#for a little context they were fucking around and trying to make the portal work

[cute6troll]

Got bored and made a comic

[not-terezi-pyrope]

How did you get into AI (and maybe compsci more generally)? I'm curious in part to know more about your background, but also because I'm interested in getting into it as well

Huh, big question.

Well, I got into compsci via programming and pretty young. I mean, I was always interested in computers as that's the field my dad works in and his excitement for games and hardware transferred. I was particularly into source engine games from his influence, which lead to me being super obsessed with Garry's Mod when I was 10, and when I was 11-12 ish I discovered the "wiremod" logic mod for that, and was instantly entranced building robots and mini-computers in game. Initially that was by hooking up discrete logic gates, but then I discovered that there was an entire full-featured programming language built into the mod as well, and teaching myself that while playing the game after school was how I learned to program.

I wanted to take that to some non-gmod contexts as well, and so I learned a bit of Java via "Greenfoot", which was/is(?) a library and web community for building little 2D Java games, popular with kids and teens. I actually won an iPod in a Greenfoot coding contest when I was 13. I carried that interest in programming through school, where I did computer science at GCSE and AS levels, then after a brief foray at studying film for less than 6 months, picked up programming as a proper hobby again when I was 19, and went to do a Computer Science degree because I was transparently so much better at programming than I was any of my arts stuff, lol. It's uniquely compelling and fits right in my brain the way nothing else does.

The AI interest mostly comes from fiction, again from pretty young. Portal (another source engine game) was one of my favourite games as a teenager, and I spent a while in Garry's Mod building my own automatons and autonomous robots, and creating wiremod bots that could talk in chat, respond to commands, do some basic statistical language analysis, pretty much figuring it out just off the top of my head.

That interest in artificial intelligence lead to me following the field pretty loosely for a while, and I discovered transhumanist thought in my late teens, and was interested in simulating cognition more specifically as it related to subjects like mind uploads, but I didn't get super into AI as a discipline until I discovered the first online GPT-2 demo in 2018 and read the associated papers. I was like, "oh, fuck. This is like nothing we've ever had before, this is going to change the world, I am fascinated by this and I should try to get in on this now". That lead to me focusing on AI for my undergraduate thesis and then later for my master's degree. I would be working in AI now, if I hadn't entirely failed to find any good roles, and also, if I am honest, if the online conversation around and backlash to LLMs and so forth hadn't soured a lot of my initial enthusiasm, which makes it hard to stay fully up to date with the field. My current job is more general IT work with some programming sprinkled in.

Because the sad thing is I was absolutely right, three years before anyone outside of computer science noticed, in predicting that attention transformers were going to completely upend the tech field and how we interact with computers. What I got wrong in my naivety was thinking that people would respond to that in a good way. Instead it's mostly been distrust and revulsion, which in some respects is understandable, and in others is really sad, especially given the potential that was and is still there. But I worry that this idea that AI is the domain of conniving capitalist techbros is fast becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy as everyone who genuinely cares about social issues (I count myself among them) is driven by an almost overwhelming tide to divest themselves from anything that has the whiff of a neural net about it.

I am at least partially resisting for now.

[ghostwing404]

Memories of a Ronin, A Future Leo Au that has been floating around my head for WEEKS.

Look one of my first ACTUAL post's on tumblr, Elow hoomans! So recently ive been apsolutely obsessed with Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, ROTTMNT. Ive scrounged up all content i can find on them and espetually on the Future Timeline from the Movie, (and the movie in general, Technodrome My Beloved) but this idea in piticular has been floating around in my Brain juices for a bit. Everything goes the same initally, Mikey open's the portal, Casey goes through and yes Leo Dies...but not really. His fam, or some bored Deity wanting to see him both suffer more and heal throws his memories back in time, and only his memories. so shortly after the Shredder is taken down and our boi's are healing from that and the sudden increse in Goverment intrest in Mutants and Yokai (they blew a fucking hole through new york from the hidden city that was Seen from SPACE. The world would have noticed that and you can't tell me EPF isnt imediately Swarming.) plus finding a new home and a long list of other stuff Leo begins having odd Dreams and nightmares, at first its just small things, Flashes of fights yet to occur, both from years in the future and litterally a few hours from now, then they start getting a little too spicific, Mikey and him Eating with "Casey" This kid who he seems to care alot about who looks a bit like Foot Recruit, A Fight alongside Raph who looks much older and is missing an eye, Teleporting around like he was born too and then later memories lacking any Mystic's from him at all. The first real Horrid one he has despite the Mess of dead bodies and horridly messy Kraang Zombies he see's nightly already keeping him from sleep is him loosing his arm, he feels it from his own eyes, just like everything else he's seeing in these dreams, their like Memories and alike memories their not always that clear but this...this was far to...detailed. He Can remember what he saw but while in the Dreams he knows he has more Context, details that slip when he wakes up. some eventually stick, like Casey's name was initally slipping and then Stuck better after a dream where Casey saved him from a fucking Lazer when the kid was like 9...he knows by his own orders the kid wasnt allowed out of the base for a full 3 months after that one cus it scared him so much. As his current life calms down, they settle into the new lair and things go mostly back to normal, With Leo's only worry being Raph's constant attacks on his Judgement as leader (and his messy attempts at being leader...), Donnie fighting The Purple Dragons randomly again over some sort of Shitty charity (its Autism speaks and they faught over it at first, relized they were both trying to tear it apart and started working together to take it down, then faught again on who got to keep the money...) And Mikey's art started to make the place feel more like home his nightmares started to get worse. For almost a year straight Leo spent his waking hours trying to do his job as leader right, and living life and his "Sleeping Hours" trying to not sleep by any means nessicary or wimmpering in his sleep as another person dies on his orders or he finds another Scull of someone who was once an Ally...or he watches Raph Die...that was the worst and when his brothers truely saw the extent of these nightmares. They knew he's been having them but he's always had a hard time sleeping and they assumed it was just from the new stress of being leader and what happened with the Shredder which they were all having nightmares about. then the Screaming, it would be the middle of the day (Da Boi's are Nocturnal) 3pm and Donnie (Twin things) and quite often Mikey and Raph would wake up to Sobbing or screaming from Leo's room. it became routine when this happened for one of them to go and just Sit with him till he woke up because they learned pretty early on, you cannot try to Wake him up or Pizza Forbid Touch him because he will come up Swinging and he does have rather long Claws (Raph has a nasty Scar on his arm from one of these incidents)

And because tumblr decided to be funny and DELETE MY WHOLE FUCKING DRAFT! Ima just give you the TLDR- Future Leo's memories are sent to the past somehow and Mini Leo starts getting them as Nightmares or odd feeling first person dreams that he remembers too well just after the shredder incident, they get worse as things calm down and the bois find a new lair and then rather suddenly get better (for everyone else, Leo just remembered how to Cry Silently on instinct because as the leader of the resistance and dealing with nightmares for over 20 years by boi is VERY good at silently going through it on instinct.) life goes back to normal, Leo's an oddly good leader now taking things seriously and life is good though everyone is noticing something off about Leo as time goes on. a Bad fight with a Newer, more ruthless and unfamiliar villain causes those worries to be quickly justified as Leo kills at least half of them after Mikey is taken down hard enough to lightly crack his shell. he runs off and the group gets a distress signal from across the city almost 3 hours later, they find him bloody and missing his fucking arm with zero explanation as too why or how. (he Cut it off during his Mental break and in the process got back ALL his memories. Why? Imagine being a 38 year old War vet who just lost aforementioned war and then your suddenly shoved into your 15-16 year old self's body but not really cus its just him getting your memories, on the flip side imagine being a carefree 15 year old teen who's lived his life in reckless abandon for years learning not only does one of his own mistakes cause the apocalypse but he's not even really himself anymore as he forcefully is given the memories of his future self. ya that's alot my dude, id have a mental break and cut off the arm i already lost too. anyways that happens, Leo now has to carefully keep up appearances while looking for the key (he made up a good story to explain the missing arm.) he finds the Key, makes an excused about Spending the night with Cassandra (they have been getting closer to her recently) and Steals it, then ends up fighting his brothers because unlike his normal teams of Highly trained miliary soldiers he's instead stuck with 3 chaotic teenage brothers who will easily run off on a mission without So much as Leaving a note for their Leader. Because of that oversight and Leo refusing to reveal his identity beleving he needs to keep the key away from his family too the world is once again in danger because of one Hamato Leonardo. Hours later he's making plans with his brothers to get the damn thing back before they start the ritual (only thing they know so far is that thing is very dangerous in the foot clan's hands and they NEED to get it back imediately, Leo is still Leo so seeing him this damn serious about something makes them all listen) then of of course April comes in with a certain Casey Jones JR and Leo almost breaks, Casey wakes up in barely 5 minutes and the 2 imediately star talking in this...well is defentally a code of some kind (Basicly a bunch of languages, Conlangs and Literial word codes hiding under a trench coat pretending to be a single language, Grammar doesn't exist here and Donnie (whos the one that made it) is Absolutely appalled... no one can understand a lick of it but whatever they just talked about seems to have been agreed on and Leo's now updating their plan to include this RANDOM FUCKING KID WHO AMBUSED APRIL. a light explanation that they know each other and Shadow (Casey short for Shadow Scull a nickname he gave himself when he was 6 and that he never really escaped) was here to help them. This time they get the Key and Leo literally sends it to the fucking SUN but of course everyone is very concerned about WTF is going on with Leo (which is now becoming far more apparent as he interacts with Shadow...something changed) Of course Foot clan are still stupid and Fucking Stubborn and thus we begin dealing with the foot's shenanigans plus Leo's odd behavior, at the same time! woo.

Original inspiration from here and my own Brain mostly.

Spelling went to die i regret nothing

[closetoyou1970]

how fast the night changes!!!!

road trip wip my beloved!! 💜

ask meme: [here]

fic inspo tag: [here]

excerpt under the read-more:

(Context / recap: post-15x19; Cas is back; established destiel relationship at this point. The angels and Amara are having a family meeting in heaven to sort out the cosmology. Dean, as a mortal alive-boy, is not invited to Super Heaven Conference 2021, so he has to drop Cas off at the heaven portal which is also a playground.)

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Sneaking into the playground in the middle of the night is easy, despite the sign proclaiming Park hours: 7:00 A.M. – 7:00 P.M. daily, and, if they weren't trying to get to the portal, it would almost be fun. It would almost feel like they were a couple of teenagers sneaking out after dark to have a drink and a smoke on the swing set, getting into the kind of kid trouble that doesn't really matter.

But instead he's here to say goodbye to Cas, even if it's just supposed to be for a few days – although, when has anything ever gone to plan for Team Free Will? – and it's not fun. It's shitty, and Dean keeps trying to blink back something that he keeps telling himself isn't the start of a crying jag, even though it's making his eyes feel all hot.

He wants to ask Cas to stay. He wants it real bad, even, but that's stupid. As much as the other angels all suck sometimes, they're Cas' brothers and sisters – hell, Jack's in the middle of this whole mess, and Jack is his kid. Jack is their kid, even if Dean can't go see him in the same way that Cas can. Cas has to go do this, the same way that Dean would show up for Sammy or Claire without question, even if Dean kind of wants to be a girl about it right now, kind of wants to cry and beg for him to stay. Kind of wants to start blubbering about how, "Cas, it's not fair. I just got you back," which has been rattling around his head and behind his teeth for the last two hundred miles of highway.

Cas hasn't left his side since Dean found him in the Empty.

Dean tries to breathe through it.

Get it together, Winchester. He needs you steady right now.

"Okay, well…" He turns to face Cas and claps him on both shoulders out of some aborted impulse to pull him close and hold him, reining himself in halfway through as he realizes that if he gets Cas in his arms right now, he's just not going to be able to let go any time soon. "You be careful up there."

Cas lays both hands over Dean's, strokes over both wrists while he talks him through it, low and soothing. "Dean, I'll be at Jack's side. There's nowhere safer."

Dean wishes that he didn't need to be gentled like a nervous horse about all this, but he kind of does, and it's kind of working. 

"Yeah?" he volleys back, contrarian for no fucking reason except that he's scared and doesn't know what to do about it. He's trying to snap like that less often, these days, but he's also trying to do less shit that puts his heart in his throat like this in the first place, and he already failed step one. "What if the Empty comes back?" 

Isn't that how the Shadow got Cas the last time, ambushing him in heaven and shaking him down for a deal?

But Cas just smiles a little, not unkindly, but with that soft, amused look he gets when Dean's said something funny on purpose, even though he hasn't.

"Dean. Do you think that the Empty has only stayed away because it's afraid of you?"

Dean puffs out his chest in response, and he's only halfway joking about it. Tries out that cocky, lopsided grin that used to charm all the girls back when he was twenty and pretty. "Could be, right? I got in some pretty good hits when I came and got you."

Cas does laugh at that, and Dean feels like maybe being stupid is worth it, if he gets to make Cas laugh. The moonlight makes him look all soft, and the laugh lines make him look all lived-in and touchable, and Dean just wants him to stay.

"Oh, dearest love." Cas smooths Dean's hair back and kisses his forehead, and the gentle pressure settles something in Dean in a way that sex never has. "I'll come back to you. As soon as I can."

Dean sees him off, all flaring sigils and holy light in place of wings that just don't work anymore, and then, after Cas goes, lets himself sink down heavily into one of the abandoned playground swings. Even though it's been years since he grew up too big for all the kid-sized equipment, all of a sudden, he can't help but feel small.

[astaroth1357]

Demigod MC Series: Ares

Demigod MC Series: Intro, Aphrodite, Hermes, Hades, Dionysus, Demeter, Athena, Hades Pt. 2, Poseidon, Ares

Lucifer

He cannot overstate what kind of damage this mortal was able to do in their first few seconds in the Devildom...

The instant they got to their feet, they had managed to incapacitate Satan and knock down Beel. Lucifer himself tried to get between them and Diavolo but…

If he hadn’t moved his head, if he was standing just ONE INCH to the left… he wouldn’t have a head anymore. Barbatos was there to intervene, but had he not they could have probably taken out the Avatar of Pride and done critical damage to the Demon Prince himself in one strike...

Frankly, Lucifer prefers not to dwell on that moment... He's sure Ares must be proud of this one...

He pretty much treats the mortal like a live bomb afterward, if he can get away with not interacting with them at all, that’s what he’ll do.

He’s NOT scared of them... much... It’s just that they have a bullish and uncooperative attitude at best and since they know they can take any of them, they don't even consider him - Lucifer, the eldest demon brother - a threat...

But you know what the most frustrating thing is? They won't give him an inch of respect, but they'll always listen to Levi! Levi!!

Look, Lucifer knows he may not hold a rank among the Hell's army and he might not have been a major player in the Celestial/Demonic wars of the day, but he's still the strongest demons here, dammit!! 😡

Lucifer finds nothing is more embarrassing than having to ask Levi of all people to keep the mortal in line because he can't... Oh, the humiliation… He hopes they leave soon...

Mammon

At first, he thought they were scary. But in time he thought they were scary… and also pretty damn awkward.

Mammon wasn’t there when they more or less wiped out the majority of his brothers in the Conference Hall but when he finally showed up he'd never seen Lucifer look so pale… If THAT doesn't make you shit your pants, he doesn't know what will.

Naturally, he kind of toned it down on the "stupid human" stuff real quick after seeing that…

But here's the thing. After the two made a pact together, Mammon started to notice that the MC wasn't all that mean, they were just… violent?

He legitimately thought that they couldn’t stand him for a while until one day a guy on the street called him a dirtbag. The MC threw a punch right there! No questions asked, they just decked that guy!!

It was kind of touching… and messy. Very messy. Did he mention that they’re terrifying yet? 😥

As it turns out, the MC has apparently spent a lot of their life just fighting things and being asked to fight things so they're not very used to showing non-violent affection… 

It took him awhile, but he realized that their way of saying, "I like you," is, "I will attack your enemies." So now all he does when his brothers tease him is say, "I'm telling MC!'' and they'll stop immediately. It's great!! 😁

Considers them to be his bodyguard when he goes out to gamble in some… shadier places. Most of the time not even the bouncers want to take on the MC, ain't nobody getting paid enough to lose that many teeth…

Leviathan

Okay, so. It's not very obvious anymore, but he USED to be on the front lines of the war against demons in the Celestial Realm. He was in charge of battle strategies, he led armies, and even now he still holds the highest rank of the royal navy!

So leave it to the kid of a war god to sniff all that out about him, huh…? They appeared to know all about his record the instant they saw him and they actually seemed to respect him for it!

For context, this mortal tells pretty much everybody to shove off but any time he’s around they call him “Admiral” or “sir” and actually pay attention to what he says! He can tell it drives Lucifer insane, but honestly? It’s a bit of an ego boost. 😌

It’s sort of cute when they come to him asking for tactical advice… They get just as into it as he does with his anime and any time he points out something that they haven't seen before they get so excited it's like they're a kid watching a magic trick. HUGE ego boost. 😏

Speaking of anime, it’s hit or miss whether or not they can watch any of it. Anything with good fight scenes (and let’s be honest, not that much talking) they’re on board for. But if the hero and the villain talk to each other for like an episode before throwing punches then the MC will just rant...

MC: “The enemy is distracted... Why aren’t they attacking yet??”

Levi: “Because the villain killed the hero’s best friend and they’re-”

MC: “They could avenge their friend right now if they ended things right here!”

Levi: “MC, we’ve been over this... That’s not how plot works.”

MC: “And now he got away!! See?? They should have killed him when they had the chance!”

Levi: “*sigh*... Let’s just play some CoD.”

Satan 

The last thing he remembered when the “human” hopped out of the portal was a sharp pain to the side of the temple and Asmo wailing as he fell unconscious…

Yeeeeah, not great. And unfortunately for the mortal the Avatar of Wrath tends to hold a grudge… 

For a comparatively brief moment in time, all of Satan’s considerable ire had shifted away from Lucifer and to their new housemate. They found their bed, clothes, pillows, food, and even their toothbrush cursed!

… But Ares kids must be built from some strong stuff, because half of what he employed didn’t even faze them! He even put an explosive spell on their backpack and not only did they tank the blast, it didn’t hurt them at all!! It was like they’re damn near immortal!

Annnnd they kind of are. Apparently the MC had taken a dip in the River Styx at some point before and became nigh invulnerable…

Was it maybe a little terrifying to know that they had kidnapped a nearly invincible demigod on the level of Achilles? Yes. Did that also mean that they must have had a weakness too? In theory....

Satan honestly devoted a depressing amount of time trying to uncover the “Achilles’ Heel” of his new sworn enemy… until…

The MC was walking with him and Asmo to RAD one morning when they passed by a group of lesser demons harassing a small puppy. Now Satan may be more of a cat man, but NO ONE fucks with animals while he’s around.

He was right about to go over and rip those demons a new one but the MC actually beat him to it! Apparently, the second that they realized what was happening, they launched themselves forward and started bashing the abusers' heads into a wall!

… Live by violence, forgive by violence because in that very moment Satan decided they weren’t so bad after all. He even joined in!

Oh, Asmo gave them both shit all day for the bloodstains on their uniforms and the scratches on their… everywhere, but it’s not like either of them cared. Righteous justice had been served and it was glorious!!

100% would team up with the MC in some kind of vigilante “punish-all-animal-abusers” gig. They have but to ask. 😌

Asmodeus

Oh they TERRIFIED Asmo when they first showed up! How else was he supposed to react?? They brought down his brothers like they were made of cardboard!!

Though he had to admit that the confident, battle-ready look they had about them was sexy as hell, he knew better than to go bear poking! 😣 He avoided them like plague until they finally asked him for a pact.

And then he discovered something… something very unexpected….

They're actually adorable!!!

Okay, like, not in appearance (they look like they could pile drive Cerberus for Pete’s sake!) but he discovered that they have NO CLUE how to handle physical affection. Like zero!!

The first time Asmo actually got the courage to try and hug them he expected them to toss him off, but instead they just stood there like a malfunctioning doll, all flustered and confused… It was so cute!!! 🥰

From that point on, Asmo would take every chance he could to wrap his arms around them or kiss their cheeks just to watch them try and fail to handle it. It's more fun than picking on Levi!!

It took two months for them to finally attempt any kind of reciprocation and even that was adorable! They pecked him on the forehead without thinking about it then nearly passed out from the realization. Apparently, they had never felt like kissing anyone before so he was quite honored!

The brothers know that if the MC's looking too mad to listen to Levi, they just need to call Asmo. A nigh invincible warrior becomes a LOT less scary after you’ve cuddled them into submission! 🤭

Beelzebub

Beel didn't like them one bit, at least not at the beginning. They had managed to get past him and actually attack Lucifer which was NOT a great first impression on their part...

He honestly saw them as a threat for a while, but unlike the rest of his brothers he didn’t avoid them. He just kept an eye on them.... constantly….

Look. Beel is a big guy. Stealth is not his strong suit… If he's tailing you, you're probably going to know about it because there's a six-foot something behemoth in orange following you around while pounding down bags of chips. He's not very subtle…

That being said, after following them around for a while the two finally got to talking and he realized that they didn’t want to hurt anybody or anything. They were just acting on instinct before.

After making the MC promise not to hurt any of his family, they got on much better terms. Hell, he actually got them into fangol!

Beel's sport of choice is pretty much just ultra-violent American football so the MC took a liking to it instantly! After enough begging, the coach let them try out and they got onto his team immediately.

He likes having them as a teammate! They're very good at the game, uh... even if they take it a little too seriously…

They once tried to convince his teammates to decorate the team bus with "the helmets of their fallen foes." They're REALLY into the sport… But hey, they haven't lost a game since they’ve joined. It’ll be fine!... Probably.

Belphegor

Hahaha… He’s in danger… 😥

It took one look at this mortal to make him rethink the whole, “Trick the Human” plan… Since when have humans looked like that?? They could crush his skull under their heel!!

It took all he had in him to play it cool when they first met because his internal monologue was nothing but screaming… THIS was the "human" he had to use to get him out of there?? How in the WORLD was he going to kill them?!

Admittedly, he had to think about it for a while. Belphie's a clever guy… and a demon. So who needs an honorable fight, anyway? If he can’t win one-on-one, then he’ll cheat!

He waited until the MC got the door open and didn't attempt a frontal assault… No laughter, no gloating. He just waited for them to turn their back, claws ready to dig out their heart, and then-!

MC: "Do you really want to try that?"

The MC must have had some kind of danger sense, because they didn't even have to turn around to know what Belphie was doing…

MC: "Look. I like Beel and you're his twin brother… So I'm willing to let this slide. But if you really want to try me…"

MC: *looks over their shoulder with the glare of a bona fide killer* "I won't hold back."

That was... very persuasive.

The MC brought Belphie down to the others peacefully with his tail between his legs and honestly Lucifer was more relieved that he wasn’t a bloodstain on the floor than he was mad… They could have killed him sooo easily… 

They did, indeed, forgive and forget about the whole “attempted murder” thing, though Belphie was never quite able to shake off how frightening they were in that moment… He had nightmares for a while.

Thankfully, Asmo clued him in that the MC would melt into a harmless puddle of fluff if they got even the slightest bit of physical affection... Oh, the sweet payback he could dish out... It’s cuddle time. 😏

[hollyberrysoundsthecharge]

I think about the turrets a lot. Specifically, how they reacted to shit that was going on during Portal 2. So uhhhhh ✨headcannon time✨

- Most of the turrets weren't even functional anymore before GLaDOS woke back up. There were a few that were still scraping on by, though.

- One of them was trying to splash around in the puddles. Didn't really work due to, you know, lack of the ability to walk. It ended up falling over face(?)-first into the icky water that's been sitting there for hundreds of years. It sure did make a splash, though! Mission successfully failed!

- The oracle turret has been carried around in the tubes waaaaaaay before Chell even got here. Now that the facility's broken down, a lot of the tubes have just fucking stopped working and now the oracle turret just kinda lives there now. The things that this turret has seen...

- Of course, GLaDOS eventually wakes up and turret production is back on, so there are a LOT more of these guys around the facility. The ones that were already there were caught EXTREMELY off guard.

- I'd like to think that one of the turrets from chamber 17 of the first game made it to Portal 2, saw Chell coming, and went

- The oracle turret is finally freed from it's tube....! And immediately gets thrown onto the turret redemption line. You poor, poor soul.

- Apparently, at some point during development of the game the idea of having Chell marry a turret was thrown around. Obviously, it never made it into the final game but that fat turret? The one that's literally called turret wife? In an alternate universe, that right there is Chell's spouse. They're very happy together /hj

- The defective turrets, at one point, tried to start a rebellion. It didn't go so well...

- There are some defective turrets sneaking around the place, probably thinking they're war criminals or secret spies or something.

- One of the turrets saw Wheatley and Chell messing with the master turret, and tried to alert the others, but they were completely unconcerned.

The turret that alerted everyone miraculously survived the incinerator, and the others? Wellllllll....

- Remember how while Wheatley is celebrating his new body, he starts throwing around confetti and other shit in the background? Remember how there was a turret flying around back there?

I think it would be funny if that very turret has just kinda been in the background this whole time, catching out-of-context little snippets of the main story but not really knowing what the fuck is happening.

It happened to be passing by in a tube during the full houses line.

- A few turrets have fell down into old Aperture, as evidenced by the main menu during this section of the game.

- Some of the defective turrets are down there, and don't realize that Cave Johnson's recordings are pre-recorded (despite him making that clear), so they keep trying to talk to him.

They definitely say some shit like "God??? That you???"

- Also, they got more hyped over the lemon rant then GLaDOS herself. It's less like a crazy rant to them and more like the motivational speech to end all motivational speeches. Congrats, Cave! A bunch of broken turrets are now running around Aperture screaming about lemons!

- Alright, this one is why I made this thing in the first place.

Some turret is hanging out, waiting to be dropped into a test chamber. It decides to take a nap, and goes into sleep mode...

And then wakes up in the middle of chapter 9, being dropped into a death trap so it can shoot the lady that it assumed would be dead by now and her talking potato, there's some amalgamation of turrets and a cube walking past, the whole damn facility's name has been changed for the first time in literal centuries and an entirely new guy in charge is about to blow the place up.

Lost yet? So is that turret! Let me reiterate...

- The turrets aren't even supposed to sing. GLaDOS has been trying to get them to stop singing for years because, you know, that's not what they're supposed to do. And then Chell leaves and she's like "Fuck it, opera time."

Anyways, I hope you appreciate this, portalblr, because this took longer than it should've to write.

[viridiave]

Daylight Prairie- Creatures of the Light (lore dump)

I've had a couple of theories and headcanons stirring around my head regarding Prairie for a while now- so right here we're gonna tie some of them together cuz I haven't lored in a good long while XD

Note- btw I'm not part of beta so this is purely just me- a crackhead- putting together a crackpot narrative. SOME spoilers for Eden are present.

<THE CEREMONIAL WORSHIPPERS>

okay these guys drive me fucking nuts

We barely know anything about these guys- and what little we do know is derived purely from their closed off uh... Worshipping space. Look at this freaking thing.

In the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by clouds for miles. Fairly advanced diamond technology. Altars with graves decked out in gold and candles. The mechanism for the entrance to the elevator to begin with is fairly complex as well- activated by butterflies and the butterflies don't even die in the process. And to top everything off, this place has a portal that leads directly to the Prairie Temple.

If this isn't sus I don't know what is- but I think I have an explanation.

There are six spaces for six more people that we are not aware of. The only people we DO know of is one bald person in the short garb and another bald person in the long garb. I propose that these six missing people are the Whisperers.

Which is... pretty out there, I know. Counting the 'voices' that we get in game, (including the ones from previous Seasons like Lightseekers and Sanctuary) we have one for Birds, Whales, Mantas, Memories, Crabs, and Jellyfish. For now, we're not counting either Butterflies or Krill- and I'll explain why in a bit.

As for the initial proposition that these Whisperers are the missing six, first we need to ask ourselves what exactly it was that the Worshippers were... worshipping. There is a possible god of which we see in game, and the name of this god is the Megabird.

Megabird here was heavily present in concepts, and in the final product we only ever get to see traces of her and heck to this day we're not sure if she's a canon entity in the final game at all. Megabird as an entity in the concepts is basically the god overseeing the world of Sky and is comprised entirely of light. It's unclear whether or not the Ancestors were aware of her existence after or even before the King rose to power. The Elders themselves are likely privy to this information, but somehow I doubt that it's something anyone wanting to assert control over their people would encourage.

There's certainly the possibility that these Worshippers were a religious sect dedicated to the Elders themselves- but since I'm here trying to propose that they're worshipping something tangential to the possible actual god, we're going to assume this isn't the case. On that note-

<THE WORSHIPPERS WERE DEVOUT TO LIGHT ITSELF>

I propose that the Ceremonial Worshippers valued the Light above all else- and this worship was extended towards the light creatures themselves.

'Oi. Vir. Crabs are DARK Creatures.'

Not all of them. Heck, a dark crab might not have been the norm back then, but that's a stretch and besides- the fact is that these crabs on the far end of Sanctuary are docile.

Keep in mind that these followers were stationed in Prairie, of all places. You know what else is in Prairie? Sanctuary Isles- home to several kinds of manta, butterflies, jellyfish, and even the elusive Elder Manta (yes that's what the big chonky boi that looks like a light krill is called- it's not a whale.).  Daylight Prairie is in no shortage of light creatures- and at the center of it all is its Elder.

Prairie Elder is implied to have responsibilities toward the light creatures as presented in the SkyShop poem featuring them:

'Fields of harvest, prairies of joy.

Farmer and fauna as one.

The Elder protects the creatures of light,

For darkened days to come.

Fly up, fly away,

For the Children of Light in need.

We shall recall our days of wonder,

And feel its air once more.'

-SkyShop Poem (Prairie Elder Pin)

In the greater context of the story, Daylight Prairie is the primary source of light energy in the form of the light creatures- it makes sense that the Elder of that realm would oversee the flow of light creatures from one realm to the other, and that the Ancestors in their domain would have a greater respect for the creatures than others. They're the ones working with them, and they're the ones that know them best.

Enter the Worshippers- who were likely serving directly under the Prairie Elder. I'm not confident that the Prairie Elder could have shared information about the Megabird- or if they even know the god existed. 'The Light itself' is pretty vague for something to be worshipped, and it's possible that the Prairie Elder instead encouraged people that the Light manifested itself into the various light creatures that we see.

In this world however- industrialization marches on, and eventually these light creatures became things to be harvested rather than worshipped. It's speculated that light creatures were used in the production of diamonds- we see signs of this scattered throughout Forest, and Wasteland by proxy. The mural under the bridge in Forest and the doors to the Temple seem to suggest as much at least. Eventually, this industrialization will grow out of hand. I have a few theories on what the Prairie Elder might have done to passively rebel against this.

<PRAIRIE ELDER AND THE BUTTERFLIES>

We learn in the Prairie Elder's cutscene that they are able to form- not summon- butterflies from fire. I'm not proposing that the Prairie Elder is single-handedly responsible for the existence of butterflies- rather I'm proposing through the Prairie Elder's abilities that light is able to be manipulated in such a way that one can create light creatures, should they know how.

It could just be the butterflies, honestly. And really it could just be the Prairie Elder that's capable of such a feat- and because of these holes in this theory it's the first to go.

And yes this is the reason why the Butterflies don't count. I think. That has holes too and I can make a case for the Butterfly Charmer technically being part of this... But I digress.

<SANCTUARY ISLES>

Sanctuary Islands could be a literal Sanctuary for the light creatures- there is an impressive variety of them present. It's also very out of the way, tucked away in a corner of Bird's Nest. The theory I'm proposing here is that the Prairie Elder and the Sanctuary Guide worked together to keep this place hidden from the rest of the Kingdom- and that it was the Sanctuary Guide that broke the bells that would have granted the Ancestors access to the light creatures.

<THE WORSHIPPERS DISBANDED>

This is... probably improbable, but my whole post was leading up to this so we're doing this. The missing six Worshippers are the Whisperers that we've encountered throughout the game- leaving in order to either develop their relationship with or protect their creatures of choice.

The Bird Whisperer stayed close and remained in Prairie- and is probably the reason why Bird's Nest exists at all. The Jellyfish Whisperer remained as well, opting to stay in Sanctuary- the natural habitat of the jellyfish.

The Whale Whisperer ventured to Forest- where there probably once was a small population of Whales, given the corpse we see in the Bridge Area and the live Whale in the Underground Cavern.

The Manta Whisperer went to Valley- I'm guessing to see how mantas were being used for labor and competitions? And Valley is right next to Wasteland so I might be reaching but they could have been monitoring that too.

The Crab Whisperer is a tricky one because we see them travelling with the Lightseekers, and yes I am proposing that this lady was formerly a Worshipper. But because we're dealing with a creature that we now know is more dark than light, maybe the Crab Whisperer joined the Lightseekers in order to observe that phenomenon more closely? Because she does refer to the crabs as friends in her SkyShop poem. Wasteland wasn't always a... wasteland, after all. Things could have been different, and the crabs could have been adapting in a time where they would be relatively dangerous but not so much that an Ancestor couldn't approach them.

And then there's the Memory Whisperer. For this one, I don't think a spirit manta actually exists- at least, not as an organic creature and moreso just an interactive holograph courtesy of the machinations of Vault. I'm actually not too sure on what this person could have been doing, but they have a call- and my best guess is that the Memory Whisperer is one who listens to the last vestiges of light leftover by a creature- because we do see skeletons in Vault, and one is of a creature that looks like an amalgamation of several spirit mantas.

<WHY DON'T THE KRILL COUNT?>

As far back as Prophecy, Krill don't appear to be aligned with the light. They aren't depicted as former light creatures, nor a corrupted variant of an elder manta or whale- they are presented as thenselves in that Prophecy mural. Though I'm sure we'll get a Krill call later on, I'm not going to count them until then.

<CONCLUSION...?>

This huge post is... full of holes and heavy speculation, I'm aware. Mostly I just wanted to dump a bunch of shower thoughts and leftover lore I came up in the Discord lore chat. Go check it out sometime, I've derived a few points in this from interacting with people there. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this matter, by the way- it's fun theorizing! I haven't done this seriously in a long while.

[plainlo-inthemorning]

A Loki TVA/Lokane fic. Rating T.

Previously: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 (of 6)

Shine a Light, part 5

He is aware that the love of his life is digging her fingers into his arm and saying his name.

He is aware of Stark standing to his other side, visor off, speaking to someone on the phone. His voice is hard.

But most of all, Loki is aware that all their lives were just changed by a great big terrifying rip in the seam of reality.

Neither Jane nor the Avenger could possibly be completely sure of what they saw. Loki, as much as he desperately wants to, harbors little doubt.

The man he held in a death-grip only minutes ago and who just now disappeared through a doorway conjured out of thin air was somehow … himself.

Another him. Just as the man had said.

After witnessing from afar the double kiss Jane, Loki, who was coming back from a swim, had been more than ready to skip past introductions and just sever the intruder’s head from his body.

But as soon as he had laid hands on him, a torrent of images had flooded his mind – chaotic, confused images that seemed to span past, present, future and beyond.

The shock had made him lessen his grip and the double had used his (his!) magic to throw him off.

With some distance between them and Stark suddenly there as well, Loki had tried to let his rage quell the dizzying realization. Unsuccessfully.

He is still shaking, clutching a dagger in each hand. He drew them instinctively as the other made for the door.

He should have caught him!

“Loki! What did he say?!”

“What?” His thoughts are racing in too many directions to hear her.

“The … man, what was he saying to you?!”

Jane is looking up at him with those beautiful brown eyes, worry and urgency all over her delicate features. Though not fear, Loki notes. His ever-brave wife. Both her hands are now clamped around his wrist.

That thing kissed her.

The daggers disappear and Loki wraps both arms around the mother of his unborn child, almost crushing her to his chest while still staring at the spot where the double vanished.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, love”, he murmurs. He suspects things are very much not okay.

So does Jane, of course.

“Loki, was it … oof, not so tight … “

She wriggles against him, and he remembers his amor. And her condition. He immediately relaxes his arms a bit while letting the leather and metal melt back into the clothes he wore before: Black jeans and a fitted, dusty green t-shirt (his “rockstar outfit”, Jane had called it, when Loki first started switching up his human wardrobe some years ago now). Drops of saltwater still cling to the ends of his slightly curly raven locks.

“Tony! Jane, Loki! What on Earth was that?”

Pepper jumps out of the car parked in front of the house and runs towards them. She must have seen everything as she drove down the road following her flying husband.

“The verdict’s still out, Peps”. Tony nods at Loki. “You wanna chip in here? I just called the boy-scout at headquarters and told him to be on guard for one of the magician’s interns playing a prank”.

Loki shakes his head slowly.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think Stephen had anything to do with this”.

“You’re right, I didn’t”.

All four of them turn around to see the sorcerer step out of a swirling ring of light, his cape billowing around him. The mahogany floor and paneled walls of his Manhattan mansion are briefly visible behind him before the portal closes with a hiss of little sparks.

Strange is wearing an even sterner expression than usual which only adds to Loki’s growing sense of dread.

Tony, however, groans loudly.

“Dude, really? Couldn’t you at least have let us have dinner before party crashing? Not shaming your bachelor lifestyle or anything, but this was couples’ night!”

“Tony!” Pepper hits her husband on the arm.

Strange ignores him.

“I’m afraid the arrival of your surprise visitor indicates that a set of … unfortunate events have been set in motion”.

As always, his voice is as even as if he was reading the weather forecast, but by now Loki has learned to differentiate the (very) subtle nuances between scorn and sincerity. Strange places his hands behind his back and regards them coolly. “I’ve had Wong reach out to Doctor Banner and director Fury. They should be here shortly. Stark, you may want to-”.

Tony narrows his eyes, lip twitching.

“Hey, Bleeker Street, you know I have low tolerance for you showing up and barking orders without giving two f**** for context. How did you even know that something was going down here? By all means, don’t keep us in suspense until the cavalry gets here”.

Strange doesn’t answer, but the way his eyes dart to Jane sends needles through Loki’s heart.

“Let’s go sit down, shall we?” With one eyebrow raised, Strange puts on a suave smile and gestures towards the house. The effect is a little startling.

Jane ducks out from under Loki’s arms. “Jane, don’t you want to-“. She brushes him off.

“Yes, good idea, Stephen. Let’s go sit down”. She motions for Strange to follow. “Welcome to our home. I was actually making drinks before, but I think I need to add a bit more kick to them…”

Her voice is oddly calm, and Loki fights the urge to grab her and magic them both far, far away, not caring that she would be furious with him for making decisions on her behalf.

He’s brought back to the present by an even odder sound as Strange actually chuckles.

Loki is not sure he’s ever heard it before. Then again, it’s not that he really knows Strange when it comes down to it. Like Tony, Loki finds the wizard exceedingly arrogant.

Pepper is the first to follow Jane and Strange across the lawn while Loki and Tony hang back.

“Real ladies’ man when he wants to. Who would have thought”. The billionaire superhero scoffs. His suit has folded itself off and into a briefcase next to his feet.

“Tony-“

“Uh oh. First name basis. So this really is an emergency”.

Loki faces his friend. Often in the past years, as they’ve grown steadily closer outside of “work”, he has secretly marveled at how long they’ve come since someone threw someone else off a building after being called a diva.

And attacking a city with an alien army.

Jane always insisted the two “hotheads” (her word) had a lot in common when not trying to murder one another (be it with weapons or sarcastic commentary), and Loki has to admit she was right. The metal man is fiercely intelligent, and Loki has been enjoying the quick-witted snark between them infinitely more than he ever valued the company of Thor’s band of gullible warrior groupies on Asgard.

“Well?”. Tony is regarding him with eyebrows raised, expectant. “Give me your take on this cause I’m starting to put together some rather outlandish theories myself here that I’m kinda hoping you’ll thwart ASAP”.

Loki draws in a deep breath.

“That thing with Banner at the tower two years ago-“

“Fuck!” Tony exhales, exasperated. “I knew you were gonna say that”. He squints into the distance towards the ocean, his mouth a tight line. It’s a rare day that Tony Stark is caught under a clear blue sky without sunglasses but for once he doesn’t seem to notice.

Loki takes a step closer to him and lowers his voice so they won’t alert the others just yet.

“I told you then and you didn’t want to listen! Everything about Bruce’s story was off. I know he didn’t remember much after Steve took him down, but you all pretty much accused me of trying to get back at him for, well, you know what, and I kept telling you I thought someone had gotten to him! Now-“

Loki searches for the words. It’s beyond absurd.

“That man was a version of me, Tony. I have no idea how, but I felt it. I saw into his mind. It was filled with images from my past and then … other, recent memories. Dark ones. He came from nowhere. Literally. It didn’t feel like a place. I tried to discard it as a trick, you saw that, but…” Loki runs his hand through his moist hair. “Stephen obviously felt something tear open too. And that is not a good sign”.

He has Tony’s full attention.

“Tear open? Could this other you be associated with your old boss? With Thanos?”

Loki winces.

“No, I don’t think he’s involved”, he says sharply. “But I can’t be sure …”

Tony catches his tone pats his shoulder. “Okay, okay. Shake it off. Didn’t mean to suggest anything. Let’s say he’s not. I’d much prefer that, at least until the wizard presents us with an even uglier imminent threat to the universe. Which, judging by the fact that he’s even here, willingly sipping cocktails in your kitchen as we speak, he probably will”.

Tony throws his hands up with a dramatic air.

“And here I thought the most challenging part of this weekend would be to convince you two to come see Hamilton with us in the city next week!”

“Who’s-“

“Never mind. Did you get a look at that gadget your guy was holding? Boy, he looked like an office slave who’d slept under his desk for a month before getting fired, didn’t he? Were you ever into accounting yourself by any chance?”

Loki shuts his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. Immediately he sees the image of the double kissing Jane, his arms wrapped firmly around her supple body. Rage rushes right back through him and his eyes snap open.

“Stark - I can’t. But yes, I did notice the device. It looked like a phone”.

“Yeah, somehow I don’t think it was the new iPhone”.

Tony shakes his head.

“The two of us and we didn’t take him down. Fury’s gonna have our badges”.

//

The director of SHIELD and Bruce Banner arrive barely 15 minutes later through a portal in the middle of the meadow-like lawn, following Wong and both looking grim and out of place as they weave around patches of wildflowers to reach the porch.

“Gentlemen, I trust you’re well”. Loki greets the trio with an only vaguely sarcastic nod as he holds open the screen doors to them, like a good host. Despite what some may still think, he can behave.

He could have just used magic of course, but he figures Banner is freaked enough as it is just by being here. The scientist hasn’t spoken more than five words to him since 2014 and at least three of them were expletives.

Once inside the small living room, Bruce goes to stand by the window and busies himself polishing his glasses with a little too much vigor than seems warranted.

He avoids Loki’s eyes but looks up and smiles wearily as Jane comes over to say hello.

Fury leans against the doorframe to the hallway and crosses his arms, face a closed book, and, by the sound of it, Tony is going through the cabinets in the kitchen trying to find something to spice up Jane’s pre-dinner cocktails.

Pepper is talking to Strange and Wong on the blue IKEA couch (assembled by magic after the attempt to go at it “as a team” turned into a shouting match), and Loki is about to politely ask Strange to please spit it out right this minute, when Jane is next to him, taking his hand.

“We need to talk. Now”.

Her voice is low and steady but her eyes insisting. She squeezes his fingers.

He squeezes back. “Come”.

Loki looks to Fury but he’s focused on Strange who’s listening very closely to something Wong’s saying.

Not letting go of Jane’s hand, he turns towards the kitchen. In the doorway they pass Tony who’s now holding what appears to be a glass of scotch. He must have given up on the gin and tonics.

“Hey, where are you two going? Forget about playing hosts okay, let’s just get started with part two of the evening’s entertainment”.

“In a minute”.

Jane pushes past him, ignoring Tony’s look and dragging Loki with her.

She closes the door behind them.

“Okay, so…” Jane looks around nervously in the small kitchen with the rustic white fronts and old brass handles. She loves that kitchen. They haven’t changed a thing since moving in. Loki reaches for her, but she takes a step back. “Jane, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I should have gotten there faster. Did he …“

“I need you tell me exactly what he said to you”.

She is absentmindedly opening and closing her fists in the way she does when that brilliant astrophysicist mind of hers is working out an intricate problem in the lab.

Or, Loki knows, when she’s about to deliver him bad news.

He clears his throat. “He said he was me. And that something big was happening”. There. “And then he said he was sorry”.

Jane studies his face.

“That he was sorry? For what?”

“He didn’t say. He stepped through the door”.

Jane is quiet and now it’s Loki’s turn to try and read her expression.

“What did he say to you? I assume he pretended to be me …?”

Jane holds up a hand and bites her lip. Loki swallows.

“Loki, when we were staying at the flat in London, after we defeated Malekith…”

“What?” Loki furrows his brow in confusion. “Why are we-“

“The poison from the monster’s blade, it had you slipping in and out of consciousness for days. You were so feverish…”

“Yes, I know. I was there”. Loki’s blood is slowly turning very cold, but he musters a smile. “And you were amazing, love. Although some might say you took adv-“

Jane interrupts him in the middle of his blossoming smirk. A slight blush appears on her own cheeks.

“Yes, um, it’s not about that day”. She gives him a stern look. “The other day, later, when Thor left after you two went and had your, um, talk … there’s something I need to tell you …”

The door to the living room opens behind them.

“Actually, if you don’t mind, Doctor Foster, I would very much like to hear this too”.

Stephen Strange steps into the kitchen. The door closes behind him.

Part 6

[yourmcu]

Shawarma

Pairing: Tony Stark x daughter!Reader, Avengers x reader

Summary:

Reader thought Tony fell to his death but gets furious when she sees him with a group of people eating shawarma as if nothing happened.

Word count: 818

Warnings: fluff, ‘fuck’ was used once or twice

A/n: wrote before I saw endgame so events might not be accurate!

read it on ao3!

gif not mine! credits to the owner ^^

You run out of the tower, looking at the aftermath of the battle of New York.

“Goddammit, J, if you would just let me out a little earlier then maybe-”

“I am truly sorry, Ms. Stark. It was your father’s orders.” JARVIS said.

For context, after you found out a man (he’s evil apparently) was in the tower with you and he was opening up a portal that lead to space above it, Tony secured you to the ground floor and told JARVIS not to let you out until everything was okay - or if the tower itself was about to collapse.

You wanted to help, you told him you could, but Tony was very protective when it comes to you.

It was at the point that you begged the A.I to let you out of the building when you saw the familiar Iron Man suit falling out of the sky unconscious.

You had no choice but to turn around and hold in sobs, not bearing the sight.

So here you are walking around the city angrily looking for your father’s dead body.

He has to be, right? Nobody could survive a fall like that - even with an iron suit on.

Plus you try to contact him through your phone and earpiece, no response.

But when you pass by a local shawarma place and see an unusual group of people conversing, one of them being Tony,

You want to lose your shit.

You march right in, ignoring Natasha when she straightens up once she sees you, standing beside where Tony was sitting.

“What the fuck.”

The rest of the team gets startled at the volume of your voice. They don’t notice you walk in since they're all invested in their food.

The man in a blue suit looks at you with a stern expression, “watch your language, kid.”

“Oh hey hun,” Tony says calmly, patting you on the back. “Want a shawarma?”

You don’t budge when he urges you to sit on the chair he pulled up.

Instead, you give the super soldier a dark look, recognizing who he is. “Don’t tell me what to do, Captain, I’m not in the mood.”

“Hey hey, settle down, no need for that,” Tony clears his throat and sends an apologetic look to the now insulted soldier. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I thought you were fucking dead,” you snap.

Everyone's looking at you at this point. “Did you know that I had to watch you fall? I thought you wouldn’t make it - and the worst part was I couldn’t even do anything about it because you told JARVIS-”

“I said I was sorry.” The A.I apologizes.

You let out a frustrated groan, throwing your earpiece to the floor and covering your face with both palms as you exhale shakily.

“You didn’t even try to contact me. I didn’t need a full explanation of what was going on, Dad - I just wanted to know if you were okay.”

All eyes glare at Tony when he slowly grabs his earpiece from the table and shoves it down his pocket. He took it off earlier so he could relax from the stressful battle.

Tony wraps an arm around you, managing to sit you down on the chair.

“Kid, I’m sorry,” he sighs. “What happened today - was scary. It wasn’t just some douchebag who desperately wanted to kill me this time. The point is, I just wanted you to be safe.”

“I really thought you were gone. I don’t know what I’d do if you were-” your voice starts to crack.

“I’m right here. Everything’s fine now.” Tony coos as he pulls you into a bone crushing hug.

Both of you completely forget that there are five other people at the table. They try to eat silently as to not ruin the moment.

“Well, who knew!” The man who looks like a cosplayer from across the table literally shouts, making you jump. “Stark has a bit of a soft side when it comes to this child.”

You remove yourself from the hug. “Sorry, child? Says the man who’s wearing a cape.” Your remark made the other two guys chuckle.

“How dare you make fun of my cape-”

“Alright keep your snarky comments down. This is Dr. Banner, Barton, you already know Romanoff, Cap and Thor, I worked with them. Everyone this is my kid, Y/N.” Tony introduces.

They all mutter ‘hey’ back and you stare at the ground, embarrassed. “Sorry for being rude, Cap. That wasn’t a good first impression. And I’m sure your cape is pretty cool, Thor,”

“It certainly is.”

Steve smiles at you kindly. “I had no idea you were a father, Stark,”

“No one really does. She doesn’t like the press, so,” Tony shrugs. “Can we get another order here, please?”

Thor raises a hand, “I am in need of another.”

“We’ll take five more then.”

a/n: please send in requests if u want :))

[brazenautomaton]

Fixing Afterlives: The Maw, First Visit

So our Shadowlands journey starts with the Maw. You know what? People hate this scenario now because you can’t skip it and have to go through it on every character, but the first time through, this is actually really good. You’re kicking in the gates of Hell with a platoon of Death Knights and then everything goes tits-up and you don’t have a beachhead and you’re lost and wandering and there are awful, awful things everywhere and you’re hiding and isolated and need to learn how to escape. You just need the option to skip it on your alts.

Plus the aesthetics of the Maw are great. They sell what it is -- the hostile architecture, sinister crystal formations, the way everything seems swept and shaped by a windstream of souls. We’ve seen plenty of environments that look like a Hell of flames. This is a Hell of pure suffering. Pain is what lives here. Pain is all that enters and pain is all that is produced. It’s only after you went farming Stygia for a while that the pain gets inflicted on you.

So we assemble the crew, get the exposition while we put together the Helm of Domination, get given a portal stone to establish a beachhead, and we bust in to find the four captives: Anduin, Jaina, Baine, Thrall. We rally the Death Knights into enough of a formation to make it in and find the evidence of Jaina, and I like that, I like how you track her by the huge formations of ice -- it shows you her power and the mark she leaves. Finding her is mostly the same although her dialogue is less generic and content-free (from now on assume I apply this caveat to all dialogue). She’s more confused and disoriented and even though she’s fighting it’s with a resignation that she knows it won’t work and she’s starting to think she’s only hurting herself by trying. She acts like she has been there for years. But you say you and the DKs are here to save her and she follows against her better judgment and agrees to try and find Thrall, who she struggles to remember, but seems to be trying very hard to be able to remember.

Then the Mawsworn Kyrian show up and laugh about her hopelessness, and you fight them. And they kill the shit out of you. 

More and more and more of them keep coming and they’re level 60 when you’re level 50 and if you do some bullshit to survive eventually one of them will grab you by the neck to Silence you, lift you into the air, and do the ol’ Val’Kyr Special and fatally drop you. You unavoidably die.

This is necessary early to establish what dying in the Shadowlands means. Play a special graphic effect when the player dies, something more drawn out and grasping. Play a sound effect appropriate to race/gender of the PC of them struggling against great pain and gasping. Then you appear next to a Spirit Healer (yes normally in the Maw you just respawn alive so you have to pick up your Stygia like in Dark Souls, we’ll explain the discrepancy later), a Mawsworn Spirit Healer, who says “No. Your suffering will not end. The Maw claims you.” and then starts to chase you the fuck down with a bunch of shades. You need to run, as a ghost, to claw your way back into your body. Obviously, if the shades catch you, you get dragged back to the start and the Spirit Healer fucks with you a bit. 

Your body has been dragged over to the area where Jaina and the rest are hiding; they fled while you were being merced. Jaina sees you stir. And she says “I’m sorry, champion. Death is no respite here. It is so hard to fight the pull… I struggle to even remember my body when I try to return.”

Jaina has been brutally killed over a dozen times. This is not her first rodeo. This is not her first escape attempt. This is not the first time she’s killed that particular Mawsworn tormenter whose name I don’t recall. It doesn’t end. It never ends. She doesn’t know why she tries any more, when she knows it will fail and she will die and suffer and claw her way back to her flesh and every time it gets harder and harder. All it buys her is the ability to offer futile resistance and maybe that isn’t even worth it.

Mood: established.

From there it goes mostly the same. You try to pump the shades for info about how to escape and they don’t know, they can’t know, they can’t even want to escape. The info you get is a memory of spitefully hating someone who fled to the waystone. You rescue your buddies. You see the Jailer fuck up Baine, only instead of giving him a spirit poison, he fucking snaps the dude like a Kit-Kat and drops his lifeless corpse, and you drag it to safety. You don’t need to find a poison dagger to counteract the spirit poison; you need to keep him safe and clear a path for his spirit to flee back to his body. Thus reinforcing what the danger here is and how it’s different and what they fear.

And while you do this, at some point, you run into Sylvanas. Maybe she just walks up to you while you’re all collected around Baine trying to help him revive. Since the Jailer won’t be saying “it’s not like you won anything b-b-baka, it was just a temporary setback,” you need to establish that feeling that he views your victories as completely meaningless. Sylvanas knows you’re here saving Baine. So does the Jailer. It does not matter. You cannot accomplish anything. 

Thrall kills her dead. She just gets back up. She has an escort for her soul to go back to her body. “How many times are you going to try that before you learn it’s futile? Come now, Thrall. I know you’re smarter than this. I know you respected me more than this.”

And then stuff like “How could you do this, Sylvanas? How could you betray the Horde?” Thrall is incredibly angry and offended at her. He thought he knew her. “Neither of us had any illusions you were not a monster, Banshee Queen. But I trusted you anyway because I knew you wanted what was best for your people. You were a monster, but a loyal one. How can you now turn your back on what little principle you had?” Sylvanas is hurt by this, but she doesn’t linger on it.

Jaina, however, is desperately trying to flatter her. Do this to sell the kind of impact this has had on Jaina, and what this suffering drives her to. “Please, Sylvanas. I know you were my enemy but you were an honorable one. It isn’t too late. Someone as cunning as you must know that this will end in ruin. I promise… I promise… I will surrender if you let me return. Kul Tiras will become servants of the Forsaken. Just, just let them live… please, you could rule our world, not slaughter it…”

Jaina breaks down in tears. Yes, she just tried to surrender her people to the enemy for mercy. Jaina is breaking. All of them will. The Maw is a Bad Place and makes them give up hope. That’s how we sell the threat. Not by making the enemies bigger or spikier, showing how they have broken these heroes. Less screaming anger. More pain.

Sylvanas scoffs at her offer. “It doesn’t matter where your people’s loyalty lies, Lord Admiral.” And then she says the phrase that will become a motif: “Nobody escapes the Maw.” She leaves. She doesn’t care what you do. It doesn’t matter.

But you have to still hold on to that sliver of hope that maybe the waystone is a way out. So you get Baine up and you sneak past this big-ass Maw army that can fuck 31 flavors of your day up. The jailer notices you and sends out a force to stop you at the waystone, and he repeats the phrase when he sends out the order: “Nobody escapes the Maw.”

So there’s the event, you fight off the army while the waystone charges, the army gets bigger and bigger, the charge meter gets stuck at 90%, you go to kick it and it teleports you to Oribos.

The mob descends on the other captives. Sylvanas and the Jailer look completely unconcerned with your escape. After having clearly seen you physically leave the Maw, Sylvanas brushes it off with “Nobody escapes the Maw.” Dun-DUNNN! Cutscene end.

You appear in Oribos. The Protectors stop you because you stink like the Maw and what the hell dude, yada yada. This is when you get a tour of the city, here’s the profession trainers, the bank, the transmog. Only secondary details need to be changed here. One, this is an instanced version of the city where no other players exist (you are the first one there, nobody else is). Two, Lich King Bolvar (hashtag #notmylichking) arrives from Azeroth and says SOMETHING to justify other players coming from the Maw but being less important than you. Something like, he saw what you did, there are other adventurers from Azeroth still in the Maw, his DKs are hunkering down in defensive positions and will try to make their way to the Waystone once it cools off because you already activated it, since you are the more special one, and there might be a chance that a couple others might have an echo of your power because they have had similar adventures. You are the True Maw Walker, and the context of the massively multiplayer element is “for your story, all those other guys have shitty Maw Walker powers that only work once you opened the pickle jar for them.” They can’t bring passengers, either.

Third, not the most importantly but yes the most importantly, if you are Forsaken or a Death Knight or Mechagnome or whatever you get a special dialogue where you say “Why do you keep calling me a ‘living mortal’? I’m not alive. I’m undead / a machine / maybe something else like maybe I missed the fact that vulpera are made of rocks and string.”

So Tal-Inara or whoever can be like “Oh, THAT’S what that is. Something was odd about you, mortal, that I couldn’t quite place. I call you ‘living’ because your soul is still tethered to a body. To us in the Shadowlands, to be bound in a vessel like this is far more important than the nature of the vessel itself.” That’s why people keep calling you “living”, to them you’re easy to mistake for one.

Kyrian in the Maw is disturbing news, and also WEIRD, because as Tal-Inara reminds us, “Nobody escapes the Maw.” Why would the Kyrian go down there when they can’t come back? It is terrible but not unheard of for mortals to try and speak to the Jailer but they never GO there because they can’t get out. And yet Sylvanas just walked in there? And he is mustering armies? Better go to Bastion and find out what is up. Let’s crank open this gateway, and...

[votederpycausemufins]

we got so much snow, why do i still have class today? I mean it was short, but why have it at all?

oh and you’ll like this one today @petrichormeraki

:)))))))))

“Holy fuck you’re my dad. The captain is my dad.” Tubbo was stunned, still trying to comprehend it. Crumb on the other hand already accepted it. 

“I’ve got a big brudder! Tubbox is my brudder!” She was running around happily and eventually decided to just sit on Tubbo’s shoulder.

“You’re the kid of a celebrity Tubbo!” Tommy slapped a hand on Tubbo’s back in celebration. “Does this mean I can be your plus one to fancy events and shit?”

“I’m not really that kind of celebrity.” Sparklez rubbed the back of his head. “I mean I’m well known, but that’s mainly because I travel a lot.”

“Sprinklez is definitely a celebrity!” Crumb said happily, her tail flicking about. “Millions of people know him! He’s been so myany places!”

“Wonder how Kara’s going to react to all this. ‘Oh hey Kara, remember how I wouldn’t be available for a few days and now it’s been longer than that? Well found my long lost kid!’ I mean it works, but that doesn’t feel right.”

“Is Kara my mom?”

Crumb, feeling a bit chaotic at the moment, answered the question for Tubbo. “Ye!”

“No! No she is not!” Jordan immediately shouted. “That proposal was for being her thousandth kill or something, not for getting married!”

“Honorary mom!”

Sparklez inhaled sharply before sighing to calm himself. “Yes, fine. If you want to think of her like that, sure. Don’t know how she’d react if you call her that though, so maybe don’t actually say it aloud.”

“How’d you even lose him?” Tommy spoke up. He knew Tubbo’s side of the story, but he was a child at the time and it was around ten years ago, so the details might not be accurate anymore.

“Tubbo was really curious as a kid. Always following me around everywhere no matter how much I tried to get him to sit still. He got interested in almost everything I did. We were visiting one world, Univcraft, and I was just driving around.” Grian’s feathers puffed up at the name of the world. “Tubbo was in the back in his seat, but was getting restless. Next thing I know, he had managed to unlock and open the door.”

“Did you keep driving?”

“No! Of course not! I slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the car. Forgot to put park on at first and it started to roll away on its own before I could jump back in to fix it. Tubbo wasn’t in his seat so I assumed he fell out when the door opened but he was nowhere in sight. There seemed to be no evidence and the weirdest part was that he would have had to unbuckle himself from his booster seat and they were all still done up.”

Tubbo’s eyes widened. “I remember that! I… I think when I first realized I wasn’t in the car anymore, the first thing I was upset about was not being in my cool racing harness.” Tommy started laughing. “Hey! I was five!”

Sparklez couldn’t help but chuckle along with Tommy before pulling Crumb and Tubbo into a hug. “Both my ducklings are finally with me.”

“Duckling?” Tommy asked with a mischievous grin.

“I said Tubbo followed me everywhere. He also liked bees a lot so wore yellow half the time. He reminded me of a little duckling.”

“I remember wen Sprinklez cried wen we went to space an I followed him around in my yellow space suit!”

“Okay Crumb, don’t need to bring that up.”

“Hey, if you can say embarrassing shit about me, let her say embarrassing shit about you.”

Jordan winced slightly. “I guess that’s fair. So, what’s your life been like? I can tell you’ve been… active.” He vaguely gestured to a visible burn scar on Tubbo, which made the teen slump their shoulders a little. Tommy pulled Tubbo away into a protective hug and Grian put a hand on Sparklez’s shoulder.

“To put it lightly, they’ve been through hell. I’m pretty sure the only reason he’s doing as good as he is right now is because of Tommy. Don’t expect him to open up about everything right away. Give him space before you start asking questions.” Grian glanced over to the duo and Tommy gave him a quick thumbs up. “Trauma sucks, but having someone there to be supportive, even if you don’t know them as well as you should, is really helpful.”

“Thanks.” Sparklez gave Grian a short nod. 

“Well, I’m sure you guys will have a wonderful time together, but I still need to go see Xisuma and give him updates on… well, everything.”

“See ya Big G.” Tommy said to Grian before the avian was flying off.

Mumbo was trying his best not to completely panic, but he was slowly failing. “No no no no no. It has to be there! Why isn’t it there? Is it because of the ice? Is there something with ice?” Mumbo looked down at himself and still saw no symbol. “Maybe it was whatever Dream did. That’s surely something that wouldn’t be accounted for.”

“It wasn’t him, idiot.” Mumbo’s blood ran cold and he turned around to see Drista sitting on a chest. “Obviously it was you. I thought you knew VG and Watcher magic doesn’t mix.”

“This is. No. I, I’m not a Vault God. I refuse.”

“Again with the refusing. It worked before but it won’t now. I told you it was only a matter of time.”

Mumbo was in a state of complete disbelief, trying to find some excuse. Then his disbelief turned to anger as he thought of something. “No, this is your fault. You were keeping in contact with Dream. He said you were. You didn’t do anything.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I didn’t do anything. But you did instead. And how did you do that? Became a Vault God.”

“Well tell me how to unbecome one.” Mumbo demanded. 

“You pretty much don’t. That’s why Dream was able to do what he did. Even exiled, he was still a Vault God.”

“Please, there has to be something.” Now he was starting to plead with Drista, hoping for some glimmer of hope for him.

She tilted her head from side to side as she thought about the question. “Well, technically you’re not completely official. In fact I’m here to bring you to that. Maaaaybe if you say something to them, you can get some exception.” She paused to shrug. “Who knows. They may just force you to be one.”

“And if I don’t go?”

“You’ll still be a Vault God, just unstable. Though I will say, you’re doing pretty well on your own.”

Mumbo didn’t care to ask what she meant. He had to go. If he went there was at least some percentage of a chance that he could go back to normal. If he didn’t, he would absolutely end up hurting Grian. “Alright fine. Where do you need to take me?”

Drista smiled and pulled on a mask that was almost identical to the one Dream had worn. “Just follow me.”

Grian spun the chicken feather that was his quill on the table as Xisuma talked. Sure, this was all very important, but the avian was already bored. He kept asking more questions that should have been answered already, but the admin was too focused on the answers themselves to think about the entire context. “I said that it’s going to be like another dimension already. You can’t get to other dimensions without a portal. Think of it like a third being tacked on. And fourth since they have their own nether.”

“What about their end?”

“Again, they haven’t seen it because Dream destroyed all connections to it.”

“And the Watchers?”

“Are combining groups and are adding in two new Watchers to keep things running smoothly.”

“Any previous relation with Zoy and Riffed?”

“Zloy and Pixlriffs, and no. Petrichor and Meraki are just helpful with world crosses. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. Can I go yet?”

Xisuma paused, tapping his helmet where his chin would be. “Alright, but I’ll be sending messages to you, so look out for those and try to respond quickly.”

Grian nodded and passed the book and quill over to Xisuma with the notes he had taken. He then got up from his chair and stretched before flying into the air. Now that Xisuma was dealt with and Tommy was occupied, next was getting the kids from Stress.

The avian flew over the desert between Xisuma’s jungle and the one that he, Stress and others lived in. He smiled as he passed Mumbo’s base, though he had to steady himself when his flying became a little wobbly. He brushed it off as him just getting distracted and then landed near where Stress said she would be.

“Dad!” Jrumbot was running up to Grian and the avian picked up his robot son in a hug. “You’re okay again! Daddy was really worried about you.”

Grian quickly gave Stress a thankful nod for her looking after the bots. “Well it wasn’t the best situation, but he figured it out like the smart man he is. Now speaking of him, we should go see him. He needs some more cheering up and love. Think you can help with that?”

Jrumbot nodded and then Grian helped him onto his own back, right between his wings. As the younger of the robots held tightly to Grian, the avian picked up Grumbot and then thanked Stress before flying towards Mumbo’s base. As they approached, Grian suddenly felt much more tired than he had moments before, so much so that Jrumbot slapped his face slightly to wake him up so he didn’t crash.

“What?! Huh? Oh right, I’m flying! Sorry boys, guess the meeting with Xisuma took more out of me that I realized. At least we’re almost there.” And he landed at Mumbo’s base, only stumbling slightly.

“Are you alright dad?” Grumbot asked Grian, who gave a nod.

“Yeah, ‘m fine. Oh, that reminds me. Thanks for your help. We found Tubbo’s dad.”

“While I’m glad I helped, you shouldn’t be trying to change the subject.”

Grian sighed, having forgotten how well Grumbot could read him. “I’m fine. I just want to find Mumbo and then we can all go to the big bedroom and hang out there.” He helped Jrumbot down off his back and ruffled his wings before folding them “Mumbo! I’m here with the kids!”

There was no answer making Grian frown. “Maybe he’s tired like you and went to sleep?” Jrumbot suggested.

“Yeah, might be.” Grian then pulled out his communicator to send random messages to Mumbo to either follow the hum of the vibration of a message or to wake Mumbo up with the sound. He sent off one message and was just starting to type another when he got the error message. “Wh- Mumbo’s not here.”

“What do you mean not here?” Grumbot asked, worried by how worried Grian looked.

“I… maybe he went back to the other world? But everything’s connected now, that shouldn’t be an issue.” Grian continued to worriedly ramble. The bots looked at each other and then took Grian’s hands, pulling him to where Mumbo’s bedroom was and got him to lay down on the bed.

“Do we need to get anyone?” Grumbot asked. “Iskall or Stress? Possibly Xisuma?”

Grian shook his head. “We just left Stress’ place. She’s helped plenty. And Xisuma is busy with the world merge. Iskall… they might be available, but message them first.”

Jrumbot’s screen face changed briefly. “Okay! I did it!”

Grian nodded then curled up in the blankets. He really felt tired now and a bit woozy. He gave a groan. “Ugh… Dream was a Vault God and I was around him for who knows how long. Plus I went to visit again… maybe there’s magic sticking to me or around here.”

“Are you sick again?”

Grian gave a half hearted nod. “Yeah, now both of you come here so I can cuddle you. That’s the best kind of medicine right now.”

Jrumbot immediately jumped into the bed and curled up in Grian’s arms. Grumbot on the other hand, wasn’t as fast. “Contact with people is usually not a type of medicine and I’m sure us not being humans makes it even less effective.” But despite his comments, he also joined his brother in Grian’s arms.

[firelxdykatara]

I was the anon who sent the ask about cs, and you actually addressed some of the major arguments i've seen - being with hook turned emma from a strong, independent woman into just a love interest, hook pursued emma with no reciprocated feelings, and that he never really redeemed himself. I've also seen arguments that cs is abusive, which i've seen to some extent in anti-kataang posts. i try not to dive too deep into the anti tag for my own sanity but these are some of the main things i've seen

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

ok, sorry, i was just caught up in the euphoria of reminiscing about my captain swan feelings that for a moment there i lived in a world where the Anti CS Brigade didn’t exist. but no, yeah, i know exactly what you’re talking about and honestly i think i just......blocked 90% of it from my mind because so many of those arguments were so vitriolic and widespread but also baseless, like...

gods, ok, here we go. anon you have activated my dormant ouat wordvomit processors and idk if i’ll be able to shut up any time soon but i have A Lot Of Thoughts Here, and also a lot of really bad memories cause ye gods, the ouat shipping wars of the days of yore were vicious.

ANYWAY, like, the vast majority of these arguments came from the ‘swan queen nation’, which is where you can trace a lot of super toxic wlw ship stans back to--just for a little context, but clexa and supercorp both had their roots in swan queen, among other ships, but those are the Big Three i always go back to because what they have in common is ‘the main character of the series is explicitly abused/treated horribly by another woman and for some reason the shippers go nuts over this pairing and will insist the show is queerbaiting them if this specific pairing is not made canon’. and swan queen stans, in particular, had it out for captain swan, because they were incredibly insistent about regina and emma being in love, and naturally the existence of emma’s romantic arc with killian threatened that.

as a result, they quite literally made shit up.

it’s funny (not ‘funny ha ha’ but like funny depressing), because a lot of what they accused CS of is actually shit that happened explicitly on screen with regina and emma. they claimed that emma was no longer strong or independent because she fell in love with killian, while ignoring the fact that she’d become a literal doormat for regina’s many abuses (there are so many things regina did to emma even after her alleged redemption which, if she weren’t being so coddled by the narrative, emma would never have let her get away with--like blaming her for saving the life of a woman regina had murdered in the past, or like telling emma to her face that she wanted to tear killian’s throat out because he managed to come back from the underworld while the man regina loved stayed dead) because, for some reason, they interpreted emma being happy and no longer closed off to the people she loved, choosing to let down the walls she’d built up over a lifetime of trauma as her being ‘reduced to a love interest’ which just did not happen.

like, factually, straight up, emma was every bit as badass while dating killian as she was back in season 1. the only difference is, in season 1 emma didn’t trust anyone, she was closed off, she had a million walls built high around her by trauma, and she wasn’t willing to let anyone in because she believed that if she did then she’d only be traumatized again when they inevitably left. by season 4, when she started officially dating killian, many of those walls had come down, she was happier and healthier, she was falling in love and she was letting herself be in love, she had her parents, her son, the whole town full of people she loved. she was fucking happy, but she wasn’t happy with the right love interest, so swan queen shippers insisted they wanted ‘season 1 emma back’. because they would rather emma be miserable so they could interpret her antagonism with regina as closeted gay pining, than have her dare to be happy with a man and a family that didn’t include regina.

as to the other claims, while hook did make his feelings for emma clear once he realized he felt them, the ball was in her court almost completely. he made comments, told her how he felt, said things like ‘when i win your heart, and i will win it, it will be because you want me’ where the clear emphasis was on emma’s feelings--he believed she had some feeling for him, but he wanted anything between them to be because it was what she wanted. emma initiated every explicitly romantic interaction. killian made a flirty comment, which he was wont to do, and which she could easily have brushed off--instead, she grabbed him by the coat and yanked him into a kiss which lasted far longer than it needed to if all she wanted to do was make a point. (sorry, that scene is just burned into the brain of every CS shipper, i know it literally by heart lmfao) he made it clear that if she wanted him he would be there, but i she didn’t he wasn’t going to push her. he followed her through an entire damn portal into the past because he wanted to help her, because he’d go anywhere for her--to the end of the world, or time--but emma was the one who invited him to dinner with her family. emma was the one who noticed he hadn’t come in yet, and went to see him. emma was the one who kissed him, initiating their relationship.

like @storynightlight said in the replies to the last ask you sent, a majority of the important milestones in killian and emma’s relationship were initiated by emma. she was the one constantly progressing their relationship, it went entirely at her pace in large part because one damaged soul recognizes another, and killian had been through enough trauma in his long (long, long) life to understand that emma needed to work things through on her own terms. he wanted to be part of her life, but it had to be when she was willing to let him in. and he was perfectly content to wait for her to be ready.

as far as the ‘abuse’ claims go, that was honestly just straight up fabrication on the part of swan queen shippers mostly, which is intensely ironic considering the state of emma and regina’s ‘friendship’ for literally the entire damn series. most of them referenced things that happened while emma and killian were enemies (they called their sword fight ‘abuse’, which like.... i’m sorry but two people on opposite sides of a violent conflict having a fight is not abuse, and incidentally that’s an argument that zutara gets hit with too, to this day, clearly words don’t actually mean things anymore), and ignored the fact that killian’s behavior changed as his redemption arc progressed. he didn’t become a good upstanding citizen overnight, but he did feel remorse for his prior bad actions and the harm he caused, he went to great lengths to make up for that harm when and where he could, and he tried to be as good a man as he possibly could in later seasons, even when circumstances (like, oh, gold having possession of his heart and using it to control him, which anti CSers also blamed him for, go figure) made that nearly impossible.

meanwhile, as late as season 6, regina was still blaming emma for everything that went wrong in her life. regina happily browbeat emma about everything she ‘stole’ from her for basically the entire series. regina, in the context of their friendship after her alleged redemption, was constantly verbally and emotionally abusive to emma--and yet that behavior was completely overlooked, or deemed ‘pining’ or some other obvious evidence of romantic feelings, by swan queen shippers who would prefer to claim emma was being abused by her caring and loyal boyfriend who constantly believed in her even when she had trouble believing in herself. (incidentally, it truly is incredibly rich of regina stans (and rumple stans, a lot of them say this too) to claim that killian never redeemed himself, when regina is the one with a vault full of hearts she never returned to their proper owners, and regina is the one who murdered someone emma cared about and never confessed to it, let alone apologized for it; graham died in emma’s arms while regina crushed his heart, and it was never once brought up again. regina got away with it scott free, and it is just one on a list of crimes she literally never expressed even the slightest bit of remorse for, let alone tried to atone for. yet killian is the one who ‘never redeemed himself’ mmhmmm ok sure jan.)

I’M SO SORRY ANON, you probably had no idea the can of Worms you were opening with these asks, but CLEARLY i still have a lot of damn feelings about this fucking show lmfao. THANK YOU THOUGH!!! i haven’t talked about captain swan or even really reminisced much in a while, and i miss them a lot, so it was nice to dive back into my Feelings and remember so much of what i loved about them! i may do a rewatch soon >.> it’s ok if i just skip 4b except the finale and then turn it off immediately after emma and killian’s reunion at the end and pretend the entire show ended there, right????

i hope you’re having a good night! thanks again for the asks <33

[catrasredemption-moved]

Catra's season 4 outfit gives me Shadow Weaver vibes - her right arm is covered while the left one is not. Just like SW has her poncho thingy wrapped only around her right arm. I don't know maybe I'm reaching but if she is trying to become some evil tyrant, she is probably emulating The evil she knows. What do you think?

Oh season 4 Catra is all kinds of vibing with Shadow Weaver. I actually have a lot to say about this that plays in with my “Catra isn’t a pretty abuse victim” meta, so buckle up lol.

Let’s start with a quote from Shadow Weaver:

“You remind me of myself. You always have.”

Yes, I know she was trying to manipulate Catra and try to show that they’re similar and Catra should help her, but that doesn’t automatically make it a lie. Catra is a lot like Shadow Weaver from her Light Spinner days - she wanted more power, she wanted to challenge the Horde, and no one would listen to her. Catra’s often in the same position of being overlooked or ignored, partially by Shadow Weaver’s doing, but it’s implied that people in the Horde don’t really think much of Catra until she becomes Force Captain, something she’d resigned herself to because of Adora.

Shadow Weaver seeing herself in Catra would also explain a lot about her treatment of Catra. Because she knows what lengths she went to for power, and Catra is fully capable of doing the same. How do you stop someone from seeking power? You put them down, you force them into situations they can’t win (like competing with Adora), you demean them, you make sure they never think they can accomplish anything. And Shadow Weaver did a damn good job at that until Hordak put the badge in Catra’s hand.

And just like Shadow Weaver, Catra eventually hits rock bottom. The fact that this is also because of Shadow Weaver is being put aside for now. Catra reaches a point where she has nothing left to lose, pushing her into her own position of “do this thing that’s dangerous and literally no one wants you to do” - pulling the lever.

Again, parallels here. Catra was disfigured in the portal, Shadow Weaver was disfigured using the spell of obtainment. Catra’s wasn’t permanent, thankfully, but she still covers up the reminder with the sleeve on her arm, just like Shadow Weaver covers herself to hide what the spell of obtainment did to her. Which is the answer to what you actually asked, but I’m going to keep going, if you don’t mind.

Catra definitely displays some very Shadow Weaver-esque behavior in season four,very much following the example of evil that she’s seen, with the yelling and verbal abuse at someone who sees her as an important figure in her life (Shadow Weaver was a parental figure to Catra, Catra was a best friend to Scorpia, in Scorpia’s mind), but I think the lowest point for Catra is when she literally repeats Shadow Weaver’s behavior, right down to her words, when she’s yelling at Lonnie, Kyle, and Rogelio 4x12:

“Get out!”

Yes, I know they’re common words, but the context of the scene is what, to me, parallels it with Shadow Weaver yelling at Adora and Catra in Promises. Catra’s backed up into the shadows, literally shrouded in darkness, yelling at people who at the very least used to be her squadmates (I believe Kyle thinks they were friends, but the reality of that statement is debatable), and threatening them. It seems oddly similar to the scene in Promises, doesn’t it? Catra’s finally risen to power, just like Shadow Weaver did. But she’s not happy. Because unlike Shadow Weaver, power was never what she wanted. But Shadow Weaver put the idea in her head, just like she gaslighted Adora in 1x01: “Is this not what you've wanted since you were old enough to want anything?” But Catra’s happiness is a discussion for another time.

Shadow Weaver basically built a perfect cycle of abuse with Catra - she abused Catra, who then went on to emulate her abuser by repeating all her actions and mistakes. Left unchecked, Catra probably would have just spiraled further down that hole of misery.

But Catra breaks the cycle. She makes a conscious choice to do “one good thing” in her life, with every intention of dying on Horde Prime’s ship. And when she doesn’t die, she actively works on being a better person. Which does not go unnoticed by Shadow Weaver, who tries to pull Catra back down to her level:

“At least you admit she’s evil.” “You’re one to talk, aren’t you?”

But Catra has Adora to hold her back now, to keep her grounded. And Shadow Weaver is alone in her little abuse circle. The girls she raised have teamed up and turned on her, there’s no place for her in the Rebellion, no place in the Horde, no place in Etheria.

Which leads us to Shadow Weaver sacrificing herself. Actually, rewind back to her arguing with Catra in the Whispering Woods and basically repeating the Glimmer/Catra scene on Prime’s ship:

“Do something good with [magic] for once and help me save Adora before it’s too late!”

And Shadow Weaver actually listens. Sure, this is her chance to go out as “a hero”, but her presence there at all is because of Catra. If Shadow Weaver had her way, she’d have been getting wine drunk back at the rebellion cave. But Catra dragged her out, Catra backed her into a corner, and Catra made her do something. Catra proved that she could actually rise above Shadow Weaver’s abuse and be a better person.

Which brings me back to another Shadow Weaver quote:

“It's too late for me. But you, this is only the beginning for you.”

Again, probably just her trying to be manipulative one last time, but I think there’s some truth to the words. Shadow Weaver has always been self-serving and thinking about ways to save herself, screw everyone else. But she knows there’s nowhere for her in a post-war world, so what the hell, might as well go out with a bang. Alternatively, she could’ve just left Catra to die (as one might expect), and harness the power of the Heart while she was right there, alone with it, and just run. I’m sure she could’ve found a way to make herself an appealing asset to Horde Prime, at least long enough to get off Etheria and find another planet to terrorize with her newfound powers.

And I know people are going to argue and say she was straight up being manipulative, but to what end? I absolutely believe her final words were a mind fuck - the “you’re welcome” combined with taking off her mask and showing her true face pretty much screamed “this is who she really is, don’t forget that.” It’s the “It’s too late for me” that gets me. She is fully recognizing that she has fucked up beyond repair, and not at all apologetic about it, but she also proceeds to go back on the earlier parallels she drew between herself and Catra. Catra hasn’t fucked up beyond repair yet. Catra broke the cycle. Catra had a chance at a new life, better than the one she had in the Horde, and a chance to be a better person. “This is only the beginning for you” might be the most sincerest words she ever said, to the person she was so sure she had broken.

Wow this got way off track. Anyway, yeah, I think there are some clear parallels between Catra, especially in season four, and Shadow Weaver. And it’s fascinating to think about how that dynamic plays out.

[warsmith-38]

How I would do RWBY Pt. 0

Disclaimer: It is easier to improve what already exist than it is to create something new. Boy howdy do I know that. That being said, I believe that RWBY has more than its fair share of flaws and this is how I would do it differently if I was behind the reigns. This is just a collection of my opinions and ideas which in the end will probably amount to nothing. I felt the need to do this because my brain just decided ‘nah motherfucker, you ain’t thinking of anything else from now on’ and this is the end result for nothing else would satisfy my rage.

I wouldn’t quite call this a complete re-haul, but more rather a rework with some of my own brand of polish. It’s not a compete rebuild from the ground up in a different world with different concepts and themes, but how I would go about a second go around with the series from the base that is already there. If a detail is missing from my musings then assume it is either unchanged or removed, depending on context.

If some of my complaints were addressed after I stopped watching, I honestly don’t much care. If it takes longer than 4 seasons to fix what I view as fundamental problems, then it’s far too little too late for me. I paid scant attention to the series post my stopping point and liked little to none of what I saw.

Please do not take this as a specific attack on anything other than the writing of the show itself. This is not directed or targeted against anyone, regardless of position or feelings on the topic at hand. If you ignore what I just said and decide to take this as an insult, then I say that you need to be more self-secure in your tastes and interests.

Things I would remove + reason why

Silver eyed warriors as a concept- it’s more or less the same concept as dojutsu from Naruto. It’s the fucking sharingan (rubygan). It’s not quite chosen one level, but crap like this is the blight of good protagonists. It’s fucking eugenics that makes you awesome not your own skills or training but on your bloodline. No need for personal development or life-changing hardship when you have a built in power that can be cultivated like a fucking bumper crop.

Maidens- Wasn’t intended originally and only made the overall story more cluttered with power creep and plot device. It’s a similar problem as above. No need for training or anything if people can just kill the person who has the power currently and take if from them. Which, at that point, why do you want that power if you’re already strong enough to kill and take it from the person who has it to begin with? It’s something someone just shouted out and they rolled with it because it sounded cool in the moment.

The Relics- McGuffin dragonballs that serve as plot device and little else. A story can be told without needing to monotonously race for Excalibur or the holy grail. Considering the Maidens, I doubt that the relics were intended in the first place and as such if you can’t tell a story without throwing something in after a few seasons because you realized that you didn’t have a plot, then you’re not that good at telling stories.

Oscar- The show didn’t need more main protagonists when what was already there wasn’t being given enough characterization to begin with. For that matter-

Quite a few characters- The cast is cluttered and convoluted enough as is with seemingly important characters getting the shaft in favor of yet another new character that would barely do anything. Time and effort seems to be put into one-off schmucks that would be better served making the story not need poochie the dog, let alone several. Character integration is not ‘create a character to do one thing and then pretend they don’t exist’. There’s already plenty of characters than can be used wherever.

The overt shipping bait, especially if it’s just going to be taken up or abandoned on a whim- I don’t mean relationship building, I mean the obvious baiting of a relationship that, in the end, might not even happen. All it does is dumb down characters and character arcs, draw out pointless scenes, and make the fans have conniptions one way or another. People are pissed off whenever things don’t go their way with shipping so the only winning move with these people is not to play their game. Looking at you Klance and Zutara. Either don’t do anything or have a fucking plan and stick to it and not make complete swerves when fans get uppity. If it genuinely matters to you, then pretend whatever ship happens at whatever point, I don’t care.

Changes to the world that I think would go over better-

Everyone has a level of aura with a naturally high level generally meaning that they might be able to unlock a semblance. A semblance is unlocked through some sort of specific event, typically a stressful one IE: Yang and Ruby are caught in the woods by grimm and Yang gets frustrated and scared at not being able to defend her sister before getting angry and her rage mode semblance unlocking. Not everyone who unlocks a semblance goes into combat schools but it is a requirement for acceptance into most of them. Having the potential to unlock a semblance seems entirely random but has a higher chance with genetics.

There are two types of semblances: 1 is hereditary like the Schnee glyphs, changing only slightly, if at all, through the generations. 2 is a random personal power like Yang having her rage mode as compared to Raven’s portals. Whichever you get tends to be random with the occasional exception depending on genetics and the specific semblance.

Every 1 in assumedly 10 people who have semblances have the potential to have two semblances, often times, but not necessarily, being one hereditary and one random. The process of unlocking the second semblance involves immense emotional distress and in some cases might not even happen for the individual who has the potential, period, thus skewing data. This gives an enhanced type power but isn’t protagonist exclusive. It shows a higher than average power capacity, but isn’t a gamebreaker to the same level as a fucking kekkei genkai or getting the powers of a fucking demigod. A good amount of characters would only have one semblance and be considerable badasses despite it and even be able to beat a couple of the few that have two.

Establish Menagerie as the official Fifth Kingdom, the newest of the great kingdoms. Maybe not the singularly strongest or most influential, but make it so Menagerie and its people, the faunus, have a considerable role in the world’s affairs, if even from an isolationist standpoint. Don’t have them as even a semi thriving entity that isn’t a kingdom because that only begs the question as to why the kingdoms are so important to begin with then.

Make the White Fang a faunus supremacist group that has very little support, if any, from the faunus people as a whole. Faunus right issues are history for the vast majority of the world and the White Fang as a whole is only using the problems in Atlas with the SDC as a means of trying to gain power. There are actual faunus rights groups trying to make things better for their race in Atlas and other marginalized areas but the White Fang dislikes them on the grounds that they go against their goal and it makes them look even worse.

Fucking pronounce names correctly, I mean, Christ. Weiss, the word, is pronounced like ‘Vice’. It’s an actual fucking word. It’s the German word for white. It’s like saying tor-till-uh not tor-tee-ah. Blake is Bella-doe-nah not Bella-dawn-uh. Shit like that. No you don’t need to put on a heavy accent to say these words but pronouncing things so inaccurately just makes you look like an ignorant rube (no, that was not a pun). I don’t fucking care what your reasons are. Why use these words in the first place if you’re not even going to try to say them right?

Ozpin is order to Salem’s chaos. Ancient demigods of both archetypes vying for power across the ages and the innocent peoples of the world be damned in the crossfire. Neither are entirely good nor evil but both are not exactly helpful to the free peoples on the world and the continued livelihood thereof. Their progenitor god created them to try and guide humanity in a balanced way. That seemed to work at first, but then failed like a bad marriage and they waged war ever since like a bad divorce. The grimm are a creation of Salem’s to test humanity and make then stronger through conflict. Ozpin ranges from the lawman to the fascist fairly duplicitously. The two can only be permanently killed by each other but neither wants to get too close to the other because of that exact same reason. If killed by other means, they will resurrect after a fashion no worse for wear.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Ruby Rose- It is a crime that the titular character has so little actual character beyond just being ‘Hyperactive Anime Protagonist #235’. Most of her (few) character traits are tell not show, and of course she’s got the fucking rubygan bloodline ability crap. She has next to nothing that isn’t allotted by default to most anime protags on the grounds of the stereotype. For the main character to have less character than any of the members of the fucking B-team is a travesty.

1. Give her a clear rebellious streak, a distinct problem with authority, and a headstrong attitude. Daddy doesn’t want her to be in danger, so she decides to become a huntress. She’s told to stay put, so she hunts down Roman. She’s told that she needs to stay home and recover, so she sets out on her own not thinking about the exact consequences. Make her the impetus for the team’s involvement with the problems of the world in the early seasons. Make her a driving part of the plot, not just being along for the ride or because someone else said so.

2. Give her blood knight tendencies. Make her VERY willing to get into a fight with the bad guys, not just fights in general, but fights against bad guys. Nothing over the top, but enough that she has a scene or three where she says “Shut up bad guy, skip to the part where we get to kick the crap out of you,” or something of that nature. Hyper combative characters are fun and ethical.

3. Give her more traits as a mechanic and weapon nerd. Include scenes of her fixing everyone’s weapons for fun or being able to analyze an opponent’s fighting style based on the type, design, and/or wear & tear of their weapon, make her a polyglot of weapons that can be at least proficient in using just about any weapon. Come to think of it…

4. Anything that could give her actual character traits. They don’t even have to be all that major traits, just give her enough so that we actually have a character with more definition than printer paper. She’s the main character, the titular character at that. This isn’t a video game with a blank-slate protagonist. If the main character isn’t even really a character, like, at all, then what’s the fucking point?

5. Convert silver eyes power into a second semblance for white fire vision that kills grimm like nothing else. Gotten as a hereditary semblance from Summer. Which is also why Summer was specifically targeted by Salem on the grounds that it makes her just a little too dangerous for her long-term plans. This makes it so she isn’t just the fucking chosen one, but still has a clear definitive reason to be involved against the big bad because, y’know, dead mom. Yes, this kinda goes into the whole ‘bloodline is what determines importance’ thing I wanted to be rid of, but it’s only a chance two generations instead of a massive lineage of nonsense and keeps more of the onus of involvement on Ruby herself.

6. Give her a very clear motivation that’s deeper than surface level. ‘Oh, I want to do the right thing’ is a flimsy as balls motivation especially compared to the rest of her team that has that AND an actual reason for thinking that way. Why does she want to be the good guy? What happened in her life that makes her this motivated to doing the right thing? Yang has her desire to find her mother (which, come to think of it, doesn’t necessitate being a good guy), Blake has wanting to make up for being a terrorist, Weiss has her desire to step out from under the shadow of her family’s reputation, even fucking Jaune, the b-team protagonist, who wants to live up to his family reputation, has a proper motivation to be involved in the story. WHY is Ruby involved beyond ‘I’m the main character’ level reasoning? As much as admitting it makes me wish to commit Sudoku, even SAO has better main character motivations. Good god, I need hooch after typing that.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Yang Xiao-Long- Her arc was mostly fine, barring some of the pacing. Raven being a maiden undercut the message of ‘screw that deadbeat bitch, go to your real family’ by making her important to the overall world state and confirming a measure of later relevance but that’s more a flaw with Raven than Yang.

1. Keep her motivation about getting strong enough to find her mother but add in the clear desire to kick her ass for leaving her and Tai. Of course it’s more about just getting the answers to her questions, but the ass-kicking should also be a major component.

2. Amp up the rivalry between her and Mercury. Mercury was designed as an opposite to Yang, I mean for fuck’s sake, look at him. Consider their respective backstories too; both raised in a single father home yet one was supported and loved (if a little neglected) while the other was horrifyingly maimed and abused. Punch vs kick. It works.

3. Make her more protective of her little sister, explicitly going along with her personal crusade to keep her safe (safer, rather). If she’s supposed to be the good older sister, maybe just maybe, something more than lip-service to that idea should be done. Hell, maybe she can be overprotective like their father, or even the exact opposite, not really giving a shit and then learning to give one. That might lead to a little tension and growth between the two of them.

4. Make her semblance consistent. Is she supposed to have super saiyan rage mode or is it energy buildup and dispersal? Is it supposed to be both? Just make it rage mode, for the sake of fuck, and don’t flip-flop. Speaking of…

5. Give her anger issues. Flesh out her being the kind of gal that would start a fight in a nightclub when she doesn’t get what she needed with little justification. This would stem from abandonment issues from Raven, Summer (inadvertently), and Tai and her general thrill seeking personality. This could lead to tensions and dramas until she overcomes it and learns to use her aggressive feelings and not let them use her.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Blake Belladonna- Shitty-kitty is shitty, here’s why.

1. Do something with the hypocrisy of being, more or less, princess of Menagerie, a world power albeit a minor one, and joining a band of terrorists that do more harm than good for the people they claim to represent. It’s like a trust-fund baby joining some charity organization in Africa for a few weeks, doing jack-shit to help, joining some jihadists, and then acting like she’s Mahatma Gandhi.

2. Make her arc less about running away and fighting Adam, more about realizing that running is for assholes and try to find her team to at least apologize for cutting and running like she did. Doing that and stopping Adam are not mutually exclusive. The friend thing should be the priority. As it stands she is almost rewarded for abandoning her team just to focus on her own problems.

3. Make her arc involve going from ‘There’s no such thing as pure evil’ to ‘Okay maybe some people are just too evil to work with’. Some people are too far gone and, despite still having good traits, will only ever continue to do evil things and don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. Not everyone has some sort of good motive beneath the surface and, even then, does that matter when the only action they do is objectively evil? Still, y’know, save who you can, like Ilia.

4. Have Belladonna not actually be her last name. If she’s the daughter of a the chief of Menagerie, the closest thing the faunus have to a unified racial leader, then how the unholy shit does nobody recognize her name? She is, again, princess of Menagerie, yet nobody recognizes the name in a grander context. Have ‘Belladonna’ be a cover name so she can hide her identity better so that she’s using what should be a very recognizable real name in a tournament that is broadcasted worldwide. Her real family name could be “Nightshade” or some shit like that.

5. If she’s supposed to be ‘The quiet one’ maybe actually have her be quiet and not make big speeches every season or have loud arguments with her team. Just a fucking thought. If she’s still supposed to do that, then make her ‘the opinionated one’ or ‘the kind of mean one’ or even ‘the one who doesn’t shut up’. Blake, as seen, or rather heard, is not the quiet one.

6. Have her actually fucking interact with Ruby. Maybe they have a two-person book club. Maybe Blake teaches Ruby to meditate or something. Anything, anything at all would be fine, anything more than nothing at all. Blake’s whole interaction with the team shouldn’t just be through Yang and cursory scenes with Weiss.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Weiss Schnee- You can’t solve racism with like two scenes.

1. Make the racism thing a much more gradual decay rather than more or less disappearing after a single conversation. Hell, make jokes about it, ‘oh, no, one of my best friends is a faunus,’ stuff. It’s hard to unlearn an upbringing of hate, but she’s trying type stuff.

2. Involve her at least a little with the White Fang plot. It only makes sense that the heiress of the company that still more or less has slave labor is at least semi-involved with the plotline involving terrorists that want that company destroyed. Make her subject to assassination attempts at a young age, or even have her been kidnaped at a young age and held hostage, getting her scar in the process.

3. As evident by some of the intros, her rival was supposed to be Emerald. This could be serviceable, at the very least. The street rat pickpocket that had to learn life lessons the hard way and was taken in by the baddies VS. the rich heiress born with a silver spoon but raised by a dickhead. There’s potential there and it is a crime that it is not explored in the slightest. Even Yang and Mercury had a minor fight.

4. Like Yang, make her semblance consistent. Is it supposed to be summoning or physics altering magic symbols? These are two completely different powers, it’s not like super speed also giving super reflexes or whatever. Just make it one or the other, don’t bullshit us on these things. Or, hell, make it a second semblance she gets during the course of story.

5. Emphasize her loneliness. Make the main onus of her personal arc be about how she goes from this prickly, spoiled, opinionated, brat to a warm and caring friend who only wants the best for everyone. Yes, this might be the main intention in canon, but I feel it could have used a little more refining.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Cinder Fall- If she’s supposed to be Ruby’s chief rival and foil then she needs a lot of work to even be close. She shouldn’t be nothing but the rival, but at that same time she should have that be a considerable part of her characterization and role in the series. I feel the best way to do it is to have their similarities highlight their differences in both character and design. Basically, make her the Vergil to Ruby’s Dante.

1. Make her Ruby’s age. Being the same age as Ruby while initially outclassing her, and even veteran hunters, provides risk and contrast between the two. Throw in an evil sadistic streak compared to Ruby’s happy-go-lucky personality to further the contrast and you’ve got a good little yin-yang thing for them. It also shows just how bad someone can turn out if raised to be a killing machine.

2. Keep her using the bow/twin swords as a comparably simple weapon in contrast to Ruby’s, even in universe, overcomplicated Scythe/Sniper rifle. Both weapons are long range marksmen’s weapons as well as vicious close combat weapons but are still very different in essence. Also make sure she keeps the red with black and gold color scheme is contrast with Ruby’s Black with red and silver. Even minor visual cues can work to the rival schema.

3. Make her one of the people who have two semblances. Pyromancy (pyrokinesis? Fire bending, she has fire bending) and dilated perception (bullet time) so that Ruby’s super speed and the dilated perception cancel each other out, adding a little extra tension to the fights now that both parties’ signature abilities are moot points against each other.

4. Make her competent. She kills Ozpin and Pyrrha and then she either fails or draws every fucking fight she has afterwards baring nameless jobbers here and there. Even before that, she needed help to take down Amber and even manages to fuck that up. The more failures she has and the less intimidating she is. Too much of that and she’s just a jobber that makes you wonder why she was ever seen as intimidating in the first place. When that happens then Ruby beating her is just the status quo and not a triumph of any sort.

5. Make her Ruby’s long lost fraternal twin sister. Incredibly cliché, I admit, but siblings make the best rivals, especially twins. Once again, it’s all about adding the similarities and the contrasts. In this case it creates the ‘there but for the grace of god go I’ idea with the two of them. Ruby seeing it as how evil she could have turned out and Cinder seeing it as how weak she could have been (Eventually becoming how good she could have had it because I’m a sucker for redemption arcs) Who said that?

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Team JNPR- JNPR was fine-ish but the over focus on Jaune and the underutilization of Ren + Nora early on are both issues. B-team should not get jack shit before the A-team gets the lions share.

1. Downplay Jaune’s screen time. I doubt this is a particularly controversial statement. Jaune is not the titular character. This is (technically) a shoujo not a shounen. It’s supposed to be about the girls more than the guys. It kind of undercuts that idea when the guy (the side guy at that) gets the lion’s share of characterization, attention, and growth before the girl (the main girl) does.

2. Make Ren and Nora actual characters earlier on. Comic relief is all well and good, but either extend that to the whole team or make these two characters more than just comic relief in the early parts of the story. Make them, y’know, actual characters. They ain’t gotta be all that important, but they do have to be actual characters.

3. Make Pyrrha’s deathflags less blindingly obvious. We all knew Pyrrha was going to get clipped. The self-sacrificing type, all the musical and visual cues throughout, being based on Achilles, and ‘oh she just confessed to the boy she likes’. Homegirl was waving deathflags like an insecure redneck with the confederate flag. When you foreshadow obvious things that much it’s not a surprise to the audience when it happens and the reaction of the in universe characters seems overdone. If it’s not supposed to be a surprise then, whatever, but that’s clearly not the case if you’re going for just shock value. It’s fine for a character to die, but for the love of Jaysus you got to do something with it more than ‘this character’s sole purpose is to die for the angst and to up the stakes’. Pyrrha was just a plot jobber.

4. Make them a little more independent in the overall plot. Give them their own full sub-plots, have them go on their own little adventures, have them do things completely separate from RWBY that has plot relevance but not overtaking the main story in grandeur or importance. B-team gets B-plots and are cool in it of themselves.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Qrow Branwen- Take or leave this, I just felt the need to include this because reasons.

1. Just make him Dante from Devil May Cry. Just make his personality the same as Dante from Devil May Cry. Make him stylish and cool but low-key a massive dork. He’s too cool to drink or smoke or anything harsher than PG-13. This series could use a guy like that, says I.

2. Make his semblance something that makes sense and isn’t just an angst generator. How do you even quantify ‘bad luck aura’ as a power? Make it short range teleportation as a connection to Raven’s portals. Make it so that he can direct the bad luck at will. Do SOMETHING with it that isn’t just an excuse for mostly pointless character angst.

3. This technically also counts as a Raven change but whatever. Make the Branwen family old nobility and not a loser bandit tribe from nowhere. Or at least make it so they used to rich or something. They come from a family that had a good amount of cash and even a chateau in Mistral. After the money dried up and the chateau ransacked by grimm, the Branwen twins had differing opinions on how to proceed. Qrow fully integrated into the hunter thing while Raven ran away and became a bandit, using it as further excuse to skedaddle on Tai and a recently born Yang.

[elsylynneverbright]

Mirror Season Part 4: The Eternal Self

The writing prompts for this series of posts are by @velerodra-valesinger and can be found here! 

When Elsie emerged from the portal once again, she found herself greeted by yet another unfamiliar environment. She looked around herself, realizing she was behind some sort of stable. As the realization set in that she still wasn't back in Duskwatch, she immediately slammed her fists against the wall. She started to let out a frustrated scream, but she instantly paused as she heard familiar voices.

Elsie slowly crept around the stable until she got to a location where she could hear things a bit better and peak around the corner. She had little intention of interacting with her alternate self this time. She refused to play this game anymore.

She was greeted with the sight of both Kanalesha and herself, dressed and scarred in the exact same way.. Kana looked like she was on the verge of tears while this alternate self seemed to be filled with both anger and remorse.

"I told you, Kanalesha. Get the fuck away from me!" The clearly unstable version of herself yelled at Kana.

"But I thought-" Kana started to respond but was immediately cut off by the wreck.

"I don't care what you thought!" The wreck seemed like she was on the verge of tears as well at this point. She shook her head and lowered it, not meeting Kana's gaze in an attempt to hide this fact. "I'm done. We're-... I can't Kana. You deserve so much more than me."

Kana shook her head and wiped away her tears, replacing them with a determined look. "We can get through this, Else. Together."

"No, we fucking can't!" The wreck raised her voice once again. "You can't save me Kana, so leave me the fuck alone!"

Kana started to respond, but before she could, the wreck quickly pushed her backwards. "Just fucking go! Fucking go," she repeated slightly softer as she pushed her again. 

Kana remained silent for a moment, staring at the wreck with a look of both surprise and sadness. Elsie couldn't tell if she felt more anger or pity at this point. It didn't matter though. Kana finally turned around and walked off, leaving the wreck to herself.

Elsie shifted back behind the stable and covered her mouth with her hand as she slowly slid down the wall. She began to break down in tears, having to hold her mouth tight to keep herself from screaming. Just as she couldn't take it anymore, a portal manifested itself behind her, once again sucking her through.

Elsie fell back into reality, not bothering to try and catch herself this time. She landed on a hardwood floor and merely laid there for a moment crying. Eventually, she looked around and was greeted by surprisingly familiar surroundings. She was in her own home again. She took a moment to sniffle and wipe her eyes before standing up.

“Kana?” Elsie called as she began to walk around the room. All she wanted now was to just melt in her lover’s arms and know that she was still there. “Kana? Kanalesha?” Elsie continued to call out but received no answer. “Vadel? Vadel? Kana?” Elsie kept calling names as she began searching about the house more frantically. “Kana?!?” She began to yell this time. 

“They aren’t here.” Elsie whipped her head around to see herself once again. Oddly enough, this person had not been there a moment before as she was searching around frantically. She looked exactly as Elsie did now with the same clothes and scars, yet somehow she looked different. It was as if some sort of aura was surrounding her, but Elsie couldn’t quite put her finger on.

Nevertheless, Elsie clenched her fists and walked forward. She let out a scream of frustration as she picked up a nearby vase and threw it against the wall. “Just let me fucking go home!” 

“I’m sorry. I’m not quite done with you yet.” The eternal sat down on a chair in front of Elsie before motioning to the nearby couch. “I promise I’ll send you home soon.”

“No! This is fucking bullshit! I’m done with this shit! I just want to go home!” Elsie placed her hands on her temples as she began hyperventilating. “I can’t take this shit anymore! Who the fuck are you? What different version of me is it this time?”

“I’m not a different version of you; I am you. I am every you. I am what ties every single version of you together.” The eternal responded as she crossed her legs. 

“So it's your fault that I’ve been stuck here! Why I can’t go home! What the fuck is wrong with you?” Elsie stepped toward the eternal aggressively.

“Because, I needed you to see.” The eternal responded plainly before motioning toward the couch. “Take a deep breath. You’re almost done.”

Elsie fumed at the eternal. The two stared each other down for what felt like ages before Elsie finally just crossed her arms and walked over to the couch. She sat down silently and continued to stare at the eternal, still filled with anger but at least giving her the chance to speak.

“I apologize for the scenery as well. I didn’t mean to deceive you, I just felt you might be slightly more comfortable in your own home rather than some endless void.” The eternal chuckled as she sat back, letting out a calm breath.

“Tell me why I’m here,” Elsie demanded.”Why are you torturing me like this? Making me see all this shit?”

“Because, like I said, I need you to see. To learn. Every single alternate reality you have visited has been important for your own personal development.” The eternal held up a finger the second Elsie started to speak. “And, before you ask, I know it is important because, to reiterate, I am you. This mirror season… it is an astonishing phenomenon that I saw as an opportunity. So tell me, Elsylynn. Tell me of your interdimensional travels. Tell me everything that you were able to deduce yourself.”

“Fine.” Elsie huffed angrily. She paused for a moment to think on the subject before shrugging. “The first one was me if I never went to war forty years ago. Instead of going to war, she chased her dreams. And she achieved them. She is everything I could have been. Or even could be, I guess.”

“And was her life better? Were you envious of her,” the eternal asked curiously.

“Honestly? Yeah, at first.” Elsie took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, letting all the rage she had built up dissipate at least somewhat. “But then I found out she never met Kana. Vadel was never born. She never met any of my friends at Dead Sun. She achieved everything that she… I... ever wanted. But she was alone.”

The eternal merely smiled at Elsie and nodded. “And the second?”

“That was me in some completely alternate universe. I didn’t recognize jack shit there. She was young but still similar to me. Everything in her life had happened pretty much the same but in a different context if that makes sense. Well, she was more like me than the one before her. I definitely envied her more but then… I am her. I don’t know. I have to admit, it was nice seeing the things that transcended universes.”

“And the third one?” 

“I don’t fucking know what the deal with that one is. You tell me? She was nothing like me. She was a selfish, sadistic bitch. I’m nothing like her. I don’t even understand how she could be me.” Elsie’s anger was beginning to flare up once again as she remembered the assassin.

“Are you sure about that,” the eternal asked Elsie plainly. She stared at Elsie unflinchingly, awaiting her answer.

“Well, yeah I am! I mean, she’s evil. And I’m not!” Elsie paused for a moment as she looked down. She looked back up into the eyes of the eternal which were continuing to stare into her. “Right? I’m not evil, right?”

“There is no such thing as good or evil people.” The eternal shook her head as she leaned back. “Every single person is equal parts good and evil. The difference between them are the decisions people make. Which side they decide to give the light of day.”

“So… that bitch… is actually inside me then? She is me?” Elsie slowly looked down at her hands, remembering the feeling of the blade in them as she held it to the assassin’s throat.

“While I can’t really answer the philosophical aspect of that question, I can say in whole honesty that every you that you have encountered is equally you. The only differences are, as you said, context.” The eternal smiled as she twisted Elsie’s own words around. But then, Elsie supposed those were her words too.

“Ok, whatever.” Elsie rolled her eyes and crossed her arms again. “And what about the fourth one? Hm? The fuck was the point of that one? Me except I’m stupid enough to break up with the love of my life? To push her away?” That was the first time Elsie had referred to Kana as the love of her life, and she could feel the weight of the words hanging in the air as the eternal stared at her.

The eternal shook her head slowly. “That wasn’t an alternate reality. That was your future.”

Elsie stood up suddenly, immediately filling with anger once again. “What the fuck are you talking about? My fucking future? I would never do that! That's bullshit! That can’t be true!”

“It doesn’t have to be.” The eternal responded calmly. “Elsylynn, something is coming. Someone is coming. If you are going to stand any chance, you have to learn.”

“Fucking learn what? Tell me what the fuck I have to learn! Tell me how to stop this!” 

“It doesn’t work like that.” The eternal’s response was a bit less calm than it had been. “And even if it did, it wouldn’t matter. The things you need to learn aren’t things that can just be taught to you. They’re things that you have to figure out for yourself.”     “What kind of cryptic fucking bullshit? That’s fucking stupid and you know it! If you can’t help me, why bring me here?” Elsie was very clearly yelling at this point. 

“The mirror season phenomenon was an opportunity for me to give you the opportunity to learn.” The eternal, while not yelling, was starting to reach the level of frustration that Elsie was at. She clearly at least shared Elsie’s stubbornness.

“That’s so fucking stupid. And who the fuck is coming that’s so light-damned important?” Elsie scoffed at the eternal and turned on her heel, directing her attention to anything other than the eternal’s face. It was rare Elsie got so mad at someone she had to turn away, and of course the fact that it was her own face made it far worse and far easier to vent her frustrations.

The eternal stood up and spoke plainly once again. “You already know.”

For a moment, it was as if time froze for Elsie. The realization of who the eternal was speaking of slapped her like a ton of bricks. She slowly turned back around to the eternal before speaking, no longer yelling but still just as frantic. “So, what? What do you want me to do? How am I supposed to stop her?”

“I can’t answer that question, Elsylynn.” The eternal merely shook her head.

Elsie shrugged and began shaking her head as well. Now her eyes were beginning to fill with tears. She struggled to choke back a sob as she began to speak to her again. “I don’t get it. I don’t know what you want from me.” She motioned around her in exasperation as she looked at the eternal pleadingly. “This? This has been torture. All I’ve seen is versions of myself that are what I could be, but I’m not. I’m not good enough to chase my dreams, I’m not good enough to just be happy. Light, I had to fight the personification of everything I hate about myself! And then you’re telling me that the one that was worse than all of the others… the one that finally broke me… that one isn’t even a different universe? That’s my fucking fate? Can you not just see for one light-damned second how much this is torturing me.” Elsie finally relented, allowing her sob to come forth. She put her head in her hands for a moment, letting herself cry. She then suddenly kicked the nearest chair as hard as she could, turning back to the eternal and yelling through her tears. “Just let me go home! I don’t fucking care anymore! I didn’t learn shit! You failed!”

The eternal merely stared at Elsie in silence. She wore a face of pity, but Elsie could not tell who for. Finally, one last portal manifested behind Elsie. “No, Elsylynn. If you haven’t learned anything, then we’ve both failed.”

[trifoliate-undergrowth]

Pacific Rim 3

I outline the plot of Pacific Rim 3 as experienced by me in a waking fever dream before and during today's 4am shift as a way to distract myself from real life stress with imaginary stress, written in breaks during work and in the parking lot before driving home because I'm going back to sleep when I get there and I want to preserve this fever dream first before I lose the details of it,

Ok I've been here for 3 hours and I don't know how to do a read more link on mobile I'm sorry you're getting this as is whether you want it or not I need to sleep goodbye

Dr. Gottlieb and Liwen are working on building their own portal to the Precursors to beat them up once and for all

Jake is seen giving an inspiring speech to a new wave of cadets who've been training with the old ones, now fully realized Jaeger pilots. Amara is everyone's favorite instructor.

Jake is very imposing and military and inspiring. Jake is everything the kids need him to be. Jake slips away from the party early and tears off his uniform before disappearing down a side street in his civilian clothes

Nate has the visible emotional human reaction of milk curdling and goes after him

Dr. Gottlieb and Liwen Shao are talking to someone about how they're making progress on the rift but they need help. Someone in particular who knows about alien tech. He's coming in on the next flight, actually. The person they're explaining this to gives a disbelieving "no..."

NEWTON

Wakes up in his house in the middle of fuckass nowhere. Somewhere away from technology he could theoretically use For Evil, or people he could theoretically hurt. This is, however, a self-imposed isolation, as he seems to have been granted his freedom, conditionally.

We see his morning routine, featuring normal stuff like making coffee, panic attack in the shower ft. indistinct memories of the Precursors, taking a massive dose of PPDC-granted experimental medication, starting the car, another indistinct alien trauma flashback, listening to the radio on the way to the airport where people appear to recognize him and he low-key has a panic attack because oh God everyone knows what I did

Jake leaves the bar and runs into Nate, who gives him the old Argh Argh Responsibility And Pride talk and Jake is like yeah man I know shut up

They have a fistfight in the rain and the neon lights in the alley outside the bar

No one properly wins because they've drifted so many times and they can predict each other's attacks but they both land a few and take a few, Jake gets hit a bit more because he's drunk

They both end up just sitting in the rain feeling sorry for themselves

Nate: Jules proposed to her girlfriend.

Jake: I know

Nate: they're getting married.

Jake: yeah that usually happens when someone proposes

So Jules wasn't going to end up with either of them and they're both sad about it. Nate suddenly suggests they go back in the bar. He'll buy Jake a drink to make up for beating him up. Jake is like ok sure but the drink's gonna be soda because I was LEAVING the bar because I was ALREADY drunk

They share a Soda Of Angst at the bar and talk about how they're gonna die alone. Jake says "at least we've got each other" and it's impossible to tell if he's joking. Nate is like "you know what this place isn't that bad we should come back sometime."

Newton reaches the lab. He is terrified of Liwen and awkward around Hermann. He instinctively calls Liwen "boss" and she reminds him matter-of-factly that they're working as equals now, "since you ruined my life's work."

Hermann asks how the medication is working and Newton indicates that it works fine but he still gets anxiety about it not being enough. Hermann promises him it's been proven effective, thus why the PPDC let him out of his crimes against humanity iron cell of shame. It's revealed that what they're giving him is a stronger dose of a medication originally developed for burned-out Jaeger pilots with unmanageable symptoms, and that it blocks out memories related to the drift--and since this is how the Precursors were reaching him, this works to block out their influence. The cost is that Newton doesn't remember much of anything past building his own neural bridge. He knows it happened but the details won't load. He's constantly worrying that it's not enough, that the Precursors will come back, and is taking a dangerously high dose that gives him constant hand tremors and worse insomnia than usual.

The first time he and Hermann are left alone they have an uncomfortable attempt at talking which gradually turns into an argument about nothing in particular. Newt keeps calling him Hermann but it sounds Wrong and Hermann hasn't been allowing people to just use his first name here and he finally snaps at Newton to stop it and he's like "oh my God I can't call you your NAME? what the hell am I supposed to call you??"

Newt says something angsty and Hermann says something like 'yes well the nicest thing that ever happened to me was drifting with a dead and decaying piece of kaiju viscera' and he says it sardonically but he's serious

Newt doesn't remember any context for the time they drifted.

Newt assumes he's being maliciously sarcastic and starts SCREAMING at him

Hermann just looks at him in shock at first then just lets him go for a little while

Eventually shutting his mouth by jabbing him under the chin with his cane and saying, very quietly and coldly, "get out of my lab"

Newton gets out of the lab

Newton runs into Nate and Jake at The Angst Bar and they recognize him but he has no idea who they are but he's willing to just roll with it at this point and asks them if they know Hermann well enough to give him advice

"like that was sarcasm right? I'm pretty sure he was making fun of me but now I'm less sure idk"

Nate's: no he's immune to sarcasm

Jake: yeah it's kinda funny

Nate: *the gaze*

Jake: I mean, nothing wrong with that, but yeah if he was being sarcastic that'd be first time it's happened as far as I can tell

Newt: are. Are you telling me. That someone actually. For some reason. Offered me a sincere compliment. And. I yelled at him

Jake: that's your call, I mean, you know him better than us, right? You guys were friends right?

Newton, who doesn't remember any of these people:

Nate: I mean I wasn't there, only way to tell is to go back and ask him

Newt: aaaaaaa

Newton goes back and Liwen is like "hey I've got no idea what's going on here but can you weirdos just act normal for two seconds so we can get some work done" and Hermann and Newt both just kinda. Laser focus on rift stuff

Remember the guy with the "no why would you involve Newton"reaction? No because he's but important and has no name or real identity? Yeah ok every Pacific Rim movie needs one Designated Douchebag to cause Interpersonal Drama and this guy is it. I'll call him DD for short

DD shows up and is like oh my God you actually turned Newton loose in the lab?? Why would you do this we're all going to die

Everyone just ignores him

Designated Douchebag has the self-importance of a high elf and the confidence of a fucking walnut and doesn't like being ignored

And starts talking directly to Newton, which really freaks Newton out but he continues pretending to ignore him

DD: so you're safe now? Not going to start speaking alien gibberish?

Newton: don't plan on it

Hermann, without turning around: DD you may not like to hear this but it was never your business who we brought in to assist, we don't need your permission, and complaining about Newton now that he's already here is certainly not going to do any good.

DD: alright fine but you'd better keep a close eye on him.

DD: anyways Newton tell your girlfriend I said hi

Newton, blank: who?

DD: you know, Alice?

Newton's face registers several emotions as he grapples with a name from the buried memories-confusion, disgust, terror-mostly shock

There is an abrupt cut

Liwen, thinking her two colleagues were acclimated to each other enough to allow her to leave the room and get tea without disaster, is walking back down the hallway talking with a lab tech when they hear the sound of something breaking

A moment later the doors to the lab are flung open and DD is forcibly ejected, collapsing on the floor in front of them. Dr. Gottlieb exits the lab behind him, holding his cane like a cricket bat. There is a muffled sound of Newton yelling OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING

Liwen backs out of range of cane damage and sips her tea, mildly intrigued. The lab tech starts to run for help and nearly crashes into Nate and Jake, who came running to see what the yelling was about.

Nate: what is--

Dr. Gottlieb, panting with restrained bloodlust: HELLO SIRS GOOD TO SEE YOU I BELIEVE THERE'S BEEN A SECURITY BREACH BECAUSE THIS FELLOW HAS JUST BEEN CASUALLY CHATTING ABOUT RESTRICTED CLASS-J49 INFORMATION PLEASE LOCK HIM UP

DD: it's COMMON KNOWLEDGE and he ATTACKED me

Dr. Gottlieb: YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID SIR!! *He takes a handkerchief out of his pocket and wipes some blood off the handle of his cane*

Nate: WHAT is happening

Newton: *trying to have a quiet hysterical laughter meltdown in the lab before anyone remembers he's there*

Anyways next plot point. An alien shows up

Not a Precursor! A nice alien

Listen if PR:U gets to pull all that bullshit with Mt Fuji I'm allowed to add aliens okay

Hermann should have a nice non-genocidal alien friend I think he deserves it

Anyways the alien is clearly a different species than the Precursors (or Kaiju) and seems friendly but they can't communicate with it, the linguistics team is working on it but it's going to take A Lot of Work

Hermann goes "hm I've got a quicker and more accurate option"and wheels out the drift interface

This alien's mind doesn't link well with human minds but Hermann is a pro and powers through

He gets seasick and throws up and finally comes out shaky with a bloody nose and eye but he's managed to communicate!

The alien is a diplomat from another world the Precursors attempted to colonize, they survived because the Precursors underestimated the humans' resilience and spread themselves too thin, trying to invade earth and the alien homeworld at the same time and then getting distracted dealing with the humans, which left the aliens time to prepare their defense

They're here to help with the war effort, they don't have a lot that's relevant to current human scientific understanding but they can help fill in some of the gaps in the human's knowledge about rifts

They're making progress! Yay!

Things are getting serious, training montage Jake and Nate and the new pilots getting ready to kick ass

Newton finally brings himself to apologize to Hermann and explain he was confused but the net progress here is still zero because then they immediately have ANOTHER argument

Hermann has started writing his notes in the alien's language, he wants to make sure he can remember it well enough to help the linguistics team, and it's also beautifully precise and he just loves it and loves that he's able to write it, come on who wouldn't be proud of being the first contact human

Newton sees a bunch of notes of Alien Gibberish (to him) and gets Bad Vibes

Newton doesn't think they can trust the alien, Hermann does but his proof is mainly "I can tell because I drifted with them" and Newton 1. Doesn't remember what that's like and 2. DOES remember that the last time he thought it was a good idea to drift with an alien he ended up nearly killing literally everyone on earth

They yell at each other some more

At some point Hermann tries to deescalate and asks why they can't be friends again and Newton, still yelling, says "people keep acting like we're friends and I don't remember it! As far as I'm concerned this is all we ever had! I barely remember you at all and what I do remember is that we hated each other!"

Hermann: ....I never hated you. .. alright, colleagues, then? We've got a rift to build

Newton, still hyperventilating slightly: ok ok yeah sure yeah

Interlude: Jules gets married!

She asks Hermann to walk her down the aisle (where she meets her wife, who walked down the opposite aisle to meet in the middle)

Newton, protesting "I don't know I don't feel like I should be here," is physically dragged into the venue by Liwen, who is telling him that this is a diplomatic event it's his duty to be at.

She drags him over to Hermann and settles between them, soaking in the chaotic gay science panic vibes

She seems to be enjoying herself

Jules sees Hermann in the audience and an evil gleam comes into her eye

She has a strong arm

She hurls her bouquet directly at his face

Hermann ducks, panic granting him lightning quick reflexes

The bouquet, travelling at about Mach 5, zooms past him and hits Jake Pentecost squarely in the nose

He inhales several petals of baby's breath and gets slapped in the eyelid by a vine and goes into a dramatic coughing fit. Nate pounds him on the back.

Alien, speaking through a translating device they've got set up (it isn't perfect but it works on a basic level mostly): is it bad luck to touch the flowers?

Hermann, still slightly panicked from the near miss: no it's ahh, there's this silly tradition that whoever catches the bouquet is likely to get married next, and ah, as you see there, sometimes a bride with a sense of humor will, err, intentionally aim it at someone who, uh, didn't necessarily want it?

Alien: I think I understand. My sibling often tells me to go the southern hills of ^°^=^^°^°^^°°= to find a mate, though I have told them many times that I have no such desire.

Nate and Jake are like "ok neither of us have a date I guess we're drinking our sorrows away together at the reception" and do that

And maybe make out a little bit

Neither of them is ready to deal with Feelings so they both just blame it on the alcohol and try not to think about it too hard

Newton, venting @ someone, explains that there's an empty space in his memory where he knows that that something about Hermann is supposed to go and it doesn't feel like the other, worse memories he's blocked out, it feels like he lost something precious, but he has no idea what that is

Hermann tells Newton he's been working on a device that might block out the Precursors' influence without affecting his memory, so he can use all of his knowledge. And so he isn't constantly so confused about who he does and doesn't know but he doesn't say that part

It connects to his skin a bit like a drift interface

Newton is terrified but enthusiastic about maybe being Less Confused All the Time

The fact that he is guarded by a full security detail to make sure he doesn't Become Evil Again the whole time he's going off his meds really doesn't help the stress much

Memories start coming back but they're confused and jumbled and at first he's not much better off

The Precursor nightmares are about what he expected but he keeps hearing Hermann's voice in there too and he's not sure why and he can't remember when he heard it like that

Meanwhile Hermann keeps needing to drift with the alien to clarify important details about the rift that they don't know how to translate into human terms, but it fucks him up a little bit more each time he does it until the last time he passes out for like at hour and wakes up disoriented with a nosebleed that just won't stop and Jake orders him to stop drifting

He's ok with that because they've got the information they needed anyway!

IT'S TIME, THEY'RE SENDING THE JAEGERS INTO THE RIFT

Newton, despite his misgivings, reluctantly joins Liwen, dr. Gottlieb and the alien in command to supervise the mission, still wearing the device and getting random bursts of confused memory

Jake and Nate are piloting the Lady Avenger (did u know gypsy is a slur and they prefer to be called Romani) and go though first and start punching Precursors and their bodyguard Kaiju

Newton goes very still and just stares at Hermann for like a solid minute while he's trying to work, his expression shifting to something new

Hermann, softly: what?

Newton, smiling: I remember you.

Hermann, furiously trying to interpret alien data: is this really the best time??

It's a close fight across the rift, the Precursors are on their home turf and the Jaegers are not, fighting in a bizarre low-gravity environment that doesn't really have floors

Their base is set up differently than expected and Hermann decides he needs to check something with the alien. By drifting with them. He's still bleeding uncontrollably after the last stunt that got him banned but he's determined to do it because It's Necessary

Newton takes the headset from him and puts it on instead

It feels Bad

But then he sees another planet, beautiful, so different from his own yet so similar. He sees aliens attacked by monsters from the deep, responding more or less how the humans had, moving inland, building useless walls, building their own monsters for defense. He sees the alien diplomat losing friends and family.

He sees the journey to earth, and drifting with Hermann. He sees the alien's memories of Hermann, and Hermann's memories in the drift. He sees how Hermann remembers him. What he forgot. What the Precursors had blinded him to.

He doesn't have time to think about it because he's feverishly trying to translate the knowledge he's receiving into data that works with their human technology so they can help the Jaegers and there's blood dripping from his face onto the controls but it's there, in the back of his mind, he knows now. Hermann missed him.

The Lady Avenger is hit and Jake is knocked unconscious. They begin to drift downwards as Nate, unable to move the Jaeger alone, yells at Jake with no response

Newton disconnects from the drift, nearly blacks out, and has to sit down for a minute. When he comes back around he sees the Jaegers are in trouble--none completely disabled yet, but they need more help

Newton has an idea

Newton: ok I'm gonna do something stupid. *To his security detail* listen I need you to aim your guns at me and shoot if you think I'm out of control

Liwen, with zero hesitation, reacting quicker than anyone else in the room, pulls out a gun and sticks it right in his face

Newton: see, yeah, that's what I was saying, like that. Thanks boss, glad someone here's got guts.

Liwen: not your boss

Newton: I kinda like saying it tho

Liwen: hm. I'll allow it.

Newton: ok. Hermann--uh

Hermann, hearing his name said right this time: it's ok

Newton: :) ok cool I'm going to deactivate the blocking device I need you to turn it back on as soon as I squeeze your hand, can you do that

Hermann: absolutely.

The Precursors are a hive mind. In battle, when pressed, they can force their thoughts outwards, confusing and scrambling the communications of other species while keeping in contact with each other. This is going well and normal until there's an unexpected distortion which resolves into Newton's voice

Yelling WHAT'S UP MOTHERFUCKERS I'M BACK

(epic Tom Morello riff)

Newton can't keep the connection open for more than a few seconds before they start to overwhelm him, Hermann pulls him back. It was enough to confuse the Precursors and give the jaegers an advantage.

During the delay, Jake wakes up. He's disoriented and in pain and so is Nate, still linked to him, but they can move again. They one-hit-k/o the Precursor that was creeping up on them, turn around, and realize they've drifted almost right into the reactor they've been looking for

So they blow it up

Hermann is still holding Newton's hand as everyone else celebrates. He looks at Newton for confirmation, who nods in relief.

"they're gone. Well, those ones are, anyway."

Humans start opening rifts across the galaxy to kick Precursor ass across multiple star systems

(epic Tom Morello riff intensifies)

Humans team up with multiple alien races previously menaced by the Precursors to take out their common enemy. Jaeger tech is combined with alien science, humans and aliens drifting

They figure out how to use a recording of Newton's Precursor-influenced brainwaves as a weapon to confuse them

So basically Newton makes a recording of himself screaming at the Precursors that's weaponized by teams across the galaxy and it's incredibly cathartic

Jake, in a hospital, is woken up by an infuriating snoring noise. Nate is sleeping in a chair by his bed. He's both annoyed and touched. Mostly the latter.

Hermann writes a book in what is now his third language, the alien script precise and beautiful

We see Newton and Hermann getting dressed together for an Important Event, they're both complaining about having to go but seem not to mind too much. Newton ties his tie too loose, like in the good old days. Hermann fixes it for him.

No one died

The free peoples of the galaxy took down the Precursors with no casualties and the power of screaming