He trailed off and he was stuttering profusely. It was already too much for him to handle.
"you're already this flustered from feeling my clothed chest?' He nodded in a mix of shame and embarrassment. His face was completely red now. You wanted to test his limits. You leaned onto him, pressing a soft gentle kiss onto his lips. You just wanted to test the waters. His eyes widened in surprise as he felt the unexpected sensation. He hesitated for a moment before slowly parting his plush lips. The kiss became more rough, and you pulled his waist, so once he attempted to pull away, naturally he fell onto his back on your bed. He gasped for air, his body trembling under yours. His hands moved up to your shoulders, trying to push you away but finding it almost impossible to resist. The warm touch of your hand started to spread all around his torso as your fingers began to run over his skin. He let a groan before speaking, "M-Mmph...p-please don't.. dont't stop.." You moved your mouth down to his kneck, slowly trailing kisses down his sensitive skin.
A shiver ran down his spine, and he let out more groans as he tried to hold onto u, not wanting you to stop. You lifted up his plain tee revealing his chest. You brought one of his even more sensitive nipples into your mouth, gently sucking. Soobin let out a soft moan, and he couldn't help but arch his back slightly. You could feel his heartbeat now, and he could feel himself getting harder under your touch. You felt it. It was huge. Wasn't he the nerd everyone asked for homework answers? Why did god give him everything. Looks, brains, and a huge cock. She let out a teasing laugh.
"Somone's excited." She lifted her knee in between his legs.
"M-mhhh..mm n-noona.." His moans became even more intense as you pushed into his hard erection through his sweatpants. He couldn't hold it in anymore. "M-more..please," he managed to whisper between ragged breaths. She gave attention to his swollen nipple while still pushing her knee into him. The sensations were overwhelming. His body trembled. He pressed his hips forward in an attempt to get closer to the sensation you were creating. "Fuck.. I can't take m-more.." His voice strained. "Mm.." He tried to hold back, but as soon as he felt your hand slip down under his sweatpants onto his hardness he couldn't help but make noises of pleasure.
"Shhh.. these walls aren't sound proof soobie." You told him, knowing there was no way anyone downstairs could hear if they couldn't hear your blasting music that you usually played on your speaker. His body tensed up and he felt himself about to climax, his hips bucking forward. "noona I'm- I-" With a suppressed and strained moan he released his seed into his sweatpants, panting heavily as the wave of pleasure washed over him. He took a second to fully come down to realize the situation. His legs still twitching, he felt both incredibly embarrassed and incredibly speechless.
"Oh- by the way I'm sorry for laughing with my friends.. before.." She had a complete 360 in the way she treated him but he didn't even seem to notice-- or care. "I-i don't even care anymore." He said calmly. "Can you grab me a tissue?"
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genericpuff · 11 months
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The Mishandling of LO's S3 Midseason Hiatus - Part 1
So Lore Olympus' return is right around the corner, and I realize I've never actually talked about the S3 midseason finale. I think I said I was going to, but then I just sorta didn't, probably because I was still reeling in the absolute absurdity of it for weeks afterwards. In hindsight, I should have written about it back when it was still fresh, but I feel like I can do it just as much - if not more - justice writing about them in hindsight, now that they've had time to sit and I've seen what Rachel and WT are clearly planning to do after the comic ends (whether or not they succeed... that's a different story).
CAUTION: THIS IS PART 1 OF A 3 PART SERIES IN WHICH I WILL BE SPOILING MUCH OF EPISODES 251-253. THIS EPISODE CONTAINS DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE INVOLVING STRANGULATION. THIS WILL BE A LONG POST. BRACE YOURSELF.
So one of the things that really motivated me to finally talk about this was a conversation that happened recently in the ULO Discord - the realization that there are many readers who still don't know what happened after the free to read finale cliffhanger.
Y'know, the one where Hades gets possessed by Kronos and attempts to choke Persephone-
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Now, awful dark jokes aside about how Persephone frankly deserves to have her balloon head popped, this was a wild cliffhanger to leave on for free readers, but the strange thing this time around - unlike with the previous midseason hiatus - is that this is where the cliffhanger has stood for free readers for the past 3 months, and it will be 4 months by the time the series returns.
And frankly... this just highlights a huge problem with LO's writing, because this cliffhanger? Like all the others, it's literally resolved within the next episode. The one that's currently under the FP lock.
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Man, isn't it a little fucked up that we only ever get trigger warnings when it's concerning Persephone? Where was the warning for when Minthe got turned into a plant? Where was the warning for the entire episode that depicted Hera's trauma from Kronos and how it's still affecting her in the present? It's always either the Persephone, Hades, or Apollo focused episodes that get the trigger warnings, they couldn't care less about the violence being done onto other people in the story.
Anyways. Episode 251 opens up by reminding us, oh yeah, Kassandra exists!
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Remember back in Episode 227 when Psyche stole Apollo's USB drive (and by "stole", I mean she picked it up off the ground where Apollo had conveniently dropped it?) And they found a folder with a picture of Kassandra? Well, Episode 251 opens by reminding us of her... 24 episodes later. SEVEN MONTHS OF REAL LIFE TIME, LITERALLY THE LENGTH OF BOTH THE SEASON 2 AND SEASON 3 MIDSEASON HIATUSES COMBINED-
Anyways, I guess Rachel finally figured out what she was gonna do with Kassandra after all that time, and it's... really stupid.
But wait, don't worry about that yet, because only the comic's opening reminds us of Kassandra, we gotta establish the title first and get back to that cliffhanger from before, the one that free to read users have been waiting 4 months to see.
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(pay attention to the episode titles here btw, it's probably one of Rachel's lamest 3 parter title sequences yet)
Turns out Kronos is still intent on getting his hands on Hera, even though we've literally already seen Kronos haunting Hera. Is he just a ghost? A hallucination of her traumatized mind? We don't know, it never really explains itself. So Kronos is still looking for Hera.
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(kinda weird that we're getting all these redrawn fullbody angles of Hades-possessed-by-Kronos choking his noodle-bodied wife who is doing literally NOTHING to actually fight back besides yelling at him, but okay.)
Turns out Hades isn't really hyped about this choking game going on between his dad and his niece wife, so he goes full on "release the beast" Naruto mode on his ass.
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And that's it. That's literally the conflict resolved. The cliffhanger that free to read users were left with over the 4 month hiatus is resolved literally within a handful of panels and Hades just "believing enough" to save his wife.
And then that's just it, it cuts away, and we get this sorta awkward conversation between Persephone and Hades (now himself again) over the fact that he just choked out his wife.
The scene transitions to Hades waking up in his bed (literally that last shot of him and Persephone was it, it transitions immediately). I'm trying not to use up Tumblr's 30 image posting limit so I'm not posting the 3 fucking copy pasted panels of this that just involves Hades waking up, use your imagination lmao
There's literally no actual conversation here, no amount of Hades asking "what happened", somehow despite his possessed state he remembers everything so succinctly that he jumps right to demanding Persephone to see her neck.
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(literally removed the panel of Persephone saying "Hades..." because these types of "let me do the thing" "Hades :(((" "let me do the thing" exchanges are literally just Rachel trying to hit her panel limit, once you start seeing these '3 panel' exchanges that copy paste the same shit over and over again, you can't unsee them and you realize this is why so little happens in the comic as a whole, because it's just constant repetition of dialogue and reaction panels to pad out the episodes).
And then we get what I like to call "guy in a position of power manipulating his more vulnerable partner into pitying him without actually apologizing":
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No for real, I didn't cut out a single thing from this exchange aside from a couple copy pasted reaction panels, this is the entire conversation. Hades doesn't apologize, he doesn't ask Persephone if she's okay, he just pulls the "you can leave if you want toooo :(((" baiting Persephone into further trapping herself with this jackass. SHE'S the one who's stuck with HIM.
Like, obviously Hades wasn't the one who choked her, that goes to Kronos, but he doesn't even ask her if she's okay. He just looks at her moldy ass bruises and immediately goes "YOU CAN LEAVE IF YOU WANT TO I'M A MONSTER OH GOD-" and then of course she's having to comfort him which is fine but where's the balance? It's always Persephone having to comfort him and listen to his trauma and we never get Hades doing the same for her - the times we do get Persephone talking about her trauma and struggles with him, he always finds a way to make it about him.
Hades proceeds to talk more about his childhood and more of the shit he's already talked about multiple times before, I don't even need to go over it at this point.
That said, Rachel does remember to bring his stutter back. When's the last time he stuttered? 200 episodes ago ?? (literally I don't remember, it's like when he used to twist his napkins, he doesn't have these character traits consistently anymore).
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THERE we go, finally some semblance of an apology. It came after more trauma dumping, but at least it's something-
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Oh for fuck's sakes.
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This is literally such generic "you've come so far!" motivational jargon. And it's made even worse in LO because what has Hades overcome exactly? Just a reminder, here are the things we've seen in Hades' backstory since he was rescued by his brothers:
He started a business in the Underworld that he's been operating with slave labor and profiting off ever since as a tyrannical oligarch
He entered a multi-century-long affair with his brother's wife, his own sister in law
He cost Demeter - Persephone's own mother - the role of Queen of the Mortal Realm and Persephone still does not know this.
He abused and neglected his adopted son - who was literally abandoned on his doorstep - for hundreds of years and used his role as his adopted father to guilt trip his son for getting "special treatment".
He never took responsibility for the financially dependent relationship he created between himself and a lower class nymph and tried to bribe her out of his life as soon as he fell for a 19 year old intern
HE LITERALLY FELL FOR THE 19 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER OF A WOMAN WHO HE HAD SCREWED OVER AND PRETENDED LIKE THAT WOMAN WAS IN THE WRONG FOR NOT APPROACHING HIM DURING THE EVENTS OF THE ACT OF WRATH, AND THEN HE HAD THE GALL TO PROPOSE TO HER DAUGHTER RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER WHEN SHE BASICALLY HAD NO OTHER CHOICE BUT TO SAY YES.
Everything he's legitimately had to overcome involving his trauma has gone completely ignored until pop in comes the pink cinnamon roll girl to solve all his problems and do for him what apparently even a therapist couldn't do (because haha he thinks his therapist is a hack.)
Persephone saying "look at all you've done" should be a reminder of all the crimes Hades has committed against people weaker than him, but instead it's used as a term of endearment, because Persephone literally got with him when she was 19 years old. And apparently the whole "eternally 19" thing applies to more than just her body, because even now, 10 years later, she's still lacking all the smarts and self-awareness and maturity to realize marrying this man was a mistake.
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At this point Persephone isn't too naive or stupid to realize what she's gotten herself into, she's just a terrible person who's entirely complacent in Hades' bullshit and frankly, they deserve each other.
They literally keep talking about him for several more panels. Hades literally whines on and on about how much of a failure he is, how he feels like he failed the child who's trapped in Tartarus, and then of course Persephone tells him "no honey, you're the most important being in this process!" and she's LITERALLY STILL JUST TALKING ABOUT HIM, THIS WHOLE EPISODE IS PERSEPHONE TALKING ABOUT HOW WONDERFUL HADES IS, NOTHING ELSE HAPPENS. HAVE YOU NOTICED WE HAVEN'T EVEN SEEN KASSANDRA YET ?? HAVE YOU NOTICED THE COLD OPEN FOR THE EPISODE HASN'T BECOME RELEVANT YET ?? I'VE ALREADY HIT THE 30 IMAGE LIMIT AND I HAVE TO START CUTTING STUFF OUT-
Persephone and Hades talk about how they should name the interloper, but they don't come up with anything before transitioning to Leuce and Thetis.
And y'all, this has gotta be one of Rachel's worst cases of backpedaling in the entire series. You thought how she turned Leuce - Hades' first wife - into a homewrecker was bad? You thought it was absurd the plot tried to turn Leuce into Minthe 2.0?
Remember those text messages that Leuce and Hades sent between each other? The ones we never saw but kept getting alluded to? Well of course we couldn't have Hades actually text Leuce during Persephone's banishment, because then that would mean he isn't 100% loyal to his little pink cinnamon roll "qween", so what was the next best thing? Kronos possessing Hades and texting Leuce like so many people - even fans - assumed? No. It's worse.
The text messages... weren't real.
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This literally makes no sense. First of all, it's once again Rachel creating drama out of "haha woman delusional!" much like she did with Minthe. But second, it literally doesn't make sense after what we've seen leading up to this.
Leuce didn't just talk about Hades texting her. She went to his office, intent on seducing him, with the knowledge of these text messages being real. She even TALKS ABOUT THESE MESSAGES WITH HADES.
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But of course, they were interrupted before Hades got a chance to respond, so this was convenient enough for Rachel to try and pull off some 'twist' where she could easily absolve Hades of "cheating" on Persephone (again, the girl he only knew for like 1-2 months) but also not have to deal with the weird logic of Kronos possessing Hades just to text some random nymph.
This is absolutely one of the most absurd retcons Rachel has ever tried to pull to get herself out of the corners she writes herself into.
Now the episode is still going and FINALLY, it gets to Kassandra, after teasing her at the beginning of the episode and proceeding to do a whole lot of nothing throughout the entire thing.
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This has to be one of the funniest panels in the entire comic, bar none. Rachel's gotten worse at drawing men despite making this comic for 5 years and having plenty of opportunity to improve, and he literally just looks like the fucking Amazing Bulk, haunting this poor mortal woman with his very presence.
So yeah, it turns out that the "curse" Kassandra suffers from in this "retelling" is, rather than having prophecies no one believes (or at least, if she does, we don't see that), she sees Apollo and no one believes her. Again, Rachel takes these weird liberties with the original myths that don't make a whole lot of sense all for the sake of seeming original, but whatever, Rachel hit her panel limit for the week, because that's essentially where the episode ends, with Apollo greeting Kassandra. As quickly as it was shown at the beginning of the episode, the one part of the episode actually featuring Kassandra is wrapped up in literally 7 panels.
THOUGHT VOMIT TIME
So with Episode 251 now summarized and out of the way, I really wanna talk about how this episode operates as the first FP episode after the midseason finale for free readers.
Despite the fact that it was a 4 month break and despite the fact that WT has always still released these episodes for free on schedule - with the idea that every reader will be up to date with the current content and can start fresh with a new set of FP episodes when it returns - this time around Episodes 251-253 have remained locked.
And I say Webtoons specifically because as far as I know, the creators typically don't have control over this type of decision. From what I've heard from other Originals creators, it's often WT who decides shit like coin costs, FP release dates, etc. This is why during hiatuses the numbers on the episode unlocks never actually align with their real return dates, sometimes they completely undershoot and reset, sometimes they overshoot and tell people LO is coming back in January despite the fact it's been confirmed it's coming back in November. This isn't Rachel's doing. It's clearly Webtoons trying to squeeze as much money out of this series as they can so they think the 4 month hiatus will motivate people to pay... but even the newest episode is still only sitting at 17.9k likes, which is just slightly above the average amount the FP episodes normally wind up sitting at by the time they're unlocked after 3 weeks, but this has been after four months. The hiatus of the comic and its communities absolutely put LO out of sight, out of mind.
That said, I don't know what this means for the series' return, if it'll have 6 FP episode unlocks going forward or if it'll just return with one new FP episode and Episode 251 unlocking for free readers, but holy shit, if that's the case, this is gonna be a shitty way to return from 4 months of nothing. The cliffhanger from 250 implies so much more than what it ends up being and it's, again, highlighting a fundamental issue within LO - it operates purely on a week to week basis, producing episodes on the fly, and concerning itself more with filling up its panel quota so that it can get readers from beginning to end when they can drop some new cliffhanger that likely won't lead to anything or will be completely resolved within three swipes of the next episode. Season 3 has been especially egregious with this and it's clear Rachel has run out of track to run on.
There is speculation that perhaps the reason the timing of this cliffhanger is so off is because Rachel didn't know the hiatus was going to happen and WT forced her on it. That said, it's not something anyone can really confirm besides Rachel. I wouldn't blame her for taking the time she did considering she was attending both NYCC and SDCC this past summer, and it's hard enough for her to keep up with any sort of buffer to begin with, so those conventions would have definitely resulted in episodes getting postponed anyways.
What I'm really interested in seeing is the reception when the comic returns. Hiatuses like this are brutal for traffic, it's incredibly difficult to get every single person who you started the hiatus with to return after it's done. It's not uncommon for comics to come back to only a fraction of their readerbase - and that's where the marketing comes in.
S3's return has been incredibly undermarketed. I've talked about it already but I'll mention it again here - they have done nothing to hype up LO's remaining audience for the ending of LO. Not only has the fact that the comic is even entering its final part been mentioned on either Rachel's or WT's social media pages, but the fan groups have been shut down for almost the entirety of this hiatus, shutting fans away from discussing the comic, making predictions, and just participating in their most active and direct part of the fandom. This was an absolutely absurd decision on Rachel's part, I don't know if this was her trying to shield herself from criticism or if she genuinely just doesn't give a shit about her fanbase anymore, but it's not a good thing if the only active groups to be found online during a comic's hiatus - it's final hiatus before the series ends - are the critical ones. Fans of the comic should not have to find out about its ending from me. I know I've got a way with words, but it's not fair to the long-term fans of this comic that they're being shut out by the comic's own creator, simply because she either doesn't care or is just so afraid of the critics that she'd rather hurt her relationship with her fanbase by shutting them out just to maybe shut out any critics who are nearby.
I don't know what the reasoning is and I don't know how it could have been beneficial. But that leads us to the other theory, one that I can see as plausible-
I don't think Lore Olympus was supposed to end here.
We've talked about this theory before, but to reiterate - it's been speculated for a while (prior to the news at NYCC that the comic would be ending) that S3 of LO wasn't going to be the final season as so many people had been assuming based on past info. There was no indication or marketing implying this was the final season - meanwhile webtoons like City of Blank were marketing their final seasons from day 1 of the premiere - and there were loads of new plot threads being established in S3 that we knew couldn't possibly be wrapped up by the end of the season. Case in point, it took Rachel seven months to get back to Kassandra, and while during that time she's rushed plotlines that shouldn't have been rushed (the wedding) other plotlines have proceeded to drag at a snail's pace or been dropped altogether. The speculation that S3 wasn't going to be the final season was plausible.
But now, suddenly, LO is coming to an end, likely within the next 20-30 episodes, and neither Rachel or Webtoons have said a word about it. No announcement post, no hype, no promotional art, no statement from the Webtoons VP of what to be excited for (which he's done before). It seems like they're either intentionally trying to bury it to keep people from panicking while Rachel retreats into the shadows to hide from the crimes she's committed, or they're intentionally keeping the ending of the comic unannounced so they can backpedal on it later to generate hype over it "deciding to stick around". Chances are, it'll be based on how the return of the series goes, and whether or not it's able to get the performance numbers back in the green.
I do not think it will. As I said already, hiatuses are already notorious for destroying built up traffic, especially on Webtoons where people (many of whom are teenagers and children) are conditioned to expect regular content on a schedule. But there's one other thing that's been bugging me - there hasn't been a shred of promotional art. We're currently less than a month away from the return of LO and not only are Rachel and WT being incredibly hush hush about it, but all the art Rachel has put out has been largely on her Blue Sky, where she has the smallest following, and none of it is exactly indicative of being "promotional art", rather just random sketches and doodles that she's doing on her downtime. Everything else has been promos for her books, SDCC/NYCC, of course, Rachel Smythe Presents, her next venture which she has been hyping up more than the actual return or ending of the comic that made her famous in the first place.
At this point, I'm not even fully convinced she's even started working on the next episode yet, let alone any sort of buffer. If anything, she knows that she's coming back to the series with 3 episodes still locked under FastPass, so all she'll need to technically have ready for launch is one new episode. Rachel has never been good at building buffers, not even in the beginning when she apparently started off with 2-3 episodes of buffer. Even when her comic is nearing its end, she's not learning any lessons, she's not setting herself up for success. And I'm not setting myself up for the hope that the series could possibly come back any better than it was when it left - if anything, I think we're about to see Rachel and the comic outdo itself once again on how bad it can possibly be.
And we still have two more episodes to talk about, which includes the cliffhanger for FP readers that we've been waiting four months on. Part 2 and 3 of these FP episode analyses will be going up as soon as I can get them done, ideally I'll have all three parts done before it returns so we can start off fresh with the newest episode.
Buckle up folks. Pour yourself a drink. We're gonna need it.
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wazzappp · 3 months
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Alrighty my dudes buckle up
GHOST RIDER D&D AU
also WOE. ART STYLE CHANGE BE UPON YE.
First things first thank you to my beloved mutual @moosemonstrous, who was basically the brains behind the operation I basically just wanted an excuse to draw tiefling Robbie and then got smacked in the face with an awesome story way beyond what I had ever thought of with KILLER fucking lore to match <3.
While I usually like to start with Robbie when introducing an AU, we're going to unfortunately have to start with Eli. A man who fucked up so monumentally that the kinda sorta god he's supposed to be serving went 'Bitch??? How about NO.' and humbled him faster than my DM can say 'roll perception'.
Ok I'm getting ahead of myself. Eli is pretty much the same personality wise as he is in canon. Insecure and desperate for power/control. He grew up surviving with Beto by doing jobs for the Myriad crime syndicate. Somewhere along the way he started serving his patron, Desirat, the twilight phoenix, in exchange for her power.
Im just going to directly quote what moose said about Desirat cause its phrased WONDERFULLY:
"Desirat, The Twilight Phoenix - companion and mount of Asmodeus during an ancient war, was torn from her master and captured by uppity mages. They were eventually killed, but she remained chained under a mountain, creating weird thermal phenomena in the area. Her sanity fractured in isolation so she thinks herself divine, and she lends through dreams and visions to those who 'carry a seed of fiery vengeance'. She now speaks to the minds of those who lie spurned and angry at night, calling them to unlock their inner flame and let Desirat aid them in their vengeance."
Desirat chose Eli as her champion to free her. She believed his faults would make him easy to manipulate for her purposes.
But eventually Beto wanted to settle down, and Eli refused to (to quote moose) 'Stop that warlock bullshit that EVERYONE SAID will get him in trouble'. And the brothers separate. During that time, Eli gets it in his head that he can steal more power from her by becoming a Litch. Great! In order to become a Litch he needs to have the most important person to him engage in a willing life sacrifice. Not great.
So he finds Beto and tries to get him to oblige to his sacrifice, and while there might have been a time where Beto might have laid down his life for his brother, he wont anymore. He has a family now. People who rely on him who AREN'T Eli. Unfortunatly, Eli is PISSED by this and kills Beto even though he isn't a willing sacrifice. Eli figures 'Whose really gonna care? A life is a life right?'
DESIRAT cares. She basically obliterates Eli on the spot and stores his lifeforce for later purposes.
(all stat sheets curtosy of the great Moose. Also I feel obligated to mention there was a scary moment during the art process where Eli looked like a beautiful butch lesbian. Horrifying.)
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After Eli's spiritual, physical, and magical bitch slap, Desirat starts looking down his bloodline for a NEW champion. Lucky her, Robbie is RIGHT THERE. Protective of his brother, a strong sense of justice even from a young age, a hatred of when things aren't fair; he's PERFECT. She has plans for this one. Eli was a good test run. But she has IMPROVEMENTS planned for Robbie.
So Desirat waits until Robbie is old enough and strong enough to serve her purposes. In that time, Julianna goes out adventuring to get more coin so she can pay for Gabe's treatments of Greater Restoration and just. General food and water and general supplies. But she doesn't come back. She was responsible though and hired someone who was willing to take what she could offer to take care of the boys. Gabe still believes that she's still out there and trying to come back to them. Robbie thinks she's either bailed on them for a life of adventure or dead.
Around when Robbie turns 18, Desirat puts her plans into effect. Seeing as tieflings carry innate magical abilities (most commonly thaumaturgy, hellish rebuke, and darkness) it would be far more advantageous for her champion to be a tiefling than human. In the span of about 4 months, Robbie goes through a rather drastic transformation.
His fingernails harden, then blacken, then sharpen. Awful pressure builds in his skull that is only relived when the beginnings of horns break through his skin. A similar process begins with a lump forming at his tail bone and eventually bursting out into a long pointed tail. His canine teeth fall out and grow back in sharper and longer. His eyes cloud over to black and yellow, all the while his skin reddens and forms hard ridges on his arms, ribs and spine.
To say this is disorienting and painful is an understatement. Not to mention how it changes how the other people around the village look at him (not to mention how it changes how he looks at himself). Even though the stigma around tieflings isn't as strong as it once was, it eventually causes Robbie to be out of a job. So he decides to sell the house, pack up his things, prepare schooling money for his brother and move to the city where more opportunities will hopefully await.
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GABE!!! THE LITTLE ADHGH. Idk why but I got extreme cute aggression when drawing this version of him fdjkslaf.
Gabe still has CP like he does in canon, but with the magical advantages of ✨Greater Restoration✨ he can generally function pretty well. He still gets tired sometimes though, so he carries around a walking staff as an aid just in case he needs one (also he can go whack whack. at least thats what Robbie tells him when he gets a little self conscious carrying it around).
Robbie has saved up enough money for Gabe to get a months worth of schooling at the Dawn Father Chantry in the city so he can learn to cast Greater Restoration on himself. Gabe's recent growth spurt has been causing him to need more and more frequent healings, and the Chantry in their home village of Hill Rock has been less and less obliging as of late (partially due to Robbies recent uh... condition. not that anyone would dare say it to his face of course).
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Some extra fun doodles with expressions and thinking about how Desirat might look and interact with Robbie. I love when gods have a kind of twisted love for their special chosen people (plus some fun transformation horror cause its ✨me✨ were talking about what did you expect).
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Also I really REALLY liked that top left sketch and got the rendering itch so I had some fun and painted it in.
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Theres a whole fuckin. Second post to this au all lined up cause Moose when HAM on this. But its gonna take some more character designs so I'll need just a little time. but this will not be the last you see of this lol I promise <3
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bed-of-ashes · 4 months
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I love E!False because when you take a step back and look at everyone's series, everybody else has gotten used to that type of roleplay from season 1. They're leaning full into it now with lots of creative liberties, and all of them are using magic as much as they please. Joel is a god, Lizzie's town is full of animals, Shelby is getting kicked out of witch school, Katherine's got her curse, Sausage is restoring magic, etc. And False, well, she's not huge on role-playing stuff—mostly she does hermitcraft. She doesn't have tons of experience, her emotional support Ren isn't here, she's just sorta floating through. Her early lore is about a pumpkin guy just sorta moving about her empire and these dreams she has about builds. She has no memory and she stole a dead guy's clothes, but mostly her videos are kinda like "hey guys today we're building a bridge because I sorta feel like there should be a bridge here :)" She has no scope of how insane she can actually be until the rift happens and she's like "oh shit I've been sorta tame actually" and then she makes a whole plot line about trying to kill her twin sister and getting tortured and imprisoned because of it. Iconic
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snackugaki · 1 year
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... just make an iteration* for fun, I said
a universe where they've made it into their late 30s-early 40s and they chill and can be serene in the company of friends and family for once. maybe a flashback or two for the action moments
"fix" your childhood turtles so they can have a reprieve and some shenanigans, i reasoned with myself--
WELP.
my tmnt au iteration (where everyone made it past their 20s, splinter’s alive just old, venus is here, and they deserve some goddamn respite and shenanigans)
tmnt au iteration part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8 | part 9
tmnt au iteration omake 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11
lny visit 1 | 2
is this actually new ramblings for the iteration or like one new lore bit and just a rerererererehashing of lore i sprinkled across the other posts.
first though, with my sorta-outsider-not-active-participant-in-fandom history I realized "au" isn't the proper term for what I've been doing, the more suitable term is "iteration".
and we're gonna sit with the fact that even someone at my old-ass age recognized my previous understanding of a term was, for all intents and purposes, not entirely correct and that I acknowledged it, rectified when I could, and that's it, it can be that easy.
...
okay back to the bullshit.
so my Mondo was introduced in the Archie run, a funky guy with a metal band called Merciless Slaughter, dressed like a punk Hulk, all around good peoples, hung out with the Mutanimals.
His design cobbling isn't too deep, I don't think. Just thought it'd be more rad if he looked more like a guy who fronts a band called Merciless Slaughter while remaining the same ol' Mondo inside, post mutation.
Kept some of his original color palette around in his hat, his pants, his NYHC logo (links) knockoff, and his little dyed leather cord bracelets.
the letters for the logo are for, Skate or Die (across), and Merciless Slaughter (down)
hmm still waffling on if I'm more tickled by him being taller than Mikey or the same height (5'4")
_________
and now for the rererererehash rambling because none of this design progression is coming out linear for me. so super quick, am an original 90s turtlemania survivor, Rise brought me back, gorged Rise then Bay then 2007 movie then rererererewatching of Next Mutation and the 90s trilogy for fun then hacking my way back through the Archie and Mirage runs then caught up with IDW and then just... slogging through 2003 and 2012 which honestly I feel like I got the gists of through gif sets alone.
one hand I can see why old fans (90s turtlemania) didn't seem to like the Rise designs, ours really were just the same li'l green dude but in different colors and hit sticks looks-wise. But here comes Rise with all the character design classics: different shapes! different sizes! exaggeration! and that's on top of all the nudges and twists made to the usual lore; Raphael is now the oldest, Leo and Donnie are now twins, they're different species of turtles, they're tools for war, brand new antagonists etc.
idk, to me when I was watching that shit, it was fun and refreshing so... ionno, built different cope maybe to the other oldheads pissing their pantaloons still ig whatevs
what tickles me most, personally, is the utter fuckton of Rise AUs, and a few Rise-driven iterations, and also some of the other non canon media iterations. so tickled that I got hit by the makeaniterationigitis itllbefunoccocal virus too. UnU (i'm kidding, i'm having so much fucking fun) just I'm addressing the flowers I wanna give to the kids who took Rise's take on tmnt and just RAN with the "different turtle species" from full out coloring their turtles the same as the species they picked to mimicking Rise's design language with different markings.
God, the markings thing just really nestled into my heart, it's such a simple thing and yet it took Rise to just try it, not even a lot, just a little for flavorrrrr. It's just enjoyable as fuck to me tbh and I'm sharpening my teeth when I revisit my coloring choices for the 8th time... fuck where was I?
right, mine are mistakes. wrongright place at the wrongright time, mutagen was there and now they can swing swords around and eat pizza.
someone(s) was high tailing it outta a TGRI lab with some mutagen barrels, driving recklessly while a bunch of eco-vigilantes had broken out of a pet shop that was the face of a black market pet trade/medicine/exotic food racket of endangered species. hence where their bit of human pre-mutagenic contact comes from (the strike team of people who freed them from their cages because all of them were endangered species & destined for a tank, a cutting board or a pill box); including a sea turtle Venus, Leatherhead, Tokka, Rahzar, Man-Ray some others etc etc. Jennika keeping her origin because it was dope as fuck. splinter was just there watching this symphony of human fuckery happen and decided to adopt some kids with no one asking (it was tang shen's onryo that is rooted in Splinter's mind that was asking, shh)
and ever since it clicked when I was gathering ref shots, ✨sea turtle Venus just makes sense✨ to me, it's taken my brain stem and rung it like a bell for new year's nonstop and i am not mad
... fuck, I am but also am not looking forward to when I start delving into ninjutsu, ninpo, Venus' whole schtick and how the supernatural fits into this world that I definitely don't need to be fleshing out this much just to draw them chilling on April's couch.
i've got like over 70 refs, holy shit
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codecicle · 7 months
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Ok so. Chip star wars au backstory. Basically, what I'm thinking is that the story is pretty much the same, with some obvious adjustments.
Chip grows up on board the Midnight Rose (a space ship this time, not an ocean one lol). It's the early years of the Empire, and the Black Rose pirates are both pirates and kind of an early rebel cell? sorta? They're still pretty powerful, like in the riptide canon, as the Empire is still kind of getting its shit together. And when I say they're *sort of* rebels what i mean is that, while they do actively dislike the Empire, they're not fighting them directly so much as they're being a general nuisance for them and stealing their shit and disrupting their plans.
As for the hole in the sea...well, I have two ideas for that would be.
Number one is that it's, like, a weird Force thing, which there are A Lot of in Star Wars. It's sort of like that weird fucking cube-planet-thing they get stranded on in The Clone Wars for that one arc with the Father the Daughter the Son--it's that sort of batshit fucking star wars thing, and it basically, like...sucks them in and the events of the Hole in the Sea oneshot play out pretty much the same way. This one I like because it has the wackass magical element to it and could thus account for the wackass Chip Lore that we're currently being insane about in the hiatus.
(The aforementioned Wackass Chip Lore does throw a bit of a wrench into the AU, since we don't know anything for certain about it, so when Riptide starts back again and we find out more this part of the au could be pretty much derailed, but adjustments can always be made and the sw lore is crazy enough that I'll probably be able to figure something out).
Second option is that the "Hole in the Sea" is a weapon of sorts--something the Empire is maybe working on in secret, something that they maybe found that was like, the ruins of an ancient space-civilization with super weird, cool technology yknow? And the black rose pirates end up there somehow (one idea is that it's like a gravity well, like they had in Rebels I think??? It might have been tcw i can't remember. Something that can pluck ships out of hyperspace like it's nothing). It could also be a combination of these two options--maybe it's some weird space magic thing the Empire was studying but then some Weird Magical Bullshit happened and drove them all out, but the Magic was like, awake, or something, idk I'm tired and that's all I have for now. This ask was not originally this long LMAO
Oh my fucking god I understand I get it. What if the hole in the sea was the Empire experimenting with the dark side of the force to build the superweapon that can just. Yoink a fuckin ship out of hyperspace and send them to some form of a rebel prison, but it ended up malfunctioning because the original designs were ones they stole from that ancient space-civilization you mentioned were made with the light side of the force/jedi use in mind. it ends up creating a sort of whackass void/black hole of the force in this pit deeeep deep into outer space and just like the Allport blockade, the Empire ends up telling any ships that try to leave the docks not to go there. the only people that can go anywhere near it are the ones that live on the nearby planets (like the underground towns and crew the albatrio found while in the black sea when chip got his heart ripped out), the Empire visiting bases (like the navy base from 114), or any rebel trader that's either stupid enough or skilled enough to disobey the Empire and make it all the way there and back alive. Since Captain Rose was one of the pirate lords, maybe it was an intentional and direct attack that just ended up backfiring and left them with no other option than to quarantine that set of planets and hope nothing else happened and no-one survived (they literally all did LMAOO)
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northwest-cryptid · 5 months
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I will openly admit that to this day my biggest disappointment in indie vtubers and being an indie vtuber was that vtuber teams were not nearly as cool as they could have been because no one knew what made a team good in the first place.
If you don't know, a Vtuber team is essentially a small collective of streamers (roughly 3 - 5) who would work as a sort of "team" or group. They'd collab and promote one another and often had their own discord servers or ways to keep in touch with the various different members.
Now, lets say you're a sane everyday person, who is actually friends with your fellow team members. You wouldn't say; go around bad mouthing them for clout, backstabbing them and trying to assimilate their audience into your own after they prove to be more successful. You likely wouldn't plan "mandatory" meetings and then get mad at them when they refuse to show up because they've not had a day off from their actual paying job in over 5 months and they're literally so sick they can't get up the stairs to their computer and would rather spend their time with their significant other. You certainly wouldn't tell them they should voice their concerns about a big group change to everyone and then immediately double back on what you said when the rest of the group decides to ostracize them for having a bad opinion even though you just told them their thoughts are more in line with the goal of the team.
Right?
If you can't tell, as someone who has been in a handful of teams I've become somewhat jaded by them. They're a great model for actually promoting one another, having constant collabs so you don't need to constantly stream alone, and generally having some kind of group atmosphere which helps raise popularity since I can promote you even when you're not streaming, and you can promote me when I'm not streaming. However this doesn't work in reality because too many people are too focused on their own personal ambitions and are far too willing to jump into the fire of drama and throwing-each-other-under-the-bus bullshittery.
If it wasn't extremely clear, everything I mentioned above is shit that ACTUALLY has happened to me. I've never in my life had to say, verbally, aloud; in a call with other adults "I am going to hang up, because I am sick; I have not had a day off in months, and you call me here to yell at me over shit that doesn't even matter. Grow up, and learn that you do not hold power over others; if you want to make mandatory meetings, control my voice and my content, and tell me what I can and cannot do; you can pay me. I will leave my paypal in the general chat." Until I was in a team.
So what goes wrong? It can't just be that people get a taste of being popular and suddenly throw it all away, right?
... I mean. Yea. It sorta can be.
I'm not going to say this is exclusively what always happens all the time, but I will say it was what I saw happen the MAJORITY of the time. Essentially, it becomes fandom bullshit levels of cliche-y real quick.
You will inevitably have some members of the team who are more popular than others, and some who are by proxy less popular. Some might be better at holding a more dedicated and consistent audience while others, despite having more numbers on twitter; can't actually get numbers on their streams.
If you've made it this far, buckle up because I'm going all in here.
To properly explain this whole ordeal I'm going to walk you, yes you; through what it might be like to be part of a Twitter Indie Vtuber Team and you will see exactly why it never worked.
So if we're going to join a Vtuber team we need to be a Vtuber, the fun part here is that it literally doesn't matter who or what you are. You might be someone who cares deeply about lore, plot, and character; you might be more like me and not really think that matters so much as putting on a show for your audience. You might be somewhere in the middle. Maybe you're a sci fi character, maybe you're high fantasy, maybe you're some really generic anime character; guess what? None of that matters because Twitter Indie Vtubers teams fail to understand one huge guiding principle behind Vtuber teams, Classification.
See, I think the biggest issue I saw in the way Twitter's Indie vtuber teams (god that's getting exhausting to type, is it getting exhausting to read yet) ran things, was that they HATED Corporate Vtubers. Like, they HATED them. You couldn't bring up any of them, it doesn't matter how humble or how popular or whatever. Mention Vshojo? You're the devil. Mention Hololive? You're worse than the devil.
So what's so bad about that?
Let me put it like this, what do Vshojo and Hololive have in common that the majority of Indie Vtubers on Twitter do not?
They're successful at earning a living by streaming. Simple as that, they're doing something right. What are they doing right exactly? Well I'd love to find out but I can't discuss it with anyone because if I bring up corporate vtubers it's seen as a horrible very bad no good thing to talk about. We HATE Corporate Vtubers here and if you talk about them at all you're out buster, that's that.
But wait, going back to what I was saying about Classification, why is that important? Well simply put it makes things easier to understand for the audience. It keeps things coherent and it all just makes sense.
Here's a quick example, let's look at some Vtubers and you tell me if you think you know which ones are in a team together;
One of the Vtubers is a Lion. One of the Vtubers is a Crow. One of the Vtubers is an Isekai Protagonist (Generic, no definition) One of the Vtubers is a Harem Anime Protagonist (again, generic) One of the Vtubers is a Demon. One of the Vtubers is an Angel. One of the Vtubers is a Robot. One of the Vtubers is a Starship Captain. Lastly, one of the Vtubers is a Bear.
Now if you look at these Vtubers, and you had to group them into teams; how would you do it?
Logically you might group the Isekai and Harem protagonists together, they could have a Vtuber group for generic anime protagonists and they could actually make a joke out of putting a spin on their respective tropes.
Then you could pair off the Demon and Angel, the Robot and the Captain since they're both sci fi, and lastly you could group the Lion, Crow, and Bear since they're all animals right?
Well to put it super bluntly and not try to dox myself with how much I've said in this already, none of those examples were made up. All of those are actual Vtubers I've met during my time on twitter. Fun fact: they were all in the same team. Yes, all of them. Then they split off into smaller teams because they learned the team was too big and the audience split too thin.
But why does that Classification actually matter? Well it matters for the same reason being a Vtuber in the first place matters.
You see, if you're going to be a Vtuber you need to ask yourself why you're wanting to be a Vtuber over any other type of streamer.
Seriously, give that a thought for a second.
For me it was pretty simple, it started with not wanting to put my face out there. I got generally tired of how many people would comment on how I was dressed or how my hair was that day, or the fact I have a big nose; or just... whatever they felt like saying about ME that day. I'd play a ton of games I wanted to show people, things I actually enjoyed and wanted to bring to others. Yet no one cared about what I was streaming, they were all too caught up on how I look, and how do I look? Well, extremely everyday normal person-looking.
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No seriously. I am not really someone who's like, "cool" or "handsome" or whatever. I don't look striking in any noticeable way. This isn't some fishing for compliments attempt either I'm being real, there's nothing about me on a GOOD day that says "I'm worth looking at" and yet people would always comment on SOMETHING and it normally wasn't about me looking good.
However if you turn off your webcam you DO get less engagement. This is just a sort of proven thing, so you need SOMETHING to represent yourself right? For me that was an easy fix, I could use a Vtuber avatar and in doing so I figured maybe I could rep some of my Native culture while I'm at it.
Later down the line I met some cool people who were more character focused, they enjoy the idea of playing a character and ultimately growing and changing that character as they streamed. It was something I felt forced into by the Twitter community at large so I always tried to come up with SOMETHING for the character, but everything felt forced (because it was) and bad (because it was) so I would often quickly drop any characterization before it even hit the stream.
Okay so let's say you personally have the ambition of playing a character, you want something closer to Hololive or Holostars, where your character comes from a place, has an occupation; a goal, a reason for streaming beyond just "I stream because I want to make money as a streamer for whatever reason." Alright cool let's see where that goes right?
Now remember, as Twitter Indie Vtubers we HATE Corporations and we will not be looking at how Hololive does this right at all. Instead we will constantly remind people about our character without ever really doing anything with it.
Yes. This is how it was done.
Say you meet someone who was an Angel. Maybe they were an Angel who was kicked out of heaven because lol they play too many video games XD (please excuse my cringe I'm doing my best to emulate shit I actually ran into here). So okay cool I'm not going to say that's NOT a valid character I guess. Alright so they're streaming because they like playing video games, what does being an Angel have to do with anything exactly? Well they'll tell you their entire lore dump of a backstory, they'll remind you they're an Angel, and they'll likely have some kind of definition of the difference between them as an Angel who got kicked out of heaven and fallen angels who... you know, basically the same thing BUT IT'S NOT.
You might ask again, what does this have to do with ANYTHING. Why does it matter? Why does them having a backstory, having this persona; why does it matter? What are they doing with it? Is it worth all the investment in a backstory and lore; or would it simply be enough to just explain "yea I'm an Angel and that's why I look like this" or whatever?
And Again they'll remind you of their backstory, they'll explain all their lore; and you'll find that this literally DOESN'T MATTER.
But then all the big corporate vtubers have backstories and lore, so we should too right?
Well... about that.
Can we, and now listen; I know... we HATE corpo vtubers here... but can we take just a second to look at WHY they have those backstories and lore and such?
Okay so here's the thing, if we look at the Hololive English branches we can see some specific things, first off Classification is a big one.
HoloMYTH? Grim Reaper, Phoenix, Cthulhu; etc (I'm not going to explain how a Shark or literally just Watson who is somehow a time traveler fit in here ask COVER man.)
HoloCOUNCIL? Warden of Time, Basically Mother Nature, The Embodiment of Chaos; again we have characters who are the COUNCIL of things like Space, Time, Civilization, Nature, Chaos; etc.
Council would later become PROMISE but I digress.
Now I'm not honestly too sure about Advent? But that's mostly because I haven't really looked into them much admittedly they're very hit or miss with me personally, but I got nothing against them and wish them the best.
What I'm saying here is, Classification matters! Everything from theme to color schemes and names comes into play. The one in charge of Nature? Ceres (a planet) Fauna (...yea I don't need to explain how that one ties in). The Warden of Time? Literally named Kronii (obviously meant to be similar to the word Chronos and such).
A lot of this is pretty self explanatory but my point here is everyone is designed to fit together like a D&D party. Everyone feels like they belong in the team. It's not just a random Cyborg, an Angel, some random Bear, and an Isekai Protagonist all bumming out in a discord call going "oh man I have no idea what to do today so we're just chatting lol"
So if you're an Indie Vtuber who understands Classification you're likely going to look for other people who fit your general theme and identity. But this can be difficult because of either one of two reasons.
One being that no one seems to fit your general classification. If you're too unique or too specific to a setting, time period, or general genre it can be hard to find others who fit into that with any level of similarity.
The other being that TOO MANY people seem to fit your classification EXACTLY. If you're a random God of such and such, and you find other god Vtubers, you likely find other people who are literally the same thing you are. Same goes for Angels, Demons, Anything Anime, Most forms of Object Heads or Robots or Cyborgs.
The biggest problem I see with the second is that no one wants to be anything short of "the best" at what they are. You're not just an assassin, you're the best assassin to ever live; well shit now you can't be in the same team as the OTHER best assassin to ever live.
But what if you were?
See this is where I think Indie Vtubers don't have the ability to laugh at themselves nearly as much as they should.
Because I personally think it would be really funny to have two people in a vtuber team who are the same thing, but from different backgrounds. Give us Spy x Family but as a Vtuber Team and I think it would be fucking hilarious.
No seriously, imagine for a moment that there was a 5 person vtuber team, 2 of the members of the team were from different backgrounds, they could be anything; for the sake of generic bullshit let's say one is like the top Angel from heaven, the other is the top Demon from hell. Except they both seek to keep this information secret, "only their chat knows" except the other 3 people in the team are VERY much aware, for literally ANY reason it doesn't matter how they know, it just matters that these two are such stupid idiots that they're constantly showing their hand in such specific ways that the other wouldn't see.
If you have the improv skills necessary, and the ability to laugh at yourself; you suddenly have a very VERY potentially funny team on your hands.
Imagine them playing Phasmophobia, one of them (doesn't matter who) points out the ghost must be a demon, they know all this information about demons, clearly this is a demon; they wouldn't be wrong about this. The other, also knowing this information (either because they're well researched on demons, or because they ARE one) is suspicious of how they know all this and doesn't know how to call them out so they try to one up them by providing MORE information in an attempt to see how much they ACTUALLY know, only now the first person is starting to question how THEY know so much. Meanwhile everyone else in the collab is dying and neither of them acknowledge this until it's brought up as a last ditch effort out by one of the two when asked a particularly difficult to answer question and they just respond with "OH SHIT THEY'RE DYING!" Before running off to save their team members. THAT'S GOOD BANTER BAY-BEE!
But see, this requires classification, an understanding of everyone's characters; and enough similarity to play off each other's characters.
So what about if you can't find anyone? You join into a random Vtuber Team and hope for the best.
Alright so you join into a group with 4 other people, so far things seem fine, everyone is nice enough; you likely sit in a discord call and talk about life; become closer friends, discuss what kind of games you like to play. You know, general normal people stuff.
Then a few days later you get a message about doing a collab, you don't have many viewers at this point; maybe 4 - 5 regulars who show up and actively chat. Good people, you are excited to sort of introduce your audience to your new team, and get to meet their audience. You might even be a little stressed because you only have about 100 followers on twitter and they have well over 1,000 so you expect a much bigger turnout on their end.
The stream collab starts, you notice there's maybe 3 people watching them, you are one; they are another. Which means they only really have 1 viewer. You tell yourself this is because the stream just started.
Then a half hour goes by, the only viewers showing up in their chat are from your team. Mutual friends, other streamers you know; they trickle in now and then but you notice neither of you are particularly popular. That big four digit follower count seems to all be just for show. Likely coming from a basis of follow for follow vtubers and the like. Looking at their twitter you notice they don't get much interaction outside of the team there either.
This sort of puts your mind at ease, it feels more comfortable knowing you're not somehow accidentally jumping ahead to having an audience of hundreds to entertain.
That is until you begin to notice a shift in the way you're treated by your team. It's very likely you'll be asked to do more collabs, they'll absolutely swing this as it being a matter of keeping the team together; or because you're fun to be around. However during streams you'll often be put on the back burner, you'll be brought into collabs but never really engaged with. You'll never be raided by your fellow team members. This is because you have a small, but real following.
You'll find that when you're unavailable it's suddenly a big deal, you'll see words like "mandatory" or "regularly scheduled" popping up to make it seem like you SHOULD be there, it's part of being in a team. You'll be told to "act professional" if you have a disagreement with someone, whether this is over something like gender, sexuality, or even other basic respect issues. You'll be asked to stream with people you don't like.
When it comes down to it, if you show opposition; you'll be told that the majority of the team disagrees with you, but they won't want you gone. They won't oust you from the team, because they know your audience will still most likely follow you out. They don't want that.
So they'll keep you around as long as possible, until you make too much noise; or say something they don't agree with a little too loudly. Once they believe they've done enough collabs, and gotten enough of your followers to follow them; they'll kick you aside and find someone else to do this to.
They will even turn on each other; I've gotten messages from people, months and even sometimes years after leaving a team. These messages all say similar things; they always start with an apology; and then go into talking about how they were either too naive, too scared, or just too confused to understand the manipulation and crowd mentality they were being indoctrinated to.
The key reason behind all of this is because you are never actually a valued friend, you're an additional audience member; you're a viewer, who has more viewers to bring to the table.
But clearly that was just a bad team, they're not all like that; that's true; that's genuine. So you go back to the drawing board and put it out there that you're in the market for another team, probably a bit more picky this time than you were last time to be fair. I couldn't blame anyone for being such after going through something like that.
You'll find another small group of people who don't know each other, who don't have anything in common other than a want to be successful; and likely who are willing to throw the weakest link under the bus to replace them with a fresh set of eyes and a new audience to grow their follower count.
But what happens if it DOES work out? What about when it's made by friends? What about when the people streaming don't actually hate each other?
Well then you still have to contend with burnout, with setting up times to stream together; with the sheer amount of work it is to work as a singular unit rather than as a "stream whenever you want" solo vtuber.
This can be difficult for some people. I remember having times when we'd plan group collabs and then my chronic pain would act up and I couldn't make it. Some would make it out to be a big deal, others would be understanding; either way it was a bit of a let down. Then you'd have the issue of not just everyone having the same games but the same interest in playing them at the same time. Then you'd have issues with if someone is getting more popular, or if there's a difference in ideas for how the group should be handling things.
At what point is it a team and not just a group of friends?
So alright, what do I think? Personally?
I think if you want to have a success vtuber team you should find some method of Classification; even if it's really weird and out there. Give us something to unify you all to the same group. Then you should decide on whether or not as a whole you're a character driven group or a streamer driven group:
Character Driven = investing in the characterization of your avatars, the in character interactions they may have; the "story" or "plot" that exists around them being a key feature of the streams.
Streamer Driven = investing in the streamer behind the characters, the connections of the individuals, their audiences; and the games they play.
Think Hololive vs Jerma.
Jerma doesn't have an anime he uses to explain his more characteristic properties of himself, because he doesn't really need that in order to come out on a stream and go "hey guys it's me, Jerma; the funny white dude on the internet." He can just do that and you already kinda get it because he's invested a lot in you knowing who JERMA is.
Meanwhile every Hololive stream opens with a catch phrase or a sort of characterized opening. Some more elaborate than others; and some even going so far as to call out their generation/team. They DO have an anime, and various other productions that run alongside the streams that serve to amplify them as characters, and even their inside jokes and developments within streams will loop back around to becoming elements of their anime counterparts.
So, once you've figured that out it's not really too difficult.
As long as you're willing to grow as a unit and pick each other up when someone gets ahead, without feeling a need to stab each other in the back or throw each other under the bus; you're solid.
If you're character focused, I strongly recommend you focus on your extended universe, explain to me who your characters are not by taking time out of the stream to stare me in the eyes and say "my character is blah blah blah" but by SHOWING ME through bumpers, skits, or other media. Make comics, make short video bumpers and tiktoks or something I don't care. Just don't sit there on stream EXPLAINING shit at me, because trust me I will tune out I do not care it is not an interesting way to convey who and what you are.
If you're character focused I need you to prioritize SHOW don't TELL.
If you're Streamer focused then I think you have it a lot easier, because you can prioritize getting to better know your audience, their preferences for streams/collabs, and you can get to know each other and use the information above to best sort out who should be pairing off for the best experiences for both you as a streamer and your audience as viewers.
I do believe these two things can mix well.
If you want a really solid example of EXACTLY what I mean, look no further than my (streamer focused) interaction with Nea (character focused)
A lot of the time our interactions work just fine because she understands that I am a streamer before I'm a character, and meanwhile I'll comment on her being an Ice Cream Lion before ever bringing up who she is outside of streams (at least while on streams, we're good friends outside of streams and I know her as her obviously). We're not in a team together but we collab plenty and consider each other to be good friends. We do our best to help one another get ahead in very casual ways and don't seek to bring each other down because we don't hold jealousy or envy towards one another's followings.
And yes, it REALLY is that simple to get along.
The core problem with Twitter's Indie Vtuber scene is that drama and bullshit gets attention and they crave attention over long-term proper collaboration and friendship. I don't doubt for a second that if Nea ever hit it big time and became a full time streamer she wouldn't hesitate or shy away from streaming with me and collabing with me all the same and you better believe that I'd be the exact same.
I used to often talk about applying to corporate vtuber agencies and I always said that if I was to ever get accepted I'd fight tooth and nail to be able to collab with my friends in hopes of getting them in front of the audience they deserve to have.
But yea that's it, that's the big keys to successful Vtuber team right there;
Classification helps a TON.
Be good to one another, don't allow yourself to succumb to the jealousy and envy of seeing one of your friends and team members gaining popularity faster than you.
Actually being good friends does help a lot too.
Actively support one another.
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salty-medley · 1 year
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So I woke up and chose violence today ( SSO spoilers)
Disclaimer: if you didn't read the title, there'll be spoilers. You're warned.
So today I was for one time rather happy to log on bugs land. Melon Lord & Cornelia were ready to spread some fire on Jorvik and enjoy some Jorvegian screams of terror with our new bestie.
Except we can't.
Hear me Sabine fans, or simply people tired of the goody two shoes they keep imposing us: it started well, and it ended badly.I should predict it, in fact I sorta understood it would end like this during the pigs quest of this year, when they didn't give you better/ less embarrassed lines to reply, it was written by advance that you'd have to look like a kid caught in the moment.
Then the GED thing... Uh guys, I work for your own boss, you know the angry blondie scared by kittens? The one who send me sometimes with a letter for you. Why the fuck would GED workers not bow in front of me, or at least leave me alone? Or even weirder, why can't Sabine take it herself? Garnok people and GED work together for f... sake!
Anyways, I bring back the box ( little advice people, take the sea side road, less people, less crowded) and, how convenient!, Sabine's not here! You know, the Sabine who was so impatient to get her box? Well she's gone! And you? Instead of just waiting for her you chose to open and see what's inside... Without even making sure nobody was near you. Great job MC, great job. Of course, she starts to became the stereotypical villain angry threatening girl, the one she wasn't in the first year lol, and what do we do?
We ran away. From the girl and her horse who beat us in the same race everyday because it's a magical horse. WHAT A BRILLIANT IDEA -- RP/lore speaking it's freaking stupid. We'd have more chance to reach the same point by another shorter road or to defeat her with a good spell. But no, the chosen one has to turn like a maniac and hiding near the two soul riders. At this point we're back to the bad SSO lines, Alex play tough, Linda is... Uh... Useless as usual.
The ending?
No fireworks. No pranks with Sabine. The SR gently scolding us for falling into the tricks of the evil one.
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Back to the gentle slave state, 'cause now I guess that our chance to get out of this hell won't want to speak to us again.
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cookinguptrouble · 8 months
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INTRODUCTION POST! Should be easier than the video...
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I'm the fearsome Doctor Taurus, ringmaster of many horrifying beasts!
🧀 And by that, we mean we use our food powers to disguise as big beasts to make people scared and do what we want!
Hey! This is why we keep having to do minimum wage restaurant work, we'd get booked for way more evil team work if you all could keep up our cover!
🧈 Hey now, that's oversimplifying. We also do great contest work! Me as the cool one, Milky Way as the clever one, Cream as the tough one and so on...
🥛 You know it, heheheeeh!!
WHATEVER! They can understand language and all, but don't think that translates into smarts. They're good chefs though, I'll give them that.
🍨 Hint hint! Give us money!! We'll make you some special stuff, with a custom recipe and fancy appearance cafe-style!
I'm a he/him man, and all my boys are boys too, 'xept when Butter puts on his Pheromosa costume and expresses as a girl. Got all that? Good! Grab some popcorn, preferably from me! We're based in Hoenn right now, and you're gonna have to pay the delivery fee!
🥛 Cream reminds you to disclose allergies.
🧀 Don't want any unnecessary injuries.
@swadloom back again with another funny blog time. This isn't technically a faller blog, but they are heavily inspired by the ginyu force from dbz! And they may go in my own oc directions and stuff over time but for now they're. Basically just the ginyu force one-to-one if they were chefs and pokemon lol
Your team boss muse can know him if you want him to, that would be fun! He's worked for Plasma, Rocket, Yell (in no real criminal ways), and Aether. And for now with this blog I don't mind new lore being improv'd onto him. :)
No nsfw, standard DNI unless it's like completely pointless queer discourse LOL my blogs are "incorrect" labels safe
Pelliper Mail and Magic Anons on! This is my only sentient Pokemon blog and I'm honestly willing to let things run wild here. Come ovah here arceus blogs they'll deliver to spear pillar if you pay the fee
Also this is a sentient Pokemon blog too, sorta! They're talking Pokemon in the same way as Meowth, but they live average somewhat cartoony Pokemon lives for the most part. He found them all like this in different scenarios, but his rare partner Pokemon Milky Way doesn't talk
Dr. Taurus is plain text!
🍨 Yogurt (Pseudo-Celebi) is green!
🥛 Cream (Pseudo-Buzzwole) is orange!
🧈 Butter (Pseudo-Pheromosa) is blue!
🧀 Cheese (Pseudo-Victini) is red!
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CAN YOU FUCK CHAOS?
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... Y'know, the Sonic character. Not the abstract concept. You can't fuck concepts, last I checked. Might be wrong, though.
WARNING: SONIC FRONTIERS SPOILERS. Yes, the game's been out for a bit, but some people haven't played it yet, so be warned- it'll be cited often in this post, as it had some enormous lore drops related to Chaos, the Chao, and the Chaos Emeralds.
Strap in, this is a long one. At least, a bit longer than the usual post.
I would start with age, but that's kind of stupid. We know how long Chaos has been around, we know it's immortal, and we know it's pretty much a deity. Hell, Sonic Channel didn't even try listing an age, it was just listed as ''Unknown" while it was listed. Chronologically speaking, it's been around for over 3000 years. It's also not really been dormant dormant by any means, sure it's spent most of its life sealed inside the Master Emerald, but still seems to be able to come out of the emerald when needed or desired- such as during the events of Sonic Battle, where it came out of the emerald seemingly with the sole purpose of meeting Emerl and requesting a battle with him (At least, it can be interpreted as such, since you get the option to battle or not battle Chaos when you encounter it ingame).
On top of that, it's been implied that it protects the Chao from within the emerald one way or another, so it's about as old as the chronology would imply- although it likely can't physically age, considering the way the Chao life cycle works. If it did age, it would either be a really, really slow aging process, or it would have reincarnated by now, as Chao do once they're old enough. It isn't stated whether it was an adult or a child when it "mutated", but it's never been implied that it was a child, and considering the role of protector it assumes over the Chao of Angel Island, it's likely not a child.
You might say, though- it's still a mutated Chao! Chao are either weird sorta perma-babies, animals, or both, and they probably shouldn't be fucked. And I would maybe agree with you, before Sonic Frontiers came out, buuuut...
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Yeah, these guys.
The Chao, as implied by Eggman in Egg Memo 11, are the remnants of the Ancients, after some kind of radiation corroded their DNA for countless years to the point where they turned into what we now know them as. Chaos' mutation seems to be less so a Chao becoming bigger and more powerful, and moreso the remaining DNA of the Ancients being brought back to the forefront and slightly regaining its form, seemingly more in the image of the anthropomorphic animals that now inhabit the world. Even the visible brain was there from the start- although it's hard to see on the adults, likely due to the amount of blur and sepia tone used for the flashbacks of the Ancients. The children have them pretty visible, though! Likely due to background color, amount of blur, etc.
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This may seem like a red flag when it comes to Chaos, since the brain is always plainly easily visible, but it's clearly not an intended key feature or anything of the sort, and most likely just a result of the game's artstyle, as the concept art doesn't have the brain visible on any of the different Ancient types.
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Interestingly, Chaos doesn't really seem to match any of these one to one- the visual similarity is obvious, and they're confirmed to be related genetically speaking, but Chaos has no pointed shapes on its hips to differentiate gender, and additionally has 2 small tendrils on the sides of its head that resemble the ones on the elders, but are far shorter than what is shown ingame and in the image; and on top of that, it has a short tail, for whatever reason.
Gender-related side tangent aside (it probably has no gender anyways, and it's all the better for it), clearly Chaos shows all the physical maturity needed, but...
Can it consent? Should you fuck Chaos? Is it ethical?
We're not exactly able to resort to our usual methods here, so let's pull out an ancient internet artifact- one that has been referenced and cited plenty of times, and is generally considered to be a good guide as to whether or not you should fuck a fictional being.
Ladies, gentlemen, those in between, and all those not entirely convinced of the societal construct that is the gender binary, I present to you;
The Harkness Test.
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Now, aside from the fact that this image is visibly and verifiably old enough that smelling it would probably direct about 500 grams of dust straight into your lungs, it's generally a good guideline without any real holes in it. So, let's go by the boxes one by one- in reverse order, that is. Because it works better for the format.
Is it of sexual maturity for its species?
Although it likely can't reproduce- yes. I mean, this should be obvious by now; there is absolutely no implication that it was a child at the time of its mutation, and it very clearly resembles adult Ancients, as opposed to the children, which lack the long tendrils on both the adult Ancients and Chaos's heads. So, by all accounts, despite its ageless status, it's clearly of sexual maturity for both of the species that could be referenced for it.
Check.
Can it talk or otherwise communicate with language?
Chaos can't talk. Obviously. The Ancients somehow could, despite not having a mouth or lungs or vocal chords or anything of the sort, much like Chaos itself. BUUUUUUT-
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This moment from Knuckles' story in Sonic Adventure implies that Tikal is able to communicate directly with Chaos, meaning that on some level, it can communicate and understand language- further reinforced by a later cutscene in the final story, where Tikal talks to Chaos to calm its anger, explaining that the fighting that angered Chaos in the first place is long over, and that the Chao it protected are alive and well, living in peace alongside people.
So, clearly, it can understand words, and it can communicate with some people, so best case scenario you can find a way to directly communicate with Chaos verbally, and worst case scenario you can get Tikal (or uh. her ghost?) to translate for you, although that might be a bit awkward considering it's unlikely that Tikal was an adult when she died, but it's really your only option. She probably knows what sex is anyways, she can be a mediator, doesn't need to get involved past that. Yes this is a very silly hypothetical scenario, but hey, it's there and it could help you out if you wanna fuck this thing.
Check.
Does it have human intelligence (or greater)?
This one is... Complicated. Again, Chaos can't speak directly, and the aforementioned line is all we have to go off of- and it's unclear whether what Tikal said is Chaos's exact wording, or what she gleamed from communicating with it somehow. On top of that, Chaos is strung along quite easily by Eggman; though Eggman loses control of Chaos entirely once it acquires the 7 chaos emeralds, so this could be interpreted as Chaos going along with the plan with full intent to stab Eggman in the back once it has all the power it needs to let out the anger that it's been building for so many years.
So, SA1 doesn't give us too much on this end. In Sonic Battle, though, it's shown fighting with a decent degree of technique, using its stretching properties for some tricky maneuvers, as well as poking its limbs out of the ground. It's definitely a capable fighter, and while it's not a martial artist by any means, there is a degree of technique to what it does, which would make sense considering the Ancients had dedicated warriors which likely had fighting prowess outside of just using mechs.
That's really all we have on that end as far as games go, since the Chaos in Sonic Forces isn't exactly real, and brain size isn't that good of a frame of reference either since the brains of the adult ancients are quite hard to see and blurry- although the size does mostly seem to match up, adjusting for how small the Ancients' heads look compared to Chaos's.
Our only guide from this point on is Sonic Channel artwork, which is non-canon but should still provide a decent enough guideline.
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One of these is obviously much more serious than the other- although they both look really nice. The way Chaos is shown kneeling on the left image implies a capability for body language similar to that of people, although the purpose of the pose is quite ambiguous- it could either be accompanying Tikal in whatever ritual is being performed, or be trying to mimic her position, similar to that of a prayer, in a sort of "Monkey see, monkey do" manner.
The right one is obviously completely impossible (I don't think the ancient echidnas knew how to make pizza, let alone make entire diners- although their food probably slapped. Probably.) and is mostly just there to look cute, but it still does show Chaos doing something that requires a large amount of technique. It's cooking! And it seems very good at it, judging by the pizza Tikal is holding. I'd try one, it looks really good! ... Shit, now I'm hungry. Anyways.
These images, although non-canon, do depict Chaos with a level of intelligence similar to that of humans, one more than the other- although it has full freedom to, considering it's the sillier and clearly more for-fun of the two, no matter how hard it's rocking that little chef's outfit. It seems more or less in line with its behavior in the flashbacks and Sonic Battle, with a few creative liberties.
So while it can't talk, it seems to be about even with humans. Think something like Gardevoir and Gallade from Pokemon.
Check.
So, to recap; Is it of sexual maturity for its species? ✅ Can it talk or otherwise communicate with language? ✅ (Though you may need some assistance, ideally from Tikal.) Does it have human intelligence (or greater)? ✅
Chaos passes the Harkness Test.
So, with all this taken into account, we can come to a verdict. I would normally write a conclusion, but this post is long enough as is. And so, the verdict is...
You can, with some effort and maybe a bit of help, fuck Chaos.
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I know a lot of you are gonna be very, very happy about this one. Go ham.
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mryaksalot · 7 months
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Important changes to my Backstory AU(OUTDATED)
TW: This post is going to be sorta long, so buckle up.
As you may know, there have been a lack of many new chapters to my story The Road To Success on AO3 these past several months. I've been trying my damn hardest to keep up with updates, but I don't always have the free time in order to write. I have to attend school, work a job, deal with family matters; those things take priority too. I don't have as much free time as I used to back in 2021.
That being said, I still hold a lot of passion for this story. I first got the idea for this story all the way back at the beginning of 2021. It started as just an insightful thought, a drabble I created inside my head. Overtime, I kept expanding on the idea, fleshing out the world, making this story the best it could possibly be. Now we're at the point where the story is over 120,000 words, and it's not even half of the way done yet! I never anticipated for this story to be this long, but here we are.
Now if you are thinking that this post is about me throwing The Road To Success in the can, I just want to clarify that this story IS NOT being cancelled. But the way the story is written and formatted is going to change from what you have seen up to this point.
Just so I am transperent with you guys, here is a list of all of the changes to The Road To Success, as well as the Backstory AU as a whole.
1. The main story, The Road To Success, will be significantly shorter than the original version. The OG version, the version that I have stuck to while initially writing this story, was planned to have 40-50 chapters. That is just not possible anymore, with how busy my life has become. This new version of the story will now have roughly 30-35 chapters. As of writing this, the exact number of chapters has not been decided yet; that will be determined by the end of the year (at the latest).
2. The new version of TRTS (Acronym for The Road To Success) will be more Yakko-centric. I originally wanted to insert a bunch of extra sideplots into the main story, specifically after the Warners become actors. Wakko and Dot were supposed to have their own friend groups, and we would get the chance to see their perspectives as well as Yakko's. However, these sideplots take away from the main story, which is overall more important in the longterm. That dosen't mean Wakko and Dot won't be given any time in the spotlight (they are gonna play some significant roles later on), but I don't want their misadventures to take too much time away from the main storyline.
3. Some of the lore (the details on how the world works in this universe, how certain characters act, family trees etc.) have been and are subject to being changed and altered. I'm very much a perfectionist when it comes to the little details; they're very important imo. Sometimes, I will change my mind about a certain detail and decide to change it on a whim. I will try to restrain these changes to the lore based on what I have already written/talked about publicly, in order to not create too much confusion going foward.
4. The Backstory AU will be expanded beyond The Road To Success. That's right, folks! TRTS is getting a companion story, in order to fill in those lore gaps to answer questions that have yet to be answered. This story will focus on the parents of the Warners, covering their childhood, as well as their inevitable downfall as members of society. More details regarding this companion Peice will be elaborated on in a later post. I'm also cooking up a Christmas story, which will serve as somewhat of a flashback to previous events in TRTS. This story will come out on (you guessed it) Christmas of this year.
5. So you may be wondering to yourself: What's gonna happen to the scrapped segments of TRTS? Well that's where my drabble collection comes in. A month ago, I created a drabble collection titled Splats Of Ink, a collection of oneshots featuring headcanons, future story ideas, and now scrapped segments of already established stories. I'm thinking about fleshing out these Alternate scenes of TRTS, to show you what could have been. Expect the first of these scrapped-segment-reimagined drabbles to come out this April.
So, that's a decent laundry list of all the updates that I have made to the Backstory AU as of late. Chapter 15 is in the works as we speak, and will most likely come out sometime in March. Then it will be smooth sailing into Chapter 16 and so on! There's lots of exciting things in the works, and I can't wait to share it all with you.
Thanks to everyone who took the time to read through the whole thing. Feel free to ask questions if you need me to elaborate further on these changes. Your patience and support is most appreciated.
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victoria1676 · 2 years
Note
( Sorta spoiler for Sumeru quest if you haven't fully completed it but this is from how I saw it cause I was rushing to get it done and pull for Nahida which i luckily got her lol)
Ya I take back my previous statement on how sumeru would show us mercy, their gonna want our head cause those sages we're willing to do ANYTHING to replace Nahida and going as far as to lock her up and make their own god (scaramouche) and as far as I could understand the quest because for a nation full of knowledge Im dumb and I was more focused on getting primos lol so i won't last a day there.
But ya good thing we have Nahida on our side who did a huge lore drop, still praying the reader makes it out alive in sumeru and maybe even now has a fungi pet due to event going on rn lol it would be very wholesome since their tramatized and now have slight trust issues but it would a great peace for me to draw lol since the reader and loyal gang + the ghosts deserve to be happy so rest in peace liyue gang+ Bennet and razor+ guba.
Also the little details we got on the hydro archon were some what helpful on how she would act twords the travler and the reader, because from what I saw she seemed like the type to jump to conclusions and would do ANYTHING to prove her point when it comes to judging others 'crimes' thought for a god of justice but can't make to many assumption since again they were very little things said about her but it would make sense for me if that's how she acted since in your story she was willing to side with Mallory lol so, so much for judging those in the name of justice.
But also welcome back and hope you win your 50/50s
(Nahdia and the Tsaritsa are real ones 💪+ everyone else who didn't traumatize the reader)
+Lumine is an abyss queen girlboss✊ can't wait to hear more about her if possible in Fontaine
-Anon Crow 👁️👄👁️👍
Unfortunetly I did not get Nahida but Jean and i was verrrryyy salty when that happened😀 💢
No i did not cry and litterally wish that someone could get me her but oh well i'll get her in her rerun TwT
All my hard work on 100 exploration for Sumeru and the desert just to get nahida only for Jean to take my soul and lose 50/50 was not happy with that.
Anways back to your ask yes I also finished Sumeru archon quest dont worry XD
Honestly Nahida is so far the only Archon i began to be biased on no offensed the other archons but she is one of the best so far i really love especially she legit lore dumped about our sibling.
Hydro archon will have to be the bad guy in my story with the Pryo one in my imposter au TwT
But yes fuck the sages ^^
Nahida may have not given them a bigger punishment but for my story DSMP reader and Little sparrow reader will not hesitate to make their lives worse XD
If i dont get Nahida before her banner ends then imma skip phase two sorry Layla TwT considering theres a rumor of Al haitham coming in 3.4 imma just save all primos for him which means im skipp Raiden and Ayato ugh 😭
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basedkikuenjoyer · 11 months
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Remember Remember the Fifth of November
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Remember, remember the fifth of November. We're soon to cover a lot. I see no reason, why Sorbet's malfeasance should ever be forgot.
Seriously...we get our biggest RA origins chapter on Guy Fawkes Day? Rad even if purely coincidental. We also have this quiet peculiarity. Something that's been brought up here before. The cover page is just part of the main story? Yes, request apparently but it's a natural fit. That's new. Even Pudding was cluing us in on a past happening pertinent to an event. Watch stuff like this, the "rules" of the narrative breaking down. It's also really, really cute. Where are those fish ending up? Okay, let's get to the real meat of this. You can probably guess from the chapter title...
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I'm the Mickey to your Minnie, you're the Tigger to my Winnie...Ginny! I'm...dating myself with memes aren't I? Ginny has become a fast, fast favorite. This was already a thing too, but seeing adult Ginny I get what people mean. There's a certain sensibility to being Bonney's mom...but she does look like another skrunkly glutton on Egghead more than anything. York is a clone, this has dark implications. Please don't be too cruel to new blorbo Oda. I'm gonna add her to the figure collection I promise.
Seriously though...how many of y'all get that Ginny is exactly what I've been on about? Forget Kuma's whole taking on burdens thing and being a goddamn blaring echo of the Crane Wife story. I can make this easy now. Ginny is what it would look like if you plugged Nami's character into the "quartermaster" role I've used Kiku as a guidepost for.
We're already past the point of teasing about lack of subtlety so I don't know what to say anymore. This flashback is making a big to-do about someone who fits the bill for the exact archetype straddling the present story around two foils. Doing it in a way that could lead back to a darker scene from Vegapunk's past. If that wasn't apparent enough,
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Really driving the point home with Sorbet. Just like Goa & Gray Terminal. Just like Bakura & Okobore. These two were the tentpoles of the lawless waste being kicked around. Marco, Toki, Yasu, Kiku & Tsuru...pay attention when a core theme of the previous arc comes up like that. Especially that beat about marriage and Ginny's suitors. If that wasn't all enough, there's one element here I can't shake:
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Look at Kuma's chest, the faint blackening...does it kind of make you think of Luffy's scar? You see it in the eyes too, we're not used to seeing adult Kuma with normal features for him. His expressions...it's a concept we've talked about a lot. This late in the game you notice when a character gets visual traits usually reserved for the protagonist. Kuma does this a fair amount, and the whole story sorta does have the same tone as like...if Luffy & Uta grew up together. Or if he stayed in Okobore with Kiku for a few years even. As much as I love the Revolutionary lore, this has me going absolutely crazy right now.
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wc-wild-rewrite · 11 months
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Into The Wild Reread!
Its actually been like 6 years since i last fully read this series, so it was fun going back through! Overall i give it a 9/10, one point removed for slightly clunky writing and scene changes.
HOWEVER, Every single sentence that includes Spottedleaf is awful and uncomfortable, so it's actually getting an 8.5/10
Please note that i wrote the notes as i read it and have not edited them
My chapter by chapter thoughts and notes are under the cut!
Prolouge
Iconic opening prologue, but we're really stretching the definition of bracken-colored for mr reddish-brown oakheart here.
When did the clans meet otters
I wonder how Mousefur feels about the last fight alongside redtail being the one where tigerclaw saved her
"Fewer kits than normal" bluestar theres 5 of them i'd say thats a decent number, 6 if we're counting Lynxkit
I dont remember many of the prophecies but i hope they use more star ones, the shooting star is a cool one
Chapter 1
They really love their full stops huh, its slightly jarring, as someone who writes with so many commas
I still love their descriptions of the enviroment
I like how they show Rusty's ignorance towards the necesscity of prey by having his first scene be him toying a live mouse, and that being why he lost it
Rusty, collars are not supposed to pinch, your being mistreated
I dont think ive ever seen anyone remember to add the 'lightly raining' part into an animatic or comic or anything
I like to think he spotted Bluestar in the trees when he says it feels like something's in the woods
I like that rusty's sorta mean, real tween energy
They better bring this fox back
This is painfully lore-dumpy but i love greypaw's total disregard for rusty's anger. And for his disregard for clan code, talking to a kittypet when he shouldn't be. Sets up his later code breaking.
I'm always really concerned about rusty's "just sit there and look hungry" comment, like buddy why do you know that??
Lionheart is canonically handsome
I really like how majestic and respectable bluestar is shown to be in this scene, i can feel her power
Bluestar has been keeping an eye on rusty for a while, spurred by the prophecy, i'd imagine
Chapter 2
I cant tell if bluestar snapping at him so fast is because of how despserate thunderclan is in that moment, or if its a hint to how fast she can turn against people.
Rusty's willignness to look a wildcat in the eye and argue is very interesting, i see where squilf gets it from
'Young kit' i love lionheart
Chapter 3
I like to think the yellow eyes in his dream are yellowfang's
Kittypets know what hours are, i wonder if the clans do
I love smudge, poor guy
They have pine trees on thunderclan territory
I kinda like asshole longtail, hes fun
Great job longtail, you got your ass kicked by a fresh apprentice
Only finished his training two moons ago means longtail is 14 moons, and was probably a solo apprentice. I can see why Bluestar is afraid of not having enough, if the last batch of apprentices only had one.
Interesting that they were so quick to accept Firepaw, but only after he proved himself in a battle. Very telling of their culture.
Graypaw never describe Spottedleaf ever again, its very uncomfortable, "not bad looking either" you are a child
"Neither young nor pretty" this line is especially funny now that grey and dark are brothers, like yeah, thats peak little brother energy
Chapter 4
Ok whos this ginger queen, shes been mentioned twice now
Firepaw stop asking for lore a cat just died
Now i wanna see a redstar au
I like how sassy spottedleaf is with tigerclaw
Tigerclaw in this scene feels so much like Scar, i wish they kept this
I like the lore of the leader's den being carved from a river, wonder if DOTC is consistent with that
Love the sharing tongues and eating lore, the idea of older warriors inviting younger ones to eat with them being an honor
I like that the elders are perfectly fine with firepaw
Interesting that sandpaw isn't actually described as cream or sand colored, but 'pale ginger'
Again, loving the eat rituals with the apprentices eating by the stump
Sandpaw's such a bitch i love her, such a tween mean girl, i can only imagine her with a high, bratty voice
Chapter 5
Two toms sitting in a hollow a few tail lengths away cuz their not gay
Birch, ash, and oak trees are added to the 'trees thunderclan has' list
"Thats treachous talk, kittypet" says the guy who tried to take over all the clans, thus sharing a territory
I like that lionheart supports firepaw's thinking
Thunderclan smells warm, Shadowclan smells sour, Riverclan is...pungent, i guess?
Dust and Sand are such brat siblings
Love the implication that windclan and thunderclan have different stalking types due to their difference in prey, light footed for thunderclan, and maybe heavy on the back legs to make a better kick-off for a run for windclan?
Ravenpaw has been an apprentice for 2 moons, meaning hes 8 moons old, and he probably became an apprentice on the tail-end of longtail's apprenticeship, or just after his warrior ceremony
Chapter 6
Two moons passed, 8 moons old, Raven should be 10 moons
Firepaw can scale ash trees with ease
One of lionheart's favourite phrases is "surprise is the warrior's greatest weapon"
Ok good, the fox was relevant
Thunderclan cats apparently climb trees often, given that halftail apparently used to
Chapter 7
"Easy prey for yellowfang" girl why are you in third person
2 moons in and he already doesnt want to feel pity towards a clearly unwell cat, i can totally see an au where he becomes one of tigerclaw's followers
"You seem in an awful hurry to die" is one of my favourite lines
Arch-cat of stench
Chapter 8
Patrol of tigerclaw, willowpelt, darkstripe, lionheart, and bluestar. One hell of a combo
Yellowfang was spoken of for her bravery and wisdom as a medicine cat, interesting
I like the respect Spottedleaf gives Yellowfang, aware that shes another medicine cat. They've no doubt met before this.
Sympathetic eye narrowing
"We found no bodies from either clan" i call bullshit
"Usually she only trains the kits of her deputies" again, bullshit, but interesting concept
Leaders talking with all their senior warriors and not just their deputy for advice
Cultural respect for healers and elders
Chapter 9
They know the word breakfast
Little grey-and-white kit and a tabby kit, probably swift and one of the frost brothers
"Certainly no hardship being around spottedleaf again" you've exchanged about 3 sentences with her
Willowpelt in patrol with her son again
The double mouse eating scene is always so funny to me
Chapter 10
Queens line their nests with balls of down, which are apparently duck underfeathers
Wow, two-ish moons and firepaw doesnt remember smudge at all
I like the parallel between rusty & greypaw and smudge & firepaw
Its actually kind of unsettling how fast he's forgotten his old life, like wow the cult indoctronation really worked huh
Chapter 11
Ravenpaw tripping over his snake, baby boy
Fluffy gray kit, likely cinderkit, no more than 2 moons, meaning they were newborn when rusty joined
Also a tiny black kit and a tortieshell, mystery kits
Rusty's been there for almost 3 moons
Bluestar has serious trust issues huh
"I think i could grow fond of her" ok yeah i see why bluestar x yellowfang exists
Clawface and Stonefur are considered great warriors, at least to Greystripe
Chapter 12
I forget at this point in the book tigerclaw isn't actually known as a bad guy, hes just grumpy and mildly suspicious
Crookedstar is bigger than Lionheart, which means hes fuckin massive
Brokenstar has been leader for 4 moons as of this chapter, meaning he probably became leader around the time spottedleaf got her prophecy. Causation, perhaps?
Eugh can we stop describing spottedleaf as sweet scented
Ough, littlepaw was definitely lying about his age there
Lionheart banter!
Ravenpaw being a good storyteller is my favourite thing
Ah, brokenstar, you mangy bastard
I like that he paused for dramatic effect though, drama queen
I cant tell if Smallear really is deaf or if hes playing it up so he gets left alone
Chapter 13
"But even he will obey bluestar" only for 3 more books
I like that travelling to the moonstone is one of the apprentice milestones
Spottedleaf get your nose off that apprentice
Chapter 14
Leaders cannot eat before the moonstone journey, interesting
Wow, what a dickhead twoleg, also possibly drunk driving
Chapter 15
Love the idea that tigerclaw is just fucking terrified of the moonstone
So bluestar just implied tigerclaw is spiritually weak, interesting
I love the description of the moonstone, it makes it sound so ethereal
Chapter 16
Barley is short and knows Bluestar
"You are tied to your clan like a queen to her kits" oh you have no idea barley
Barley i love you and your inexplicable rat fighting skills
Firepaw knows how to put cobwebs on
This chapter implies coming back from losing a life can take hours
Chapter 17
Blackfoot you asshole put those kits down!!
Yellowfang i adore you
R.I.P rosetail, we didnt know you existed until this chapter
Nooo grandpa lionheart, poor guy
I think its this point that starts the beginning of bluestar's fall, honestly
Chapter 18
Ah, here's tigerclaw's beginning of evil, starting with appointing his cronies as bluestar's bodyguards
Ooo yellowfang still has pain from that leg injury
Wow Yellowfang just called Blackfoot a stupid tank
Darkstripe really just got call shitstripe, huh?
Oh shit, i always thought darkstripe and longtail were aware of tigerclaw's actions from the start, but hes playing them too
Chapter 19
Spottedleaf you cant just tell apprentices about prophies and not give any context
The authors really dont know how to do a scene change, huh?
Firepaw fights light-pawed
Chapter 20
I cant tell if its clunky writing or intentional but the way ravenpaw describes redtail's death is very storyteller-y
Never use the word suppleness again
Brindle really just had her kits silently huh
Elders wash their ears when their expecting rain, more lore thats never mentioned again
Really cute that whitestorm is sitting guard for his mate and kits
Its been like 4 minutes since firepaw stepped out of the nursery, brindle's in there, how the fuck did the kits get stolen
Firepaw you shared 7 sentences with her, why are you so furious
Chapter 21
Can these grown adults stop sending minors on dangerous missions
"Goodbye, my sweet spottedleaf" EW. EUGH. AUGH.
"One of brindleface's kits has a cough" considering tulipkit dies, yeah, she wasnt lying
Something something clawface being a warrior greypaw respected only for him to kill the med cat and kidnap kits
Frostfur's kits are three moons old
Chapter 22
Brokenstar makes them apprentices at three moons and warriors at five
Marigold and Mint were four moons old
Chapter 23
Third time Willowpelt and Darkstripe are in a patrol together
Oh Whitestorm, your not the smartest tom in the clan, are you
Chapter 24
Brokenstar nearly got scar-at-the-end-of-lion-kinged there
It'd be cool if mr lil tabby kit kept the ear scar, i know he doesnt tho
Chapter 25
Tigerclaw really putting on the sad dramatics there
Fireheart and Greystripe, iconic and fitting names!
My thoughts
Solid 9/10, not perfect, bit clunky, but iconic and nostalgic. Im shocked i remembered basically all of it, even tho last time i read the whole thing was about 6 years ago
I think the chapters are too short in places and cut in weird parts, and the authors cant do a scene change for the life of them, but this was 2009, so its fair. Lets just hope they improve (said the fool, foolishly)
Oh, and the spottedleaf thing was terrible and uncomfortable.
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