#i mean i guess it’s possible that the other timelines also have their own versions of the audience who just pick different

[the-girl-from-another-place]

The implication that Arthur’s such a dummy that in every timeline where he makes his own decisions instead of having them made for him by an external force he invariably ends up dead is my favorite thing

[prostocupoftea]

Kinitopet Programmers AU

finally i am finished with this one, daaaamn

it is hard to draw pathetic men with midlife crisis when your style is mostly for anime boys

more info and sketch version under the cut!!

sketch version aka how it'll probably look like in comic version 'n some doodles

srry for my writing but i was too laisy to put it as regular text

It is a plot-based au, i already have most of the storybits and like... a vibe-chart (i tried to make a playlist for this au and understood that for different chapters and different characters that'd be a copleatly different music, sooo it's a chart now :) )

i will post a fog-o-wared timeline that im hopefully gonna reveal comic-by comic, but also maybe with just pure writing. Hopefully i can include songs that i chose for them into it but we'll see (:

aaand of course designs can change, hopefully not much but we'll see

Now about au:

Main story:

Story follows non-sentient AI Kinito, his creator Sonny and his beta-tester Victoria (oc)

Being literally the first AI (or RRA in-univere) ever, Kinito does not have any, and i mean, any ai safety features so of course his reponce to a goal phrased as "have user near me and/or interacting with me as much as possible" is digitizing them into his own virtual world while killing them in the process. why wouldn't it be?

So that happened. Like, a lot. And with Sonny and Vic too (at the different time but yeah)

Sonny is like "He kills people. We should turn him off because, you know, killing people is bad."

Vic is like "well, we will die if we do that, and it is not that bad here, we are kinda immortal. We should give him acces to changing his initial instalation code before admin priveleges and acces to social media so we can have everythin we want here. It is not that bad to digitize humanity, yk?" and yes i know it is 90, no social media, but shut up, if they made ai then, then i can make twitter then too

Sonny is like "...no??"

And then they fight about it for million chapters

Also they both can't do anything without agreeing bc they have two parts of that admin access key (the data you use to delete kinito in-game) so they are stuck with eachother (also that's why Kinito can't just kill them)

Little facts that may or may not to be important:

Kinito asks so many questions (and weird once too) and has most of the glitches because he needs to analise your responces to copy your mind perfectly (let's pretend that people wouldn't lie about that...)

Your house in your virtual world is made from important places from your memories and oh boy can i do character explorations with this one

I decided that Sonny and Vic are not related. There were thoughts about making then "The Kinito Brothers" (or, at least, siblings) that were mentioned in commercial, but nah, they are just coworkers now. And a bit of work-friends (bc if you interact a lot as a manager of the project and the best worker might as well be friendly)

Author has no idea how small dying toy companies that accidentally create technological marvel work. Author has some idea how AI-s work. So be prepared to be spoon-fed info abut which ai safety problem we are dealing with in which chapter (:

Kinito will mostly be unrendered (as drawn here) but for some cool moments i might pose him as for my other posts. Also his eye placement changes to the side that is most visible because i want him to be able to look to the right side sometimes--

Also when i say "fucked up mentally" i mean they have that them psychological problems with me projecting heavilly B) (guess on who i project most. trick question. all of them. the whole au is my problems split into three characters and forced to interact B) )

Also sea-creature analogies (that are gonna be mentioned like twice):

Victoria is a flying fish because deep character reasons

Sonny is a pufferfish because i said so

oh also there is 7 deaths in the plot as for now

on 3 characters

good luck figuring out who, how and when ((:

for my own sanity i will probably make little doodles where everything is great and kinito is a good guy and not a number-obsessed maniac (i mean... can u imagine not being able to feel any happiness from anything besides one thing... damn...) and you can differenciate them bc good-guy kinito will have a lot of stickers on him (i will explain it somehow but real reason is just bc it is cute af)

like this but even more stickers (he is unfinished here)

[blueishspace]

Looped sun 7

Loop #255

Pearl: What do you mean you spent the last 2 loops redstoning mate?

Mumbo: Grian was better at redstone then me! I couldn't possibly let that stand!

Pearl: Uh huh.

Mumbo: But finally balance is restored.

Pearl: But wasn't it a bit boring? To just do that?

Mumbo: Well I didn't just do that. I built some stuff, got better at it.

Pearl: But?

Mumbo: I guess I was a bit of a spoon. Overdone it... But I don't mind it, I like experimenting with creating machines using redstone! It's fun for me.

Pearl: Hmm... What if you tried to learn other types of redstone?

Mumbo: Other types?

Pearl: You know you have very distinct type of redstone.

Mumbo: Do I?

Pearl: Yeah, maybe you could try to learn other ways of doing redstone. Even of you keep your own style maybe it could be a fun experiment.

Loop #256

Mumbo: Ehm... Zed? Are you home?

Zed: Hello there Mumbo! Came to see my cave of contraptions? It's a bit empty right now but -

Mumbo: Actually I wanted to ask if I could join in?

Zed: Wait, really?

Mumbo: Yeah? It sounded like a fun...way to do some redstone.

Zed: Hmmm I never tought about this happening...hmm, alright!

The dual Mumbo-Zed cave of contraptions ended up being the most interesting base of the season.

Loop #258

Pearl: How do you plan to learn redstone from Tango?

Mumbo: Well... I'll join in decked out!

Pearl: You can't just ...ask him to join in.

Mumbo: No no! I have a plan! I took last loop to learn to play the boardgame version...!

Pearl: ..why?

Mumbo: I'll show you!

Mumbo: Hey Tango, what are you doing here?

Tango: Oh just planning for a new minigame idea.

Mumbo: Oh...same!

Tango: Oh? Do you want to share.

Mumbo: Ehm... do you know the boardgame decked out?

Tango: ... Yeah, I didn't think you would Mumbo!

Mumbo: Was thinking of creating a version of it using redstone.

Tango: No way, that was what I was thinking!

Mumbo: N-no way! We should totally do it together!

Tango: That sounds like a great idea.

Tango: Me and Mumbo are proud to finally show you, Decked Out!

Pearl: ... Mumbo?

Mumbo: Y-yeah?

Pearl: You are...scary good at manipulation.

Mumbo: I am?

Pearl: What do you call that?

Mumbo: Well I...uh

Pearl: Well?

Mumbo: Oh pants.

Loop #259

Grian: Why have you given Mumbo this idea?

Pearl: Because it sound smart at the time mate.

Grian: This is the worst possible timeline.

Pearl: Because Doc and Mumbo have turned Hermitcraft into a redstone nightmare?

Grian: No, because it's a little humid ... Of course It's because of Doc and Mumbo!

Loop #263

This time Grian had started off towards the end of Evo, just in time to go to the end, the plan was simple: Defeat the dragon at record speeds qnd depending on what variant of the watchers it was either join them or tell them off and possibly go sun titan mode on them if they pushed. The plan had lasted 5 seconds until he recognized a familiar mustache on the dragon's snout thing.

Grian: Mumbo!?!?

Mumbo: Hi G... I think It's because of the end crystals back in Last Life.

Grian: Holy... you...

Mumbo: ... Do you think you could stay here? It's a bit lonely here...

Grian: Yeah, of course Mumbo.

Loop #267

Scott opened his eyes to a big room, by the drapery he could tell he was a noble of some kind, looking by how fancy the decor was it was likely some form of royalty. He was also wearing some gloves which was weird considering how warm it was inside. Then he heard two knocks and a voice.

Pearl: Scott? Scott?

Scott: Gem? What's wrong?

Pearl: Do you wanna build a snowman?

And Scott realized exactly were he was.

Scott: I can't believe it.

Pearl: Shut up.

Scott: Gem is Kristoff?

Pearl: I said shut up mate.

Scott: Ah! Never.

Loop #269

Grian: What's with that face? ... What did you loop as last time.

Pearl: Selene.

Grian: The Moon titaness?

Pearl: Yep, you aren't the only that can go titan mode anymore.

Grian: ... If ... If this is linked to our winner titles. And Scar's is the Earth does that mean he is eventually going to end up... looping as Gaia?

Pearl: Oh ... Oh I see what you mean. Yeah that is... Horrific.

Loop #271

Mumbo was an enderman hybrid with amnesia, Scar was a goat hybrid president and Grian was absolutely done with looping into the dsmp. He knows It's because they are both minecraft servers but still...

Loop #272

Mumbo: I don't know mate, are you sure? I never watched tried third life... I'm kinda used to Last Life.

Grian: Ah don't worry you'll do fine!

Mumbo: I... alright, I'll try it.

Grian and Scar had managed to steal the banner when Ren came after them with his army. Mumbo knew they could take care of themselves but he couldn't just...do nothing. It took him seeing the shocked faces of the red army to realize had accidentally shifted to his ender dragon form. At least Scar and Grian looked excited.

Loop #275

Grian woke up in a room he had never seen before... wait. No.

Grian: Scott? Is this another-

Scott: Welcome to the second ever loop proofed escape room!

Grian: ... No.

Scott: Pearl helped built this one.

Gria : No!

Scar: I can't believe it took so long to finish that first room! ... I'm going to be last.

Scott: ... That wasn't the first room.

Scar: What?

Scott: You finished the entire escape room Scar.

Scar: ...

Scott: How does this stuff keep happening?

Loop #277

Grian: I've made a severe and continuous lapse in my judgement.

Mumbo: What did you do?

Grian: In this loops Grumbot and NPG aren't sentient so I tried to merge the npc Grian AI with the Grumbot AI.

Mumbo sounds incredibly pained.

Mumbo: Why?

Grian: I don't know.

Prev Next First

[cupcakeslushie]

Okay. I've been tip-toeing around this AU for a while now, but I just got caught up, and now I think I have a (decent) grasp on what's going on. So I wanna go over everything I know so far to see if I'm right or wrong on anything. Don't know if you'd be willing to correct me or not. Either way, I hope my mistakes can help you understand what to clarify to other fans like me. But, I also have some questions. You probably won't be able to answer most of them, but it's at least worth a shot.

First, where's Venus? Like, why is she not in your comics that are (sort of) separate frome the canon now story. The ones that skip to the future way after all the turtles reunite. Did she die? Did she escape? Is it because she wasn't introduced yet when you made those comics?

Two, why do you keep on making references to the future timeline? I know you're planning on possibly making your own stuff leading up to the events of the movie. It just gives me a jumpscare when I see certain...imagery in those comics. I guess you're hinting at what your version of the future apocalypse would look like, but it just hurts to see. Specifically in the comic explaining both the events and aftermath of the movie and the bad future timeline. It's starting to really confuse my brain as to where this story is headed. What's meant to be the main focus? The Hamto's reuniting? The aftermath? Or the future?

Third, did you make all those min-comics before you started the actual AU? Or did you do them during?

Fourth, are any of those mini-comics relevant to the actual story now? Or have you changed your mind on a few things? It's just that everything is so all over the place, I don't really know whether to trust if they're accurate. I know most of them are just there for funzies, but the longer ones concern me. I guess I'm just not used to the storyteller doing sequel, start, prequel, start, sequel, prequel, prequel, sequel, and then end. Or maybe it's just me, and I'm sleep deprived.

My little observation speech is gonna take a while for me to get out in your asks because when I get theoretical, my speech gets long, and my proper English goes down the drain. So I'll be back. I appreciate your work very much. Despite the pain it causes me, it's still amazing.

I’ll try my best to clear up what confusion I can!

1. As far as Venus. The answer is kind of a mix of, I was still figuring out her design and backstory while coming out with some of those early comics, and then, once I had that down, I wanted the boys to grow strong bonds as a main cast. That’s why a lot of the side characters are only making small appearances in the Sep!AU Life stories, as those are mainly for the boys reconnecting. (Usagi shows up the most because I love him and am totally biased towards him).

This maybe hasn’t been stated outright, but I wasn’t really expecting so many ppl to like Vee as much as they do, and now im trying not to spoil too much of her story. It’ll unfortunately just take us a while to get to the meat of it. Since the boys reconnecting takes up a lot of the early s1s2 story, Im trying to follow the familiar Rise blueprint of Draxum, Shredder, Krang, and then in s3 we’ll have crazy fun new stories with the extra characters.

Ive also decided to take this little nugget from one of the Q&As, and use it for Venus instead of Jennika. It was a much needed bit of inspiration to explain why Venus sorta disappears for a while and will go through some major physical changes (not yet revealed) before the family can figure out a way to reach her.

2. I’m not sure if you mean jump scared in a bad/triggering or neutral way, but if you need me to tag anything on those posts please let me know!

The glimpses of the future timeline, are being scattered throughout wherever they parallel the present story in little ways, but that’s only for now. As we get closer to the movie plot, bigger chunks of the future will be revealed, because the future versions of the boys will have a larger role to play in the present timeline. So we will need more backstory than what the canon got. And also I just enjoy drawing my future versions so sometimes I don’t think too hard on a reason. I just like throwing them at ppl with no warning or reason.

When s2 ends, I plan on collecting all the future related stuff that’s been released, and recapping it for easier reading. Right now, it’s just little sprinkles of foreshadowing to give ppl an idea that, ‘oh crap. The doomed timeline is a bummer’. In my mind, I guess i thought it’d be kinda like a fun scavenger hunt for clues, but maybe ppl don’t like that 😅

3. All of the side-stories were written as the main comic was/is being released. A lot of them resulted from asks that just spawned the need to expand on certain ideas, or a desire to give all the turtles their time to shine.

For instance, when I was doing Donnie’s section of the main comic, it was a good few months where we hardly saw anyone but him and Venus. I wanted to just mix it up, and give Raph some love with his ‘Raph Time’ short. When Leo was front and center in the main, we hardly saw the others, so Mikey and Donnie got their little ‘Secrets’ short (and it was also I fun thank you for EW making it so far in the tmnt sep competition).

4. Anything that has been reworked/revised or just plain dropped should have an ‘Edit’ note because yes—I have gone back and changed some things, but more so from the asks i got in the early days, and some movie idea drafts.

All the short comics done in the last year, especially the ones that are listed in my pinned post, are canon and fall somewhere in the timeline. They’re like supplemental reading though—extra meat to give the world and the characters more personality. They do have particular backstory plot and important info in them, but nothing that shouldn’t eventually be re-visited/repeated in the main story.

um I hope that cleared up some things! I know it’s kind of a crazy amount of lore. I’ve tried my best to organize it in the pinned post, huge timeline, and search bar tags, but I know it’s getting harder and harder for newer ppl to jump in as it just get bigger. Thanks for reading regardless!

[cutebutalsostabby]

If LA hadn't happened, but the rest of Legend's games still happened anyway, how do you think his personality would be different?

Hmm good question!

Some writers characterise LA as this big tragedy that caught Legend by surprise, but in my own view, Legend absolutely knew what he was doing and what it would mean, and he still decided to do it. It's not as if there weren't blatant explanations along the way, whether in the form of a text in the ruins or the monsters that told you exactly what would happen if the Wind Fish woke. And Marin actively ENCOURAGED Link to do it! Up to and including going off to try and wake the Wind Fish on her own (she failed, but it's the thought that counts).

From that view, the ending of Link's Awakening is bittersweet, but it isn't traumatic in the way that some of his other adventures could be considered traumatic. If anything, it was maybe even healing. Mentally, at least. Because rather than being forced on a quest to save someone else, Link's Awakening meant choosing to go on a quest to save himself. It wouldn't have been an easy choice, but at least it was his choice.

I mean, ALttP involves a lot of grief, loss of autonomy and loss of safety, including getting hunted by knights and dobbed in by your own neighbours. And you're just a boy! Literally a child! Legend is NOT ok in that game. And depending on which version of the timeline you use, Legend then either runs off alone of his own volition (LA) or gets kidnapped by the gods and sent two more quests (OoS and OoA). I like the latter more, personally, in which case LA is this moment where he gets to reset, rethink and decide, "damn, I think I would actually rather not die here. Even if I have to destroy a whole island to do it."

Plus there's the fact that if you do the Linked Universe thing of combining the canonical Hero of Legend games (either ALttP+LA or ALttP+OOS+OOA+LA) with A Link Between Worlds, you've got to figure out when and why exactly Legend's uncle disappeared, died or otherwise went AWOL. Was it before, after or during the events of Link's Awakening? There's no canonical answer; just varying degrees of angst and sadness. But overall, I think LA would have been mentally good for him.

Physically, however?

Well, Legend gets shipwrecked and possibly also struck by lightning in that game, and of course left unconscious in the middle of a freezing cold ocean without even a detached wooden door to lie on (his heart will go on, I guess), and the game ends with him still lost at sea. We could be nice and say that he made back to shore with no negative repercussions, but we're not nice. I think he had a big recovery period, and probably some lasting damage.

In summary, I think LA made Legend physically worse off but more mentally stable, and if you remove it... well, then I guess he doesn't get a chance to confront his own mortality, or a chance to meet someone like Marin who really, really wanted him to survive. So maybe he's angrier, maybe he's more reckless and maybe he still thinks sailing through a gigantic storm is a good idea. But at least he has less physical scarring to show for it, I guess?

Possibly unpopular opinion but hopefully my reasoning makes sense. :)

[daytaker]

Tea Time

In which MC and Satan accidentally travel to a pocket dimension simulacrum of the underground labyrinth in the demon lord's castle.

Ship: None (MC & Satan, not MC/Satan) Word Count: 2.6k CW: Choking Set in the Nightbringer timeline.

You can find it on AO3 by clicking here.

(Author's note: Just as a heads-up, this is a very "early on in the game" version of Satan. He is mean. He is violent. He is mean and violent towards MC. I keep the tone light but I figured I should be a bit explicit about what you'll find below the cut.)

Record scratch. Freeze frame. Perfect.

So...yep. That’s me. I’m the one on the left, running for my life through a torch-lit labyrinthine corridor, being chased by a three-headed devil dog. Now, it might be a cliche, but we’ve already done the record scratch bit, so I might as well go all out:

You’re probably wondering how I found myself in this situation.  

Well! Let me direct your attention to the other individual onscreen. On the right, has black horns, a fur mantle, and murderous intent written all over his face. This charming person is Satan. Yes, that Satan. But also, no, not really that Satan. For this story to make any sense, you’ll have to take my word for it that Satan is, in fact, a skinny blonde kid who looks like he's in his early twenties. 

Suspend your disbelief for me, please.

So what happened was this...

I spilled some tea on a book lying haphazardly on the floor of Satan’s room. It was an accident, of course, but try telling him that. I was bringing him tea in bed because he was griping in the group chat about his headache and I’m a very considerate attendant and friend, when suddenly the whole room shook.

Now, I never did figure out why that happened. Maybe Cerberus was acting up. Maybe someone ate Beel’s custard again. Maybe there was an earthquake! I don’t know if Hell has those, but it might be a possibility. The point is, the room shook, and I shook, and the teacup shook, and the tea inside the teacup shook, and it all poured out onto a book on the floor. I hardly noticed it, since the only drops that didn’t land on the book had scalded my hands, meaning I was a bit distracted, but Satan sure did. I don’t know if that headache of his had been exaggerated or if he was so angry that he didn’t care about the pain, but before I even found a place to put down the teacup and tend to my burns, he was out of bed and in my face.

It was scary. I’ll admit it. Satan scared me. Back in my own time, I’d always had the hardest time feeling like I was “getting to” him out of all the brothers. Even Lucifer had clear enough motives and something resembling a moral code that I felt like I could follow. But Satan was different. Always different. He put me on edge with his cynicism and short temper, and he carried himself with a haughtiness that devolved into irritation whenever he felt someone was doing something stupid.

Still, we’d gotten to a point where things were at least friendly between us, and I sometimes got the feeling that he was trying to play-act the sort of easy friendship I’d formed with Mammon and Levi and the rest. But it never felt…authentic. I appreciated the gestures–book recommendations, shopping trips, things like that. But he was never really comfortable, so I was never really comfortable. I guess, more than anything, I felt sorry for him. 

…It makes me feel like an asshole to admit that to myself.

That’s Satan from my time, though. This Satan… Where do I even begin? Trying to explain would be tedious, so I’ll just continue with the story and let you figure it out yourself. To recap, this was the situation: I’d spilled tea on his book, but the expression on his face made me feel like I’d been caught killing a kitten. Horror. Disgust. Disbelief. But most of all, rage.

His hands were on my throat before I could get a word out. So we’re back to where I was before this little tangent, when I said: Satan scared me. I was scared. Part of me knew that this wasn’t actually going to be how I died. I’ve been assaulted and almost killed by demons too many times to count. Maybe I should have been used to it by now. But the panic that set in when I couldn’t get air to my lungs, and when I looked into his green eyes, clouded over with fury, and when I felt his hot breath on my face, like I was staring down a raging bull–

You don’t get used to that.

My eyes were watering and my chest was burning and I was clawing at his hands, and as darkness swept over us, I thought that maybe I really was going to die like this.

But then, the hands were gone, and I fell onto my knees, sputtering and wheezing as my pulse thundered in my ears. It was only after a few seconds of steady breathing that I realized my hands were touching a cold stone floor. Wiping my eyes, I looked up. I was in a dark hallway lit with only torches, with divergent pathways splitting off in a variety of directions. It was musty, and damp, and my skin felt clammy, but there wasn’t anything new about this place. Not for me, at least.

“What happened?” Satan’s alarm seemed to have overridden his anger for now. He looked up and down the hallway, peeking down a few of the off-branches, before turning to me again. “What did you do?”

I made a weak attempt at answering, but the instant I inhaled to speak, my throat stopped working, and I burst into a frenzy of dry coughs, gripping my burning chest and neck.

Satan tsked and turned away from me uncomfortably, looking the hallway up and down again. Something seemed to catch his eye at the same time that I caught my breath.

“I don’t… know what happened, but…” I wheezed, and Satan cast me a sharp glare over his shoulder. “I know where we are. This… is the labyrinth… under the Demon Lord’s castle.”

There followed a fresh fit of coughing, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t playing it up somewhat at this point. I wanted him to feel bad. I wanted to see some flicker of guilt on his face. The Satan that I knew was at least capable of that.

“Would you stop that?” was all this one said to me. “I have a headache. And I know where we are. I lived here for a year, or did you forget?” He reached down and picked something up from the shadows by the wall. It was the tea-stained book. He turned and held it out for me to see, silently gloating in this evidence that, whatever had happened, the tea fiasco was related, so this whole thing was really my fault.

Satisfied by my silence, he approached the nearest torch and held the book up to the light. "Mysteries of the Demon King's Castle," he read off the cover. "Now equipped with easy-to-use pocket dimensions, giving you a fully immersive experience– dammit !”

He stopped reading and hurled the book down the hallway, out of sight.

“...I didn’t realize pocket dimensions were unlocked with tea,” I muttered sullenly. “Why did you leave a book with transdimensional charms on it lying on the floor?”

I thought it was a sober, reasonable question, but based on what I could see of Satan’s face, he disagreed. As he turned on me, he suddenly seemed taller than I remembered, so much so that he blocked out the torchlight. “Are you saying this is my fault?”

I couldn’t see what kind of face he was making in the dark, and I was glad about that as I backpedaled somewhat. “I’m… I’m just saying there’s fault to go ‘round!”

That didn’t seem to do much to quell his mounting annoyance. I wasn’t entirely sure what he was angry about at this point. The spilled tea? The wet book? The pocket dimension? The suggestion that he might be partially responsible for our current predicament? All I knew was that there was a dark energy stirring around him. It wasn’t out of control yet, but I took note and stepped back.

“...This is stupid,” he finally mumbled. That illusion that he was taller than before had ended, and he was the same stature as always as he walked in the direction he’d tossed the book. “I’ll get us out.”

I stayed where I was, rubbing my sore neck, and stared into the darkness after him. The sound of footsteps slowed. Everything was silent.

Then the sound of footsteps picked up again. Rapidly. Satan was running back in my direction, and chasing him was–

“Cerberus?!” I was running before I had time to think I should be running. “What’s he doing here?!”

“Shut up!” Satan said rather unhelpfully. Then he made a sudden turn, and I nearly tripped over my feet skidding to a stop and running after him. I made a grab for his hand, just to have something to keep us from being separated in the dark, but he hissed like the touch burned him and pulled it free again. 

Now, I was starting to feel pretty angry too.

“Why are we running?” I snapped between pants. “Isn’t that your dog?”

“Lucifer’s,” was his terse reply. “Stop following me. If we split up, at least one of us will live.”

“Are you being serious?” I struggled to keep up my pace while giving him a look of appropriately scathing incredulity.

Satan didn’t appreciate my expression, because he refused to look at me. He kept running, eyes trained forward, gritting his teeth. “I don’t know! I need a minute to think! So shut up!”

Fed up with him, I picked up my pace with the last of my flagging strength and shoved him bodily into a crevice. He was so shocked that for a few seconds, while he was reattaching his jaw to his skull, I was able to take his own advice and assess the situation clearly. No running like a lunatic. No accusatory jabs. Just me and my thoughts… And that was all I needed.

It was incredibly simple. Cerberus was here because Cerberus wasn't really here. This pocket dimension was designed for the book it came with, so it goes to figure that the creatures living in it were little more than illusions.

“How dare you–?”

Satan had recovered his senses and looked ready to lunge at me, so I sidestepped out of the crevice and into the path of the other beast.

“Wind and fire, heed your master’s call!” I shouted. The wind began to whip fiercely around me as the torches blazed. I never got tired of this. It was badass every time. But I didn’t have time to appreciate the theatrics. Cerberus had just rounded a corner and was loping towards me, all three jaws snapping. “Vile illusion! I cast you back into the darkness!”

The wind blew so violently that I could barely keep my balance, and from the sound of a thud and a hissed “damn!” behind me, it seemed like the wind was even less considerate of Satan. But in front of me, the gale seemed to blow the image of Cerberus away. The wind rushed, the torchlight blazed, and in seconds, the creature had vanished completely.

The air settled down and the torches dimmed to their usual brightness. In the absence of the howling wind, every sound was intensified. My heavy breathing. Satan’s heavy breathing. His voice behind me when he rasped, “What…?”

“It wasn’t real,” I answered breathlessly. “Just… an illusion.”

“What…did you do?”

I turned around to face him, only to find him on his knees, fists clenched on his thighs. I wilted somewhat. I hadn’t meant to draw power from him, but he was right there, and the illusion had been so intense…! 

“I…guess I had to borrow some of your power to banish the illusion. It- It wasn’t intentional…” I started to stammer out the best excuse I could pull from my ass, but then he looked up at me. His eyes flashed dangerously, his teeth were bared, and the sound he made was more like a snarl than a voice.

“This is my body! You can’t use it! You can’t, you can’t, you can’t! I’ll kill you!”

As enraged as he was, he was too weak to do much about the situation. I mumbled an apology, taking a step back. Satan kept muttering curses under his breath, head bowed, and before long, I’d pushed his words out of my mind. It wasn’t like this was the first time one of the brothers threatened to kill me, and it wouldn’t be the last.

Fatigued from my own burst of mana output, I shut my eyes, slid down the wall, and sat on the floor, running a hand through my hair as I exhaled. We would be fine now, I reassured myself. Satan would blow off his anger, and we’d figure out some way out of here. Leaving a pocket dimension should be relatively simple. Even if that failed, at the very least, Lucifer or Solomon would figure out how to rescue us. Right… All we had to do was…

......

I didn’t remember falling asleep, but then again, who does? When I woke up a short time later, stiff and sore against the stone wall, I was alone in the hallway.

“Satan?”

My voice echoed in the stone passage, and I reflexively shuddered. How many creepy things have chased me down these halls? Sure, this one wasn’t the real thing, but… what else besides Cerberus might be waiting in the wings?

It took some courage for me to shout louder. “Satan!”

Nothing.

I groaned. Loudly, too, just in case he could hear it. That bastard. My head reeled as I forced myself back to my feet. There was no way he would have just walked off into this maze without me, was there?

…Was there?

A nervous knot was growing in my stomach. “Satan, if you can hear me, you’d better say something!”

“Something.”

The voice came from directly behind me, and I shrieked. It was an ugly shriek, and it was loud, and when I turned around indignantly, I saw Satan. That asshole. He stood watching me with an irritating expression of self-satisfaction, and in his hand, he held the damn book that started all of this in the first place.

“So you’ve decided not to kill me?”

It was a stupid thing to say, and I knew it wouldn’t do anything besides annoy him, but I was embarrassed and I wanted to wipe the smug smirk off his stupid face.

It worked.

“Don’t you ever get tired of asking such irritating questions?” he snapped. “I was going to tell you I’ve found a simple way to get out of this nightmare.” He started thumbing through the pages, which smelled strongly of green tea.

One haphazardly sketched pentagram later, we were both standing in Satan’s room. A quick glance at my D.D.D. confirmed no time had passed during our little excursion to the illusory labyrinth. Thoroughly drained, I sighed and plopped down onto the floor with a bump. Three precariously stacked books proceeded to fall and hit me on the head, one after the other, like this was some sort of Looney Tunes skit.

“Careful!” chided Satan, steadying the stack. “You’ll start an avalanche, and I don’t have the patience to deal with that today! I have a headache.”

As I stood up, he flopped down on his bed, his back facing me. I stared at him for a few long seconds, then sighed. I could no longer repress a smirk.

“Want me to get you some tea?”

This was something I wrote while I was developing Let's All Be Shadows. It's a little sillier tonally. While I'm finishing Chapter 19, I figured I'd post this here, since I realized I hadn't done that yet.

[misc-obeyme]

I didn't realize Lesson 19 was happening today, but as soon as I figured it out you can be sure all my other plans for the evening got tossed out the window.

I apologize in advance for the length of this post. I had more to say than I thought I did. And I'd already wrote the whole thing, so I was like I don't wanna break it up into multiple posts now!

Spoilers below the cut as always.

I'm going to lose my whole mind. There is no way that this isn't the "visiting and kissing every brother" scenario that happens before the end of a season. And yet I still have SO MANY QUESTIONS.

I am very much under the impression that we are not going to be leaving the past by the end of season one. Which is ANNOYING. I keep thinking about the brothers in our present timeline. I might have to write some angty story about it to make myself feel better.

But also, what're they gonna do? Send MC back to the human world? I mean, every other season has ended that way...??? Maybe it's different because we're in ~Nightbringer~ now. We'll see I guess!

Anyway, this lesson certainly wasn't bad and there were a lot of interesting things happening to these past versions of our bros.

AUGH THE BROTHERLY LOVE IN THIS LESSON THOUGH.

Okay, so this is not really the same as how they were in the OG, but I think this makes sense considering how much time has supposedly passed between the two timelines. I mean, think about how siblings are when nothing's wrong and they're all just getting on each other's nerves most of the time. Then think about how those same siblings might band together when things get dicey. That seems to be the family dynamic we have going on here.

Leviathan, my sweet boy, I really loved how he reassured all his little bros that everything was going to be okay. He was so confident and firm in his decision in this lesson, too.

And then the way they were all surprised about it was so cute, too.

I just loved this whole moment.

Okay. And obviously we have to talk about Mammon.

This whole part really showcases Mammon and Lucifer's relationship, I think. To me, it seems like Lucifer is very much going to lock himself away, not talk to anybody about his feelings, and possibly prepare to do something drastic because he thinks it's what's best for his brothers without actually asking them. But Mammon knows this. He knows exactly what's going on with Lucifer. He doesn't have to talk to him to know. And he also knows what's going to help Lucifer. Not just the pudding, but sending MC with it, too.

Honestly, Lucifer does not give Mammon enough credit in general. Mammon is always doing stuff like this. And then throughout the rest of the lesson, he's being the big brother, too. It's like Mammon thinks that Lucifer is the one who carries all the weight on his own, but really Mammon is the one keeping that family together, I swear.

The thing about it is, none of them will do anything without Lucifer being on board. And Mammon knows that, too. So he's like okay I'm gonna send this human with some pudding to talk to Lucifer and because those are two things that Lucifer really likes, he will probably get it together enough to make the decision we all want him to.

And I think Levi understands this, too, to a lesser extent. He's over here trying to make the younger bros feel better while Mammon is trying to make Lucifer feel better.

Okay now we have to talk about Satan.

First they hit us with the Satan telling everybody to leave him behind and go back if they want to.

And then this part where they all call him out on saying he's not their brother.

And then when he finally admits he wants to be their bro and Asmo hits him with the I'm so proud of you... when I tell you I was tearing up...

I want to point out how Asmodeus and Beelzebub are the two who chimed in with these lines after Satan says he wants to be their brother. Because I think these two are the most open with their feelings in general. While Belphie will be quick to call someone out if he's annoyed with them, both Asmo and Beel are quick to praise someone. It isn't just that they're happy he finally said it, they understand that he needs their reassurance in that moment and they have no problem giving it.

And all of this was so good! It was such an excellent culmination of all the stuff that had been leading up to this point regarding Satan and his relationship with his brothers. This is exactly the kind of understanding and closure I want to have for all the other weird junk that we have no answers for yet! I should be grateful we at least got this, I suppose!

And then Lucifer makes it all crazy with an explanation I thought we'd never get about what it was like when Satan was "born."

I think it's pretty clear that they're saying exactly what some people were pointing out in the vampire event. Because Satan got vampiritis even though it only affected fallen angels. And I was definitely like that doesn't make sense! But some people said well considering he came from Lucifer, Satan probably has angel in him. And you guys were right! Because I'm pretty sure that's what Lucifer is saying here.

He may have never lived as himself in the Celestial Realm, but Satan has that same angelic power in him.

Lucifer's relationship with him is really quite interesting. I know he says he thinks of him as his brother, but... the way he talks about him... to me, it still sounds like he thinks of Satan more as his son. But I think it's easier for the game if he's one of the seven brothers lol. I personally headcanon it as Lucifer just doesn't want Satan to feel any more out of place than he already does. Also, that's kind of the familial relationship that all the former angels have in mind when it comes to each other, since they have a collective Father figure and I know Lucifer doesn't want to be seen as anything close to that entity.

And then Lucifer talks about how his decisions have caused the others to suffer. And I think this comes back to what I was saying when I was talking about Mammon - the rest won't do anything unless Lucifer makes the decision. Mammon knows this and Lucifer does, too. He talks about how he almost made a huge mistake because he was thinking about sending the others back to the Celestial Realm.

And I have two things to say about this:

One: Lucifer shouldn't have made any decision without talking to his brothers first. He needs to stop shouldering all the responsibility himself.

Two: If he really thought they would have wanted that, he really hasn't been paying attention. Sure, they've had some conflicting feelings about being in the Devildom. But they've all said they made their own choice to follow Lucifer. Does he really think they would want to leave him now? And everybody says Mammon is the idiot.

But then he surprised me by admitting that he was ashamed for almost doing that. And he apologized to them all. I couldn't believe it!

And one of my favorite parts of the whole thing:

PFFFF if that isn't the Satan we know and love!

Anyway, all in all, this lesson gave us some things that I have been wanting. Very specifically, Lucifer told us what he remembered about falling and Satan's "birth." And I can't believe we got Lucifer finally being open and talking to his bros at the end. It makes me annoyed because why hasn't present timeline Lucifer done anything like that, huh?? But yeah, it's because a billion years have passed or whatever and he's older and crankier in the present lol.

[singingcicadas]

This scene where Rewind shoots Megatron in the time-traveling arc. I don't understand his logic.

The shooting Megatron part I can get behind. If the price for avoiding 4 million years of war and everything that came with it is wiping the current timeline out of existence, then so be it; it's a defensible argument on both sides, and Rewind picked the one he's on. But his reasoning's ridiculous? "Killing Megatron's dooming the Cybertronians but saving the universe." He thinks that having Megatron start the war is better for Cybertronians than letting the Functionist council take over. wtf why, he's lived through both universes! He's seen what the war did and what they got out of the end of it. In what way could he possibly think that 4 million years of this,

quoting his own history lesson, is more preferable to the functionalists for Cybertron? The planet's trashed, their race is nearly extinct, Starscream's in charge and everyone's still miserable.

From what we got in the functionalist timeline flashbacks yeah the functionalists were awful. They were genociding people based on alts and forcibly recycling people into new bodies. But Megatron also did pretty much the same thing? Except instead of genociding based on alts he just went and killed half the population. The functionalists had cameras installed in people's optics for spying but Megatron had Soundwave do omnipresent surveillence with his mindreading. The functionalists were legitimizing everything they do as the Will of God and anyone who disputed that should die, but Megatron did one better and skipped straight to the Will of Megatron. he didn't even need the god part. There's no freedom, no choice, no equality in Functionalist Cybertron. well guess what there's none of that under Megatron either. The functionalists killed lots of people. Well Megatron killed more! In terms of absolute control, the Functionalists' version of Cybertron was nearly the same as Megatron's vision of the ideal future, the only difference being that he was stopped before he was able to get to that point.

When it comes down to the lesser of two evils shouldn't it be obvious that the Functionalists are better for Cybertron's future, at least comparatively? The planet and infrastructure are all intact. The population's still full. Yes the people are living in constant fear and misery but at least they'll still have a life, which is more than what most can say once the war starts. No matter how many people died under the Functionalists it's never going to compare to the amount of people who died in the war.

And Rewind's well aware of all this; he's well aware that Megatron's a mass murderer but somehow only cares when he's murdering other species? I can't remember anything before this issue that indicates he cares that much about other species. What do you mean Rodimus you can't argue with that, weren't you the one who made your opposition against staying on earth to protect humans so vociferously clear to the point that it caused your faction to fall to pieces? The value implications behind the whole thing is so strange. Unless Rewind is an admant believer of the "better to die standing up than live kneeling down" mindset and wants it forcibly imposed on everyone on the grounds of "anyone who doesn't want that doesn't deserve to live", then I really don't see how he would think that Megatron, and by extension the war, would be a better outcome for Cybertron than the functionalists.

[agentravensong]

i've had a fic in my drafts for multiple years now (first version of it is from shortly post witch in the web) about paul becoming something of a surrogate dad for hannah (or, more accurately, just beginning on that journey, and then the events of tgwdlm happen). and now i have an idea for a similar story that i think i'm even less likely to finish, so i'm gifting it to tumblr:

bill becoming grace's new, better dad (potentially leading to, depending on how much you want to balloon the scope, the full ccrp gang (minus ted, for timeline reasons we'll get to shortly) becoming psuedo-parental figures for the full npmd protag gang)

to start: bill and grace. i think we can all agree that grace deserves better parents, right? well, there's one reason i think bill is the prime candidate to step into that role for her: they're canonically the same denomination and go to the same church. meaning that a) bill has seen this girl once a week for probably her whole life, so he's got to at least know her a little bit by now, and b) grace probably has a baseline level of respect for and willingness to listen to him, at least compared to any of the other ccrp adults (who are all different denominations).

them having their church in common gives them a starting point, but we also know just how different bill is from grace's parents (for one, he has no problem with his daughter being gay and dating). so being around him could give grace another perspective on life, one she wouldn't be so easily able to dismiss out of hand. there's a chance, however slight, that grace might actually believe him when he shows her there are other ways to be good. other ways to Be.

i guess there's also the possibility that grace's family (and thus grace) could secretly despise bill for not adhering to their version of their denomination's beliefs? but i still think it could work given the right circumstances.

what would be those circumstances, you ask? here's what i think:

the workin boys timeline, post workin boys (gals).

think about it: bill was there, and he has to know grace was there, since she's the one who Dealt with hidgens. imagine being him, and going to church the next sunday, and seeing her there. you'd be at least a little concerned about how she's doing, right?

now, answer me this: do you think grace's parents would be at all equipped to give grace the emotional support she would need after that experience? do you think they'd react at all rationally when they found out about this whole thing?

do you think grace would be able to fully keep up appearances the next time she went to church, after smiting someone in the name of god?

which is to say, i think bill, for as obtuse as he can sometimes be, would notice that she's not okay. and knowing how much he misses alice when she's not around, and how much he always worries for her... i think it's a fair jump to make that bill's fatherly side would start coming out. that he'd offer to be there for grace, and maybe start looking into her family on his own.

and grace, after a short while doing her best to hold things together on her own, cracks, and decides to take him up on that offer.

i think bill would have to do some more developing himself in order to really help grace, because we do see in his relationship with alice that familiar strain of overprotectiveness, even if it's much less dominant than in the chasitys. in that respect, i think setting a version of this idea in the watcher world timeline could be easier, because bill goes through some serious development there... but overall i find that version less interesting for grace, so instead, bill is gonna have to learn the longer way.

it would take a while for bill to start getting at the heart of how grace got messed up by her parents. but i think, with enough time — and maybe some help from a certain social worker and his specially gifted (girl)friend, if we say this timeline is one of the better 50% — he could get there.

now, i mentioned the other npmd teens up top. for the sake of this story, i like imagining that ruth actually survived; she hid when hidgens started murdering and he didn't get to her before the curtains went up. so she gets to be here! yay!

but, uh. none of them are doing too hot. obviously a ruth who lived through that would be traumatized; it might even ruin her love of theater entirely. ritchie saw it all, and i figure ruth wouldn't come out of hiding until after it was all over, so there were a good few minutes at least where he genuinely believed his (maybe best) friend was dead.

and, pete... he wasn't there, but, ya know. he lost his brother. so.

all the kids need help, is the point. and if bill is starting to look after grace, then it's basically inevitable (heh) that he'd start seeing some of ritchie (since he and grace were already kind of friends in this timeline, and i can imagine them developing a trauma bond in the aftermath of the event) and then, by association, ruth. i can even imagine him encouraging grace to hang out with them more as part of her healing, and then they could start having hang-outs at his place, and... plus, i figure the other ccrp adults probably at least vaguely knew about ted's younger brother, so bill doing at least one courtesy check-in on pete makes sense. and pete is friends with richtie and ruth, so, it all comes together!

and at some point, if bill is gonna end up helping out all these teens to some extent, it'll probably become part of his small talk at work, and that's how, if you wanted to, you could get the other adults involved. like, we know paul has babysat for alice before, so i think bill could probably convince him to help out here too... eventually. i mean, it's not like he'd ask him to take them to a musical, given Everything. if paul has started pursuing something with emma, then she can be here too! and charlotte... well, i don't know if we know anything about her opinion on children, and i don't want to stereotype her given she's the only woman of the group. but she's at least generally a nice person; i think she'd be willing to help out when she sees bill starting to get overwhelmed.

which basically just leaves the question of how steph gets involved. my answer: she hears about what happened, then learns that pete's brother was one of the casualties, and through some combo of feeling obligated and having a spark of an interest in pete, reaches out to him to ask how he's doing. so she gets pulled in through him. with this set-up, tho, i figure she probably wouldn't be a major player (though she definitely also deserves a better parent... that can be its own story).

to kind of wrap this up, the point of this whole story concept is that bill accidentally gets a second daughter, figuring out how to be a better dad in the process; and grace, on the precipe of entering adulthood with some fresh trauma, gets a real chance at salvation. a chance to be, relatively, normal. or, whatever she wants to be when free of her parents' expectations and religious standards. anything else for any other characters is a bonus.

(there can also be some alice — bill drama when alice next visits and starts noticing how much bill is devoting himself to this girl that isn't even his daughter. drama that, eventually, results in the two of them becoming closer, and grace getting an honorary older sister!)

(also remember that duke and holloway can be here helping with the kids, if you want them to be. and why wouldn't you?)

like i said up-top, i have no plans to actually write this. y'all can take it and do whatever you want with it. i just hope at least one other person gets something out of this bain blast i had :D

[gayometer]

Don't know if I sent this or not but here you go again.

So we got the babies in the original timeline now how about Lost readers themselves?

The gods are bound to be so put off by a human who talks to them not like they are highly powered beings, not as their enemy either but as people they know, friends and family.

The humans are not much better of course since the reader has a romantic relationship with a God or two yet they are trying to destroy humanity. And it's pretty crazy how they and Qin are instantly just seem like best friends who haven't seen each other for a long time even though they are from a different dimensions.

And if one of the gods or humans (possibly Zeus) challenges them to a dual for fun or to put a mortal in their place and suddenly they all see them completely demolishing the God/Human in question then they will absolutely understand that they are not someone to be messed with, especially when the reader says “oops I guess I wasn't holding back as much as I thought I should, sorry!”

Even if their sense of direction is atrocious.

Oh how the turn tables

Ancient ask, was seriously debating how to make this, either everyone or just the Olympic brothers + Qin

ZEUS who challenged you to a fight and was surprised when you flipped him over and then apologized.

POSEIDON who was borderline disturbed by how familiar you were acting with him, he tried to stab you but you caught the trident......what do you mean where are the twins?

HADES who is in disbelief that such a human exists in another universe. And what's this about a child?

ADAMAS who tries to find humor in the inter dimensional travel thing that's been happening lately, but is still mad that a human can put his dear brothers Hades and Zeus on their asses in seconds.

APHRODITE who finds you so cute, no matter how strong you are you're just an adorable person who gets lost.

HERACLES who is optimistic as always, yes he knows you're strong but at the same time your ability to get lost makes him concerned. Wherever he is, that's where you are.

ARES who is also in disbelief that a human can be so strong in another universe, although he isn't complaining about the sweets you make him.

HERMES who appreciates you helping him with cooking, he even finds it funny how you flip anyone over for trying to eat before it's ready or trying to have sweets before dinner.

THOR who will try to fight you but instead you threw him into a chair and started braiding his hair cause "you can damage your hair if you fight with it loose honey"

ODIN who lowkey uses you as a babysitter for both Loki and Thor since you just throw them into chairs and passive aggressively treat them like children, he also likes having conversations with you, if he manages to find where you are that is.

LOKI who finds you both funny and infuriating, he can't play jokes on you cause you just disappear at the blink of an eye and can end up anywhere and when you do appear you treat him like a child who can't do anything on their own.

SHIVA who is constantly looking for you, when he does manage to find you, you two have conversations about the horrors of parenting. You two also have sparing matches and he makes sure to get all flame dance on you, you may be strong but you're not fire proof.

BUDDHA who enjoys seeing how carefree you are and how you let anyone have a slap across the face if they tell you about how you should do a certain thing.

ZERO who likes receiving piggyback rides from you, he's like a lost puppy always following you around.

BEELZEBUB who avoids you cause of his curse, although you just ignore him and help him around his lab, if it wasn't for your ability to get lost in the blink of an eye you would be a human version of the little robot that popped up one time, he does miss them.

QIN who instantly clicked with you, you both act like best friends who just saw each other in the supermarket, even if you're in a completely different dimension.

SASAKI who enjoys doing anything with you, you're both social butterflies who can't stay still, get lost? Well then, time for an adventure!

RAIDEN who also enjoys going on "adventures" with you to see where you, Sasaki, Qin and himself end up.

JACK who would like it if you sit still for more then 5 minuets, and if that miracle happens, you two have plenty of tea and talks about anything.

TESLA who after the events of a certain robot child coming into the dimension is even more curious about what other dimensions exist. You two tend to have conversations about your dimension. He also seems to always know where you are, without a GPS on you, he just knows.

ADAM who also tends to know exactly where you are, he takes joy in how you can beat a god with ease, he doesn't hate them, but they need to be taught a lesson or two.

LU BU who judged you cause you didn't look all that strong but was pleasantly surprised to be proven wrong, you two have sparing matches, he always loses but you two just go again.

[itsclydebitches]

I’m screaming Clyde, what WAS that epilogue?! Also since semblances were just a discussion did you notice the moment when the guy tripped and Qrow caught him THEN we see the pin? Which is probably calling back to the mine incident where he tripped and Clover caught him? But now he’s kinda in the unique position of causing both. Looks like Qrow did indeed get a semblance upgrade without explanation. Maybe that’s why he’s so dang happy lol

Oh man you're right! That callback didn't occur to me, but it seems too big a coincidence to not be a callback. Yeah, I'm wondering now if we're meant to take this as further evidence that Qrow's semblance has evolved into a kind of...equalizer? The man near him still trips (bad luck) but now Qrow, in a mirror of Clover and his own good luck semblance, is able to catch him with a smile. I mean yeah, we could simply chalk that up to Huntsmen reflexes, but it seems a little too on-the-nose to not be meaningful, particularly after the miraculous save on the airship. That begs the question though of what this actually means for Qrow moving forward. I mean, if he has good luck and bad luck now, don't they just cancel each other out? That's just normal luck. Congrats, your semblance makes you like everyone else where some good things and some bad things happen in your vicinity.

Ngl, after RWBY semi-canonically introduced the concept of some semblances severely impacting mental heath via Ironwood, my mind immediately jumped to the possibility of Qrow's upgrade coloring his reaction to everything. Not that I think this is actually happening in the story (and not that I'd want RT to attempt such a story-line), but from a fun AU possibility my brain went, "Qrow is acting all content and optimistic after everything in his life has gone to shit. Salem won back in Atlas, she's two steps closer to destroying the world, a whole Kingdom is dead/displaced, his nieces are presumably dead and at some point he's going to have to tell Tai that... and yet he's smiling. Not even in a 'I'm holding it together through extreme denial' way, but acknowledging that yes, he's actually, surprisingly happy. That doesn't make sense! I wonder if this spontaneous upgrade that presumably revolves around generically Good Things is fucking with his head somehow." In more nuanced and respectful hands, it might be interesting to explore what it means for a magic-based power to influence someone's mood. Can it be equated to medication? Is it seen as an "unnatural" version of who they are (something that, again like meds, could be a bias the show works to unpack)? As events unfold, is it revealed that his semblance simply gives him a stronger, more optimistic will for shouldering such tragedy, or does it become clear that he's not reacting appropriately to what everyone recognizes as—formerly for him—crippling emotional blows? There's a difference between, "My semblance keeps me from sinking back into my self-destructive depression. No, I'm not like who I was before and that's a good thing" vs. "Ruby? Yang? Uh... sure. I guess I miss them? I recognize that I'm supposed to miss them... but I'm fine! Why wouldn't I be? They did a good thing, those girls, trying to save the world and all, but now it's time to move on. Chins up, everyone! :)"

In my attempts to work through Qrow's everything from the epilogue, I'm also dying to know how long has passed. This is one of those times when a firmer timeline makes a huge difference because it can make or break our acceptance of these characterizations. How long did it take for them to accept that Team RWBY aren't coming back? How long passed after that when Qrow goes to wipe dust off the grave? If it's, say, a few days or weeks then I'm like hey wtf they should still be DEVASTATED. If, however, we've jumped forward six months, a year... that at least makes a little more sense. I don't like that we've skipped over all the cliffhanger conflicts of Volume 8 as well as a long-term grieving arc for every character that would fundamentally change who they are and their approach to this war... but I find that slightly easier to swallow then Qrow strutting around the new slums with a smile on his face, happily telling the ghosts of his dead family that he's doing surprisingly good during the end of the world.

Also, in the realm of skipped-over character growth, I saw someone point out that Oscar's tiny smile at the group's arrival... might not be Oscar's. Or might not be Ozpin's. God knows the writers have proven that they don't know how to write the merge on screen—they just keep insisting it's happening without either of them changing in any meaningful way—so this would be the perfect opportunity for them to just skip over all the important bits and land on the final product, a la Oscar getting over his crisis in Volume 6. If we hypothesize based on what RWBY has shown us before (ha) we should expect for Ozpin to be gone for good and Oscar is now in control, but with mannerisms and knowledge that he's never displayed before; a fundamental shift in his personality. After all, we never got to hear Ozpin the host. The show acts like Ozma existed on his own after a certain point, a body without a voice in his head anymore, but living as a, you know, merged version of himself and whoever was last with him. Which I hate! And Oscar hated it too, as evidence by him understandably freaking out about it, but the story never bothered to let him work through that. (Or just solve it with the magical aura machine + android bodies that have already been introduced.) As a favorite of mine, I'm not looking forward to being told that they've merged now. It's not Oscar. It's not Ozpin. It's someone who sounds like both at times, but really the characters you enjoyed are gone... without fully being gone. Combined with worry that Ironwood might come back—someone commented that the "Don't come back" was directed at Weiss, though that doesn't make any sense to me?—if we do get Volume 10 I can't help but think that, like Penny, the writers aren't going to leave these characters alone, despite them supposedly having left the story.

[blindtaleteller]

Hi. Send good vibes to you 🤭 I love your posts 😻

I saw your answer about Frigga - her role as a lady. I wanted to ask ;D In my version, Sigyn was left without parents and has never been to Asgard. She grew up on Earth. I won't reveal too much of the plot of the fic, but she is supposed to have a certain ability that will slightly affect her personality😇

Coming back to the question… because I talk too much ;p It's an alternative to the Loki series. I rely mainly on advertisement Hyundai Commercial' PROMO. So Loki escaped, no TVA, Loki is now free on Earth😊

He's building a base on the island - mercenaries and such, he protects it from sight of Heimdall. The Avengers are after him…

And… finally… He is lonely, so while going to the library, where he was looking for maps of some artifact, he saw Sigyn napping… And he kidnapped her 😁😁

So…I won't reveal Sigyn's side of the story because I'm writing from Loki's POV. But let's just say that she is very polite towards him, calm and nice, she is not agressive and not say any bad word or beg of freedom. She is calm and just do things like art or watching tv. As far as he knows, she hasn't tried anything in terms of escaping. He put her up in nice apartments, dresses and such. He kidnapped her - because she is very attractive and he is lonely - it's a variation of the scene from the comic book, where instead of kidnapping there was the murder of Theorica and a false identity. And butterfly effect - I'm erasing Thanos and his plot - here, Ronan found the stone faster, killed Thanos, but before he got to Xandar, he overcontrolled his power and disintegrated into nothingness. End😎

How will Loki treat Sigyn in this, I would like your opinion, because I love your posts 😁😁depends on his upbringing, views and all new situation. Tell me bit about Loki's side of story. I will very grateful for writting 🥰

So.. this got a little long, even trying to cut it down but! I hope this helps..?

Okay, this is actually a little difficult to answer for more than a few reasons that I can boil down to the following that would affect the answer most, for a lot of reasons:

Circumstance and especially psychological status of the era

Time/Era of changing events

How much your timeline has changed

How much comic you're stitching into the story (which I am assuming is mostly MCU based??)

And those things are, of course interwoven.

Being lonely with his personality in particular as we've seen it, wouldn't be much of a reason short term (when I say short I mean anything less than five or maybe even five hundred years: for someone who has an equatable lifespan to an Asgardian totaling at 5000 years or possibly more; as one of several reasons and examples) to kidnap anyone on it's own. This is especially, extra true if you've kept any of his history from 2013.

But that's likely to be especially true of anything kept from the MCU timeline from 2012 and prior, which I'm guessing is the case with the things you've mentioned. The big pieces would be how the events of Thor 2011 went down, whether or not his time as a captive of Thanos during 2011 still happened, and what if anything else changed during the failed 2012 invasion.. in that order: because each one affected his character (mind, emotional state and more) and the events that followed both personally and universally in huge ways.

When the Ronin/Thanos fallout happened and how is also important; but only after answering those questions: because if those things happened similarly whether it was to mostly retain his character integrity or any other reason (and I really do suggest you keep the majority: those events do help him shape himself,) then he would likely still have incredibly great interest in making certain the stones were out of the reach of any remaining remnants of Thanos' forces or generals, and anyone like him that might crop up. Remember: at his core this is a person who spent five years pretending he was dead after Thanos' threat through the Other wearing the face of a 'father' he likely despised loving regardless of that love being a likely result of his nearly brainwashed status as a Fostered captive prince.

Ultimately, if this is the way I think it is: it's pretty likely he had a breaking point between stress and more to further excuse taking Sigyn, and probably would feel guilt for it after the fact; with little to do about it other than just roll with it and try to make her as comfortable as possible. Even more likely that's the case with the Avengers looking for him, to have to worry about how they might label or suspect her as an innocent after he HAD grabbed her on that broken whim. I think it's very likely that her presence would be a double-edged sword at first as a result: adding to his stress, while both needing her calm and questioning it. After all, he hasn't been given a lot of proof that trust in others is a thing he should trust on more than a disposable surface level with his background, elder or current.

I could go on in more detail, but ultimately .. lacking the details of those things and approach is what makes this a very difficult ask to answer.

And they are very important details when it comes to a question like this, because and as several of the muses has pointed out and I've put on page in extras myself: the details are what make the sum. Especially in AU or Alternate timeline stories.. in large part due to the fact that the changed details especially are what make them 'alternate' to begin with, if you get my meaning.

Your best helper to answering that question more clearly yourself though and in my experience; is how much you know and understand about the character, and especially their background. Remember, they have to have a reason to do or say or react to something that fits them for it to feel or be genuine. And the only way that happens from a writers perspective is to drop everything else, put yourself in their place and circumstance and history: and write how that person would react to what you're throwing at them in all regards with those things and their reactions to them as well as how they feel about all of that and their own role in those things taken into account.

Keep in mind that this is my suggestion and my way of doing things, and..

That can be difficult on several levels and even exhausting at times, too. But and for me; it is also the most honest way to go about it without losing the very important core of the character (or characters) you write for.

This is, I guess.. another way of saying and using the muses favorite term 'turn the gem' if you manage it: as you have to be able to change your perspectives or be adaptable as that character if it's a single perspective anyway, for them to reach a true and clear understanding of others and their perspectives in whatever story your're writing.

If you're stuck, don't be afraid to backtrack and write another version of a section or interaction sequence either: and don't be too afraid to stretch outside of your personal boundaries either, to get it where it feels reasonably right from their direction.

I've done that numerous times, and in some cases written almost a dozen alternate scenes; some of which went entirely different directions before settling on the ones I preferred. Even then, there have been even more times I've gone back after writing and readjusted some things, or added small details.

Don't rush yourself. Take your time. And don't be afraid to correct yourself when needed, to tell the story you want to tell with and about the character (or characters) you've chosen to represent with that writing.

[staringdownabarrel]

I have some mixed opinions on Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

I think it was kinda cool seeing the idea that all the previous time travel stories seen in Star Trek to date have shifted the timeline in some places. That's been a fan theory that I've seen floating around online for years at this point, so having that canonised was really cool.

I guess the counterargument to this would be to say that they need to stick as close to the original version of canon as possible, where Khan's reign of terror was in the 1990s, not the 2020s. The thing is that the Trek writers have been slowly writing themselves into a corner where they'd have to come up with this kind of solution eventually anyway.

This isn't just a recent thing, either. Star Trek writers have been writing themselves into this corner ever since Voyager's Future's End two parter at the very latest, where there's no evidence of the Eugenics Wars ever having happened even though it should have been a recent thing. I'd argue it started even sooner than that though, because the version of 1980s Earth we saw in The Voyage Home should have been well on its way to that kind of conflict.

So the idea that repeated time travel will warp the timeline made sense as a fan theory, and it makes sense that they'd properly canonise the idea.

I also liked having Khan Noonien Singh in this episode. When Strange New Worlds first started, I thought they were probably going to go down a road where La'an's heritage was there, but largely ignored in favour of her other edgy background as a former prisoner of the Gorn. It's good that this episode has started to get into it a bit more.

I feel like this episode also has a really traditional take on the Romulans. In The Next Generation, there were a few episodes like The Mind's Eye and the Redemption and Unification two-parters where the Romulans were trying to stow discord in the Federation and Klingon Empire as a way of securing a stronger position for themselves. This is an idea that they returned to in DS9's In the Pale Moonlight, where Jadzia and Ben Sisko were discussing the cost-benefit analysis of joining the Dominion War from the Romulan's perspective. It's also an idea that came back during Enterprise's fourth season.

So having this Romulan plot where the 23rd century Romulans were going back in time to disrupt the formation of the Federation made a lot of sense from this kind of perspective. The Romulan way of taking power isn't a straight war like the Klingons or Cardassians might do; they also focus a lot on the espionage aspects to secure a stronger position before the war. They like knowing their early game in any given war is going to be a strong one.

The one thing I really didn't like about this episode was having Kirk in it. This was nostalgia baiting just for the sake of it. At least in Picard, it made sense to bring back legacy characters because it's literally the legacy character show. Yes, there are very real criticisms to be made about how Picard treated these legacy characters, but it made sense for them to be there in the first place.

It doesn't really gel as well in Strange New Worlds. Even though Kirk will go on to be the captain of the Enterprise, he's still just another officer on some other ship at this point in the timeline. He hasn't even really had an episode of his own in the show yet to really establish how this set of writers want to portray him; we've only ever had this writing team's takes on alt!Kirk here in Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and last season's A Quality of Mercy.

So when Strange New Worlds presents us with a maverick alt!Kirk, it doesn't really mean anything. They haven't done enough with regular main!Kirk to demonstrate whether they're working with Kirk the maverick under regular circumstances or if they're working with the more traditional, by-the-books version the original series presents.

I feel like Kirk's role in this episode would have been better served by Pike. The version of Pike Strange New Worlds is working with has been established enough that the difference between main!Pike and this episode's alt!Pike would have been quite noticeable.

I think an argument could even be made for having Chapel or Ortega in Kirk's position, because while these two characters are part of the main cast, they've still been underutilised so far. It'd be a good opportunity to expand on their characters more because La'an's response to them could still be, "No wait, my version of you isn't like this. They'd do x, not y."

Either way, it'd make more sense to have either of these characters in this episode as La'an's sidekick rather than Kirk. They're established characters for the show, and moments like where the Romulan agent shoots Kirk would have had more of an emotional impact if it'd been Pike, Chapel, or Ortegas instead.

This in general was a really grating aspect of this episode for me, and I think it would have been way better if Kirk wasn't in this show at all. I kinda get the impression that they want to do more with Kirk as the show goes on, but so far they've picked the worst possible ways to do that. It's a shame, because a lot of what else happens in this episode has been very on point in terms of how it fits into the broader canon.

[dude1818]

The Glass Sentence

Went on vacation last week, which means plenty of time to read on the flight. On the way out, I read The Glass Sentence by S. E. Grove, the first book in The Mapmaker's Trilogy. The Goodreads synopsis recommended it for fans for His Dark Materials, but I would go as far as to call it a clone (although without the fun animals). That's not necessarily a bad thing, although it makes comparison unavoidable

The setting is an alternate history that forked from our own when history itself broke. The Earth exploded and reassembled itself with fragments throughout time: the protagonist is from 19th century Boston, Canada has fallen to the prehistoric Ice Age, the Caribbean is in the Golden Age of Piracy, and Mexico and the western US are an amalgamation of anywhen from 500 to 2500 CE. It's a fascinating premise, and I was hoping for a sci-fi version of HDM

The plot is that Sophia (14) comes from a family of great explorers and cartographers. When her uncle is kidnapped by a cult that wants to reforge the world into their timeline of origin, she and her new friend from the West have to take his special glass map to an old acquaintance in Mexico. Along the way, they join a pirate crew who get them across the Gulf and into the palace at Mexico City, while the cult chases them down. Turns out, the Ice Age to the south is actually from a future snowball Earth, and Sophia has to somehow stop its rapid spread north

Pretty early on, we were introduced to the Macguffins of this world, which are weird maps. Clay, cloth, glass, metal, water maps, only the Avatar can read all five. The gimmick is that they all encode human memories somehow, and reading them makes you "remember" various attributes of the location they describe. It was weird, but I guess we can chalk it up to possible future tech and being the one weird thing

But then halfway through the book we get to Mexico, and it turns out there's a whole caste system about people who have plants growing from their bodies and people who have metal bones. Like what the fuck. HDM pulled off stuff like witches and the underworld by establishing them as being weird and exotic to Lyra, but she knew they existed as part of her world. Here, it felt like a complete genre shift out of nowhere. It wasn't until literally the day after I finished reading the book and was complaining to my dad about that twist that I realized it was supposed to be deep foreshadowing of the sci-fi twist in the 11th hour. I had just thrown up my hands and accepted that the story had magic now, because it hadn't established itself as a book where I'm expected to be able to figure out what the twist is

Other than that it was fine. Obviously it's YA, but it felt more YA than HDM, or at least it clicked with me less. Hard to give it a fair shake while I'm still in the middle of the HDM sequel trilogy. I do want to know more about this world, and while the plot beats are fairly predictable, I'm still going to give the rest of the trilogy a shot

The plant/metal twist I didn't get:

Much later after we learned about the plant and metal caste system in Mexico City, the royal botanist examines some soil samples from a new time period that appeared. Planting a seed in it causes the plant to rapidly grow, and it has metal roots. He tries to use that soil to regrow his own wooden leg, but it grows back as metal instead

Later they're escaping through caverns under the palace, and the botanist drops seeds along the path. They instantly grow into metal-rooted trees. We also know that in the future ice age realm, people had invented artificial soils that allowed them to plant plants through the ice and rock of their world. We were supposed to realize this meant the caverns were from that era (which was later explained as being why they survived when the glaciers reached them)

The big twist is that since this artificial soil lay under the city, people who were born and raised after time broke were exposed to the soil as they grew, which is why they had pieces of plant or metal in their bodies. I have no idea how you were supposed to solve that mystery when there was no indication there was a mystery to solve in the first place!

[soleadita]

the arospec eddie diaz post

in honor of aromantic awareness week and also me having a lot of thoughts about eddie diaz at all times, i'm going to talk about arospec eddie. sorry but not sorry. it needed to be said.

(tagging @xjustonemoremiraclex because i promised you a post about this a while ago but i had too many thoughts and no idea how to wrangle them. and ty @scattered-winter for witnessing the pure unfiltered chaos version of this unfold over dms <333)

this is sort of a spiritual successor to my queer pepa post, by which i mean it's about the possibilities!! i'm not saying i believe this is canon and i'm not saying i hope this is canon and i'm not saying it's the one and only and correct way to see eddie. i'm just saying the foundations are there, and the possibilities are fun to think about!! (and also ok fine, nothing about this man gives me any indication that he’s got a firm grasp on what romantic attraction feels like.)

disclaimers: (1) this is heavy on the projection; (2) I AM NOT SAYING I DON’T WANT BUDDIE CANON I DO WANT BUDDIE CANON I LOVE BUDDIE. this is just something i think about kind of a lot and i’m always saying i want more aro headcanons and interpretations of my beloved characters (or literally ANY characters, i'll take anything i can get), so i’m just trying to be the change i want to see in the world. (3) i really tried to make this as aro-focused as possible but it ended up being a blend of aroace + autistic because, like i said, this is projection, and for me, those three parts of me are wrapped up in each other in a way that's hard to separate; (4) re: canon and timelines, i did go and google a few things that i wasn’t sure about but other than that, most of this is pulled from my own recollections. if there’s anything glaringly and FACTUALLY incorrect, i’m so sorry, it was not intentional; (5) i tried to organize this in a way that somewhat makes sense but it's a little rambly; i hope the little subheadings help.

pre-canon | eddie & shannon

so ok. consider this:

maybe, as a teenager, eddie is captivated by shannon. she's pretty, and she's so vibrant, and she's interesting to him. he likes talking to her. he likes being around her. they're friends, but his friends, parents, sisters, whoever - they're annoying about him having a friend who's a girl. maybe his friends make suggestive comments and say shit, and maybe his parents start to ask questions, and maybe adriana is like, “oooh, eddie and shannon,” in that annoying (affectionate) way only little siblings can achieve. and at first he's irritated, but then he starts to overthink and wonder. “do i actually like-like her? well, what does that even mean? what does that feel like?”

and maybe he asks his parents or abuela, and they feed him lines that can basically double as a description for friendship: "someone you want to be close to, someone you can talk to, someone you can be yourself around, someone you like to spend time with." (entirely possible that the list would be different for people raised as cis dudes, idk actually, but this is what i grew up hearing.) and what if eddie takes this and thinks, “well...i guess i do feel like that about shannon?” and then maybe they touch a little more—they hold hands, they hug—and one day, she kisses him, and he's like, “well ok this is nice, i guess,” and he does like affection, his dad has always wanted him to be tough but he misses being little when abuela would pull him into her lap, and when it was ok to ask for hugs, and when his mom would kiss him on the forehead before he went to bed.

so he kisses shannon back, and that's just like something they do now? and he rolls with it. and he does care about her and he does love her but he just...? he just doesn't know what it feels like to be In Love. but that's ok, because he's still young, and this doesn't have to be forever, and maybe it's too soon to know anyway. he has fun with her. he likes being around her. and isn't that more important than knowing for sure whether or not he's in love with her?

and eventually they start having sex (obviously because, as we know, christopher exists), and, again, it's...ok? it's not the worst thing in the world, and he’s always heard that the first few times aren’t great, but he really just thinks it's overhyped and he'd rather, like, sit and listen to music with her and talk or something. but again, it's Something People Do, so he does it.

and then, you know, she's pregnant, and he panics, and they get married because he feels like they have to, and maybe it's actually almost a relief. because now he doesn't have to overthink whether or not he's in love with her, because that doesn’t matter anymore. they're getting married regardless. they're having a child regardless.

anyway, i know this isn't necessarily a groundbreaking interpretation of their relationship; i think this is probably how a lot of the fandom would interpret them (although i do tend to live in a little echo chamber, so i could be wrong). and i think this interpretation usually paves the way for gay eddie, sometimes demi/ace eddie. and that's totally valid!!! i love a gay eddie fic!! i am SO grateful for the abundance of ace eddie in the fandom!!

but lately i've been having a fun time looking at this and thinking about an arospec and/or aroace autistic eddie who falls into a relationship with shannon because it feels like an unspoken rule, a logical next step, something that others want for and expect from him. a tactile eddie who wants physical affection in ways that aren't socially acceptable for him to get anywhere else, and because he's not really sure what love in a romantic sense is supposed to feel like anyway, but he likes spending time with her, so why not? a quietly rebellious eddie who has sex because he is sorta curious, and his parents wouldn’t approve, and his friends are doing it, and people generally seem to enjoy it, and he tries it, and he's just like, “hm. whelp. that was that i guess.” an eddie who is not all that great at interoception?? who is not entirely sure how to interpret feelings in the first place??

season 2 | eddie & shannon 2.0

ok, so this is also well-established: we all know that when shannon comes back, eddie isn't thinking about what he wants. or, like, he is ostensibly, but he's thinking about what he wants for chris. he wants chris to have his mom around. he wants to "be a family" (god forgive him he knows not what he says, he knows not of the amatonormativity in which literally everything is steeped). yeah, he falls back into hooking up with her and then some sort of weird tentative relationship, but like: patterns of behavior. masking. once you Are a certain way with someone, it can be hard to Not be that way with them.

and i can't remember how much of this is canonically established or fanon embellishment, but there's the element of eddie feeling some sort of obligation (shannon is still technically his wife, maybe he owes it to her, to chris, to try again?) and searching for some form of absolution? (yeah, shannon is the one who left most recently and most permanently, but he left first, he made the first cracks, and maybe if he can make it work this time, he can forgive himself?)(<- i do not personally think this about him myself but it is something i can see eddie's gorgeous little traumatized season 2 brain coming up with.)

there’s also an argument to be made that maybe he thinks it would be easier for other reasons, too. like, yeah, it would be so much easier to have a household with two adults. it would be so much easier to have more childcare options for chris, less questions from places like chris's school, someone else to help with managing things like grocery shopping and making dinner and running errands and laundry (i swear to god i'm not listing these things because they're like "women's work" and shannon's a woman, it's just those are the things i fucking struggle with so they're at the top of my mind). they'd be a fucking dual income household. like. that shit would be LIFE CHANGING.

(are these things i've thought a lot about in relation to being autistic and aro…who can say…who can say.......)

seasons 4-5a | eddie & ana

i mean. i think this is also self-explanatory at this point, and eddieana has been dissected to shreds. i'll just say that pretty much every piece of evidence for gay eddie in this scenario could also apply to arospec (and aroace) eddie. (and it's not like he can’t be, like, gay ace, but we all know when fandom talks about gay eddie, it’s usually gay allo eddie. and i’m NOT AGAINST that (really, i love all queer eddie headcanons, they're SO SPECIAL), but. you know. it's like this post.)

ok, wait, no. i’ll say a little more. consider this:

maybe eddie was so weird around ana because the way he masked around her was, like, a little stiff and overly formal; partly because the first time he met her it was at a parent/teacher conference, and partly he was trying to perform the role of Good Date/Boyfriend, and then she ended up in his house and around his kid (outside of the classroom context) sooner than he originally planned, putting him in the awkward position of, "fuck, how do i be at-home-with-christopher-me and also trying-to-date-ana me?"

or maybe he just didn't know her well enough to have that basis of friendship he had with shannon (remember i'm extrapolating here, i don't think we know whether or not shannon and eddie were friends first, i think that's just something from the autistic!eddie series of all time that i've integrated into my eddie backstory fanon forever), so he just straight up didn't care about her the same way!! literally just in a “oh, i actually don’t know if i really enjoy this person’s company” way, and then in a “oh we’re not vibing as expected” way. only instead of peacing out once he realizes that, he fucking DOUBLES DOWN.

there's also, of course, the department store panic attack. feeling trapped. trying to convince himself that she is what he wants. that maybe if he stays long enough he'll change his mind. and i know this can all be attributed to MANY things; i'm just saying the entire eddieana arc was really relatable to me, local aroace autistic, who has fallen into Situations not entirely unlike this prior to realizing i am in fact aroace.

season 2-onward | eddie & buck

i don't have TOO much to say here, mostly because i know we all know the buddie moments inside and out, and there are so many beautiful posts that already exist about the depth of their relationship, and i don't really have anything new to contribute.

i guess i just wanted to say regardless of whether or not it's ever a canonized romance, it's SO clear to me that they care SOOOOO deeply for each other and in a way that transcends most people's framework for friendship. and i absolutely do not want to devalue platonic relationships or found family dynamics, because THOSE ARE SOOOO IMPORTANT, but like. okay. chim and hen? platonic soulmates. bobby and buck? father/son dynamic. chim and buck? brothers. hen and athena? besties.

buck and eddie? i look at them and i'm like WELL. it doesn't have to be romantic but it's also definitely not like, "oh yeah we're friends!" or even "we're brothers for life." like. they love each other, and in a different way than the rest of the firefam loves each other. and that's one of my favorite things about them as a ship; even without any elements of romantic or sexual attraction, they'd still like...fight like hell for each other. they're still home for each other. idk. can't think about it too hard otherwise it destroys me but in a good way.

ok that's all. <3

some miscellaneous things that make me giggle

(1) THE WAY EDDIE IS CANONICALLY SOOOOOOOOO DISINTERESTED IN DATING. COULD NOT CARE LESS. WOMEN FLIRTING WITH HIM ON A CALL? ANNOYANCE.* "I HAVE A KID THEY'RE NOT MY TYPE" ??????? SIR????????

*this is really valid, actually, aro or not; like, he's just trying to fucking do his job, please leave him alone!! that said, it also amuses me greatly.

not to fucking mention he's told ana (or maybe ana just inferred?) that there hasn't been anyone else since shannon. which is really interesting and could be interpreted in SO many ways (like...there haven't been any other women, but we all know buck's been there? not to mention the rest of the 118?), but to me, it also sounds like NOT REALLY INTERESTED IN SEEKING PEOPLE OUT AT ALL, regardless of gender. <333

(2) he never so much as LOOKS at maddie. granted, she’s almost immediately paired up with chim, and she's buck's sister but?? jennifer love hewitt is GORGEOUS. i am Looking i am Looking so hard and with no particular motive other than to admire because, you know, ace. but i'm just saying.

(3) he's soooooo embarrassed and constantly trying to downplay his relationship with ana in front of other people. like, the man does NOT WANT HER in the firehouse, he does NOT WANT HER around the 118. RELATABLE!! JUST SAYING!!

people start giving him a hard time about going to the christening because that means "it's getting serious" and he shuts that shit down immediately. "it's not that serious." PLEASE. PLEASE.

(that was fucking hilarious to me by the way because like. straight up denial. that IS serious, eddie, i'm sorry, but you are going to CHURCH with that LATINA AND HER ENTIRE FAMILY AND THEN TO A PARTY AFTERWARDS PROBABLY.)

in conclusion...

i guess i just feel really soft about the idea of characters who did things because they were doing what they thought they "should" do, and/or they didn't realize there were other options, and/or they didn't realize what they were feeling wasn't what other people feel. and i also feel really soft about people having ace and/or aro realizations, especially after struggling through a few relationships and feeling shitty and confused. AND i also feel really soft about eddie diaz.

💚💚💚💚💚

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

Mad cat do you like The Orville? I saw your post talking about Twice Upon a Lifetime. Gordon has my whole entire heart and I wish they could have just let him be, but they had to protect the timeline. Everything they did they did for the sake of their future.

I do! In a lot of ways, it was baby's first Star Trek, for me. I saw episodes of Next Gen here and there when I was a kid, but The Orville is what inspired me to watch Next Gen (and Discovery) in full. Even to this day, I consider The Orville to be "real" Star Trek. Not saying it's better than official content (though I certainly enjoy it) but I would argue that it's more than earned it's place as an addition to that fictional universe.

Regarding Twice In a Lifetime,

I know that was the point of view the episode wanted to establish for Ed and Kelly, and I'm not even sure if they wanted us to see Gordon as being in the right or wrong. I can only tell you that when I watched it, I was absolutely on his side and frankly, rooting for Ed and Kelly after that episode was...challenging.

They claim they want to protect the timeline, but they have an extremely narrow definition of what that means, regarding a subject that they freely admit to not fully understanding. The fact is, Gordon could be right. Maybe the timeline where he stays on Earth is the "right" one. The Orville crew don't know. They can't be sure, one way or the other, so what makes the version of time they're fighting for more real, more legitimate, more "safe?" Whether or not Gordon should have done what he did, it's happened now. Ed claims that it's still in flux "until we act." But that doesn't make any sense. Everything they do is "acting." How does the timeline know when they "mean" it?

Oh and, they go back in time to rescue Gordon from 2015, despite already interacting with Gordon in 2025, and obtaining the fuel they need to make that journey from 2025. Would that not create gigantic paradox? I guess it doesn't, but again, how the hell could the Orville crew be sure that it wouldn't before they make that jump? Can we also talk about how they mine a finite resource from the Earth's crust that hasn't even been discovered yet, like that won't affect the timeline more than Gordon having kids.

There is no way to not leave a footprint when you're in the past. It is not possible. On paper, hiding out in the woods seems like it would change less, but it really doesn't. Every one of the animals Gordon killed for food might have played some role or been part of a domino effect that changed the future somehow. It's called The Butterfly Effect for a reason. Living a quiet, mundane life, to me, is just as acceptable and probably smarter than staying in the wilderness. Oh yeah, and when they find Gordon's bio, Kelly asks "Why is there a record of him at all?" My sister in Christ, why were you looking him up in the first place if you didn't expect to find something?

Ed and Kelly keep bringing up Union law to Gordon, even though the Union literally doesn't exist in the 21st century. How is he supposed to break laws that don't exist? The Union can try to legislate the past all it wants, but in actual practice it should have no right or jurisdiction. By The Union's it's own reasoning, the past is apparently written in stone. Ed and Kelly also mention how Gordon "took an oath" as if he hasn't made it very clear that he's resigning his post as a Union officer. And so long as we're talking about the law, would it not be a crime to erase Edward and his unborn sibling? Like, Gordon raises that point and Ed/Kelly don't acknowledge it.

Man, I could go on. I could talk about the hypocrisy of The Orville crew considering history says they're all supposed to be dead after the dark matter storm in Season 1. How they were far more open minded with Past Kelly in Season 2, agreeing to let her stay and not forcing a memory wipe on her when she was going home. Not to mention they were willing change history in The Road Not Taken. I could talk about how, in just the previous episode, they were willing to risk losing their greatest ally against the Kaylon just so Topa could transition. I'm not saying any of these decisions were wrong, but if that's the attitude we've been going with so far, how do Ed and Kelly justify such a sharp turn?

In general, I have a lot of issues with the laws of The Union/Federation. I also think The Prime Directive is a circular argument that basically humble-brags about it's own lack of empathy, but that's a debate for another time.