#darkscales answers stuff

[darkscaleswriter]

palinoia for the director's cut asks? 👀

(ask for a director’s cut on any of my fics!)

omg I haven't re-read Palinoia in years, when I opened my doc for it I got slapped in the face by times new roman bc this is from before i switched to writing in calibri instead lmfao. anyway time loop fic!! i had a lot of fun experimenting with style in this one, trying to capture the low-grade horror of being trapped in time and dying again and again and again. not sure i totally succeeded, but i liked writing it at least!! i'm especially proud of the bit that's a series of vignettes that descend into repeated "reset, reset, reset" lines, i think that part really conveyed what i wanted it to. it's still satisfying to read again after 6-ish years :D

(continued under the cut)

shadow link is so fun to write, he's a classic antagonist turned antihero type character and i love it. i also have a huge soft spot for him bc loz four swords was one of my first fandoms and is probably my oldest one at this point, so he's an og blorbo for me haha. (clenches fist) someday I will treat myself and get physical copies of the manga. someday…

at any rate, i'm re-reading palinoia and kind of laughing at myself about how the key to shadow breaking out of the timeloop was just. teamwork makes the dream work, lol. including using items from past Heroes bc i like the idea of items from previous games still hanging around odd corners of hyrule. i don't think i planned it that way but it's extremely in line with the themes i tend to write ^.^'

and zelda gets to join in! past me even left a helpful note on the doc explaining that zelda gets to be there bc instead of sending that dark cloud thing to take her like in the manga, ganon got distracted by vaati being vacuumed and wasn't able to stop the links from breaking her out. i am also now realizing that i never explained what happened to vaati beyond "vacuumed into a giant gust jar" and if i had plans for that, I didn't write them down. so… i guess he just lives there, now? maybe the links go back and smash the mirror after shadow's fully revived as his own being without being tied to it? maybe the jar was sealed away to become the next hero of courage's problem??

if I was going to rewrite this fic, i think it would be interesting to add a section where shadow gets desperate and tries to recruit vaati. maybe there would be 2 villain turned antihero characters surviving to the end…? or vaati is too power-hungry to go for it and betrays shadow at the last second, if he doesn't refuse and/or kill shadow outright for being a traitor. i think the last minute betrayal version would be a good loop to lead into a deleted scene where shadow straight up just hides in the dark mirror for a loop and refuses to engage, up until the links make it to the tower and are like "hey tf is this giant mirror and should we break it or something"

that deleted scene never got finished, i'm guessing bc it was leading up to shadow letting the links smash the mirror without ever revealing that he was inside (rip). based when where i was in life when i wrote this fic, i probably wasn't in a headspace to get quite that dark. i think there's a difference between considering your death an acceptable sacrifice in a fight to prevent a supervillain from taking over the kingdom and not caring about your death happening bc depression, y'know?

there's another deleted scene where shadow has a much more dramatic death that involves him fighting vaati in single combat himself, and ending the fight by chucking a bomb at the dark mirror to kill them both. i think that was vaguely what the final loop was supposed to be before the gust jar idea, and there was a whole bit with vio where vio is extra upset as shadow is dying in his arms bc shadow promised earlier not to kill vaati via the mirror. whoops, he lied! he went after vaati on purpose and planned that from the start! what a normal and mentally stable thing to do, shadow.

that ending was cut more because it ended up too close to canon, i'm pretty sure, and i wanted the final loop to be something more unique. shadow needed to do something different than his original ending to break out of the loop, so the full canon divergence had to happen.

shadow still died very briefly at the end of the final loop, when zelda had him throw a bomb full of triforce light at ganon, but at that point the goddesses were like "okay we'll call that having learned your lesson" and brought him back quickly enough that nobody realized he was gone. potentially including himself! i'm not sure that shadow ever consciously realized it was the goddesses farore, nayru, and din that put him in the time loop, but after it ended, he was just glad to be done with it and decided not to ask too many questions that could potentially make them change their minds haha.

re: the goddesses, i think the reason they took an interest in shadow to begin with (self-sacrificial death for the four sword heroes aside) is because shadow was created using the power of the triforce. he's one of theirs, sort of, at a sideways angle to how link and zelda and ganon are. close enough for them to meddle with, and idk maybe din was being extra salty at this incarnation of ganon for creating an entire sentient person and then treating him Like That. rip ganon for annoying his triforce piece's patron goddess, lol.

shadow was created from the dark mirror using the triforce of power as wielded by ganon, and my general headcanon is that shadow link literally did not exist until the events of the four swords manga when he is born from the dark mirror. he doesn't have link's memories, but he knows link's personality and remembers feelings/impressions/etc. and, since shadow was created with the triforce of power, he carries of sliver of it with him in a similar way to how each of the links carries pieces of the triforce of courage. part of the reason he's drawn to the links is because like calls to like. shadow was made in part from the triforce of power, but in the image of the bearer of the triforce of courage. the only part he's missing is wisdom, but at the end of his final loop, he does get caught in the blast of zelda's triforce power bomb, so… :3c

at the end of the fic, when shadow notes that he has the triforce on his hand, i left it deliberately vague about whether that was actually the full triforce or not. i don't remember if i had a clear answer in my head for this, but i suspect he shares pieces with the other links and zelda, bc i like the idea of them being all connected like that. regardless, what triforce piece(s) he has are what allowed him to sever his connection to the dark mirror and hang out in the sunlight without burning up like a vampire. he takes a lot of catnaps in sunbeams now that he doesn't have to worry about that haha.

anyway thank you so much for asking about Palinoia, it was really fun to go back and remember how much i enjoyed writing it. and i'm SUPER flattered that you read my fic to begin with!! i am so in love with your god of war time travel au, it lives rent-free in my head at any given moment.

thank you again!!! :D

[darkscaleswriter]

⭐️⭐️ *Tosses stars at you for the ask game*

(ask for a director’s cut on any of my fics!)

!!! thank you for giving me the opportunity to ramble :D

SO for Write Our Names in the Wet Concrete, which I just updated a couple days ago so it's still very much on the mind, I have many many feelings about casey junior (as I'm sure anyone can tell lol I'm not subtle). specifically, I have many feelings about his relationship with his mom, bad future!cassandra jones.

I know there was some stuff from the rottmnt crew on the former bird site or something (?) about how cassandra died when casey was pretty young and he was mostly raised by future leo, but I personally do not subscribe to that. not for his backstory in wonitwc, at least. as much as i love dad leo, it's important to me that he's just as much a jones as he is a hamato, especially given that he uses the jones last name.

anyway, many thoughts about the wonitwc iteration of bad future!cassandra jones under the cut, bc i uh. definitely rambled haha ^.^

(also, important note: a lot of my characterization and backstory for cassandra is probably inspired - both consciously and not - by the mean teen fighting machines fic series by @radishhqueen, which is an absolutely incredible character exploration series for april and cassandra that made me fall in love with cassandra jones as a character. please go read it if you have a chance, it's SO good!!!)

so in wonitwc, after cassandra found casey as a baby and decided to raise him, she fully committed. it definitely wasn't an easy decision to take a step back from field work, but a baby is a 24/7 job, and the shift to handling the more organizational/admin side of the growing resistance (as mentioned in chapter 10) helped her feel less like she was costing the group by making others fight in her place. she never regretted that decision, but I think there were a few times she came close. maybe when a mission party would come back having lost someone because they didn't have enough eyes, maybe when a scout never returned after running into a trap that she knew she could've spotted.

as a parent, i think that cassandra was, honestly, not too different from what we see of her in the show lol. a bit more even-keeled with age, but still wholeheartedly committed to everything she put her mind to and not shy about it, which is why i find it extremely funny that casey somehow turned out a Good Kid (TM) who listens to authority (mostly) and respects his elders (unless theyre wrong). he's definitely got moments when his temper breaks, like when he yells at teen leo in the movie, but on the whole, his brand of feral is less… loud, i guess. not sure that's the best way to describe it but it's all my brain is coming up with right now haha.

part of casey's comparatively calmer personality can probably be attributed to the turtles and april, who also played large parts in raising him, but it's not like they're chill either. the final movie opening didn't get to really show this, but in the storyboards for a previous version of the movie's opening, it's shown that future leo has still retained a lot of teen leo's goofiness, though it's hard to say how much of that is performative. at any rate, i interpreted that as showing that the turtles were still themselves in the bad future, at least in some small part.

speaking of the turtles!! my general headcanon is that they and april informally adopt cassandra as family at some point in the future, and joke that she's a distant cousin since the hamato clan started as an offshoot of the foot clan. they get very emotional when cassandra decides to include "hamato" as part of casey junior's full name, which is a real whiplash moment from their reactions when she told them she was going to name him directly after herself lmao. anyway, casey junior grows up knowing that he's a part of the hamato clan, in name and spirit if not by blood.

cassandra was definitely grateful for the help raising casey junior, too. i don't think she ever really considered herself a single parent - raising casey was very much a team effort, even if she was his primary caregiver. cassandra is the only person that casey ever used a parental title for, though. i think she first started teaching casey to address the others by their titles out of ingrained tradition (foot clan was traditional in an oddly random assortment of ways lol) but then let him keep doing it bc it was funny. this does not help casey's Good Kid (TM) image haha.

cassandra's feelings on becoming a hamato, meanwhile, are initially mixed. on one hand, nothing brings people together like an external threat that's in the process of ending the world, so she's bonded a lot with the remaining members of the hamato clan in the apocalypse. on the other hand, she was still in the midst of finding herself after leaving the foot clan when the apocalypse hit, and the invasion triggered by her former cult definitely did not help with that. especially not when she had to put down the krang-infected foot brute and foot lieutenant. i debated taking that out, since it got darker than i expected, but it felt fitting for the tone of the chapter, so. sorry, cassandra :P

i think that cassandra's relationship with her sensei's was very much a "it didn't change anything, but it matters that the love was there" situation. they did terrible things, but they were her only family for a long time, and they cared about her. i don't think she ever fully reconciled with that. there's a reason she never really talked about them to casey junior, besides the fact that reminding people in the apocalypse that she was a former member of the clan that started said apocalypse by summoning the krang would've been a terrible idea.

but. there were times, especially when casey was little, that cassandra would catch herself wishing she could show him off to her senseis. the brute would let casey ride around on his shoulders while the lieutenant would teach him how to fold perfect origami. in another world, maybe those would've been casey junior's eccentric grandpas, visiting on alternate weekends to spoil him. fighting splinter for the position of "favorite grandparent," lol.

maybe something like that could happen far in the future of wonitwc, depending on how things go. we'll see!

[darkscaleswriter]

⭐️ pls tell me more about your fic pls it’s wonderful 🥹❤️

:D the fic in question

ahhh im so glad you like it!! thank you for giving me the opportunity to ramble about this fic haha. i have SO many emotions about casey jones jr and the future timeline turtles, im never getting over the tragedy of that movie opening. future mikey's wink as he tears open space and time. future leo's "it's not about me" and the way he physically throws casey through the portal. like!!! hello!!!

imo part of what makes the future timeline so tragic is that so much of the show before this point (especially s2) focused on the hamato motto of "anata wa hitori ja nai," even before the turtles actually learned about the hamato clan. none of them have ever been alone, and as part of the hamato clan, legacies of generations upon generations of mystic warriors, they never will be. except then the bad future timeline shows up, and. they're gone. the family is fractured, the turtles are dead, and the last survivor, casey jr, is sent back alone.

so, that's kind of a long way to say that the conception of "write our names in the wet concrete" came from me taking this tragedy and shoving anata wa hitori ja nai in its face. lol.

in the fic, the moment future mikey decides that hes not going to let future leo die is the moment of canon divergence from the movie. the reason he actually manages it is bc in that moment, mikey and all of the hamato spirits look at the last surviving members of their family and say, no. we refuse. the war might be lost, but we will ensure that no member of our clan will be left alone.

it's not just mikey at the end, here, throwing leo back along with casey. it's him and donnie and raph and april and splinter and karai and even oroku saki, every single hamato all at once, facing down the end of the world and choosing to save the last of their family whether they like it or not.

sorry future leo, you dont get a choice! but hey, at least casey isn't stuck in the past and cut off from everything he's ever known by himself, right? :3

the reason i set the fic as pre-show instead of at the movie is bc i really wanted to focus on casey jr's relationship with future leo, and what that might look like when they're forced to actually, like. live semi-regular lives instead of being tossed directly into a high-stakes mission. the looming specter of the krang invasion is a constant stressor, but they also have more immediate things to worry about for a change. like money! big rip to future leo, forgetting that was a thing.

and casey junior learning to live in a non-apocalyptic society is always fun haha. he's a semi-feral apocalypse child who's used to eating rats and leaves! writing his pov is an entertaining challenge, bc he only knows things about pre-apocalyptic society via snippets hes heard from older ppl/family stories, and he approaches the world through a very different lens as a result. he is definitely going to hunt an alley rat at some point and be like :D look theres so much meat on this!! and non-apocalypse survivors around him are like uhhh kiddo wtf. are you... are you seriously going to eat that.

casey, already roasting it over a fire: yes?? why would i not??

anyway, im going to cut myself off before i ramble about this fic forever and spoil future chapters (currently writing chapter 5 :D), but thank you so much for reading it!! im having a lot of fun with this au and i'm glad you are too ^.^

(feel free ask me anything about my fics!)

[darkscaleswriter]

For the director's cut ask game: I've bothered you to the end of time and back about this, but it's been a few years and I maintain that (while your ongoing TMNT one is GREAT, I'm loving the detail and the nuance!) Start It All Again is one of the best and funniest AUs you've ever written. Got anything left to talk about on that front?

(ask for a director’s cut on any of my fics!)

LMAO not a bother!! so happy you like Start It All Again enough to still be thinking about it, have a random assortment of thoughts under the cut :DDD

I don't really have any concrete plans for this au, but it's interesting to go back and re-read stuff that I wrote when I was in a very different place in life. I think if I were to rewrite this fic, the main change I'd make would be shifting the knights' professions from cops to… idk, firefighters or a search and rescue team or something. maybe a security or private investigation company, depending on the vibes haha.

for future fics, it could be interesting to explore the mechanics of reincarnation in this au since it's universe where the links are aware of their reincarnations and this ficlet is far from their first go-around. how many other characters are aware of their past lives? is vaati? I think it would be immensely funny for vaati's modern scheme to take over hyrule to be attempting to orchestrate a corporate takeover of hyrule inc., and the links thwart him by breaking into his server room and destroying everything with swords lmfao. ironically, vaati's company did not back up their data to the cloud. whoops!

vaati: well if i'd known you'd still be using SWORDS in THIS DAY AND AGE--

the links: dude literally when have we ever NOT used swords

ganon is of the opinion that this one's on vaati for failing to have pattern recognition, lol. ganon is also quietly making his own data backups, which isn't going to help him in the end, but it's cute that he tries.

re-reading the comments we spitballed back and forth when i first posted this fic, the adoption roadtrip could also be another fun direction to explore! i wonder if the reincarnated characters would've developed some way to reach out to each other upon getting their memories back, since they've gone through this at least a few times by now. depending on the pace of reincarnations (are the lives back to back? are they separated by a consistent timeframe? are they separated by a random timeframe?), they may or may not be familiar with current technology. use some kind of handwave-y triforce connection or something??

similarly, do people tend to reincarnate in the same family lines and/or physically near each other? are the links and zelda usually neighbors? is it completely random? i think it would be funny if it was random, and there was a life where by sheer dumb luck, everyone ended up on the same city block EXCEPT ganon, who somehow found himself on an antarctic research station or something. he got his memories back very late in that life, and by that point he was already an established uhhh let's say field biologist, so he decided to keep spending the rest of that life tracking leopard seals bc why not. he eventually runs into zelda and the links at a conference and there is very nearly a brawl. their labs proceed to start a bitter academic rivalry that is renowned in their field for years afterward.

speaking of academia, have any historians picked up on this group of people recurring throughout hyrule's history? do the characters look the same in their reincarnations, allowing for a possible record of the same faces showing up over and over again in records? how well-known is the reincarnation phenomenon? is it publicly known at all? on one hand, it would be immensely funny for academics to immediately start knockout tournaments over who gets to approach the reincarnated characters for interviews first. on the other hand, that sounds exhausting and annoying for the reincarnated characters.

it's easier to handle if the reincarnation thing isn't publicly known, which doesn't exclude conspiracy theorists and particularly dogged historians from figuring it out and tracking them down anyway, but this probably happens very infrequently if at all. any conspiracy theorists would be so vindicated though lmao. it's not a conspiracy theory if it's real!!

anyway, there's a lot on this universe that could be explored. thank you for reminding me about this au, it was fun to think about it again!! maybe i'll go back to it someday, who knows haha ^.^

[darkscaleswriter]

ok i'm curious if there's any director's commentary that hasn't come up yet in conversation

(ask for a director's cut on any of my fics!)

hmmm thats a hard question lol. i think you know pretty much all of it, but here's a new tidbit I came up with on the spot:

in the scene when leo is telling casey about the foot clan, casey refers to oroku saki as "gram-gram's dad," right. i like to think that casey first heard the story of oroku saki from mikey as a kid, back when it was mikeys turn to babysit or something idk. mikey didn't want to scare little casey too much when casey was asking questions about his ninpo, but he couldn't just brush off all the questions, either.

so, in an unintentional parallel to his great-grandfather (as seen in splinter's memories from the s2 finale episodes), mikey tells casey a more... sanitized version of the story, lol. a story where the founder of the hamato clan, our great-great-great-to the infinity grandma -- we mostly just call her gram-gram -- once had a big fight with her dad.

her dad was making a lot of bad decisions because he'd been hurt very badly, including making a deal with a demon for power, so she stood up and told him he had to stop. but he didn't want to hear it! so the fight got worse and worse and worse, and neither of them wanted to back down. gram gram's dad recruited an army to help him fight gram gram, so gram gram created a clan to back her up, too. that's us! she taught everyone in the clan a super special power, ninpo, and we use it to protect each other to this day.

how did the fight between gram gram and her dad end, you ask?

well, it took a very long time. eventually, gram gram ended up having to put her dad in time out for a while -- i know! like he was a baby! -- and have him think about what he was doing. except that didn't work, and years and years and years later, he started causing trouble again. that's how we met him, me and leo and donnie and commander o'neil and your mom. we all had to work together to unlock our ninpo and use that to show gram gram's dad how wrong he was, and in the end, he realized what he'd done and was sorry. his spirit is with the rest of our ancestors now, and the fight between him and gram gram is finally over. all thanks to us!

go to sleep now, junior. maybe if you're lucky, you'll meet gram gram and her dad in your dreams.

(the fic in question)

[darkscaleswriter]

✨🐳 ?

(LoZ Ask Game)

✨ What piece of the Triforce would you wield?

hmmm idk probably courage? mostly by virtue of not considering myself super wise or powerful haha. honestly I don't think I'm particularly courageous either, but I'll do what needs to get done so it's probably close enough ^.^

🐳 If you were a Zelda character, what race would you be?

Rito!! definitely want to be able to fly :D alternately, Sheikah because the mysterious "shadow people" thing seems super cool, and they're very ninja-esque.

[darkscaleswriter]

HI omg may i just say;; i love ur pride cometh fic so much??? Your pacing is just incredible, i love the premise in general- and the characterisation is spot-on!! Do you have any floating ideas of expanding that universe? Would love to hear ur thoughts on what happens when Maes reveals himself to Roy, the Elrics, etc. (especially since he is *technically* the elrics' cousin like the rest of the homonculi)! -Comet Anon

ahhhhh thank you so much, im really glad you liked it!! tbh don't have anything concrete for that 'verse beyond "its a fix-it so nobody I care about dies, including nina" lmao, but im happy to toss out ideas!

I feel like maes reveals himself to roy and riza very casually haha. immediately post-story there's a scramble to get his family to safety and stuff, but after that he gets to sit down with his friends and let them freak out over him nearly dying. maes then gets the joy of informing them that actually he did kind of die (armstrong can attest!) but its ok since he got better :)

roy: you WHAT

riza: ...what do you mean you got better

maes: :3c i said what i said

at that point he gets serious and actually explains everything, including father's plans bc might as well at this point. gracia probably helps--she definitely knows about the homunculus thing at the very least, though I don't think maes would've told her all the details about father's plans since he didn't want her to worry about him any more than she already did.

its probably a rough few days at least while roy and riza digest this info and come to terms with the fact that maes has been lying to them about a pretty important aspect of his life. not entirely sure how this would resolve honestly. a lot of desperate conversations with gracia probably happen since she's the only other person they know who's had to deal with this revelation, but it helps that maes doesn't act any different than before. his personality and behavior stayed the same, its just that sometimes he uses shadow tendrils to grab pens out of reach and literally melts out of the void sometimes. you get used to it :)

(fun fact: the original ending had roy and riza coming to save maes instead of armstrong, which was a whole bundle of fun. but right after I wrote it I checked the timeline and realized that roy and riza were on the wrong side of the country to be the knights in shining armor, hence the reason armstrong shows up instead.)

I think it would also be immensely entertaining if the reveal to the elrics went more smoothly than the reveal to roy and riza. there's a bunch of shouting and stuff at first, naturally, but ed takes one look at how maes interacts with gracia and elicia (nothing less than utter adoration, as usual) and goes "well he's still the same hughes and at this point my life is already weird enough" and just. rolls with it. if maes also manages to let them know that nina's alive (bc in this 'verse he managed to smuggle nina out to greed's crew, who stabilized her bc they're all chimeras too), that definitely helps smooth things over too.

al probably adapts to it pretty quick as well. he'd be wary a little at first, but like ed, he realizes soon enough that maes is still the same guy, just with a little extra now. besides, al gets what it's like to feel like something other than human, even if their situations are pretty different. they can bond over having a weird relationship with normal human limits (like decapitation being fatal lmao).

anyway thanks for bearing with my rambling!! pride!hughes was really fun to write, and im really glad you liked the story ^.^

[darkscaleswriter]

Prompt: your Ishvalan AU 'verse. Parental!Hawkeye with Ed and Al

For all that her name was Hawkeye, Riza had been far more blind than she’d realized.

When she’d first laid eyes on the Elric brothers, she’d seen their ages first and everything else second.  Despite being a suit of armor, Al somehow managed to maintain the body language of a child, and Ed—Ed was so painfully young, for all that he was the elder of the two.  Hawkeye focused on that, on their genius, and let the blazing gold of Ed’s eyes cover up all the other hints that something about them was different.

She hadn’t realized until much later that she’d been ignoring the hiss of windswept sands in her ear when she looked at them, the bone-dry taste of gunpowder and dust.  Hadn’t realized she’d pushed away the implications of the too-pale shade of Ed’s hair, of the dark color of his skin. She’d been pretending not to hear it whenever they thought nobody else was listening and dropped into another language, one she’d only ever learned how to curse in.  Riza had been fooling herself, all this time, and never even known it.

What kind of hawk’s eye was she, that she would delude herself out of her own guilt?

After the kidnapping debacle—after Ed and Al and Scar of all people saved them, after the truth came out in a way that was impossible to deny—Riza vowed to do better.  The things she’d done in Ishval… she’d never become infamous the same way Roy and the other State Alchemists had, but there was still far too much blood on her hands.  She’d been trying to wipe them clean ever since; now, she’d just have to work harder.

It helped that the Elric brothers didn’t need a mother.  They’d already had one, Trisha Elric, whom they talked about as if she’d hung the moon and stars.  They already had Gracia to fuss over them and worry about if they were being safe, an adopted grandmother back in Resembool to fix up Ed’s automail and Al’s armor.  They didn’t need Riza trying awkwardly to fill any of those nurturing roles, and to tell the truth, she’d never been all that maternal anyway.

The point was, Riza didn’t need to be a mother.  Instead, she lived up to her name, keeping a protective eye over the youngest members of the team.  She was Hawkeye, and when most people called her that, they thought of a sniper’s nest, the world narrowed down to a pinpoint scope and a finger gentle on the trigger.  They thought of impossible shots at impossible distances, bullets flying, ruthless as the desert wind.

That connotation wasn’t, however, entirely correct.

Now, Hawkeye also meant drawing attention away from flashes of white hair and red eyes in the shadows of Amestrian cities, nodding approval as Roy dropped careful words to the right people and lightened patrols around the slums.  It meant putting Ed on mandatory medical leave after every mission, injuries or not, so he’d have time to see his family before dashing off again. It meant making herself aware of important dates and customs, difficult as that information was to find, to know when to give Ed a bit more leeway about handing in his reports.  

And, if she sometimes caught sight of a scowling man with a yellow trench coat and a hat pulled low over his face, glaring and lingering near the office… it probably wasn’t important.

(The Scar-Faced Killer investigation was still ongoing, because he’d murdered far too many people for them to not take action, but—well.  Ed and Al didn’t talk about their cousin’s whereabouts, and nobody in the office ever asked.)

The Elric brothers didn’t need a mother.  But. They could use a watcher, so:

That was what Riza Hawkeye would be.

[darkscaleswriter]

I have to comment later when I am on my computer but SCREECHES. YES. Listen, I’m not above the angst train but I’ll take a ride once in a while as I’m always a hoe for yunmengduo and YES. Yes. Yes. Please, could we see snippets of when Jiāng Cheng meets Wei Ying again after he knows the truth?

!!!  I’m really glad you liked it, thank you so much!!  I too will forever be crying over the Yunmeng siblings, because we could’ve had the Twin Prides and JYL raising JL and happiness, but instead canon gives us massacres and angst :(

Also, not gonna lie you said “snippets” and I was like “cool I can do that,” but then I sat down to write and my brain spat out 3k.  And counting.  So, uh, here’s a snippet from that I guess??  This is the first time JC meets WWX again after his return, though JC doesn’t know it yet.  ^.^

When Jiang Cheng discovered his nephew pinned and helpless at the feet of a stranger, the first thing he felt was sheer, unholy rage.

Just as quickly as his emotions surged, though, he wrestled them down, because he couldn’t afford to show weakness.  This stranger had Jin Ling at their mercy, and though they didn’t seem to know who he was, Jiang Cheng didn’t want to take any chances.  

Bearing that in mind, he feigned brusque carelessness and pretended he thought Jin Ling was just being lazy as he readied Zidian.  The stranger was standing close, too close, and they didn’t seem to have a sword, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a dagger up their sleeve.  

Jiang Cheng gauged the distance between him and Jin Ling.  If he took another step, Zidian could yank his nephew away and out of the line of fire, then—

Except.  The stranger clearly recognized Jiang Cheng, feared him, and Jiang Cheng’s hackles rose as resentful energy flickered.  Something small and white peeled itself away from Jin Ling’s back, floating toward the stranger.

Demonic cultivation!

Freed, Jin Ling rolled to his feet and snatched up his sword as he scrambled back to stand beside Jiang Cheng.  “I’m gonna break your legs!”

Jiang Cheng narrowed his eyes, his own spiritual energy rising.  A crooked finger and he had a paper doll in his hand, skillfully made but flimsy paper nonetheless.  Easy, then, to burn it to ash with a thought, heedless of the screams of dark spirits.

“Break his legs?” Jiang Cheng echoed.  His fury rose to a boil, because how dare this demonic cultivator attack his nephew?  How dare?  “Haven’t I told you?  If you see this sort of evil practice, break his legs and drag him to me!”

(Normally, this order was so Jiang Cheng could discern if the demonic cultivator could be rehabilitated, retrained.  He’d decide what to do with them then, depending on the result.  Now, though—this person had attacked his nephew, the only family he had left.  For that, they would pay.)

The demonic cultivator retreated, face painted with terror.  Not fast enough, though, as Jin Ling lunged with Suihua leading.  Jiang Cheng took a moment to be smug as he recognized YunmengJiang’s style in Jin Ling’s footwork, the foundation of his form.  Take that, Jin Guangyao—Jin Ling might’ve been the future master of Koi Tower, but he would always be a child of Lotus Pier at heart.

The demonic cultivator was ridiculously good at dodging, but they couldn’t last forever.  Before Jin Ling could finish the job, though, a silver streak lanced down from above—ice-blue power flashed, steel ringing against steel—and then Lan Wangji was there, apparently uncaring of the demonic cultivator literally sprawled out on his boots.

Jiang Cheng ground his teeth, barely biting back his temper when, as if that wasn’t bad enough, a disciple arrived to inform him that all of the deity-binding nets had been destroyed.  Ugh, this night was just getting better and better.  What was next, the return of the Xuanwu of Slaughter?

…He shouldn’t have thought that.  With the way things had been going, it would probably actually happen.  Fuck.

[darkscaleswriter]

ask game: lilac, rosemary, rue? :D

Lilac: your aesthetic

Uh… I dunno if I really have an aesthetic, lmao.  Blue fire, purple things, black and silver, the moon, dragons??  

Rosemary: what cartoons did you grow up with?

Ooh, definitely the Teen Titans animated cartoon and Star Wars the Clone Wars.  I didn’t really watch much else beyond that, since I spent more time reading books haha.

Rue: forest or field?

Forest!  I’ll admit, I love finding high spots to just sit and look out over a field, watching the wind ripple over the grass, but I’ll probably always love forests more.  It’s so amazing to feel like you’re in another world, hiking under the trees, exploring up creeks that amble down into rivers.  And I usually see more variety in animal life.  ^.^

ask game here!

[darkscaleswriter]

Oh my godddddddd I just read your fanfic "Desert Gold", and let me just say it was AMAZING! I love motherhen! Scar so much and guilty mustang needs a hug. Were you planning on making a second part? If not, then that's chill and I get it. I think, however, it would be very fulfilling to see Miles and the Elrics interact. Thank you so much for writing this!

Ahh thank you so much!!  I’m really glad you liked it!! :D

I did start writing a second part a while ago, but unfortunately real life got extremely busy extremely fast and I am still very very tired, so I don’t know if I have the energy for a full length sequel right now.  I’m hoping to at least write some oneshots or ficlets in that series, though!

Thank you so much for reading!!!

[darkscaleswriter]

Yo, is there a second part coming to the FMA Children of the Desert series ever? I mean that as a genuine question cuz the first part was posted in 2016 and I love it but I’m also afraid it’s abandoned

Uhhh honestly I have no idea, because I started a sequel tentatively called Desert Storm that was supposed to cover the rest of canon, but then real life happened and I stopped working on it for a bit.  I might go back to it soon?  There are some other fics I do want to finish first, though.

At any rate, I’m really glad you like Desert Gold!  Maybe I’ll write some shorter oneshots for that series soon, who knows.  ^.^

[darkscaleswriter]

hi! i have heard about a TAZ writers discord and was wondering if i could get an invite? i just finished the balance arc and it'd be awesome to chat with other ppl. thanks! :)

Here you go!  I’ll admit I’m not really active on there, and I couldn’t figure out how to get an invite link so that’s actually one I pulled from someone else’s post haha, but have fun!  Everyone’s really nice and I’m sure you’ll have a great time :D

[darkscaleswriter]

Hey, if you're still taking prompts for the made up fic title, how about this one? 'Whose Dad is he Anyways?'

So, back before season 2 came out, everyone thought that Thace would be Galra Keith’s dad or something, right?  Except turns out it was Keith’s mother who was the Galra one, and Thace died, and that theory was thoroughly obliterated.

Except, imagine an AU where Thace survived... and he is the father of someone on Team Voltron.  Not Keith, though maybe he’s Keith’s uncle or something, but someone else.  Someone else who’s weirdly compatible with Druidic magic, who survived Haggar’s experiments and was named Champion of the Empire’s arenas and--

Basically, an AU where Shiro is also half Galra, and wow he always knew he was adopted but this really, really wasn’t what he was expecting.

Ask meme is here!

[darkscaleswriter]

For your made up title prompt. "Beer and cheerios with a slice of pie."

Nice!  I’m in a Voltron mood right now, but if you’d prefer another fandom, feel free to specify.  ^.^

So, the thing about Keith is that he has a cast iron stomach.  Like, he will literally eat anything.  He’ll munch on the Castle’s food goo without complaint, be the first to try out new things on whatever planet they stop to resupply on, and happily volunteers to be Hunk’s taste tester.  If it looks remotely edible, he’ll probably give it a try (unless he’s allergic and knows it) and he’ll usually end up fine.

Now, imagine Team Voltron hanging out during a rare moment of downtime.  They’re chatting and talking and somehow the conversation’s moved to food.  

“Hey,” Lance asks, “what’s the weirdest breakfast you guys have eaten?”

They all think on that for a moment.  “Beer and cheerios with a slice of pie,” Keith volunteers.  “The beer was disgusting, but the pie wasn’t bad.”

He’s met with a unanimous array of horrified expressions.  It’s great.  Keith can’t stop laughing, even if Hunk looks personally offended.

The ask meme is here!

[darkscaleswriter]

Meme prompt: 10 convoluted, discombobulating reasons why Keith needs a Keyblade.

...I will admit right now that I had no idea what a Keyblade was, so I had to look it up.  :P  As far as I can tell, they’re giant magical keys that people use as weapons?

As far as a fic about this would go, however, I feel like it would just be  about how Keith collects all the weapons and he especially loves anything with a blade.  Keith is that one guy who pulls out an entire armory whenever the characters are surrendering and someone goes "give us all your weapons" or something, which is a trope that I totally love.

Headcanon that Keith’s knife collection is scarily extensive and he is very proud of it.  He has a special section that he reserves for collecting life-size replicas of weapons from games/anime/etc. and it includes such gems as a combat-ready Master Sword from LoZ: Twilight Princess and Thunder Edge from Okami, but...

He doesn’t have any Keyblades, because for some reason he can never find them, and one of these days he’s going to save up enough money to commission someone to make them.  Because he wants those Keyblades, darn it.

Ask meme is here!