#i have some vague ideas for spinoffs

[sapphicblight]

kissed my neck to seal the deal - chapter 2/2 a vegaspete college au 

“Don’t you have better things to do with your time? Other virgins for example,” Pete asks him one time over a guerrilla warfare style lunch date. “Not until next semester,” Vegas laments. “I’ve already exhausted our current student body.” Pete doesn’t even know where to begin unpacking everything wrong with that statement. Or: the college au in which Vegas is a manwhore with a weird innocence kink and Pete is an inexperienced painslut. (Can I make it any more obvious?)

key tags: light bdsm, loss of virginity, humor

warnings: vegas being bad at dirty talk for narrative purposes, bad bdsm etiquette (under-negotiating, mainly)

part 1 of the cause and effect series

[artbyblastweave]

Hey so, thought exercise, how do you think Taylor would fare if she got dropped into the invincible universe? For the sake of mechanics let's say she literally gets dropped in via doorman portal or something.

So one thing about Invincible is that I think it's setting is protagonist-centric in a way that Worm's isn't. To the extent that Invincible's setting has worldbuilding- worldbuilding that isn't, like, ported in from the books's early association with the confederated Image Comics shared universe- it's worldbuilding that exists to convey the impression of a big-two-flavor universe. Here's our spin on the undersea kingdom, here's the riff on the Martians, here are our riffs on SHIELD, on Gotham, on Themyscira, on 70s blaxploitation-adjacent heroes, and so on. This is the entire ethos underpinning the Guardians of the Globe in particular- piggybacking on pre-existing audience affection for the Justice League to convey that it's a Big Fucking Deal when the guardians get blendered in issue 7.

You have flashbacks demonstrating that there was capital-S Superhero Stuff going on in the seventies and eighties, or as far back as the thirties with Immortal, you create the impression of a status quo, a big pond in which Mark is a little fish. And to Kirkman's credit, some effort clearly went into making sure that the non-Mark capes are sufficiently fleshed out that you can believe that they've got other stuff going on in their lives. But at the end of the day, it's the Invincible universe. You don't see a lot of people talking about the Guarding the Globe spinoff. Many of the most interesting characters- Cecil being a big example here- are interesting because of the ways in which they bounce off Mark specifically, the ways in which he chooses to deal with them. The universe is less of a character in the story the way that Earth Bet is- it's just the place where Mark's story, specifically, is happening. If there's a codified setting bible, I'll eat my hat.

Now of course the world of Worm is, in many ways, equally Taylor-centric, because that's what it means to be the protagonist. But owing in part to the themes of the story, and in part to the sheer number of false-start protagonists Wildbow played around with before settling on Taylor, it's very good at conveying the idea that there are many stories happening in this setting and Taylor's is just the one this particular work happened to focus on. There's an actual point to doing OC worldbuilding for what the superhero scene looks like in Wormverse Denver or Seattle or whatever- whereas you can come up with superhero teams for Invincible-verse Denver, but what actually ties them to that universe? What are you getting out of putting them in Invincible specifically, that you wouldn't get from whipping up a barebones MASKS setting to support your OCs? Anyway. This is a really long way of getting to my real point, which is that I think the question is less "how does Taylor bounce off the Invincible setting" and more "How does Taylor bounce off Invincible the character, around whom the setting orbits even when it pretends not to."

This I'm unsure of, because where do you stick her in his life where you get an interesting dynamic? One thing that's interesting here is that Mark's overall character arc already involves learning a lot of taylorisms- the strategic ruthlessness, the shift from a good-evil dichotomy to a helping-not-helping dichotomy-so what about his arc is going to change if they spend time together? Why would they spend time together? Given the different power levels on display, what would differentiate her, in his experience, from the dozens of filler capes that exist for him at the level of "vague acquaintance?" This is assuming she's active as a cape at all, which she might not be if this is Post-GM. Mutual association through Cecil and the Global Defense Agency might be a hook- maybe they're paying for her new arm or something- but would she latch her cart to Cecil's wagon in the first place, barring some obvious crisis situation? Hard to say. If she's depowered, and present in his life somehow in a civilian context, well, that's a fast-track to not being part of the story anymore either, given how Mark's civilian connections slowly fading away was kind of a quiet plot point.

There's some configuration of these pieces that could be interesting, but I'm not quite sure what they are. Soliciting input here.

[wjbs-bonkle-au]

Random small-scale Bionicle AU ideas; feel free to ask what your blorboes (or canon-set OCs, provided you explain what their Thing™ is) are doing in each:

Golf (Turaga-centric AU where they all play golf; side-stuff features the Toa Mahri working at a Crazy/Mini-Golf place.)

Bowling-alley (I think I already posted about this ages ago, but I'm bringing it up again to add some context; it's set in a pseudo-80s world, but everyone's still a biomechanical thing. The Metru and Hagah are the staff, Helryx is the manager, and everybody else are the regular bowlers.)

Age of Sail (technically-a-morality-swap pirate AU; the Makuta are further towards the "lawful" edge of the morality-grid, the (non-evil) Toa are more like Robin Hood figures, and the Dark Hunters and Piraka are more traditional pirates. The Red Star is a ghost-ship crewed by the dead, and Spherus Magna is basically Atlantis.)

Superhero (Human AU offshoot where all the regions are modern-day cities and everyone wears modern clothing; the Toa, Order Of Mata Nui etc. are superheroes, and the various antagonists are supervillains.)

Battle of the Bands (another Human AU offshoot, where the Toa Teams and other factions are bands in a mundane setting, and all the major conflicts are formatted as the eponymous style of contest; the main story is set contemporarily to the respective story-arc's out-of-universe storyline, with relevant musical genres (e.g the Inika are an indie-rock band in 2006, facing off against the Piraka, who are a rap-metal band), and the Metru Nui flashbacks take place in the mid-1980s (with the Toa Metru being a New wave act).)

Reversal (AU where the Magnans live in the GSR and the MU characters live on Bara Magna.)

Broken Mirror (basically just Transformers: Shattered Glass but Bonkle,)

Steam-Age (Bionicle, but in a world where the Magnan society was in the aesthetic and technological equivalent of the mid-to-late 1800s; Bota Magna is a large industrialised city, and Bara Magna is essentially the Wild West. Metus is a literal snake-oil salesman. Some areas of the Matoran Universe has progressed past this a bit, with Metru Nui being Art Deco and having Dieselpunk technology.)

MMORPG (yet another Human-AU spinoff, this time with the characters playing characters resembling their canon selves in a popular MMORPG.)

YA Dystopia ("what if Bionicle was an early-mid 2010s Young-Adult dystopian novel?")

Detective Takua (Takua but as a Poirot-meets-Columbo detective in an early-mid 20th century-flavoured world that coincidentally happens to be shaped like a jumbled-up version of the Matoran Universe; showing up unannounced/coincidentally happening to be at the Big Isolated Mansion™, Large Isolated Boat® or Vaguely-Mediterranean Island©, being very friendly to literally everyone there while also using his... Takua-ness(?) to disarm potential subjects and try to catch them out. Also Kapura is there sometimes.)

[soreiya]

Should we as a fandom collectively decide to step away from Vat7K and push for something completely different? Now don’t run off to grab your torches and pitchforks just yet. This isn’t a hate post. I just think it would be kinda fun to have a big discussion on the subject.

First of all I’d like to ask you a few questions. This will help us get to know one another a bit better.

Questions:

What got you into Vat7K?                

What do you think of the Vat7K concept?

Would your opinion of it be different if it wasn’t created by someone who worked on TtS?

Have you personally noticed any problems with Vat7K and or it’s fandom?                

What would your ideal Varian spinoff be like?                

What would your ideal partner for Varian be like? (Can be either romantic or platonic)

The vague concepts that I like:

Varian leaving Corona on a simple quest that turns into something a lot grander along the way. Let the boy have his own epic adventure. ;D

Varian finding some friends who are around his own age.

The potential to learn more about Varian’s family, (This includes his mother and The Brotherhood.)

Reuniting with Cassandra and finding out what she has been up to.

Varian being given more opportunities to use his knowledge of alchemy and engineering. Doing things like problem solving, helping others, or using it for self defense. (Since this is part of what makes him special.)

Maybe finding out if there is anything special about Varian’s hairstripe? Is it nothing? Is he cursed? Does he have some unknown magic power? Is it some prophecy bullshit? I want to knowww.    

Things I like about 7K:

I like Varian’s teal vest. Out of everything 7K related, it’s probably the only thing I have no real issues with.

Don’t worry, I’m not being completely serious with that comment. 

My Vat7K thoughts and ‘opinions’:

This AU has potential, but some stuff would need to be reworked in order to make more sense.

    Mode of transportation:

-Why wasn’t Varian provided with horses and a nice caravan? He's not only the Royal Alchemist/Engineer of Corona, but the son of a marquess. An uncovered cart wouldn't give him and his supplies adequate protection from hazardous weather conditions/potential enemy attacks.

-Would Princess Nuru's parent/s allow her to leave in some dinky cart?

The trials:

-If Donella and Ulla already completed the trials then what happened to the totems that they used to open the portal?    

-Did someone reset the trials after they had been completed? Even if they reset on their own this leads to a huge issue with the plot. Other people could have already completed the trials. All you would have to do is find someone who did and bypass the trial completely.

-Why does Varian and his group struggle with the trials if they have a cheat sheet journal? The implications here are honestly a little insulting.

-Since Princess Nuru joins the main group much later on, would she be able to take part in the trials out of order? If so, then does taking part in only a portion of the trials disqualify her from entering the Eternal Library, or can anyone enter once it has been opened?   

The Demanitus device:

-Since this is an AU I’m fine with the Demanitus device still being intact. The problem however is that the intended use of that device was weather manipulation. It could alter wind trajectory. This wouldn’t be all that useful for creating a portal.

-Varian is already capable of building interdenominational portals. He also has access to Demanitus’ tomb. Thus it is entirely likely that he could locate the notes and blueprints needed to create the portal without completing the trials. 

The Eternal Library:

-Having the end goal be to reach some treasure trove of knowledge is probably going to be a bad idea. If all knowledge is at your disposal then what’s the point in experimenting? Whatever life and drive that Varian still had left would slowly be drained away by this prospect. He wouldn’t be trying anything new. He would simply be following instructions.    

Characters:

Varian:

- Who let Varian leave the house in that ridiculous boy scout outfit? That’s a bigger crime than any of the ones he committed in TtS.

-All jokes aside, there are real problems with Varian’s portrayal in this AU. By making everyone and their mother a genius, alchemist, and or an engineer, you’re robbing Varian of everything that made him special. He doesn’t feel like the main character of this story. He’s just the guy with the journal. There are no big moments where he has an opportunity to really shine. Even in the final battle he has to be rescued from becoming a meat suit.    

Varian’s family

Ulla:

-Ulla essentially abandoned her entire family in order to find the Eternal Library. There is no other way to put it. This wasn’t some day trip or mini vacation. It could have taken her years to complete the trials. Even if she had returned home, she would have missed out on a lot of Varian’s childhood. Don’t you think this would have a lasting impact on his emotional development?               

 Given this information it’s not a plot twist whatsoever that she turned out to be the final boss. Which bothers me greatly because it is just reaffirming the one thing I hated about Cassandra’s villain arc. That somehow villainy is inherited from one’s parents.            

 Regardless of her being ‘redeemed’ or not, I’m giving her an F on the good mom scale. The quest wasn’t even time sensitive. She could have waited for Varian to become an adult before going on this journey. Heck, she could have taken him along for the ride…    

-Okay, so I’ll admit that I don't actually like the name Ulla. I’d probably like it if it was pronounced Yoolla, but uh-lla and oo-lla is on level with Horace for me.

Ulla’s relatives:

-Does anyone find it creepy that Ulla’s family are almost all Varian clones? Let them be their own characters… This feels lazy.  

 -Also, why would Varian give up on his quest just because he found his family? I get that they are like minded people, but he’s supposedly traveling with like minded people??? This feels OoC. Varian is a very goal oriented character. He doesn’t give up so easily.    

Supporting cast:

Donella:

-What is her goal exactly? She’s the one who returned Ulla’s journal to Quirin in the first place. If she really thought there were secrets inside then she should have come to this conclusion beforehand… 

-There was no reason for her to send Hugo to get the fire totem or to have him infiltrate Varian’s group. Everything could have been resolved with a little honesty. Talk people!!! Seriously, I hate when plots have pointless drama or misunderstandings because someone bottles up their god damn emotions.

-When you give it some real thought the whole plot legit makes no sense. Why wait for Varian to turn 18? If she had been keeping tabs on him then she would have given Hugo more information. Instead she lets him go into some big mission completely blind? Way to go… You left him out here thinking that Varian is some sweet naive summer child who wouldn’t snap him like a twig… You’re lucky that he makes it out of this story alive.            

Princess Nuru:

-Her character is severely underdeveloped. Much like Yong she feels like an afterthought. Like she was created to fill a void rather than to be an actual character.

-Sure, let’s force the sole female character into the role of the ‘mom friend’. That won’t be stereotypical at all. 

-Why does Nuru not know anything about Varian? She’s a princess. Such people soak up loads of political gossip through osmosis. Even after Varian’s reformation he would still be a hot topic of discussion. I’m hella sus, girl…

-I get that her kingdom was in a state of crisis, but would she really be allowed to just leave with a group of strangers? Why wasn't she provided with some sort of guard at the very least?

Yong:

-There is nothing particularly interesting about his character. He’s just the baby of the group.    

Hugo: 

-If Hugo is supposed to be some stealthy street smart thief, then why does his personality completely contradict this? You can try to say that it’s just an act, but he’s always portrayed as an obnoxious player, like some pompous flirt. Stuff like that would make him notorious and easily recognizable. Believe me when I say that this behavior isn’t ideal for someone who’s entire job is to go on undercover missions.  Donella would not be pleased. She didn’t raise a cheap half assed Flynn Rider 2.0 knockoff did she?

-I hate to be the one to point this out, but the fandom might have inadvertently turned Hugo into a full on Gary Stu.  Let me explain. Often times I see people saying that Hugo is ‘smarter’ and ‘more capable’ than Varian. Did this man bring a kingdom down to it’s knees twice over? Why isn’t he using his skills in alchemy and engineering to make a fortune? He’s supposed to be greedy. That’s his whole gimmick isn’t it? Then why is he letting those smarts go to waste? He wouldn’t need to be a lapdog to a manipulative old woman if this was the case. It doesn’t matter if he feels indebted to her. A smart and resourceful person would be using their intellect wisely.

Animal companions:

Prometheus:

-Is this just Varian in donkey form? Why do they look so much alike?

-Am I the only one who finds it a little humiliating for Varian to leave on a big adventure with a derpy looking donkey? I get that this is probably the point, but I think it's a little sad.

Ruddiger:

-Ruddiger is awesome. I just think that people forget that he exists sometimes.

Olivia:

-My only issue here is that people are taking information about Hugo from his D&D counterpart. They should be treated like completely separate characters. Otherwise I have no problems with the little mouse companion. I think it's a cute idea.

Thoughts on relationships:

-There should be other potential suitors for Varian in Vat7K. 

-Varian is a Flynnigan Rider fanboy. Suffice to say that his vision of romance is likely to be incredibly idealized.

-I know that this fandom loves it’s angst fodder, but let’s think for a moment on the lasting consequences of betrayal. Varian already has trust issues. That paranoia is gonna linger in the back of his mind forever regardless of how many healthy connections he makes throughout the years. If he is betrayed by a love interest, those feelings are only going to be amplified tenfold. You don’t just kiss and make up after something like that. He likely would want to close himself off completely from being in romantic relationships as a self defense mechanism.

Varigo:

-The first thing I saw from this relationship was an adorable confession scene animatic. That was hella cute shit. I was like “Hell yes! Nerds in love!”. Was that what I got? No, but that disappointment set in much later.    

My issues with Varian’s portrayal in the relationship.

-If you have to change a character’s whole personality in order to fit your ship preferences, then at this point they are no longer the same character. They might as well be an OC.

-Why does the fandom push toxic stereotyping? (Basically the seme/uke nonsense that you see in BL manga.) Varian usually gets dumbed down so that Hugo can swoop in. Varian has to be short, weak, and naive... Why is this so heavily enforced? Why can’t people portray things     differently without the fandom losing their collective shit?     

-Why is Varian portrayed as not being street smart? He lived on his own for months while being harassed by guards. He went to prison… He worked with terrorists… He is friends with former criminals. He is acquainted with pub thugs. ???? Sorry, but he’s not gonna be impressed with Hugo’s whole shtick… It’s not something new to him.    

-Also… Varian may be skinny, but he’s still relatively athletic. He has the endurance to run round trip through a magical blizzard. He can parkour like a pro (When he’s feeling confident.). He can build huge boilers and giant automatons. So he’s probably used to some level of manual labor. He can leap down great distances. Somehow he can scoot Xavier across the ground with no issues. o__O; What part of this sounds weak to you all?

-His height as an adult is debatable. He may remain short forever. He could grow tall. Maybe he even has a late growth spurt.

-Regardless of his height Varian shouldn’t always be portrayed as some uwu submissive fragile little flower. Let there be some equality in the relationship.

-For reference on Varian being assertive and flirty I would recommend rewatching Great Expotations.              

My issues with Hugo:

-Hugo triggers my anxiety because he gives off the vibes of a sexual predator. Unlike Eugene, Hugo doesn’t fall in love right away. Any interest he has in Varian is for self gratification and that makes me hella uncomfortable. If you combine this Varian being treated as naive and innocent. Then you can understand why I want to chase Hugo ass away with a flip flop. 

-The way Hugo speaks to Varian is gross. Constantly calling him “sweetcheeks” and other objectifying terms… It just solidifies my view that he’s not capable of keeping his mind out of the gutter for a second…

A note to the fandom:

Oh boy, I went a bit overboard… Please don’t think of me as an enemy because of this post. We can still be friends. I’m fine with you all sticking with 7K. I just wanted to raise awareness of some of the things that I have noticed about the plot and characters. Whether it has any influence on your views or not is up in the air. If anything this can be used to help troubleshoot and improve upon the AU.

At this point it’s unlikely that Disney has interest in creating a Varian spinoff series/comic/novel/etc. It would be awesome if they did, but I won’t get my hopes up.

So in the meantime, does anyone want to band together and brainstorm ideas? I feel like we could have a great time coming up with scenarios for something new. 

Advice/suggestions/additional misc notes: 

-Don’t stalk or harass the creators of this AU.

-Do not pass HC’s off as canon facts. This includes pushing 7K onto others as a canonical continuation of Tangled the Series.

-You should never threaten or bully people who do not share your opinions or HC’s. Try channeling those negative emotions into doing something positive instead.

-Do not bully or try to ‘socially cancel’ people who ship other pairings. Don’t like a ship? Scroll past it and move on with your life.

-Tag fics appropriately. Express content in detail. Don’t bait and switch. Don’t rant and rave or be malicious in any way.

-For some reason there are people who enjoy making ‘white boy’ jokes about Hugo. These same people often exaggerate Varian’s skin tone in order to put more emphasis on this. I find it pretty distasteful. Would you tolerate this behavior aimed at any of the other characters? If the answer is “No.” then stop.

-There are people who use the trans tag when all they really want to do is gender swap the character to fit their smut preferences. Objectification is not representation. (To be clear, I'm not saying all trans smut is like this. The type of storytelling I'm talking about is obvious to spot. You'll know it if/when you see it. Though hopefully you won't have to see it.)

If you want to HC Varian or any other character as trans because it makes you feel closer to the character, then by all means do so. You’re valid and this is perfectly reasonable.

I may face slack for not sharing the trans Varian HC personally, but I’m in the mindset that we need more characters who were born male that do not conform to society's norms. It’s incredibly important for boys/men to see that they can sew, cook, and clean without these activities being treated as if they are somehow emasculating. Getting rid of toxic gender stereotypes is the first step to a future where people can be accepted as equals.

[that-left-turn]

Saw your post about advertising revenue going down. Subscriptions to AMC for Q1 went up while TOWL was airing. What are your hopes for TBOC drawing in new audiences for AMC? Do you think Caryl is a big enough draw and if not in its current state what needs to change?

Subscriptions going up while TOWL aired was good (for AMC). The question is if it's fans of that particular show dipping in and then dropping off? AMC can't appeal to the larger TWD fanbase for all the spinoffs. They've slimmed down, so they need to find ways to grow those individual audiences and they need to retain them for the longhaul.

The appeal of TBOC is in the lead characters and sadly, not the story. Zabel hasn't done his homework (which an incoming showrunner should do): he has either only watched the montage and final scene of the flagship show, or he's relying on what other EPs have told him about the characters and their arcs. That's why he thought Ezekiel was Daryl's friend, since he was there to see Daryl off in the series finale.

Contrary to what you'd believe from looking at the fandom and the loudest screaming individuals, Carol resonates with the general audience, so seeing her again will probably draw curious viewers, but will they stick around? It depends largely on how her character arc is handled and also, her relationship with Daryl. They have natural chemistry, which the show should capitalize on as it comes with a built-in audience.

Will it, though?

From what I know about TBOC, Carol and Daryl's individual arcs merge at the end of block 2/beginning of block 3, so 204-205-ish. That means half the season has them separated. That's not ideal for a show where the main appeal lies in the relationship between the leads (whether romantic or platonic). Their emotional drives appear uneven, from my limited view of the beats, which might also be a viewer deterrent.

I think AMC needs to go all-in on canon once the storylines intersect—especially as it looks like we're in for some heavy nunbaiting—to at least get some good word of mouth and maybe draw back parts of the audience who've given up on the show. There were people who stopped watching TWD in S7-8 who came back after the original Caryl spinoff was announced. Having a loyal core audience is vital, so the studio needs to insure that those viewers are invested and engaged.

The show also needs a story engine. The escort mission in S1 had little urgency, beyond Daryl looking for a radio, and the actual meat and potatoes of the external plot was nondescript. Laurent was said (prophesied, really, by a Buddhist monk) to be the new Messiah who will "save humanity." It's very fuzzy on the details and not in a way that implies mystery. It screams of hand waving. The show has to draw in horror fans with a season arc that services the genre.

Caryl fans would watch for a good emotional arc and the GA should be treated to a well-conceived external plot. If you can cater to both of those demographics, you can grow the audience (because people tell others when they like a show) but it hinges on tight storytelling. You have to have an actual detailed plan and not a vague idea of where you're going—pantsing might work for a novelist, but never for a screenwriter. There's an A story, a B story and you may have a couple of runners, for the season as well as individual episodes, so a TV show requires organization. (And I'm getting off-topic here, so I'll leave the logistics at that.)

I'm not confident in TBOC based on what I know of Zabel's writing in general, his management of S1, his statements to the media and what I know about TBOC. I think the show needs a redirect into a different subgenre and some fresh ideas that showcase McReedus playing off each other and Caryl being thrust into the unfamiliar (both to the characters and the audience)—we need to see something new while the characters stay in-character to tether them to the character development already done on the flagship show. (And now I've written 'character' so many times that the word has lost all meaning 🙈)

Zabel played loose and fast with Daryl's backstory in S1. Fans are invested in those details and if it's made it to screen, the showrunner can't ignore them to shoehorn the already well-established protagonist into a plot involving new characters. He shouldn't love his own original creations more than the actual main character. All of these things give me pause as to Zabel's suitability as a showrunner for a show that already has a preexisting ecosystem.

That said, it looks like the show is getting delayed to a fall premiere, promo seems to be on a hold and the season finale may still be in post, which could be signs of AMC fixing problems and/or changing direction.

Sorry the answer was neither short nor succinct, but I hope it gave some clarity regarding my thought process. Obviously, like everybody else, I have ideas of what I'd do to increase ratings, but I'm not the person in the hot seat 🙃 I'm waiting for the panel at Tribeca to see what I can decipher from the inevitable sell speak.

It may be a long summer for us.

[toskarin]

Hey, do we ever see the FSN cast as adults post FSN or other works? Or they just exist in the fsn universe?

depends on which members of the cast you're talking about! some become much more prominent than others. obviously, massive spoilers below the break

let me get one thing out of the way: we see a good bit of adult shirou! [sitcom wink at the audience]

we see a lot of rin. she's in so many spinoffs that you can actually use her to orient yourself in the story ("how old is rin?" now you know where this story takes place in the timeline. "has rin mentioned sakura or shirou?" you now have a vague idea of how they're doing off-screen)

rin also has a million alt designs. I won't post them all here because they'd fill up the post, but rest assured you'll find no shortage of post-f/sn rins, since she's been granted the role of stay night's ambassador

we don't see much of adult sakura, besides a glimpse in the FGO craft essence Imaginary Around

this only really merits mentioning because craft essences have "foreshadowed" (read: a writer grabbed a design from them later on) character designs multiple times now. in this design, she has her mystic code, which could imply that this was imagined as a post-HF look

we don't see illya after F/sn and Hollow Ataraxia. her body is frail and she wouldn't survive more than a couple years after the story, so even if she's not killed in a timeline, she dies shortly later

we don't really see shinji. he's not a magus, zouken doesn't like him, and in timelines where he survives, he probably ends up leaving the family behind

similarly, we don't really see any of the "mundane" characters, which makes sense because they'd just be... living fairly normally, probably.

[jess-the-vampire]

What's weird about the whole "They didn't have time to focus on Caleb and Evelyn's backstory" argument is that a good chunk of "For the Future" relied on using Boscha and Kikimora, two antagonists who were irreverent by the end of Season 2. If there was time to focus on them, why not just cut them out so the plot is focused more on the Hexsquad learning more about Belos' past while trying to evade the Collector's forces?

honestly i'm not sure why the backstory wasn't higher on the list of things to cover in the finale

like it would be one thing if there wasn't that much focus on it, so there were no expectations for it to get more then it did, but the show kept on adding stuff to this backstory and keeps drawing attention towards it

so the fact it gives it so much attention and then leaves it entirely to be inferred is really strange to me

like this is the main antagonist's backstory, and you almost entirely can miss most of it if you're a casual watcher of the show, that's how vague it is and how much of it consists of details you can miss

like i said, i don't hate the idea of a story you can figure out in the bg, but there was SO much focus on it and so much not clear, that it's so unusual how dropped it is

like even in regards to Philip himself, it's basically not treated as relevant to his own motivations, so you kinda just wonder why give it the focus they do if they didn't really wanna use it that much?

like maybe i could forgive that on the basis of them wanting to save it for a spinoff or something, but even so, not having any payoff for it in the main series is a little irritating. Especially since the team didn't know if they would get a spinoff to tell the story at all.

tbh i think both kiki and bosha were already fine where they ended, i was satisfied with kiki's last big scene being her finally disavowing belos and playing a part in his failure, and bosha....well she hasn't mattered much since s1 and that was fine. I'm not sure why they got time....but others who needed it did not.

tho after the last posthoot, i almost get the vauge idea the crew doesn't have a full wittebane backstory.

It sounds like they have some outline for what happened, but not a full detailed story, given how dana sounded like she was spittballing the love story off the top of her head, it kinda leaves me wondering just how much thought HAD been put into the story compared to the fans.

and as someone who is working on the wittebane collab project and got assigned a role about continuity and detail, trust me when i say trying to figure out a cohesive timeline where all these details make sense is painful.

(Ex: EaE seems to be post fight cause philip is already making grimwalkers, and the door when eda found it had a scratch on it, implying it was damaged in the fight. Cept in EaE philip supposably just gathered the ingredients, so the portal wasn't made yet so like🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ )

it's a genuinely interesting story that i can't help but get the impression the crew didn't care as much about compared to the fans, which kinda stinks because the villain backstory should have a bit more thought put into it since it drives the plot as much as it does.

i love the crew, but this is a case where i do feel their priorities were skewed a little and i personally don't know why they put as much focus on caleb as they did given it doesn't get a true conclusion in the show. It does add for hunter's character and gives a plot reason to get back to the isles but outside of those two things it's kinda almost irrelevant in the end, especially with philip.

[kaijuposting]

The Pacific Rims that never were

Before Pacific Rim: Uprising as we know it was a thing, there were a number of sequel and spinoff ideas that never made it to production. Here are some that made it to the Internet:

A prequel cartoon Pacific Rim: Steel Warriors was going to be a two-season cartoon prequel series that would have expanded on the franchise's lore, featuring Mako Mori and a number of new characters. The wiki has a page on it here. I'm always a sucker for expanded lore, so I definitely think it's a bummer that this one didn't pan out. Also, making Mako Mori a major character in an entire series would've been rad.

Showing more of the other universe Guillermo del Toro was vague about it, but he expressed intentions of showing off the other universe. He ruled out "invading" the other world, so it doesn't seem he meant to have jaegers just go in and start attacking. Perhaps he meant to reveal more through more kaiju drifting. Perhaps he meant to have scenes featuring the aliens doing their thing. Or maybe it was something else. It is a mystery. I do know I'd have loved to get a better look at what was on the other side of the breach! More comics Guillermo del Toro intended for the Tales From Year Zero comics to continue, running up until the release of the second film. Alas, it was not to be.

A jaeger named Black Maria In 2015, Guillermo del Toro talked about plans for a Mexican jaeger named Black Maria, piloted by two convicts who'd been promised their freedom in return for piloting the jaeger. (I also can't help but notice that this sounds very much like Travis Beacham's plans for Matador Fury and its pilots.) Also, gotta love a name like Black Maria - it sounds all piratey. Was del Toro planning on a pirate-themed jaeger? Because that would have been awesome. Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of kickass!

A jaeger cadet played by Maisie Williams On October 3rd, 2015, Guillermo del Toro tweeted his wishes to cast Maisie Williams as a jaeger pilot in the second Pacific Rim film. I'm not a Game of Thrones fan, but I did love Maisie Williams's character in Doctor Who, so I'd have loved to see this. I wonder who her character would have interacted with. Would she have been friends with Mako Mori? What would her co-pilot have been like, and would she have been played by Jenna Coleman? Alas we'll never know, but we can imagine! The destruction of San Francisco In late 2017, del Toro said that he planned for the second film to end up on the west coast and have San Francisco destroyed in a battle between kaiju and jaegers. Utterly demolishing the first city that had ever been attacked by a kaiju would be a brutal move, but I can picture it leading to some interesting questions - why do we fight when things are destroyed anyway? Is it a waste of time, or is gaining even just one more day with those we love worth it?

A techbro villain, a time travel plot twist, and more Mako Mori In late 2021, del Toro said that he'd planned for the villain of the second film to be "this tech guy that had invented basically sort of the internet 2.0." It would be revealed that he'd been getting all of his ideas from the Precursors, who would have been revealed to be humanity from the future. Del Toro also said that he'd intended Mako Mori to be one of the story's main characters.

I dunno about you, but I think a techbro villain who isn't actually inventing the shit he's taking credit for is a great idea. I also think the reveal that the "Precursors" are actually humans from the future is excellent on a philosophical level, because it forces us to confront that fact that what we often like to think of as "alien" is really just humanity at its worst. Also, more Mako Mori? Hell yeah! I'm sure there's more articles and interviews out there that talk about plans that never materialized, and hopefully I'll come across them - or maybe some of you know of them? If so, please feel free to add on with them. :D

[keykidpilipili]

So...

What do you think a Kingdom Hearts Roguelike would look like?

I would like to preface this by saying that I only had an extremely vague of what qualifies as a rogue like and looked it up on wikipedia.

I don’t think the permadeath angle would work extremely well but hey the Mystery Dungeon genre started by Chunsoft featuring the pokemon and final fantasy chocobo spinoffs dont have permadeath. So it’s not that mandatory, it’s more the idea of being put back on floor 1 in their cases. Final Fantasy 14 also has special dungeons of this style in which you have to start over from floors 1/21/51 if your party dies.

In universe setting wise that would be a great way to explore the Realm of darkness again. 0.2 already featured the world drastically changing appearance and structure so the randomly generated floors would feel normal. Heck the devs could invent that some worlds stayed there for too long and the post KH1 reset wasn’t enough to resurface them. As of player resource management, Kingdom Hearts X chi limited the number of enemies you could attack each trip into the dark corridor trials unless you used an item. That’s what the beads of light bracelet was for, the white riding hood version of the organization coat being a item that refilled the beads. It could be expanded upon given hunger or sleep is not a thing in the rod.

[most-datable-datable-bracket]

You do not have to play Persona in order! Each is a standalone story, with occasional vague references to other games. The exception is Persona 1 and 2, which can still be played independently of each other but are more closely tied together in terms of character appearances.

For LGBT friendly games, Persona 2 Innocent Sin* or Persona 3 Portable** are your best bets. The Persona 2 protagonist and P3P female protagonist both have gay romance options. These games have very different playstyles, however, as the first 2 Persona games were more like Shin Megami Tensei (the series that Persona is a spinoff of) so it's just a straight RPG. Persona 3 is where Persona established its iconic calendar system and switching between school life and monster fighting.

Other than that, Persona 1 doesn't, I believe, really address anything on the LGBT front. Persona 5 is back and forth on that front with a pair of homophobic scenes (luckily easy to button mash through) but the storyline itself is very resonant with a lot of LGBT folks. Also there's a drag queen named Lala and she rules.

Persona 4 is just straight up homophobic/transphobic, as it sets up arcs to reveal that some of the player characters are gay/trans, only to pull their punches and make occasional jokes at the idea of these characters being LGBT. Also its gameplay sucks and is boring.

I personally recommend Persona 2, Persona 3 Portable (use a PSP emulator and ROM, though. the port versions of P3P suck ass), and Persona 5 Royal.

*Persona 2 is actually a duology. You play Persona 2 Innocent Sin, followed by Persona 2 Eternal Punishment. The stories are intrinsically tied together.

**There's multiple versions of Persona 3. Vanilla, FES, Portable, and the upcoming Reload, which is a remake of the vanilla game without the added content from FES or Portable.

Damn that's a lot of words

[aftokrator-official]

Screenshotting because it's not rebloggable anymore (omitting OP's name for that reason) but this post - more specifically the replies to it - have been bothering me since I saw it a day or so ago and I finally decided to come back and engage lmao. (Source link from OP)

OP's totally right. OpenAI is a garbage company with garbage business practices but this is not the way to do this, people. I'm glad y'all have so much faith in the legal system here, but I don't, and if this goes through it's not going to harm the entities you want it to harm. believe me.

(i am not against AI when used ethically but i think that is a moot point here bc i do not believe OpenAI is an ethical developer of AI tech. anyway)

Here's the "rebuttal" that has been irritating me so much I couldn't leave it alone:

THIS IS NOT REMOTELY TRUE.

First of all, unless I've missed something big, OpenAI has never disclosed the contents of the proprietary dataset they use to train their LLMs. We have no idea whether ChatGPT was trained on George RR Martin's books or not. Presumably, neither does George RR Martin. So all we have to go on is that ChatGPT "knows" characters and details from ASOIAF. Okay.

The problem is that ASOIAF is a massively popular series with some massively popular multimedia adaptations and spinoffs, and processing the text of the novels is far from the only way ChatGPT could have learned to produce those details.

Let's try a little experiment.

GPT-2 is an open source model released by OpenAI when they were just starting out. It works more or less the same way as ChatGPT and its ilk, just on a vastly smaller scale. It's much, much more limited, but the underlying algorithms work on the same concepts. So, what would GPT-2 give us if we ask it for a summary of a hypothetical GRRM novel?

I typed up the first paragraph here, and GPT-2 gave me the rest. (GPT-2 isn't a chatbot, but works more like autocomplete, so I didn't prompt it directly.)

Okay, I have a feeling that plot doesn't make much sense as a prequel, but hey, it's AI (and an elderly one at that), it's not going to be particularly good at this left to its own devices. And look, it DID pull out a few details specific to ASOIAF - Jon Snow, the Night Watch, the Wildlings. So case closed, right? GPT-2 must have had ASOIAF novels in its training data too, just like its nasty little great-grandchild.

Except we know what was in GPT-2's dataset - it was trained on a 40GB corpus of data scraped from publicly-available web pages, specifically pages linked from Reddit. We don't have all the exact texts that were used, but we DO have the top 1000 domains contained in the dataset. All of which is a hell of a lot more information than we have on ChatGPT.

What websites are ranked #75 and #160 in the list of 1000 domains? Why, it's Fanfiction.net and AO3. Hmm, I wonder where it learned about the very popular fictional characters from George RR Martin's novels! (Certainly not just from fanfiction, either - sites like IMDB and Wikia were ranked much higher in the list of sources, and entertainment news and fan wiki articles would also contain a lot of text about ASOIAF/GoT.)

You can certainly argue that using these websites as training data is also unethical or should be illegal - but that's not what's being argued in this lawsuit. As far as I know, ChatGPT has never spat out a perfect recreation (or even a vaguely paraphrased recreation) of any of GRRM's writing, so the only evidence for violation of his copyright in this case is the generation of what is essentially a machine-created derivative work. That is really, really worrying, even if you don't think the machine should be allowed to do that. I'm not a lawyer, just a fanfic writer and software developer, so I have no idea how legitimate the legal argument here is... but it's going down a road that is very dangerous for fandom, whether you believe it is or not.

[cattafang-the-third]

small fandomstuck ramble

the wild n silly urge to create a fandomstuck fanadventure,,,,,,,,,

i have some vague ideas for a backstory n such involving roomy and i kinda wanna write about that and how they and some other fandoms would fare in a sburb session. not sure whether i'd put him in a session with the main 4 fandoms from fs and some others or have the main 4 fandoms be post-scratch fandoms and have roomy play the game with their dancestors.

actually speaking of which, what would the dancestors of the main 4 be? i know homestuck's would prolly be hiveswap and doctor who's could prolly be torchwood, but what about hetalia and supernatural? anybody know of any spinoffs/spiritual successors for these two that could count as these guys' dancestors?

[spacexseven]

Ooh that was fantastic! SK Reader my new beloved. Also the idea of a spinoff with yu-yu? 👀. However I’m still absolutely foaming after obsession Nikolai. He’s something else, so disturbing and entertaining. Also, rip aku, ango, hirotsu, and mushitaro. I’m wondering so much of this universe: who was Sk Reader’s First kill? Is it Japan wide or does SK Reader’s kills only cover Yokohoma? We already know SK Reader main reason, but did someone or something else help develop the urge to kill ability user for SK reader? Has the public noticed the trend of killings or is it considered non connected murders? Has the reader been given a name by the public? Any vague information on the ADA and SK Reader? Or the Port Mafia considering they lost a resource with Akutagawa’s Death? (higuchi rip) . Sorry for the questions and thank you for the amazing fic. Your writing is wonderful. It gives so much inspiration for many. Thank you again for sharing your work with us. - 🦄 anon.

hehe to answer some of your questions

their first kill was some small time ability user; they didn't know about how their ability worked until this point

i like to think they're working their way into the heart of yokohama, where the ada and pm reside. yokohama is known for having multille active ability groups so it's where their later kills will be focused. ango, oda, hirotsu and akutagawa were tasked to find sk reader first, which is how they ended up being killed by sk reader. initially these names were near the bottom of their list, since they were planning on slowly infiltrating yokohama, and killing off prominent users would hardly let them work unnoticed

i'm still working on sk reader's ability, but their ability allows them to take the ability of users they kill, so that's another main motivator. they kill for the ability they want to have. it probably started out as a survival thing, but now they just do it for the ability

it just looks like random murders to the public, though it appears to be done by the same person. a lot of ability users don't let others know about their abilities, so it's the special division and other ability user groups that figure out the murderer is only targeting ability users first

uh no name yet bc im not creative enough for that haha

i think it'll be hard to write anything between ada and sk reader except for them wanting to throw them in jail bc dazai is obvs going to be very upset about oda's death, and fukuzawa wants to restore order to ability users in yokohama. sk reader is like. an irredeemable bad guy ㅠㅠ

pm, since mori sent his people after sk reader i don't think he'll be as upset as surprised. he might actually try to recruit sk reader or at least see what they're up to bc they killed many of his strong members already. i don't think the other mafioso will be too thrilled about meeting sk reader though...

i think for this au, the hunting dogs and doa make for the best in terms of characters to explore sk readers dynamics with so i can talk more about that later if you want ^-^

man...im such a sucker for the villain x detective trope like yukito is literally haunting my dreams i am obsessed w the idea of him going after sk reade

thank you for all the questions! i had fun discussing this au with you ^-^

[planets-and-prose]

Writeblr Re (Re, re, re) Introduction!

Hi all, I'm Ten. Again. I've been on Writeblr since, like...2018? 2019? College. I was in college, I had lots of time, lots of energy, super active. Then, well, I graduated, had to adult, the absolute love of my life became disabled, and now I'm a social worker doing my goddamn best. So I've been dead on this account for like, at least 2 years. Maybe 3.

But I'm, like, basically a cockroach, and I'm never going to get away from the desire to write things, so I'm working hard to try again, engage, prioritize the things that bring me joy. So, blurb aside, some shit about me under the cut!

I'm 24, and I do specifically case management and behavioral health services, but I shorten it to social work. Basically, I help advocate for individuals with mental illnesses and act as a buddy while they learn, or relearn, how to function in the community and work on themselves.

All my writing is queer. Literally all of it. I am deeply allergic to not putting LGBT+ rep in my writing, even if there's no romance people are LGBT+. Personally I am asexual, panromantic, violently nonbinary, and a complete disaster. My pronouns are they/them.

I write mostly sci-fi, fantasy, and supernatural type stories. And I always do happy endings. I deal with some really low lows in my daily life, writing is my escape, so I like to live in my worlds where everything turns out okay in the end, no matter how much suffering happens first (read: i am a slut for hurt/comfort).

Right now, my energy is so low that I do not want to commit to betaing anything long form, but I'd love to read excerpts, shorter stuff, cheer you on, etc!

I am also down to be a reference for people wanting to portray mental illness. Personally I have the classic depression/anxiety/PTSD cocktail, but I also have ADHD and have lots of experience with what mental illness looks like on a daily basis. Also a decent reference for LGBTQ stuff, especially in rural areas, and stuff relating to my job.

Finally, I'm probably coming off as a bit cynical here, and I do often cuss/use sarcasm, but I genuinely want to hug all of your OC's and I want to do my best to support y'all with the few spoons I have!

About my WIP's:

You can tell I have ADHD by the WIP turnover rate in this blog. I have tags for them I believe, an organized post might happen later, but here's the two new shiny WIP's I anticipate working on the most over the next bit.

A supernatural...vaguely horror, vaguely satire, series of short stories about a group of people, all of whom met at a college, who meet up and protect their college town from monsters. I hate to call it Scooby-Doo meets Supernatural vibes, because it's not QUITE that? It's based on the RPG Monster of the Week, so hopefully that gives you an idea of the vibes.

I am also hoping to start a fantasy, dnd like WIP involving a character I absolutely adore that I made for another story with my partner that needs his own spinoff. More info to come? Hopefully?

I won't lie to y'all and promise consistency or activity, but I'm hoping sharing some of my stuff will help motivate me to get back into Writeblr. Sending love to y'all, and pls feel free to rant to me about your WIPs too!

[my-mt-heart]

I can't watch this spinoff because I physically cringe. So I hope that you can tell me what kind of parallels Carol and Isabelle have you seen? because we remember the parallels of Carol/Leah and how it ended with absolutely nothing

I’m hoping once the WGA gives us the all clear, SF will pop in to talk about the episodes since she’s watching and I’m not. But I’ll also share some of my own thoughts after 106 airs.

That’s the problem with the parallels or any vague allusions to Carol. We know she’s coming back, but we don’t know if we’ll get the payoff we’re looking for. Nobody liked the Leah arc, so it’s a little baffling to me anyone would think it’s a good idea to try again, especially when trust is broken.

[arysthaeniru]

Hi !! For the ask game, breath of the wild for fandom and zelink for ship 🧐

Breath of the Wild!

Favourite character

I love Riju! I can't help it, I see a child forced to be a leader of her people, left with the burden of the dead on her shoulders and unable to do her task without help, but it too proud to admit it to her people, so she has to rely on an outsider....and I adopt them. It's the same reason Taya and Capella are my faves in Pathologic, haha. But also Riju's remarkably good-spirited about her whole deal, her oracle sand-seal Patricia who only speaks in puns, and a town of adult women who are entirely reliant on her.

Least Favourite Character

Revali. I wish there was a little more going on with this bird to justify his attitude beyond simple jealousy/rivalry, and I've seen some great fanon elaborations on him that I've really enjoyed (esp. regarding his friendship with Zelda, which I've fully accepted into my wheelhouse), but if we're going strictly off canon, he's not got a lot going on, and I wish there was a little more!

OH, but also Purah. Not in terms of her characterization necessarily, but how much she's coded to appeal to the worst types of gamers. First she's my beloathed trope of immortal loli, and then she's THE main fanservice in ToTK as aged up basic sexy girl, and everything about her design and everything squicks me out terribly. She and Robbie are so much fun in Hyrule Warriors, but I hate interacting with her within the BOTW/TOTK timeline, because you always have to deal with all that nonsense.

5 Favourite Ships

This is hard! I don't really ship too many people in Breath of the Wild? I find the world so much more interesting, but like.

Ganon/Link/Zelda - The beating heart of the series and their fascinating/godly destiny/duty ties them altogether, and although BOTW/TOTK outright refuse to give Ganon anything even vaguely resembling a character, I still think it's intriguing! I have so many ideas swirling in my head about how you could only have to tweak a few memories to make Ganon a more justified villain in TOTK that would actually make this compelling.

Cece/Lasli - Fashion lesbians! I think Lasli's practicality would clash interestingly with Cece being a diva, it would be a disaster, but also quite cute, I think! There's of course, the tragedy of Lasli's dead ex inbetween them, that's always fun to explore.

Riju/Yunobo - This is my weird crackship that I really developed while playing the spinoff, Hyrule Warriors, Age of Calamity. Their relationship to their mentors is very similar, their hangups about leadership and their place in their community is very similar, and they both love zooming across the game map. They are also very similar in age! If you play the games in Japanese, where we don't have the weird surfer dub for Yunobo, Yunobo and Riju are both 13 years old, and they're both very endearing.

Paya/Tauro - I love how genuinely positive and cute they are in ToTK! I'm so glad that Paya moved on from her crush on Link and instantly found somebody who actually validates her scholarly and leadership skills everyday, and encourages her to be her best self. They have a fun banter.

Koltin/Loone - Another fun little crackship! The girl who's obsessed with leviathans and guardians, and Koltin, THE monster guy. He knows everything about monsters and thinks they're misunderstood! I feel like they would get along. It's a shame we can't hook them up in-game.

Character I find Attractive

Ganondorf. Duh. He's a handsome man.

Character I would Marry

Teba seems like a good husband and dad. Also he's just very cool, haha. Or maybe Purah? I feel like we'd probably get along.

Character I would be Best Friends With

Gosh, probably Sidon! He's very supportive and nice. I feel like I would thrive with that sort of energy in my life. And I could help him be a better leader. Or Purah and/or Robbie, they're very hectic and manic but real dedicated to their work, and I am nothing at heart, if no a workaholic myself, lol.

Unpopular Opinion

I've seen more consensus agree with me lately, as the hype around ToTK has started to fade away, but I'm very frustrated by the Zonai and the way they handled that! It's so frustrating to see Zelda, whose lesson in BoTW was that her Father was wrong, the kingdom and its tenets were wrong, blind faith was wrong and that it was her love for her friends that saved her in he end--then learn the lesson in ToTK that monarchy is fine, everybody should just attempt to emulate the past, and that everything in the past was good.

I think constantly about the fact that Rauru's four sages, the people who swore fealty to him--have no identities. No names, no faces, no real agency or personality beyond their duty to the sacred stone, and their species. There's something very unsettling about that, and something very unsettling coupled with the Depths, this creepy, hollow, empty place that the Zonai mined out and left nothing in return. The Doylist explanation is, of course, that there are no writing credits on ToTK and they just didn't have the time to flesh out the Sages or the Depths, because they had to move on to making the new Zelda game for Switch 2. But the Watsonian explanation could have been really fascinating, it could make the Zonai more morally ambiguous. These aliens who came to Earth to mine the Earth for power and pulled people into their thrall for that power--which they saw as ultimately a tool to progress everybody's society, but also can be seen from Ganondorf's perspective as something horrifying. What is the worth of progress if it comes at the expense of identity?

But that would involve the writers having to grapple with the colonialism inherent to the premise they are creating here. And they want Rauru to be good, Hyrule to be good and Ganondorf to be straightforwardly evil. And that's sad to me, because Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, to an extent, are about the failures of the old rulers and their approaches, and how our heroes have to do better. And the fact Nintendo refused to do that here thematically makes me sad!

Most badass character

Urbosa! I LOVE fighting as her in Hyrule Warriors, and she's also just such a fun design and cool and supportive at the same time.

Pairing I am Not Fond Of

Sidon/Link. Not that I hate it or anything! I can see it, it's a very plausible pairing, but often a lot of people sideline Zelda entirely when they write it, and that's annoying to me. I don't like when yaoi shippers discard the most important women to a man's life to make it gay.

Characters I feel the Writers screwed up

Ganondorf! Evil brown guy is just evil because he's brown. Very annoying to not even try to make that feel more nuanced in the year 2023, but whatever.

Favourite Friendship

Robbie and Purah! I love their dumb banter and bickering in all of the games. Inventor duo, they hate each other and would die for each other, and when they work together, they can make the impossible happen. I love how much they both fight for credit on petty things, but they do always say the other was instrumental to their success. Their fighting style in Hyrule Warriors, where Robbie is the one piloting their mech-suit, while Purah just perches on the shoulder and shows off when they do their special attack--everything to me!

Zelink beneath the readmore!

When I Started Shipping It

Probably as SOON as I got to that memory in BOTW, where they're in the rain, and Zelda asks him if he had a chance to be anything else other than a knight, would he have taken it? And the look he gives her as he turns back, and the way the scene is framed when he's jolted out of the memory...argh, that's when the brainworms really started. But also I really did like that moment where she tries to get him to eat a frog, after complimenting his ability to tame horses. It's just cute, idk! They're the thematic core of the story. It's about the inevitable destiny of it, and how Zelda bucks against their fated destiny, but Link embraces it, because he is a man guided by devotion and courage, and her wisdom means she knows it's a bad idea--but how can she do anything but love it/him? There's something just a bit doomed to all of their interactions, and it makes me go insane!

My Thoughts (Good/Bad)

I find it bad for worldbuilding as a whole, but fascinating for their dynamic, that Skyward Sword makes Zelda the living incarnation of Hylia, because then you're constantly left with the question: is Link simply extending his devotion towards the Goddesses by loving Zelda, or does he love Zelda and the Goddess separately? Is that even possible to separate Zelda from the Goddess? What does it mean for your temple of devotion to be a person? And in BOTW/ToTK where they are haunted by failure and loss, where there's unspoken resentment towards each other they both have to let go of, Zelda in the past, and Link in the present, that infuses their dynamic with such fun tension, even when they do wholeheartedly love each other and do just get along. I find it tragic, and fun, and sweet and sad all at once. I love a good destined lovers, where neither is entirely sure if that's a good idea, or there's a certain exhaustion to it, because it's inevitable anyway...

Things Done in Fanfic That Annoy Me

When in post-botw fics they have kids, rule the restored kingdom of Hyrule together, and don't seem to have any trauma. They're both feral, they're of the Wild now, and if Link actually loved Zelda and Hyrule, he'd never support her remaking Hyrule Kingdom ever again. They're just not capable of having a happy nuclear family in that way, sorry!

People also make Link SO masculine in such a weird way sometimes in fanfic--no??? Even if you don't headcanon him trans, he's like...so distanced from the kind of daddy dom masculinity that so many fanfic writers seem to default onto a lot of sex?? He's very gender-fluid and I just can't ever see him in that kind of aggressive way. It's always very jarring and unpleasant. I also think people really overplay the enemies-to-lovers of pre-canon BOTW, which sometimes leads to fics where they're like...doing petty revenge on each other or like having dramatic blowouts--which always feels a bit unrealistic to me? I'm very picky about the zelinks I like ^^;;;

I also just hate modern AU in general. They don't make sense outside of the feudal system and those external pressures/divine pressures!! Bodyguard/celebrity will NEVER hit in the same way as knight/princess.

Who I'd be Comfortable With Them Ending Up With, if Not Each Other

Link has vibes with a lot of people! Honestly, in Windwaker, I don't ship Link/Tetra at all! Link and Medli is far more compelling to me. And TP, Midna and Zelda are so in love, and Link's just kind of there, he doesn't even know Zelda xD In BOTW, I feel like Impa/Zelda makes a lot of sense, and Link has chemistry with all sorts: Sidon, Paya, Beedle, all the random NPCs that flirt with him. I'm so rarely a single shipper, haha.

My Happily Ever After For Them

Wandering through the world as travelling diplomats/adventurers, with their home in Hateno whenever they're taking a break, and vacationing everywhere, as Zelda slowly writes her scientific 1000 page dissertation about the nature of the world, and Link writes the ultimate cookbook. The Triforce calls them to duty, but they mostly ignore those urges. They're done with divine duty--they only have duty towards each other and the world now.