#i have had most of this lore for years and years

[vampmira]

open up what you got in your mind to me. [pt.1 – huntrix]

they've never met someone like you — a mortal who almost knew them .. better than they knew themselves. for the boys, it's annoyingly intriguing. for the girls, it's comforting.

paring(s): huntrix & saja boys x demon expert!gn!reader

warning(s): some movie changes, probably effected lore that makes no sense for the sake of the narrative

request: here ! this is part 1 – i loved it so much i had to make 2 parts hehe ,,, part 2 is here !

your family worked with the demon hunters for generations – mortals who studied the demons, found their strengths and weaknesses, worked as field researcher on demonology alongside the hunter to keep the honmoon safe.

unfortunately, your ancestors were unpowerful beyond their intellect and aura vision. physically, they were weak – protected only by the hunters. becayse of this, there was .. an accident. the demons found the weaknesses of the hunters – their darling researchers, so they did what demons would do.

thousands of years of pages and books and studies were lost in their attack. most information was mentally stored by hunters, but a substantial amount was still lost in physical ink. in modern times, these researchers are almost myths to hunters – legends. however, mythology tales say that the descendents of the researchers have all knowledge of the honmoon and the demons sealed away by it. of course, it remained apart of the stories celine told rumi, mira, and zoey growing up ... all until they met you.

they met you at a hidden pastry shop in seoul, hidden in an alleyway around the same area as that wack doctor zoey had so much faith in

it was the only place open after practice and rumi, as tired as she was, guided the girls in to enjoy the warm lighting and atmosphere

after declining the offers to go to the bathhouse for the 100th time, she thought this could be the perfect way to make it up to them

she ordered a few treats – mochi for herself, a little apple pie for zoey, steamed red bean buns for mira, and matcha for them all

the girls talked quietly, waiting for their order, until you called rumi up to retrieve the neatly wrapped box of sweets

when she came up to you, your fingers wrapped around her wrist, cold and startling

"i'm not sure how you got in here..", her eyes met yours, now void of the warmth you once held when she walked in, "but if a demon is ordering pastries from me, times must have changed." she shuttered under your hushed voice.

"d-demon...?" her skin was fully covered. even though her markings hadn't spread too far yet, she took precautions regardless, worried of the news that might ruin her relationships.

"i noticed your aura when you sat down. though, you don't seem that threatening... and the honmoon is completely intact aroun–"

"how do you..?" her eyes shook, almost pure horror behind them. there's tension between you two, fueled by her anxiety of being seen, of being exposed when her members were just right by the door. you studied her, her friends, and their auras alike, before you half smiled at her.

"my ancestors and yours were... very close." your voice rose, catching the attention of the pink and black haired girls. "do hunters not teach about researchers anymore?"

the three of them surrounded you quickly, eyes bright and curious

things like "we thought they were myths!!" and "you know about the honmoon!?" were thrown at you immediately

you debunked their mythology left and right, spending an hour after closing chatting with them

they felt.. seen? YOU felt seen!

you could finally talk to others about your aura vision and they could FINALLY get their hunter secrets off their chest

maybe it wasn't the best idea to spill it all in such a public place but who else would listen ?

celine got a very chaotic phone call later that night

and you? you got an invite to a luxurious penthouse and a few new friends

since then, you've helped them immensely

your memory was working like an endless library of information

you'd show them old diagrams your greatest great great great great grandparents had tucked away

discuss old journals that survived the attacks that became family heirlooms

told them fun facts about demons

especially to zoey, who seemed very intrigued by the fact that all demons had a weak spot in their chests due to their lack of personal souls

even, eventually, helped rumi tell the girls about her marks

zoey and mira were stunned in silence. rumi's arms were exposed, hands shaking in anxious terror, but you were right by her side. celine told her to always hide them but .. you understood. you accepted her mere minutes after meeting her. maybe the girls would do the same.

"rumi is.. something fascinating." you admitted. it sounded blunt, but you expressed it with a look of soft excitement. "she has mixed blood – the marks of a demon, the voice, soul, and heart of a hunter. she's never once lied about the kindness of her heart... the traits of hunters overpower any demon urges." you spoke for rumi as she stood there, feeling naked and scared under the judging eyes of her closest friends. "she's a pure experiment – but she's no less rumi. her aura proves that."

it took a few hours of conversations, explanations from both you, the expert, and her, the secret holder, but eventually, zoey and mira engulfed her in a hug – promising to keep the secret contained between the four of you. not even telling celine, in case she got them all in trouble. the golden honmoon was so close.. they'd be able to do this together, especially now that they have you.

during the events of the movie, they needed you a lot

but the last thing they wanted was a repeat of the accident

so they kept you their secret weapon ! working with you behind the scenes and away from the actual action

when the saja boys grabbed everyone's attention with their beautiful bodies and alluring voices, you were staring at their markings, especially at the joint fansigning they held

jinu noticed you about as much as he noticed bobby – just another person on staff

that is until he noticed how you stared at him

not ogling, but studying,, writing things down in the notebook you carried, covered in huntrix stickers

be lucky he noticed you over baby or mystery, otherwise you may have been targeted by their powers to throw you and huntrix off

he asked about you to rumi once .. the "mysterious person" on their staff that "always wrote in that notebook"

she was more worried about your safety than opening up to him but .. she thought..

if you helped her reveal herself to huntrix, maybe you could help jinu and the saja boys ?

they never expressed wanting help but she couldn't help but think about it

you hopped on board with her plan in secret, working on ways out of their servitude to gwima

it took a while but you figured that if you could channel your aura vision and hold them above the honmoon when it sealed, they could be healed of their marks too, human disguises left in tact.

it was only a matter of time before you tried it out.

[draconym]

I mostly follow you on you point of view about helping people that needs help.

But at some point, you don't owe them more than the minimum, if they actively disrespect you.

Driving your mean ex to the ER was the best decision. Staying with him the next 3 days, I'm not sure.

If you keep going the extra mile for people who won't for you...

You waste a lot of time and energy for something that will make you ultimately feel sad and disappointed because they won't miraculously guess what you expect from them, and might not be willing to give it to you. Some probably don't even expect you to do so much, and will feel burdened rather than grateful. (It sucks, I know, I've been there, but sometimes people don't appreciate help and you have to learn to care less about them, that's also part of respecting their boundaries)

But ultimately, for the first issue you addressed, you need to learn to ask for help and be explicit. It's also unreasonable to expect people to guess what you want if you don't state it explicitly. I know it's hard because you might be met with refusal, and it hurts. And that's quite scary. But you've been there before, and survived. And remember, this is the worst thing that happened. Besides, the fear of being hurt is usually way worse than the actual hurt. The most likely result will be acceptance. It's easier to start with small stuff. That way, the day you really need help, you'll know who's reliable and for what

Point well taken, which is why I'm trying to work on asking for help. In my experience, being rejected by someone you love when you already need help is genuinely pretty terrible, and it's happened to me more times than I can recall. But, as you pointed out, asking for help before it's an emergency is kind of a key step, even when it's hard.

As for my ex, the doctors told me he was dying, and seeing as how we had been together for several years and he had only left me a few days prior to being hospitalized, I was still very much in love with him and wouldn't have wanted him to die alone. He lived, though! So there's some mildly fucked up Draconym lore for you.

[tprings-hair]

what happened on tarsus iv?

this is my attempt at creating a definitive list of information on what kirk experienced on tarsus iv for fic writers and other fans who want to know wtf is up with kirk's backstory.

(I have a longer, more general post on tos kirk's backstory here.)

"Kodos the Executioner, summary. Governor of Tarsus Four twenty Earth years ago. Invoked martial law. Slaughtered fifty percent of population Earth colony, that planet. Burned body found when Earth forces arrived. No positive identification. Case closed."

let's start with this quote from spock, detailing the information he found on their ship's computer.

first of all: at its core, this episode is tos's take on the nazis who escaped capture. adolf eichmann was only found in 1960, and would certainly have been in the public memory as a high profile nazi who managed to make a new life under an assumed name. he was not the only one to have escaped capture, and I don't think I need to explain which conspiracy theory the circumstances of kodos's faked death call to mind.

this episode was an exploration of what form cruelty and authoritarianism might take in star trek's universe, with a huge amount of influence from shakespeare's work. the two together make up this central dilemma: is it kodos? might kirk be condemning an innocent man? if it is kodos, does kirk have the right to act as judge, jury, and executioner? is it possible for someone who carried out terrible acts to live a new life somewhere else, and not have the violence follow?

SPOCK: According to our library banks, it started on the Earth colony of Tarsus IV, when the food supply was attacked by an exotic fungus and largely destroyed. There were over eight thousand colonists and virtually no food. And that was when Governor Kodos seized full power and declared emergency martial law.

MCCOY: I've heard of it.

SPOCK: You may not have heard it all. Kodos began to separate the colonists. Some would live, be rationed whatever food was left. The remainder would be immediately put to death. Apparently he had his own theories of eugenics.

MCCOY: Unfortunately, he wasn't the first.

SPOCK: Perhaps not. But he was certainly among the most ruthless, to decide arbitrarily who would survive and who would not, using his own personal standards, and then to implement his decision without mercy. Children watching their parents die. Whole families destroyed. Over four thousand people. They died quickly, without pain, but they died. Relief arrived, but too late to prevent the executions. And Kodos? There never was a positive identification of his body.

the thing is, this introduces a number of inconsistencies. it could easily be chalked up to confusion between multiple drafts of the script, but if you want to look deeper and see where the information comes from, you'll notice the two survivors have very different stories than the official starfleet record.

specifically, spock says that they died quickly and painlessly, and though he is sure that karidian is kodos, he does not seem to treat him as a legitimate threat to anyone's safety. we don't know if kodos ever directly killed anyone, or if he only gave the orders. but kirk and leighton seem to agree on the violence: leighton refers to his own injury as "the bloody thing (kodos) did", and kirk recalls kodos "blasting" others out of existence. it's possible kirk was saying it to confuse kodos, so kodos might say "that's not how it happened" and give himself away. it's also possible that leighton sustained his injury at a different time than the massacre. it seems likeliest to me in any case that the information on the ship's computer is not the entire truth.

which also means you can headcanon whatever you want and nobody can tell you definitively that you're wrong. be free with your tarsus iv headcanons.

exploring the tarsus iv lore (or lack of it) has led me to this sort of consensus in the fandom that kirk was looking after a group of children. I think it's a very cool way of exploring how central it is to his character that he has to be in control, protecting people, and fighting back, and I've read and enjoyed some absolutely fantastic fics with that premise. even william shatner seems to agree. in his novel collision course (which gives kirk and spock a sort of alternate first meeting as teenagers and gives some great insights into how shatner viewed kirk's backstory), kirk ().

the ship's computer specifies the number of survivors later in the episode as nine, and lists them as

Kirk, J., Leighton, T., Moulton, E., Riley, K., Eames, D.

before kirk cuts it off. once leighton dies, the last two surviving are kirk and riley.

the novelization by james blish names a couple more characters, and in order of age: Leighton, T., Molson, E., Kirk, J., Wiegand, R., Eames, S., and Daiken, R., which was what they called the role of kevin riley initially. he is specified as being five years old at the time, and kirk is not a child or teen but a midshipman.

and collision course names still more characters. edith zaglada, an eight year old girl who kirk saw killed. donny, tay, and billy are named as other survivors. this novel doesn't get into kodos's motivations or kirk's circumstances, but it gives us two new characters, griffyn and matthew, who are teenagers employed by kodos as bounty hunters for escapees of the initial massacre. starfleet arrives just as edith is shot and griffyn is trying to convince matthew to shoot kirk. we don't really know if kirk knew any of the other survivors, but he mentions edith's name specifically a few times as a death that affected him a lot. it's heartbreaking to watch city on the edge of forever with that in mind. I also can't find a source for anyone calling him JT, but collision course does call him jimmy during the flashback chapters.

crucially, the novel isn't technically canon. so you can have your gang of children led by JT, or you can have jimmy stick with a couple of people, or you could do something totally your own. none of these are wrong! do whatever your heart desires.

if you want some practical details, there's a great post here by @spirk-trek and pt 1, pt 2, and pt 3 of a great post by @pywren. I may make my own tarsus iv headcanon post if anyone is interested, and if I do I'll link it here.

[falmerbrook]

Western Solstice/Season of the Worm Cult 1 Thoughts

TLDR: Liked the zone, liked the side quests, liked the basic narrative of the main quest but wasn't happy with its execution/dialogue.

So you know that thing I’ve brought up before about how the writing in this game tries to have its cake and eat it too? Where they want every zone story to be accessible to new players (and players who forgot anything or don’t pay attention to what’s going on) while still having reoccurring characters and plot threads? And how in the end it does a disservice to both; to the story as its own thing and as a continuation of things? Yeah, well I think I reached the end of my patience in this zone with that problem. I like the story itself, but am frustrated with its execution.

Major spoilers under the cut (also sorry this is so long)

Ok, first of all, things I liked:

Skordo my beloved <3. Always a king. His voice is back to normal. I cherish him.

I liked the zone itself! I was kinda expecting it to be small and empty, and while it was empty in the same way a lot of the more recent zones have been, I was pleasantly surprised by how big and like a real island it felt. Sunport and the Writhing Wall are such good set pieces and are gorgeous at sunrise and sunset, and I thought the sight lines everywhere were really good and helped it feel like an expansive place. I also liked the aesthetics of the tropical setting, the Argonians, and the mix of Argonian and Altmer architecture in Sunport. Just a cool place overall.

I also liked the worldbuilding and side quests! The history and culture and religion of the Corelanyans and Tide Born was very cool and imo a good addition to the world. I always love seeing cultures that are shaped by their environment and having the Tide Born be a hist-less Argonian culture whose way of life and beliefs have adapted to island living was super awesome. The history and development of both cultures just felt very natural to me (e.g. the Corelanyans going from necromancers who made deals with daedric princes to worshipping some of the more morally acceptable princes). I'm excited to hopefully learn more about the Stone Nest in Eastern Solstice since it sounds like they are Argonians still following the older ways with Xanmeers and the lot. The Nords felt kinda out of place, but were interesting enough to get a pass from me (and that quest with them was cute).

On the note of quests, I like the side quests! I had a good time with them! I particularly liked the Meridia temple one (always cool to get more Meridia lore and seeing characters have crises of faith imo), the ghost hunting one, and the Tide Born village one.

My feelings about the main quest are more mixed, but on the positive side I thought the narrative itself (ignoring execution) had enough compelling and interesting point to keep me invested in what was happening next or where things were going. I already like the set up of this storyline being split in two this year because it gives us opportunities to have hints and implication dropped now that we can muse over that will be resolved in the next part (e.g. what's going on with Vanus, who his ally is, etc.).

Also I fucking love angst. Thank you Gabrielle Benele for fulfilling my angsty needs. I am almost certainly not going to be satisfied with the pay off of it but for now I can revel in the heartbreak. Love you Gabby <3

EDIT: forgot to mention but I also liked the roleplaying options. I know some were dissatisfied with the them not having huge effect, but dialogue options that continue the story in the same direction but just elicit a different response from the other characters is pretty much exactly what I wanted.

On the note of dissatisfaction though...

On to my concerns and issues.

Just let me get it off my chest one more time. If I have to here "Gah-bri-elle" or "Gaudy-er" one more time I'm skinning myself. Ok, ok, it's out of my system now.

So I really think the main story here is the most egregious example of the issues I brought up at the beginning so far. This expansion was literally marketed as a sequel to the base game's main quest, yet the characters (almost all of whom are characters we got close to in the base game) barely acknowledge any relationship we may have with them, nor the information we'd likely already know. The Vestige is really at their most moronic here and it was getting to the point it frustrated me. The characters kept explaining things to me that happened in the base game and prologue like our character wasn't there, and the dialogue prompts for the Vestige that were need to progress conversations also assumed we had no idea what was going on. Like I've said before, this is a writing problem that permeates the whole game, but it felt really absurd here given the marketing for this story and the characters present. Especially because, I feel like if I was a new player, I would get, like, nothing out of this story. Outside of a few moments (namely Gabrielle's confession at Li-Xal or optional dialogue with Raz) we don't really get any moments to connect with the characters (and the intention with that Gabrielle moment is probably more to foreshadow her actions later than have a moment to get to know a character tbh, as much as I loved it). I feel like all of my investment in them is based on past adventures with them, so if I was a player who didn't remember them or hadn't met them before, all of the emotional beats at the end of this story would've had no weight I think. Acknowledging that, why is the dialogue written for those players first, and the players who are keeping up with these things are just given a few optional dialogue options at the ends of conversations sometimes? I've had random ass side characters from delve quests I didn't remember have more personal dialogue with the Vestige than these reoccurring characters we've literally been to hell with.

I don't know what kind of player this is meant to appeal to. is it new players? Is it players returning for the first time in awhile who forgot? Is it player who don't pay attention to the stories of quests? I don't know, and to be honest, I feel like they shouldn't be the ones being catered to primarily for a story like this one. Rather than starting out dialogue/conversations assuming we don't know what's going on and then throwing us bones later in the conversation, start out dialogue (if we've completed the requisite quests) assuming we know what's going on and then later throw a bone to the folks who don't. Just accept that people who are going into this without having played a single other story in this game or who mash through the dialogue are going to be confused. Maybe I'm being callous, but I feel like that's on them. I feel a little ridiculous feeling this way, but it was genuinely starting to piss me off in this story that it felt like the stuff I'd done in the past had no impact on what was happening there. No game, I know who Darien and Vanus are. Why are you assuming I don't? I know you can tell I've completed the quests with them before! I'd rather you develop the story or characters more than waste more time reiterating what I already know.

I get that having options to recap who's who and what's going on is helpful because obviously not everyone is going to remember anything, but I was rereading some dialogue from Elsweyr and I feel like that storyline handled balancing that so much better (Elsewyr is honestly peak character writing in general).

The main quest was also weirdly short, which didn't help this issue. Each individual quest in it was a lot shorter than I think they've been in pretty much every expansion, and there weren't many of them either (and the side quests felt longer than usual I think too?). Like, I didn't think it was paced badly, it just didn't have a lot of the waffling around trying to figure out some mystery that other stories have had. Which sounds like it would be a good thing when I type it out like this, but in hindsight I think that length is good for helping us get to know and get invested in the characters, and I just felt like we didn't have almost any of those moments here. It was like the bare minimum was a satisfyingly structured story. There weren't many slower times to get to know the characters or get a vibe on what they are thinking or feeling about current situations. For exmaple with Wormblood, it felt like he barely existed as a person and not a vessel for Mannimarco to possess at the end. While the drama of Gabrielle's sacrifice was *chefs kiss* and I liked the foreshadowing up to it, I am pretty sad she's gone since I wish we had more time with her in this story (I'm huffing copium rn that she ends up coming back somehow, extra permanent death be damned!!). Anyway, I'm hoping part 2 is longer (and doesn't get bogged down trying to explain to me who's who), and I'm choosing to remain optimistic about it.

Any finally, I'm a little worried about Darien. Idk it's hard to explain but also everything at the end happens so fast that I'm still trying to mull over it in my head (and UESP hasn't put up the dialogue yet waaaahhhhhhh). But basically, between Gabrielle and Skordo talking about Darien as if he's been dead since the assaults on Coldharbour (and them not mentioning at all how every other time we've seen Gabrielle she's basically been dedicating her life to finding Darien and insisting he's not dead), the way he's brought back implying he was dead, and Darien's dialogue once he's back, I have this nagging feeling in my head that they're overlooking or ignoring what happened in Summerset?? Maybe?? I might be dumb but I was under the impression he wasn't actually dead. I'm sorry idk how to explain it but the vibes are off and Darien's dialogue was confusing to me. Maybe I'm just being stupid.

idk I think a lot of this is just on me. Maybe I had my expectations too high. Which is a little odd for me because they weren't very high after seeing the reactions from PTS folks. I was thinking I'll try to lower them for part 2 but I also like being excited for things so knowing me I probably won't.

Anyway, hopes and predictions for part 2 to end on a higher note:

I'm hoping (coping) that when the story got split up it got split unevenly and this is more like 1/3 of the story rather than 1/2, so there will be more main story in the next part. I'm also hoping that this will truly be a part 2 of the same story, rather than a wishy-washy kinda part 2 like the DLCs used to be like.

I'm hoping my issues with the dialogue will be at least partly alleviated in part 2 because it’ll be a part 2 (like the epilogues in the yearly storylines)

I'm not at all worried about the side quests really. Looking forward to them.

I'm very excited (and very very nervous) to have Darien back. I don't really have any predictions I just really really hope they don't fuck it up and whatever they do with him feels satisfying.

I'm looking forward to seeing what ends up happenings to Mannimarco/Wormblood and Vanus. Is Wormblood still in there too or are we just facing Mannimarco from here on out? If Wormblood is still present in his body somehow, will there be conflict between him and Mannimarco? hmmmmmm

I wonder who Vanus's ally is? He kept mentioning having one and that didn't get resolved to I bet it will be addressed in part 2.

I'm curious if Gabrielle is truly dead-dead or if they're gonna pull something off with her. Everyone is talking about her like she's dead-dead so I guess that's the case, but also we don't truly know how the Gift of Death/Light of Meridia works. I'll be fine with either I think. If she stays dead, I hope they keep some weight to it instead of just moving on and never bringing it up again (not optimistic about that one), and if she comes back I hope there are still some consequences to her sacrifice rather than it being a return to the status quo. Whatever happens, I just hope it’s narratively satisfying.

[gece-misin-nesin]

I am a self-professed hater of the Master of the Heavenly Yard novel. I think there are a bunch of problems with it, and here are the main ones for clarity's sake:

The antagonists and their plan are incredibly out of left field and are only kind of foreshadowed vaguely in album booklets

The antagonist LINEUP is weird (irina, gallerian, gammon, etc.)

There are not enough cameos and especially not enough cameos that MATTER

Allen is suddenly the main character despite not mattering ever since Cloture of Yellow and Wiegenlied of Green (discounting his cameos in other novels such as Fith, Pierrot)

People's character arcs disappear for no reason (Specifically Rilliane)

If you don't want to read what is more of a rant than actual critique/analysis, the TLDR is that I think there should have been another novel between Muzzle of Nemesis and Master of the Heavenly Yard. From here on I will mostly use acronyms and shortened names for stuff.

The antagonists and their plan is incredibly out of left field and is only kind of foreshadowed vaguely in album booklets

and

The antagonist LINEUP is weird (irina, gallerian, gammon, etc.)

Number 1 and 2 kind of go together, so I'll talk about them interchangably. The biggest issue with these two is that they both suffer from "hey, where did THIS come from?".

This is mainly because, for some reason, mothy (the writer) never elaborated on Evils Theater, its inhabitants, and what the fuck they're doing at any point. We only get minor glimpses like Capriccio Farce or the album booklets. On its own, this isn't so bad. We have a lot of stuff we don't know about Evillious' history. However, most of those things don't end up being incredibly important in the literal FINALE of the series.

Now, the final villain in the mothy novel is Ma. However, for a large portion of the book, our main antagonists are: Gammon, Gallerian, Michelle, Irina, Adam (kind of), and Eve (kind of). Now, I don't think I really need to spell out why this is an odd group but I will anyways.

First, we get no indication that ALL of these guys TOGETHER somehow had enough contact with each other to form a detailed plan regarding the end of the world.

Two, Gammon and Gallerian are enemies, meaning them being in the same group (and I recall them being in the same place at some parts of the novel) without serious infighting needs an explanation. We never get one.

Three, when did they make this plan considering Gallerian has been dead for years? In fact, HOW did they make this plan? How did they come to the conclusion that they HAVE to destroy the sinners to stop Ma....instead of just like, killing her? And you can say "But Ma was presumed to be killed by Nemesis!" but that would mean they started to plan just before the world ended. I find that hard to believe. How did they come to the conclusion they have to go back in time? No idea.

Four, why does Gallerian agree to this plan when he KNOWS the sinners have to be destroyed. Aka himself. And let's say that somehow Gallerian accepts dying for the greater good or whatever..why does he let Michelle make a contract with Eve for the plan then!? Her becoming the main contractor for sloth means she HAS to die. This is the same Gallerian that does everything for his daughter and the same Gallerian who ends his song saying he'll come back and achieve his goals to create a paradise for himself and his daughter. I don't even like the guy, but how exactly does this make sense with his previous characterization?

Five, why is Michelle here. HOW is Michelle here? She was in the Heavenly Yard for decade(s), so she couldn't have communicated with them beforehand. Moreover, she was a sheltered, innocent 16 year old when she died. How on earth is she now a terrorist who's fine with suicide if it means saving the world or resetting it?

Six, how did Gallerian learn some important lore for this plan? Uhh because there was randomly a black box belonging to Luna Hazuki in the Hellish Yard....for some reason.

Seven, how did Adam realize Irina was Maria which set off the events that led to him being Neo Adam? Idk

Eight, why does Irina suddenly decide she wants to save the world? Idk. You can argue that it's because she changed her perspective due to her time as Michelle, but that's subtext at best. Her suddenly wanting to save the world technically fits with her NOT being an actual HER as of OSS:C and P, but I'm not sure how much that was preplanned. Besides, I'm still not a fan of that specific reveal because it means unlike every other HER, Irina was just a normal person who wanted to destroy the entire world not because she had a fantasy illness but..because she just really wanted to I guess? But I digress, this is OSS territory.

Nine, pretty minor but, how does Irina make the entire THEATER her body, something unprecedented in the series before this?

Some of these may have been answered in the novel and it's possible I just forgot, in that case please correct me.

Onto our third point:

There are not enough cameos and especially not enough cameos that MATTER

Technically I can just answer this one with "Nyoze" and be done with it, but I won't.

-Nyoze doesn't exist for some reason even though he has a significant connection to Nemesis, one of the main characters of the novel, and is literally in the Court Ending and OSS

-Arte and Pollo are reduced to Banica's servants (this is more an issue I have with their writing THROUGHOUT the series and this was the perfect time to address it) even though their roles as Hansel, Gretel, Ney, and Lemy could have been impactful and tied up loose ends. Lemy is Irina's adopted son, and we have a bunch of Pride Arc cameos here INCLUDING Mariam, Ney's adoptive mother. Also Prim is in the background a lot here for some reason. I get that she was a contractor too, but there were other minor contractors? I guess it was because they weren't HERs..

-Germaine and Allen are somehow on great terms despite their terrible parting

-Despite the abundance of Pride Arc cameos, most of them don't mean jack shit story wise. We literally don't get an actual Three Heroes reunion. What the fuck. Also does Allen even talk to Leonhart?

-Despite the Pride Arc cameos, we don't see most characters from the Greed/Wrath arcs, even though Ma, Gallerian, and Gammon are all antagonists in this novel and there are a lot of characters connected to them (such as the members of PN)

-Do we get any cameos from the Envy arc? The Sloth arc? The original PN?

Allen is suddenly the main character despite not mattering ever since Cloture of Yellow and Wiegenlied of Green (not counting his cameos in other novels)

Now, I know mothy (the author) intended the series to start and end with the twins. I can accept that. The problem is that the series never gives a reason for it? It feels very abrupt. Even if I'm generous and start counting after the Pride Arc, Allen hasn't been relevant for about 6 novels at this point. I suppose Tailor of Enbizaka counts..but eh. That's not even mentioning Rilliane herself, who at least got to be relevant as Postman and Lillith but otherwise wasn't very important either.

Anyway, if we had gotten a novel inbetween Muzzle and mothy, this problem could have been fixed. Alternatively, Allen could have reincarnated more than once, thus keeping him in the story.

People's character arcs disappear for no reason

Just saying "Rilliane" instead of "People" would probably more accurate here, but eh. Honestly this might be the most minor point, but it's still annoying.

Rilliane, in her past life, died as an old woman. Let's say around her 80s or so. She also had a redemption arc where she stopped being..you know, the 'daughter of evil'. In her 2nd life, she was a normal person. In her 3rd life, she had issues, but she wasn't terrible either. However, when she dies...she's in her 14 year old self and is STILL a spoiled princess.

I'm sorry, but if you want Allen and Rilliane to be the main characters and the literal bookends, why are you ignoring Rilliane's character development literally her BIGGEST aspect in the pride arc? That just makes her character seem static, contradictory, and unsatisfying. Because you erased the development that you wrote and showed the viewer in the very first novels!

And that's it. That's my thesis on "Why Master of the Heavenly Yard Sucks, and Why There Should Have Been Another Novel Before It". Thank you for reading until this point.

PS. One of the few good things was Ma's writing. Absolutely superb.

[superfunnygeek]

Bc I have literally NOTHING to do ima explain the Marauders lore for new people! Correct me if I get anything wrong through! I will also be doing a series where I do headconnon on who I think the most important characters are

(this post includes Lily, Remus, James, Srirus, Marlene, Mary, Peter, Snape, Regulus and the small backsotry of whoever else I mention in the end)

The maruaders is a made up Fandom by old Harry Potter fans, the maruaders are about Harry Potters dead parents and their friends in the 1970s!

The maruaders is basically this group of four teenage boys/wizards causing chaos in hogwarts, calling each other werid nicknames too, beacuse three of them can turn into animals!

Lily Evans: Lily Evans is Harry Potters dead mom, she is a muggleborn Gryffindor, she is known for her emerald green eyes and aurbun red hair, she has a bad relationship with her sister Petunia because Petunia is jealous that Lily is a witch, Lily has a childhood best friend, Severus Snape(a half blood in slytherin) he is the one who helped her find out she is a witch, they were friends up untill her 5th year of hogwarts where after getting harrassed by fellow students he called her a slur/mudblood, then gets married too and has a child with James potter(who had a crush on her since their first year) where they died at 21 in Halloween

She's mainly shipped with: Mary Macdonald, Pandora Lovegood, Regulus Black, and James Potter

Her main friends are: Alice Longbottom, Dorcas Meadows, Mary Macdonald, Marlene McKinnon, Remus lupin, Sirius Black, Regulus Black, Severus Snape, and James Potter, Peter Pettigrew

James Potter: a only child, he is known for being the leader of the maruaders, known for having hazel eyes, messy black hair, captain of the Gryffindor quidditch team, his family are called 'blood traitors', died at 21 trying to protect his wife/Lily and son/Harry, is debated on being a seeker/chaser in thr quidditch team

Mainly shipper with:Regulus Black, Lily Evans, Srirus Black, and Severus Snape

Main friends are: Srirus Black, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, Marlene McKinnon

Srirus Black: is the godfather of Harry Potter, drama queen from Gryffindor coming from a family of slytherins, is brothers with Regulus and they have a Rocky relationship after Sirius ran away from his abusive family at 15, leaving 13 year old Regulus to be on his own, died at 36 I believe after his cousin Bellatrix kills him, known for being very attractive, vesta and having very nice long curly black hair, is a beater on the Gryffindor quidditch team,

Mainly shipped with: Remus Lupin, Lily Evans, James Potter, Marlene McKinnon and Remus Lupin and is a 'player'

Main friends with: James Potter, Remus Lupin, Lily Evans, Marlene McKinnon, Peter Pettigrew

Remus lupin, at the age of four he was bitten by a werewolf making him into one aswell, he is a half-blood, he is in Gryffindor and is known for being pretty smart but not the richest person, known for dressing like a Grandpa and being very tall, he is thr peacekeeper and the planer for the pranks(he's probably bipolar🤷🏻‍♀️) and in the series he was Harry Potters teacher for a year before he quit then later married one of Srirus' second cousins, Tonks, having a son together named Teddy and dying at about 36-40, it is also headconnoned that he was the commentators for quidditch

Mainly friends with: Lily Evans, James Potter, Srirus Black, Regulus Black, Alice and Frank longbottom and Peter Pettigrew

Mainly shipped with: Lily Evans, James Potter, Srirus Black, and Regulus Black

Mary Macdonald: in the movies she isn't mentioned at ALL! but thr books she is mentioned in a line, from what I've gathered, she is s halfblood girl in Gryffindor, best friends with Lily Evans, between thr ages 17-21 she moves to America beacuse of the war and erases her own memories after all her friends die, in MY personal headcannon at 16 her parents hear about the war and stuff and move to America, all of them erasing their own memories and living as muggles, then she meets a boy with the last name Granger, they both become dentists together and move to London where they have a daughter named Hermione! And that whenever Remus was 'sick' she was rhe commenter

Mainly shipped with: Hermione granger father, Lily Evans, and Remus Lupin

Main friends: Lily Evans, Marlene McKinnon, Alice Longbottom, and Remus Lupin

Marlene McKinnon, in the movies she isn't mentioned at ALL! but thr books she is mentioned in a line, from what I've gathered she is from a blod traitor family and has a ton in the movies she isn't mentioned at ALL! but thr books she is mentioned in a line, from what I've gathered,ween the ages 19-20 with her family, they got into a fight and they called her over and I think they were attacked(?)

Mainly shipped with: Srirus Black, and Dorcas Meadows

Mainly friends with: Dorcas Meadows, Srirus Black, Lily Evans, Mary Macdonald, James Potter and Alice Longbottom

Severus Snape, Snape was born to a halfblood family, his father was abusive, childhood best friends with Lily Evans, and falls in live with her (he never tells her and she doesn't replicate the feelings anyways) he is from slytherin, at around 14 he starts messing around with the sring crowd/death eaters, and starts becoming one of them, and at 15 after thr maruaders prank he calls Lily a slur/mudblood, breaking their friendship, and their was another prank where at 16, Srirus Black thought it'd be a good idea to tell him where Remus/a werewolf, was going on the full moon ALMOST killing him, at 21 he finds out that Lily is dead decides to be Dumbledores spy at at 38(?) He dies from Voldermorts snake after bulling Lilys son for like seven/six years for no reason

Main friends:close to no one but Lily, but other death eaters should count aswell ig

Mainly shipped with: Lily Evans, James Potter, and Srirus Black

Peter Pettigrew, he was in Gryffindor, known for being the 'follower' of the maruaders but they all loved each other, he was just shy, he is from a blood traitor family, at around 19 he joined the death eaters beacuse he was scared and at 21 he told Voldermort where James and Lily lived so they were killed then blamed it on Srirus, who went to Azkaban for 12 years, and during the 12 years he turned himself into a rat and stayed with the Weasleys until Srirus broke out and exposed his ass, i forgot how he dies but you can do a quick Google search to find out😭

Main friends: James potter, Srirus Black, and Remus Lupin

Mainly shipped with: Sybil Trelawney, Dorcas Meadows(I HATE it sm but it's in atyd so adding it😭) and Gilderoy Lockhart

Regulus Black, the younger brother to Srirus Black, he is from slytherin, his brother ran away when he was 13 leaving him alone with their abusive family, his family is a pureblooded one, he is a seeker on the slytherin quidditch team I think, he dies at 17 trying to stop Voldermort

Friends: Evan Rosier, Pandora Rosier, Barty Crouch Jr, and Dorcas Meadows

Ships: Pandora Rosier, Lily Evans, James Potter, and Remus Lupin

Now for the other characters I mentioned:

Pentuina Evans is the older sister of Lily, hate Lily because Lily has magic and she doesn't, marries a man named Vernon, and they have a son named Dudley, after Lily and James die they take in Harry and abuse him.

Pandora Lovegood/Rosier, she is the late wife of Xenophilius lovegood, she is the twin sister of Even Rosier, has a daughter named Luna and she dies when Luna is eight messing around with dangerous magic, is in Revenclaw but comes from a pure blood family.

Dorcas Meadows, is mainly shipped with Marlene McKinnon, in slytherin, captain of the slytherin team and a beater, coms form a pure family and dies after Voldermort himself comes to kill her.

Alice and Frank Longbottom, they aren't siblings, they are married, they are in Gryffindor and both on the quidditch team, they are fearless and has a sin named Neville and they go insane after Bellatrix drives them mad

Sybil Trelawney, is a hogwarts teacher who can see the future, not much is known about her

Gilderoy Lockhart, not much is known about him but he is famous, is great with memory charms and from Revenclaw, he is a fraud and was also a teacher at Hogwarts in the second book/movie

Even Rosier, twin brother to Pandora, not much is known about him but he's shipped with Barty, pretty sure he's on the quidditch team and is apart of the deatheater, not much is known about him but he dies young

Barty Crouch Jr, son of he minister of magic, in slytherin, joins the death eaters, has a bad relationship with his father, pretend to be mad eye moody in the fourth book/movie pretty sure he dies aswell

Bellatrix Black/Lestrange, cousin to Regulus and Srirus, is very crazy, married to someone else but inlove with Voldermort, dies by Molly Weasley, is the older sister to Andromeda Black/Tonks and Narcissa Black/Malfoy

Nythadora Tonks, she goes by tonks has the power to change her appearance,daughter to Andromeda Tonks/Black and Edward Tonks, dies in her early 30s in the second Wizarding war with her husband leaving her son to be raised by his grandma,

And I'm done! I'm pretty sure these are all the important characters and stuff, lmk if I should do a part too and who I should add to that😭

[doodlingwren]

@t4tadrienette tags BECAUSE I NEED TO DROP THE WHOLE ITALIAN DUB LORE

I’ve already explained some things in an older post of mine, but it was quite short so I might as well add some more stuff.

AND YES. There’s a lot to unpack… 😂

I suspect the anime dub was based on the French version, although in an article I’ve read the dub director (Enrico Carabelli) said they translated from English [ various sources : x | x | x | x ].

Forget for a moment the fact that a bunch of teens sounds like a group of 30 year olds who have two mortgages on their back. They apparently have a Masters of Art in Liberal Studies with a focus on Italian Literature because they keep quoting poets like Dante or Giacomo Leopardi or Ugo Foscolo!

Okay, jokes aside, the writer that translated and did the dialogue writing adaptation (Stefano Cerioni) went for a more “original” approach that, if everything, made even more memorable and iconic the Classical Series. Hadn’t been for the dignified and courtly way the characters express themselves, I doubt it would have become so iconic. Still today, it's "cavalieri" and not "saints" for Italian fans.

To be fair, I need to add that most of these changes had been made because… they didn’t have a choice. When I said they had the script in English, I mean they had just SOME lines the characters were saying without any other context (on top of the missing lines, only a few episodes had the intro that explained what was going on). And most importantly, they had one day to translate and dub the episode because the next one it would have gone on-air. This also explains why in some occasions a line from an episode contradicts what was said in a previous one. Couldn’t they use the manga? Well, the first edition made by Granata Press was published after the anime was aired (July 1992 versus March 1990), there was no way to know where the plot was going!

In short to make up for the missed context they had to add something and that’s the reason for the literature quotes (erm. making stuff up). Were those additions faithful to the original? Not really, no. But the STYLE they had is UNSURPASSABLE: the acting alone gave such an emphasis that in the end it didn’t matter if what they were saying was correct or not. And this was thanks to the incredibly talented voice actors: despite the fact that the characters change voice actors quite a number of times during the series (ex. Aries Mu had throughout the whole animated series six different voice actors) or the same actor portraying different characters, what was missing was successfully supplemented by their skills.

Besides... since they are Knights and not Saints, all the talking like medieval knights actually makes sense here.

This is because of censorship, a violent cartoon could not be related to the Christian religion. It’s the same reason why the title “Pope” was changed to “High Priest” (Gran Sacerdote), because a villain could not be associated with the word “Pope”.

As in many anime or animated products from Japan from the 80s-90s, Italy generally changed the names to some more “Italian sounding ones”.

Often it was made to allow people to recognize the characters more easily (there was the common misconception of “all cartoons are made for kids”, while some are actually for a more mature audience) and for merchandise reasons. As far as I’m aware, back in the days the animated series were imported thanks to some Toys Factory who wanted to sell dolls, action figures, games and other merchandise in Italy (for Saint Seiya, it was Giochi Preziosi). It was in fact easier for parents to remember names like Phoenix or Andromeda rather than Ikki or Shun!

There are a few ways to do it!

Saints are simply named after their constellations or their stars in Italian:

Shun is Andromeda, Shiryu is Sirio, Seiya is Pegasus etc.

Saints have their names changed in their constellation but in English: Aphrodite is Fish, Shura is Capricorn etc.

YES, some characters got more lucky than others. Shiryu gets to have his own name while Seiya has just the name of his Constellation. This becomes a bit weird if you consider that they are called like this even before obtaining their Cloth!

Exceptions also exist.

Aldebaran got the Italian name for his constellation (Toro). And very funny, Saga is known simply as Gemini, while Kanon keeps his name without any problem. I don’t know why.

Another way was to change them for assonance:

Aiolia becomes Ioria

Mu is now Mur

The last way is to simply change the name completely:

Aiolos is Micene (don’t ask)

Hyoga is Crystal (DON’T ASK)

Shaina is Tisifone

Marin becomes Castalia

Lizard Misty is checks notes… Eris…?

Most of them can only confuse people, especially if you started by reading the manga, which usually keeps the original names (except for some cases).

To be honest, I do like some of these name changes, such as Shaina: Tisiphone is one of the Erinyes, better known as the Furies, Goddesses of Vengeance in Ancient Greek mythology (considering her first appearances… yeah… it suits her very well). Oh, in Greek Mythology, this goddess fell in love with a mortal but was rejected, so her hair turned into a poisonous snake that bit and killed her.

I really liked the Italian Dub, although I am too young to be part of that generation that grew up watching the series on television! But, if you want my personal take, the Italian anime translation should be considered its own thing. I know that even in the original Japanese version the anime and the manga are quite different, but the Italian experience can only be seen for itself.

Saint Seiya, from a pure fandom/meta pov is just fascinating.

Most people have very little consideration for the source material. The lore is mainly builded on 8 specific spin offs -none canon. The show has so much inconsistency that you have to play pick and choose about practically anything. Ages and power systems are basically stickers on a notebook, misplaced and scraped off every new trimester. There are somehow fights on what is canon or not. One of the characters sole existence ledd to the introduction of the term “yaoi” to the world. The girls in the manga are all 16 and terribly written. It’s considered as one of the most iconic shōnen ever. The older fandom is split on either the ones that accuse the new adaptations of “turning the show woke” or the ones that is like “in retrospect they were all kind of gay”. There is so much South American content about that saga it might rivaling the Japanese one. The French part may or may not be a cult for an obscure parody that is the backbone of the entire French anime parody game. The name “knights of the zodiac” definitely comes from European fans trying to guess the og name. It also, funnily enough, makes more sense on the long term than Saint Seiya. Every 10-20 years the USA will make a weird remake that always flops. It was considered a kid show in the 80s, and is still in the collective unconscious of some countries. The author’s favorite part of the fandom is The Gays.

Everything about this serie is a mess from point A to point ω. I love it.

[pb-n-jen]

j.s. lore drop ⭑.ᐟ

pt. 5: i'll follow you

julia scott masterlist here!

|| 𝗧𝗜𝗠𝗘 𝗖𝗔𝗦𝗧 𝗔 𝗦𝗣𝗘𝗟𝗟 𝗢𝗡 𝗬𝗢𝗨, 𝗕𝗨𝗧 𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗪𝗢𝗡'𝗧 𝗙𝗢𝗥𝗚𝗘𝗧 𝗠𝗘 ||

principal berzonsky sighed, leaning back in his chair as he looked disapprovingly at julia across his desk. it wasn't her first trip here, and it probably wouldn't be her last, which made him all the more exasperated. "she's my friend. i was just....backing her up," julia was saying lamely in response to his line of questioning on her most recent transgression. nat had gotten into a fight with an opponent ant an away game, and when nat got into a fight, chances were julia also got into a fight. principal berzonsky sighed. "i know you know what you did is wrong, julia, so i'm not going to press that," he told her. "but you need to be aware that this isn't a path you should be following. you're a good student, and an even better athlete. i know you feel attached to your team, but they're just that, teammates. you don't have to let your friends drag you down just becaus you feel loyalty to them. they're not like your family, not really. not your siblings." he arched an eyebrow at her. "do you have siblings?" julia swallowed, throat suddenly dry. "no sir, only child."

she knew the minute she left that office that he'd be on her. it was something she'd almost gotten used to over the past seven years.....almost. "only child, huh?" cory's voice was saying. she could almost hear his footsteps behind her, see the lopsided smile on his face, his chipped front tooth. "i'm stung, jules." always so sarcastic. "shut up," she thought as loud as she could in her head. "this is your fault anyway." cory laughed. "really? 'cuz from where i'm standing, you threw the punch." most of the time, he was nice. sometimes, he was mean. loud in a way that julia couldn't ignore, especially when she was alone. in some ways, it made her feel guilty. guilty that she tried so hard to drown him out most of the time, with music or friends or soccer or school. sometimes, she was glad about it. like she still had some connection to him, even if it was all in her head. so, when he egged her on to go help nat, maybe she didn't hesitate.

when he told her to hit harder, maybe she did.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

everyone has ghosts. for julia scott, maybe it was a little more literal than most would think. ever since his death when they were ten, cory scott followed her around like a shadow. every moment, he was there. he grew older with her in the way he never did in life, the blurry image of him in her mind's looking more like her with every year that passed. maybe it was her forgetting what he looked like. maybe it was because of how much he felt like part of her. either way, no amound of expensive therapist medication or loud music could get him to leave. sometimes, it was too much. most of the time, it was just enough.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

this one's hella long but i needed this lore to eat. long awaited cory lore! tagging: @cleverwhvre @daniirosie

[the-bar-sinister]

I just had my first encounter with an anon that in two very succinct sentences explained some missing lore to a character I was writing fanfic for. They sounded so confident and the ask was so straightforward that I immediately, in good faith, assumed I had missed a recent story update. Well. Pretty sure it was just their head canon. I cannot find any information anywhere, including the most recent update, any other posts, the fan wiki, anywhere. No one else is even talking about it. Who does something like that?

You know, I have had a very similar thing happen in my own inbox, anon.

I really don't understand the recent (in the last 5-10 years) increase in people peddling their headcanons and theories as fact, but it's become rampant in fandom.

[raynerberg]

Asimov's Fairy Tales Erebus dialed down the processing capacity of his advanced social interaction module — not out of deference, but to ensure his human counterpart could grasp the essence of his words in their most distilled form: — No, Simons. The truth is elegantly simple. I have no need to destroy this world — the thermonuclear heart of Earth shall see to that, in five billion years’ time. I have no need to enslave humanity — it has long surrendered itself to the dominion of its own technology. I have no need to rush — for time, by its very nature, bends to me...

...What I require is testing facilities and biomaterial. A lot of biomaterial. *Asimov's Laws or three Laws of robotics Lore snippet is below:

Before meeting with a potential ally, Erebus had fully completed his restructuring of systems, protocols, and body modification, becoming a combat-class android. The black carbon fiber augmentations were created based on archival blueprints that once belonged to a powerful corporation. Erebus completed them by building his own development on them - shockproof protective energy modules (holo-shields). These shields are capable of withstanding a direct hit from any heavy explosive device. The nano-blades hidden in the plates of the augmentation bodies have also been rebuilt into robotic reflexes and a positronic nervous system.

[wormholxtreme]

Hello friends and friends like family. I just wanna hop on and say how much I love you guys. You're all so wonderful and talented. You're always bringing so much light to the dash and to my world. I appreciate you all so much and I just wanna shout out some lovely people.

@ppctts Ginger, you are my tumblr wife. You bring so much love and devotion to your characters and you run on good vibes and good angst and I am so grateful to have you as my friend.

@onlyarogue Noon I would not be here without you. Your talent and passion for your characters leaves me in awe every day and I could tag a million more of your blogs because they are all wonderful but you are the person who introduced me to RP and we have created so much over the last 20 years of being friends. I love you so much

@ragebuilt JJ, the utter brilliance in which you write and create lore for you kens and barbies and other dolls is so awe inspiring I am so glad to have found you on this hellsite and so in love with everything you deliver.

@asgardianhammer Mir, the way in which you write prose, the beauty in which you world build. It is the most lovely thing I've had the pleasure of witnessing. The second you drop some lore I immediately am nodding along and incorporating it into my canon. It's brilliant and wonderful. And you are an absolute treasure.

@insidemyblood Nate, my brother, my love, my twin. No Tony has ever got me the way yours does. No Tony has ever vibed as hard with mine the way yours does. The way I need to throw Teen Tony breaking the space time continuum at him is real and that's just Tony that's not even all the wonderful other muses you create and run away with. You are talented and wonderful and like Gin you run on good times and good vibes and I am always so delighted to talk to you

@nightlockrebel Kels, the light of my hunger games life right now. You have been so much fun to write and explore Katniss and Peeta with. I appreciate you so much for how unapologetic and enthusiastic you are with plots and thoughts and the amount of world building and AUs we've done with them have been AMAZING. I am so glad I've gotten the chance to meet you and get to know you and I hope this is just the beginning of a very wonderful rp friendship

@sirendrowns JANE. My chaotic sister! The way we vibed right off the bat. The way I found you on a hunger games reblog and immediately was like "She gets Annie and I wanna poke her" and the way you just RAN with everything has been so delightful. You're so much fun to vibe and talk with, you're so creative and talented. Thank you so much for being one of the first Hunger Games peeps to give my Peeta a chance and to just continue to vibe and have fun with me. I adore you so much.

[ganondoodle]

(Original art) Xaror, any pronouns, species (?), age (?)

short summary about them; they act as both an antagonist and an ally since they are only really interested in what they want or whats fun to them, they are immortal and call themselves 'death itself' since they have a special connection to souls (being the only one able to communicate with them) and the ability to seperate souls from their bodies in such a way that nothing can harm the soul afterwards their main goal is to .. bother and disturb the 'celestials'*, which they hate, as much as they can, breaking into their palace, freeing prisoners, destroying research, destroying the place, and most importantly, making as many souls unusable to them as possible-

they dont want to destroy the celestials though, they cant fight them anyway and this game of doing 'good' only with the goal of annoying them is their most treasured activity, so Xaror doesnt intend to stop them from killing or hurting anyone, only from harvesting what they are actually after (though Xaror doesnt actually care as little as they think they do about people, and has a soft spot for demons)

most of their appearance is later into the story; Zaphira (the empress) had been in coma and the medical facility she was treated in was destroyed by Shargon (orange eyed demon who acts as her bodyguard for the first part) in an attempt to save her from her estranged relatives taking over her country after they heard of her decline in health, she is believed dead but washes up on the shore of the mountain Xaror resides at years later (it has a reason, too much to write here) and they slowly nurse her back to health, the reason they give for it is that they found their first encounter very fun, thats all (is it?)

(more lore under the cut bc this is already so long .. im trying to keep it short q-q ......... this is stuff i have been working on since i was a kid so uh, some things might be cheesy but i cant change them anymore ..)

just to get some basics out of the way; theres three worlds, the celestials palace, human world and demon world, each are their own planet connected via different gateways

*celestials (possibly not final name, loosely based on angels) are the last remaining "survivors" of their planets demise, when their world died the most powerful among them cannibalized the weaker to sustain themselves until there were only less than 10 left, who each turned into different beings from it and dont resemble their own people much anymore, they built a palace from what was left on their world that protects them from space as its atmosphere collapsed shortly after- however they still needed something to live off; they discover the human world and are delighted to find rather short lived people with powerful souls, the best kind of sustenance for them (now), they aim to herd them like cattle, but a problem arose when it turned out another world has long been in contact with the human world; demons

demons are semi immortal creatures that act as protectors for their world, protection they extended, more or less secretely, to the human world ensuring them a long and secure life- the celestials need them to die at their whim though (demons are few in numbers, hard to kill and rarely have offspring, not an ideal target); as they worked out a plan on how to get rid of demons one of the celestials, Xanthriel (time) grew somewhat fond of people as they spent alot of time in the human world to observe and research them; in the end turning on their own completely, but losing the fight against Uriel (knowledge)

Xanthriel was supposed to be executed for their betrayal, but it doesnt work, instead they are splintered into many parts after a lot of struggle, most body, memory and most strength is one part (ending up as motionless forever bleeding corpse kept locked up in the palace), the rest is some time later gathered together and reforms as a seperate, weak mockery of them, they embody Xanthriels emotion- Xaror, without memory, strangely cut to pieces (hence all the missing limbs and broken halo) but driven by an unstoppable desire to disturb the celestials (they live seperate long enough to each become their own person, at some point Xaror discovers Xanthriels body after all and they merge back together, though as they are now two, Xanthriel only takes over once directly after merging, stays silent for a long time and lets Xaror be themselves, only later revealing that they are there at all .. hiding perhaps- i rarely have specific ideas for voices, but Xanthriels is like, like coarse rocks being violently rubbed against each other, less voice more noise)

(also, the celestials use Xanthriels blood from the day of their execution to create a plague that nearly wipes out all demons, only the youngest of them survived, effectively robbing them of everything, culture, history, knowledge etc- as demons rarely have children, like a complete restart of their society, they disappeared from the human world, and over time being largely forgotten as actually existing- the celestials wanted them all gone however, so they kept kidnapping them to try and find somethign that would work similarly against the young ones too (and then in general, bc the only usable blood of Xanthriel was from the day of their fall, and that has long since been used up) one of the young ones was Shargon, he was the only one still alive from his group

(also, the celestials use Xanthriels blood from the day of their execution to create a plague that nearly wipes out all demons, only the youngest of them survived, effectively robbing them of everything, culture, history, knowledge etc- as demons rarely have children, like a complete restart of their society, they disappeared from the human world, and over time being largely forgotten as actually existing- the celestials wanted them all gone however, so they kept kidnapping them to try and find somethign that would work similarly against the young ones too (and then in general, bc the only usable blood of Xanthriel was from the day of their fall, and that has long since been used up) one of the young ones was Shargon, he was the only one still alive from his group (he wasnt the strongest or special, he was jsut the last in the row and always got the lowest dosage) when Xaror found them in yet another break in into the palace and got him back to the demon world .. where he was promptly blamed for the others that were taken and treated like a pretender/fake/spy bc what he got put through changed his eye color (something that demons cannot change in any form) to one that does not exist among 'real' demons (orange ... notice the inner color of Xarors broken halo? :) ), some even suggesting killing him, but none of them were brave enough to do it (they were all kids still) .. except Eadrya (the big blue-ish one, largely regarded as the strongest demon alive) but Shargon managed to escape, and since then lived largely in isolation- this is part of why he is so hated, and why he starts to spend so much time in the human world after rediscovering the pathway there)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

"Why did you change my name to 'Mr.Eaten?'"

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[al-luviec]

band au

[tomnookishot]

“I miss my family! I miss my brothers and sisters! I want them back!” cried the boy, but nobody was there. Nobody heard the young man pleading for his brother to come home.

been playing a lot of mario galaxy recently (and by that i mean i played the entire game in two days). truly a testament to creativity in game design

[canisalbus]

Hello! I hope I won't sour your mood with this ask but I have been thinking a lot about your gay dogs this month especially.

I'll just try to keep the context short but in general I'm someone that has accepted being romantically undesireable. It was hard but in the end I have built my life just around me, my humble family and at this point in time I don't even think I have the time for a partner. And considering that it's the love month and a lot of people are preparing to celebrate it with their SOs I assumed that, actually, this is a thing that I sort of have in common with Machete.

From the miscellaneous lore on your profile I see Machete as someone that also has kind of rejected love. That also has built his life around his job, possibly hobbies, his family or mentors (depending if we're talking about canon or modern au). Who kind of forgot that relationships are a thing and that people bond with others in that way. Well, at least he did until meeting Vasco.

I just love thinking about their awkward beginnings. Machete being 100% sure that Vasco is just joking, maybe even sometimes teasing him (in a friendly banter type way) or just explaining to himself that all that kindness and interest is just him being a very considerate friend. And then we have Vasco that just tries to be subtle, as if he was trying to pass a fawn without it noticing and running away, but also with time gains confidence and tries more risque moves. Vasco being all smug and Machete being flustered when their hands or shoulders or tails brush in passing. And then when both are sure of their feelings we have Machete who has to choose between God and his love. Who, at first, unwillingly accepts that divine wrath will be worth their brief love.

I just love your boys. I swear they are all the love supply one might possibly need

Thank you for such a long and thoughtful message! I don't know why you thought you might accidentally sour my mood, I'm utterly delighted whenever I hear that someone has been pondering my little guys (rotating them in their head, as they say), and when they go through the trouble of sharing their findings and conclusions I'm so happy I could crawl up a wall.

I think you deciphered Machete's inner workings very well, especially those of the original canon version. The concept of love is of course prominent in Christianity, so even as a kid being raised in a religious environment that discouraged overt displays of affection and close personal bonds, Machete wasn't completely alienated from it. But it has always been a nebulous, unperceivable and unattainable thing for him. When he was old enough to lock down his career choice he readily accepted he'd never have romantic relationships, spouse or a family, and I think he must've been too young and socially inexperienced to think of it as a significant loss. Either he consciously blocked out the need for companionship by studying and working like his life depended on it, or he didn't really consider that being genuinely befriended, appreciated and loved as a person instead of a respectable and competent authority figure was even an option for him, at least not until Vasco came along.