#i. i can’t find the original post where i made that first section

[cranetreegang]

The Polyjuice Ploy - Ominis x FemReader

Well... this got out of hand. This was a request made by this lovely person -> @mentosanu and here is the original post/request

Hopefully I have not gone too crazy and this is somewhat what you wanted lol. if not... my b.

Shoutout again to @isolight for reading this over <3 you da best

Music to enjoy -> Flight of Dragons

Summary: Sebastian and Ominis, after reading through an old textbook, get the idea of Ominis drinking a Polyjuice Potion to enjoy a day of sight and surprise a certain special someone ;)

Word Count: ~7,8-, (checks word count again... omfg) ~7,800 words

Warnings: angst/hurt, slightly heated kissing, comfort/fluff

Credit to the Harry Potter website and JK where I basically stole *cough* rewrote the description of what a polyjuice potion does and the affects of the polyjuice when ominis transforms

Read my other Ominis Fics Here

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Ominis rests his head into his palm with a sigh. His quill writes out the last sentences he needs for his essay and he couldn’t be happier to be nearly done. Footsteps echoing on stone catch his attention, followed by the gate of the Undercroft rattling open. 

“Ah, was hoping to find you here.” Sebastian greets. 

“Looking for me, were you?” Ominis spares Sebastian a grin in greeting. “I’m busy at the moment, but if you don’t mind waiting-,”

Something heavy drops onto the table Ominis is using, sloshing his pot of ink. Ominis frowns as he feels over the object in front of him. 

“Why… what is this?” Ominis questions, tracing over the worn cover of a leather tome. He runs his other hand along the spine. The bindings of the book are exposed and he can feel the bumps of worn cords holding the loose pages together. Even the leather is peeling on the corners and edges. Whatever the title of the tome was, it’s long since faded as his wand can’t find a legible letter to decipher.

“Some light reading I need help with.” Sebastian states while he takes a seat next to Ominis.

Ominis sighs, “I don’t have time for this, Sebastian. I must finish this report for Profess-,”

“That can wait. This is far more pressing.” Sebastian shoves away all of Ominis’ writing utensils. 

“Sebastian!”

“Ominis, you were the one saying I needed to find other ways to cure Anne. Well, this could be it. Now, are you going to help me, or sit there and complain?” 

Ominis lets out a deep breath while he flips the book open, “Fine. But only for a little bit. Then I must finish my report.” Ominis stresses with a glare aimed towards Sebastian. 

“Thank you, my friend. I won’t soon forget this.” 

Ominis skims through the pages. Seems Sebastian procured an archaic textbook dated back to the first few years of Hogwarts - detailing the more illicit potions you could make. Elixirs ranging from the mundane boil remover to the far more deadly Eternal Sleep Draughts. Ominis doesn’t find much in the book to help Anne, not even a remedy to help with the pain. He flips to another page when he pauses. 

It enables the consumer to assume the physical appearance of another person, as long as they have first procured part of that individual’s body to add to the brew. The effects of the potion are only temporary, and, depending on how well it has been brewed, may last anywhere from ten minutes to twelve hours. You are able to change age, sex, and race by taking the Polyjuice Potion, but not species.

The more he reads, the more his thoughts stray from searching for a cure for Anne. To take on the physical appearance of someone else and to change… 

“Find something?” Sebastian questions, glancing over Ominis’ still wand digging into the page.

“No.” Ominis states and tries to turn to another section of the book, but Sebastian snatches the tome from Ominis’ grasp. He examines what has caught Ominis’ attention and Sebastian’s brows furrow at what he finds.

“Polyjuice Potion?” Sebastian looks over to Ominis. 

“I’m sorry. I got distracted. Can we please move on and go back to the task at hand?” Ominis reaches for the book, but Sebastian keeps it just out of his reach and chuckles.

“Why’re you so interested in a Polyjuice Potion, Ominis?” 

Ominis huffs with a shake of his head, “I’m not.”

Sebastian rolls his eyes, “You most definitely are.” 

Ominis crosses his arms with a snarl, “And if I am? What of it?”

Sebastian reads over the passage again, a smile forming on his lips, “I can see why you would be. If I’m thinking the same thing you are.” 

“It’s silly. I shouldn’t even entertain the thought.” Ominis dismisses. 

“Why not? Wouldn’t you want to spend the day being able to see?” 

Ominis frowns, “But, it wouldn’t be through my own eyes. It would have to be through someone else's. And I doubt anybody would be willing to give me a lock of hair for such a thing.” 

Sebastian puts his hand on Ominis’ shoulder with a slight grin, “It’s a good thing I am that somebody.” 

“What?”

“You heard me. I think we should make this potion and once it’s done, you can use my hair. It’ll be perfect!” Sebastian shakes Ominis in his excitement.

“Brewing a Polyjuice Potion takes time. And, far more importantly, skill. A skill I doubt either of us possesses.” 

Sebastian leans back in his chair with a hum, “That could pose a problem. Unless, we found someone to make us the potion.” 

Ominis cranes his head, “Who would be willing to-,” the words die in his mouth. His lips thin as he nods, “I know of someone. I’ll have to reach out to them though.” 

Sebastian claps his hands together with a grin, “Excellent. This may be one of your better ideas, Ominis.” 

Ominis snatches the book from Sebastain and goes back to researching, “We shall see, won’t we?”

===========================

Two weeks pass before Ominis receives word back from his contact. The letter is brief and Ominis is filled with excited trepidation as he heads to the Hog’s Head for the meeting. Ominis is relieved the transaction is quick, with few words exchanged. Ominis keeps the potion close to his chest as he heads to the Undercroft to stash it away until the right moment. 

Three days later, Sebastian finds Ominis pacing in the Undercroft. 

“Sorry I’m late.” Sebastian greets. “Ready for this?”

Ominis shakes his head, “I don’t know. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.” 

“What’s the problem? You seemed sure yesterday.” 

Ominis stops, letting out a sigh, “Are you sure you’re okay with this? If you’re have any doubts, I-,” 

“I want to do this, Ominis.” Sebastian interjects. “Now, where is that potion before you change your mind.” 

Ominis reaches into his pocket and hands the potion over to Sebastian. Sebastain holds the palm-sized phial up to the fire’s light. He plucks out a few strands of his hair then he places them into the potion. A faint sizzling sound can be heard as Sebastian swirls the muddy liquid. Sebastian hands the potion back to Ominis.

“Drink up.” Sebastian grins. 

Ominis holds the potion in his hand - willing away his nerves. He raises the potion up with a slight smile, “Cheers.” 

He downs the thick liquid, refusing to allow himself to gag at the taste and consistency. 

Immediately, his insides start writhing and twisting. He doubles over, wondering if he’s going to throw up the concoction. A burning sensation spreads rapidly from his stomach to the tips of his fingers and toes. It’s enough to bring him gasping to all fours, whimpering and moaning as a horrible melting feeling begins to overtake him. His skin feels like it’s bubbling. His fingers stretch out, growing larger and longer. He hears the popping of his joints as they shift into their new positions over the rushing of blood in his ears. His shoulders stretch and he’s constricted in his own clothes. He rips off his robe, flinging it away, and his legs and feet are in agony. His shoes are now two sizes too small and he could feel his hair resting along his forehead instead of being neatly styled back. 

“Ominis! Ominis, are you alright? Answer me!” Sebastian demands, flipping Ominis over to his back.

Ominis spares him a nod, finding his tongue to be too heavy and thick in his mouth to speak. He no longer feels like he’s ripping apart and the nausea he felt has all but evaporated. 

Sebastian chuckles, “Wow. I… this is absolutely dotty.” 

Ominis’ brows pinch and Sebastian’s hands assist him into a sitting position. 

“Ominis. Open your eyes.” Sebastian urges. 

Ominis sucks in a sharp breath then slowly opens his eyes. A bright face grinning back at him is the first thing he sees. Ominis stares at the boy, taking in the sight. 

“Sebastian?” His voice is not his own and Sebastian’s eyes widen.

“Whoa! Oh, wow, Ominis. You can see.” Sebastian’s grin is contagious and Ominis matches his excitement. 

“I can see. I see you.” Ominis reaches up and touches Sebastian’s face, his eyes blurring with sharp tears burning his eyes and throat. Sebastian lets Ominis trace over his smiling face. It’s all so familiar. The bridge of Sebastian’s nose all the way down to the curve of his brows. Ominis didn’t expect his friend to have such dark eyes and dots all over his face. Sebastian’s hair is about how he pictured though - a thick mess on top of his head.

“Well? Am I what you envisioned, or have I disappointed?” Sebastian teases. 

Ominis shakes his head, “You’re nothing like I envisioned. Yet, it makes sense. I-,” he turns his attention to around them. He gets to his shaky legs and laughs as he looks around. 

The room is far less inviting than he imagined with the stone being a dull, dreary hue. The lights of the brazers and candles lures him closer. The warmth of their light takes his breath away and his hand reaches out to hover just over the flames. He turns his gaze to all the crates, boxes, and other items stored away down here. Some are covered in a fine layer of dust, while others are draped over with light colored sheets.

“This is the Undercroft.” Ominis mumbles to himself. 

“Indeed it is.” Sebastian grabs each of Ominis’ shoulders and drags him over to a cracked mirror. “And here you are.” 

Ominis stares at the two identical boys in the mirror. Ominis’ eyes widen and the boy across from him does the same. He tilts his head and so does the reflection. He touches over his cheek and drags his fingers down over the tanned, freckled skin. 

He looks over to Sebastian, “How odd indeed.” 

“I must say, this is probably the best you’ve ever looked, Ominis.” Sebastian smirks. 

Ominis laughs, “I’m sure.” 

Ominis stares at Sebastian, finding it unbelievable he can actually see his friend looking back at him with a devilish smile. He could always hear Sebastian’s smirks when he spoke, but to see how it affects his face, especially his eyes - illuminating them in a way Ominis doesn’t quite understand - makes him wonder if all people are this animated.

“Well, as exciting as being here is, there’s a whole bunch of things you ought to see before that potion wears off.” Sebastian states. 

Ominis nods, “Yes. Of course. Where should we begin?” 

Sebastian smirks while guiding Ominis towards the exit gate, “Sorry, my friend, but I’m afraid I can’t go with you.” 

“What?! Why not? This was practically your idea.” Ominis scowls. 

Sebastian raises a brow, “Oh? And tell me how good of an idea will it be for the both of us to be seen together right now? They know I’m a twin, but I doubt they’ll believe this.” He gestures over Ominis. 

“Besides,” Sebastian slips off his robe and tosses it to Ominis, “you already have plans today.” 

“I do?” Ominis shrugs on the robe, adjusting the sleeves and rolling his shoulders.

“Yep! You’re supposed to be meeting up with a certain special someone right about now.” Sebastian grins.

“What? You made plans with her?” Ominis crosses his arms with a frown. 

Sebastian rolls his eyes, “By I, I mean, you, Ominis.” 

Ominis’ brows furrow, “You mean to say you didn’t tell her what we’re doing.” 

“No. It’s better this way - trust me.” Sebastian opens the gate and motions for Ominis to go through, “Now, go to the North Exit. And have fun today. I’ll be here waiting until you come back.” 

Ominis wants to protest, but Sebastian slams the gate closed in his face and starts walking away. Ominis sighs, making his way out of the Undercroft. 

He’s met with a near blinding light once he emerges from the clock. His eyes roam all over, taking in the sights of students passing by. He grips his wand and follows the familiar vibrations towards the North Exit, but his stride is slow. The sounds he’s heard all start to merge together. The paintings, the statues, the students, the smells of certain plants - all of it forms the full picture before him. He stops several times in front of vibrant paintings of faraway places, suits of armor shining in the light, and when he takes a bridge outside, he’s completely entranced. 

The sky above is a color he finds the most pleasing. Blue. That must be the color blue, he realizes. With gentle clouds rolling by, he’s starting to understand how people can gaze up at the heavens for hours on end. Students zip by on their brooms and he laughs at how wonderful the sight is. The sun peeks out over the towering castle. He can’t believe how small the sun is - he always imagined it taking up half the sky considering how much the light reaches. He has to look away when his eyes begin to burn and dark spots blot his vision. He continues his journey to the North Exit, but as he gets closer and closer the more his nerves start to show themselves. 

Seeing Sebastian for the first time was surprising, so he can only imagine how he’ll react to seeing her. His heart won’t slow down - it keeps getting faster and faster with every step closer he gets. His hands clench and unclench themselves and he’s practically grinding his teeth into dust. He’s tempted to turn around, hide in the Undercroft until the potion wears off, just to cease this torture. He’s at the stairway gripping the cool railing as he descends. Just before he reaches the last step, the vibrations of his wand pick up a familiar aura of someone. His stomach twists. He looks over to find a girl standing by the door. 

She cranes her head and smiles with a light wave, “Sebastian! What’re you doing here?” 

Ominis freezes in place - his mind barely able to shove his wand into his robe’s pockets. His heart hammers in his chest and he can’t breathe. She walks towards him with confusion lacing her eyes. Her eyes. He can’t stop staring at them. They’re a beautiful color he’s not familiar with. They almost seem to sparkle. And how she moves is enchanting. It’s like she’s floating right over to him. Her perfume reaches his nose and a smile stretches across his face at the familiarity. 

“Sebastian? Everything alright? Do I have something on my face?” She laughs, but her brows pinch together with slight worry at the thought. 

“What? Um, no. I-, You look great. I-I mean, you’re-, It’s fine.” Ominis curses himself and decides shutting his mouth would be best for now until he regains control of his rattled mind. 

She nods with her eyes slightly narrowed, “Well, um, have you seen Ominis?” 

“Ominis?” 

She laughs, “Yes, Ominis. You know, our friend? You said he’d be meeting me here to go to Hogsmeade. But, it looks like he’s running late.” 

Damn Sebastian for telling her that. He probably thinks he’s so clever, Ominis seethes to himself. 

“Well, actually…,” Ominis takes in her awaiting features, noting how much her face speaks for her - much like Sebastian’s. If only he could recognize what emotion she’s currently conveying with her pinched brows and slight frown. Perhaps Sebastian had a point about not telling her. He turns his gaze to the ground, “He said he wouldn’t be able to make it.” 

“Oh.” Her frown fully forms and she looks away, “D-Did he say why?” 

He curses himself at lying, but he can’t back down now, “He said he wasn’t feeling like himself.”

She nods, slow and disappointed, “I see. I should probably go check on him if he’s not feeling well.” 

“No!” Ominis exclaims, making her eyes widen. “I mean, we could go to Hogsmeade together instead.” 

She cranes her head, her eyes scanning over him as her mouth parts and closes several times. 

“Ominis said I should take you.” He blurts out. “You know, as to not disappoint. He feels terrible about all of this.” 

She spares him a small smile, “Ever the gentleman. Alright, if you don’t mind, I suppose it’d be nice to get away from the castle for the afternoon.” 

He can’t stop his grin from forming and he holds out his arm for her, “Shall we?” 

She raises a brow at him and he realizes all too late how odd this gesture is for ‘Sebastian’ to be making. He quickly lowers his arm and takes the lead with a hurried gait. She doesn’t follow immediately and it takes her a few long strides to catch back up. He opens the door and he’s taken back by the sight which greets him.

The lawn is a vivid pigment in contrast to the stone which cuts through it. The grass is lush and inviting. He kneels down and rests his hand on it. The grass ripples from the wind and he’s beguiled by how peaceful the motion is. He’s felt it a hundred times, but to see it actually happen as it moves in waves across the field makes his smile widen. He remembers Sebastian saying that grass is normally green. He takes in the color of green and how it paints the trees as well in a different shade - a more richer, green. 

“Everything alright?” 

He whips his head over to her, who watches him with a worrying gaze. He quickly stands back up.

“Fine. I apologize - I thought I saw something.” He walks ahead and she keeps up with him. 

Ominis tries to keep himself from staring too long at the fountain as they pass. The water trickles and rings in his ears in a pleasant way, and he wouldn’t mind staring at the rippling water, but he forces himself to keep walking. They continue along the path and when they reach the bridge, he practically slams his chest against the railing to look at the river below.

The water rushes over the different colored rocks, taking various debris of leaves and twigs down stream. He follows the river until he sees the lake shimmering in the distance. He’s aware of her standing by him and her eyes are trained at where he was staring. 

“Something caught your eye again?” She wonders.

“Yes, but it was nothing.” He dismisses. 

She nods with a slight grin, “Are you sure you haven’t caught what currently plagues Ominis? You’re being quite odd today.” 

“I’m fine.” Ominis smiles at her and she nods, but the way her gaze seems to be piercing right through him makes him feel exposed. 

Despite doing his best to keep his eyes straight ahead instead of looking around, he can’t help himself. He can’t believe how beautiful the world is. He looks above them at the tree limbs overhanging the path. The sunlight filters through the canopy and he’s in awe at how such a simple thing could be so magnificent. He could actually see the rays of sunlight - he even reaches out to grab it. Little flying creatures flutter past them towards the bright flowers growing beside the path and he can’t quell his smile as he watches. The sound of the trumpet flowers makes him pause. While the flowers themselves were dazzling, their obnoxious noise masks any notes of admiration within him. 

“You’re quiet today.” She says, bringing his attention to her. The sun illuminates her skin and hair, making her glow. He’s taken back by how captivating she is. His heart picks back up again and his stomach flutters and twists. He likes watching how her voice and lips work in tandem to speak. Then he realizes she’s said something else.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” He mumbles. 

She stops walking, making him do the same, “Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” 

“Yes. I’m fine, I assure you.” 

She opens her mouth, but promptly shuts it. She scans over him again then resumes walking. There’s an emotion written upon her face, but he’s not sure what it is. He’s finding great difficulty in discerning anything she says, too. A task he had no trouble with before, but now his mind can’t piece together her face with what’s being said.

The path winds up the hill and as they reach the top, his breath escapes him at the sight of Hogwarts in the distance. He all but sprints towards the overlook and he lets out a slight laugh at the castle. It was grand. Truly, and utterly, grand. The lake surrounds the school - which seemingly emerged with the jagged rocks which encompasses it. The towering trees seem almost insignificant compared to the striking, massive castle. 

“Quite a sight.” She says with a sigh while she joins him at the railing. “It never fails to give me goosebumps.” 

A flock of birds fly in front of Hogwarts and Ominis nods, “Magnificent.” 

She watches him and her lips try tugging into a smile, but she refuses to let it form. She pats the railing then turns towards the path.

“Come along. We’re nearly there.” 

Ominis takes in Hogwarts for a moment longer before following after her. 

He’s looking up at a tree with leaves that were not green, but a light, almost soft color. He’s perplexed by the idea of trees being more than just green when his eyes widen at the entrance to the town. Hogsmeade is bustling with students and patrons alike - some rushing to get to where they need to be while others stroll about with not a care in the world.

She turns to him with a slight grin, “How about checking out Gladrags first? I’m in need of a new pair of gloves.” 

He nods, his eyes darting everywhere. So much is happening, it’s enough to spin his head. Hogsmeade has always been a bit overwhelming to his senses - so many smells, sounds, and people. It makes it hard for him to know what’s happening, or where he was at times. Now, he sees the chaos before him is just as he imagined. Cauldrons bubble over crackling fires, lively music plays in the distance, several conversations all happening at once - it makes him grin with how mad this whole place is.

A hand takes his and he doesn’t think twice about grasping it back, letting it tug him along as he looks around. His mind catches up to him after a few steps and he looks down to find her leading him. He’s about to take his hand back and come up with some excuse to his bewilderment, but she glances towards him with a soft smile. This smile is far different from the others she’s had. It reaches all the way to her eyes. For some reason, it makes his chest warm and his breathing choppy - he can’t possibly remove his hand now. Not if it means extinguishing this feeling.

Her pace is far easier than it was on the way here. It gives him plenty of time to take in the sights of the different shops as they pass by. He recognizes the scents of some, like Honeydukes and The Three Broomsticks, and others surprise him by their appearance, like Spintwitches. Birds fly overhead - which he figures out are owls due to the parcels they carry - and watering cans zip past to the different rows of blooming flowers. He notices the hanging lights overhead and he wonders what nighttime must look like. 

Honeydukes’ display of assorted, bright candy is what brings him to a full stop. The candy is vibrant and comes in so many designs and shapes. 

“Do you want to go inside?” She questions.

He slowly nods and she giggles - leading him into the candy shop. 

He can’t contain his smile at the vast array of colors before him. There’s more than he could ever imagine and he feels somewhat annoyed by how little everyone has told him - giving him only basic colors and denying him the plethora of shades they come in. It makes what he saw at Hogwarts seem almost muted in tone by comparison. 

They browse the vast selection of succulent candies, chocolates, and cakes until he finds his favorite - Peppermint Toad. He picks up the box with a grin. He’s always enjoyed the sharp mint taste and how the toad hops around in his stomach after. He finds the whole experience amusing - much to Anne and Sebastian’s confusion. 

“Is there anything you would like?” He asks, glancing towards her. 

She laughs, “You want to get me something?” 

He nods, “Of course. Why wouldn’t I?” 

She bites her lip with a slight shake of her head, “I wouldn’t mind a Chocolate Frog then. Since you’re offering.” 

He pays for their sweets and they head back out - making their way towards Gladrags. He stares at the toad-shaped treat, noting how the pattern swirls with two different colors which possess a slight shine, before he pops it into his mouth. He frowns for a moment at the peppermint taste not being nearly as predominant as he remembers. While the toad hops in his stomach, she’s already eaten her chocolate and is examining her card.

“Merlin’s Beard. I got Almeric Sawbridge. Again.” She huffs.

He laughs at her sour expression. Her frown melts away into a warm grin and she looks away.

“I didn’t know you liked Peppermint Toads.” She comments. “Thought only Ominis did.” 

Ominis curses himself for not thinking about such an oversight.

“I… normally don’t. I only wanted to see why Ominis enjoys them so.” He says.

“And?” She smiles. “What’s your verdict?” 

“They’re adequate.”

She giggles with a slight shake of her head.

They arrive at Gladrags and the smell of pigment and fabric greet them as they walk in. She wanders over to a dress on display. She skims over the fabric with a slight smile then looks over to him.

“What do you think of this orange?” She wonders. 

The dark, rich color is almost regal in appearance. He touches the dress, following the seam down the bodice and enjoying the stiff material. 

“It looks beautiful.” He says. 

Her eyes are aflame and a wide smile comes over her. She bites her lip then turns away towards the scarves. She looks over them until she finds one. She holds it out to inspect it before turning back to him.

“Do you think Ominis would like this?” She asks. 

The monotonous tone of the scarf doesn’t evoke anything in him until he feels the article of clothing. It’s soft and brings a smile to his face. 

“I like it.” He comments then shakes his head. “So, I’m sure Ominis would as well.” 

She laughs, wrapping the scarf around his neck, “I’m glad you think so. Mind holding on to it for me then?” 

“I-, of course.” He can feel his cheeks heating up as she smooths down the scarf on his chest. When her eyes meet his, a gasp escapes him. He feels encapsulated in a warmth he’s never experienced before. All from one single look. He’s slightly thankful he can’t see her all the time for he’s sure he would never be able to speak a coherent sentence to her otherwise. 

 She pays for the scarf then grabs his hand again, leading him outside. She turns to him with a grin. 

“What would you like to do today?”

The question takes him by surprise and he can’t form a single thought to reply back to her. 

“Well, if you have nothing in mind, then I may have something we can do.” 

He smiles, “Lead the way.” 

She squeezes his hand and his heart soars at the twinkle in her eyes. She’s up to something, but he can’t find it in himself to care. She leads him through Hogsmeade until they’re at the park. He’s heard the dragon’s rumbles from the topiary before, but he finds great amusement in seeing it. It’s far more animated than he imagined. And the dragon itself, while somewhat cute, gives him a slight shiver at how powerful of a beast they are. The colorful, flowered trees rain down their petals and he reaches out to grab one, but it slips right through his fingers. She takes them to the overlook and he can see the train station below them. Over in the distance, Hogwarts stands noblely. 

“Well,” he faces her, “what did you have in mind?” 

She has a sly smile as she gazes out over the scenery before them. The wind ruffles through her hair and he’s momentarily dizzy due to his lack of breathing. He needs to cease his staring, lest he die from self-induced asphyxiation, yet he's drawn to her and he’s unable to break away.

“It’s a fine day for some sightseeing.” She reaches into her robes and pulls out a worn, leather duffle bag. She glances around to ensure they’re still alone before she opens the bag. 

A whooshing noise, followed by a light, emits from the bag. Before his eyes, a giant beast emerges, followed by another similar beast with different colorings. The creatures chirp and scratch their sharp claws on the stone ground. His eyes widen and he’s quick to step away from them and be closer to her.

“Hippogriffs.” She states. 

“What do we need them for?” He questions - not bothering to mask his apprehension. 

She grins as she goes to one of the Hippogriffs that’s similar in coloring as the scarf she gave him. 

“This is Highwing. She’s quite spectacular, isn’t she?” She holds out her hand and Highwing bumps her beak against her palm. “And the other one is her mate. Dashmane.” 

“Dashmane?” 

She giggles, “Yes, because he’s so dashing.” 

The darker shade of the beast’s plumage shimmers in the sunlight. Ominis appreciates how stunning both of the creatures are. 

“First things first, you must introduce yourself to him - by giving a low bow.” She informs him.

Ominis glances between her and Dashmane before he does as she instructed. He bows, his back low and his head even lower. His eyes dart up to the creature as Dashmane bows back to him. 

“Excellent.” She grins as she goes to Highwing’s side then mounts the awaiting beast. She looks over to him expectantly. 

“But, I-I don’t know how to fly.” He protests. 

“You’ll be fine O-,” She pauses with a slight cough, “Sebastian. You’ll pick it right up.”

He gulps as he follows her movements and manages to jump then swing his leg over Dashmane. Ominis situates himself on the beast’s back. He looks over to her and she has a pleased smile. She appears relaxed - like this is natural for her to be on the back of a Hippogriff.

“Ready?” She wonders. 

He examines Dashmane, “Where do I hold on to?” 

She shrugs, “Anywhere you can.” 

He frowns, settling on grabbing a hold of a few tufts of feathers near the nape of Dashmane’s neck. Dashmane lets out a startled squawk, rearing up and nearly sending Ominis sliding off. Dashmane gallops forward and his wings unfurl as he vaults over the stone banister. With a few mighty flaps of his wings, Dashmane is soaring over the train tracks and towards the train station. Ominis’ heart is pounding in his chest and his eyes are blurring through the tears streaming past his temple. He feels like he’s close to falling off Dashmane’s back at any moment - or at the slightest movement.

A screech gets his attention as she flies in front of him. She looks over at Ominis with a wide smile. She’s truly a natural flier with how at ease she appears to be. Her and Highwing take the lead. Dashmane lets out a chirp of his own as he tries to catch up. Bystanders below, waiting for the Hogwarts Express, all stare up as they pass overhead. She curves off to the left towards a waterfall before banking back towards the arched bridge, diving below. Ominis clutches onto Dashmane as he follows, his stomach flipping and his breathing erratic. 

She turns Highwing away from the lake and over the tree line - following the lake’s shore. She spares him glances to ensure he’s still following as she takes them over the treetops. The tips shudder and move as they fly by they’re so close. She dives below the trees, with Dashmane doing the same, and they zip along the path until she takes them high above once more. His head turns every which way as he takes in the sight of the valley from above. The rivers cut through the growth of trees similar to the veins on his hands. He spots clusters of homes tucked away in the forest. 

They head towards an old castle or keep of some kind, with a blooming tree of the same vibrant, soft color from Hogsmeade, where they fly over as they turn back towards Hogwarts. He stares at the ruined estate in wonder at what it could’ve been. He turns his attention back to her and he adjusts himself on Dashmane. He lowers himself and, as if reading his thoughts, Dashmane flaps his wings harder than before.

Dashmane finally catches up to her and Highwing. She looks over to them and she laughs.

“You’re getting the hang of it!” She shouts. “Now, try to keep up!” 

Ominis’ eyes widen as she careens towards the river below. He tightens his grip then does the same. They soar across a river until they’re back over the Black Lake. He can’t stop his heart from beating wildly, but he’s finding the rush to be too thrilling to suppress. He leans himself over enough to catch his rippled reflection in the lake. He frowns at Sebastian being the face looking back at him. He focuses back on their flight.

She’s taking them towards Hogwarts, flying higher and higher as they near. Ominis can place what some of these areas are - like the boathouse where he arrived his very first year. Feels like only yesterday when he made the climb up all those steps and entered the Great Hall for the first time.

She takes them over the ramp and heads straight for the courtyard leading to the Great Hall. Ominis can make out the students below with some of them pointing up at them as they near. Highwing angles upwards before taking a dive right past the courtyard. Ominis’ eyes widen as Dashmane follows the route and dives after them. His heart is in his throat and his stomach drops. They’re heading right into a stone bridge and his whole body tenses up. Dashmane closes up his wings and zips through the archway. 

Ominis lets out a breath as Dashmane follows along the river, keeping his wingspan small enough to navigate the narrow crevice. Highwing zips through then banks sharply to the left at the divide. He emerges from the river just as she turns back towards a waterfall underneath the castle. As they turn out to trail along the embankment of the lake, she leads them towards another cascading river towards the old wooden long bridge. 

She flies them underneath and leads them up the waterfall, flying higher and higher over a stone bridge, until she turns to the left towards a plateau. She lands at a clearing with various rocks set up in a large circle around the area. He manages to bring Dashmane into a gentle landing, prancing up to be next to Highwing. 

“See. I knew you could fly.” She grins at him, her hair windblown and her face radiating. 

“I think you were trying to get us killed.” He retorts with a smile. 

She laughs, dismounting from Highwing then him dismounting as well. She brings out the strange leather bag again and opens it. The bag sucks both Highwing and Dashmane inside. She puts the bag away then motions with her head towards the edge of the plateau. She takes a seat on the rock, her legs draping over the edge. He sits next to her and he takes in the sight before them. 

The sun is beginning to set behind them, casting a pale, but brilliant, glow upon Hogwarts. Birds fly around a tower, which he realizes is the Owlery. 

“I’m glad we got here in time.” She whispers, her eyes set towards the sunset. “I wanted your first sunset to be special.” 

“It already is-,” the words die in his mouth as he pieces together what she just said. 

“I-I mean-, what do you mean my first sunset?” He tries to play off. 

Her eyes roll over to him with an amused grin playing on her lips.

“Do not play coy with me now, Ominis. I know it’s you.” 

His eyes widen and he can feel a burning heat overtake his face. She giggles, placing a warm hand on his.

“While I was irritated you did not tell me of your ploy at first, I figured you must have your reasons to keep me in the dark on this.” 

His head falls with a sigh, “No. Not a good reason by any sort of means.” 

She laughs again, “I assume Sebastian must be involved.” 

“This was his idea, if that’s what you’re implying.” He looks over to her, “When did you figure it out?” 

She hums, “I had a feeling something was wrong when you looked at the grass like you’ve never seen it before. Then again, when we got to Hogsmeade, you were completely taken away. And Sebastian most certainly doesn’t look at me the way you did today. But, what finally confirmed my suspicions, was when I asked what you thought of that orange dress. Which was very clearly purple, by the by.” 

He closes his eyes with a soft groan, “You are far too clever of a witch at times.” He looks over to her with raised brows. “Does that mean that harrowing flight was to get back at me?” 

She bites her bottom lip, “A bit. But, to also show you as much as possible before that Polyjuice Potion wears off.” She sighs, “I wish you would’ve told me. I could’ve made today special for you.” 

“It has been special.” He takes her hand in his with a smile. 

The look upon her face sends him spiraling once more. He’s not sure what it is, but he knows how it makes him feel. She’s the first to look away and she’s back to gazing at the sunset.

“You don’t want to miss this.” She says in a quiet voice. 

He looks off towards where the sun is setting behind the rolling mountains. The hills in the distance are draped in a fog and the colors begin to bloom across the landscape. 

“What colors are these?” He wonders. 

“Well, do you see there?” She points towards a large patch of a bright pigment which echoes across the sky. “That’s actually orange.” 

“Orange.” He laughs. “I see my mistake now.” 

She smiles as she points to another section of a softer color similar to some of the vibrant trees he saw, “That there, is pink.” 

His lips stretch into a smile, “Pink. I think I do like pink.” 

“And over there,” she points toward a darker color, far richer than the rest, “is purple. And there, where the sun is, is yellow, or actually, more accurately, gold.” 

He sucks in a deep breath, taking in this new knowledge. He wants to engrain this picture before him into his mind. The clouds hold a vast array of pigments like a field of flowers. And he can see so far - miles upon miles with no end in sight. It all evokes a well of emotion within him. And when he looks down at her, the sunset reflecting upon her soft features and in her eyes, he all but breaks. 

“I wish I could see this everyday.” His voice wavers. 

She looks over to him - her lips parted in concern and her smile fading. She wants to say something, the anguish is clear. His hand cups her cheek and her eyes close at the contact. 

“I don’t mean to cause you distress, love. I only mean to say - I envy Sebastian, and everyone else, that’s able to gaze upon you. I would love to do nothing more than to sing you ballads about your beauty.” He strokes her cheek, her eyes remaining close as she places her hand over his to press him closer to her face. 

“You don’t need to serenade me, Ominis.”

“I know.” He smiles. “Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to.” 

His other hand joins in and he feels over her face - an action he has done several times. But, to see what he’s felt, elates him. It’s almost terrifying how strong the notion is. Her eyes remain close as he traces over her cheeks and down her nose then all the way to her jawline and lips. 

“I hope I’m what you were expecting.” She whispers, her brows knitting together as she slowly opens her eyes.

He smiles as he tucks away the wild hairs framing her face, “More than I could’ve ever imagined.”

The light begins to fade away and they’re soon swathed in a darkness he’s all too familiar with. He’s amazed he’s still able to somewhat see. Hogwarts illuminates in a soft glow and a sense of coziness strikes him. She leans closer to him, resting her hand on his chest.

“Lay with me.” She whispers while she pushes him back towards the ground. 

He lets her push him, falling back onto the cold stone beneath them. He watches her as she tucks herself next to him and she faces up towards the sky. Her eyes shift towards him and she laughs.

“Look up.”

She stares at him as he obeys her command. The sky is no longer a bright blue, but a darker, far richer shade. But what catches his eyes are the shimmering dots which twinkle in various prismatic colors. A gasp leaves him and she giggles.

“Those are the stars. And over there is the moon.” She points in front of them and he follows her finger towards the most breathtaking thing. The moon, once described to him as silver, seems almost unreal as it hovers in the night sky. Its light is cold compared to the sun and he finds himself in awe at its majesty.

“It’s all so beautiful.” He whispers while he hugs her closer to him.

Something shifts within him. He lets out a gasp then looks at his hand. His fingers and knuckles are shifting before his very eyes. 

“No. No, not yet.” He curses. 

She’s about to question what’s wrong when her eyes widen, “Ominis. Your hair. It’s… the potion.” 

He sits up - her doing the same- and he looks around. He doesn’t want this to end, but already the darkness is beginning to cloud his vision. He looks to her, pulling her close to him. He cups both sides of her cheeks and she holds him closer. 

She smiles as she says, “I love you, Ominis.” 

Seeing her lips move, the genuineness in her expression, and the softness in her gaze sends him careening. He stares at her, taking in every little piece of her, while the darkness consumes more and more. 

Then, she’s gone. 

He lets out a shaky breath and a coldness seeps into him. He’s still - unable to move. 

When she presses her forehead to his, he can no longer contain himself. Tears stream down his cheeks and she’s quick to embrace him, holding his head into the crook of her neck as he sobs. She strokes down his back while her other hand soothes his hair. There’s a whirlwind of emotion raging through him and he doesn’t know how to calm himself down. He’s thankful she’s not chastising him for acting this way - so pathetic and broken. Her gentle movements ground him from fully sinking into the numbing coldness which threatens to drag him deeper into an endless abyss. 

She whispers soft words, but he’s so lost he doesn’t understand what she’s saying. All he can notice is how warm she is and how tightly she holds him. Never once letting him go.

The chaos slowly quells and he’s exhausted himself. 

“I’m sorry.” His voice is hoarse and quiet. “I-I should have better control over myself. I-I didn’t anticipate how-, how much I-,” 

“It’s okay, Ominis.” She kisses his temple. “It’s okay.” 

She kisses his tear-stained cheek then the corner of his lips. He’s practically ravenous as he hooks his fingers into her hair to guide her into a searing kiss. A whimper escapes him at the rawness of her lips against his. When she parts, he opens his eyes in hopes he would catch just a faint glimpse of her. 

But no… all he has left is the memory of today. The vibrancy of the world and the breathtaking beauty she possesses. 

He sighs, “There’s a part of me that wishes I could do this everyday.” He pauses, brushing the tip of his nose against hers and tangling his fingers further into her hair. “But, another part is glad to be back in my own skin.”

She lets out a soft hum of agreement, “I very much like you being back. It was quite odd having to hold Sebastian’s hand today.” 

He laughs, “I can imagine.” 

“I do love you, Ominis. All parts of you.” She says. 

His throat tightens, but he’s done shedding tears. He brings her into a much softer kiss this time then he whispers, “I love you, too.” 

The words feel lacking. They aren’t enough to convey the strong feelings he has for her. But, how else could he describe the way she makes him feel. How else could he even come close to explaining that she is so very precious and dear to him. So, he settles with what he can for now.

“We should head back. We’ll have to sneak into the kitchens if we’re to get any sort of dinner tonight.” 

“We should get Sebastian as well. I’m sure he’s dying to leave the confines of the Undercroft by now. Although, maybe it’s good for him to be locked away for a while.” Ominis muses with a slight smirk.

She giggles, “Certainly keeps him out of trouble.” 

They head back to the castle with her practically glued to his side as she explains all the questions he has about the things he saw today. His fingers occasionally twisting the soft fabric of the scarf draped across his neck. He smiles as he knows exactly what color it is.

==================================

It’s not until the next day when the rumors around the school finally reach Sebastian that he corners Ominis just before Charms class. 

“What’s this about ‘me’ flying a bloody Hippogriff over the school yesterday?” 

Ominis can only smirk in response. 

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AN: Bruh i just can't help myself but add some flying INTO EVERYTHING!! I HAVE A PROBLEM! Like, when I saw the scene of Dany and Jon in GoT doing their dragon flight when i was searching for music, i just knew i had to do it here. LOL i even went flying around the world in game trying to find the best route as well.

You can find the plateau where this takes place below by the Merlin Trail:

and here's my horrible, low quality, sunset pic via the pic i took of my tv from my phone lollll.

Anyways, I really wanted to capture the thought of Ominis not having a clue what the heck colors are and most def not being able to understand certain more obscure facial expressions (like suspicion). And I really liked the idea of leaving the Fifth Year in the dark about the Polyjuice Potion... idk why. i just thought it was fun LOL.

Hopefully it wasn't too weird about her holding his hand as 'Sebastian' but I was going for the 'yeah she's figured out it's ominis' type vibe. idk hopefully that's conveyed

Thanks again for reading! Feedback always appreciated <3

[ctheathy]

Yandere Miles “Nine” Prower Headcanons

Nine x Reader

Yandere Headcanons

Author’s note : Here’s the Nine hcs I promised!! Hope you enjoy these little double trouble posts <3<3

The original post with yandere Miles [Where Was My Hero?] + Similarities ➷

Nine/Reader [Romantic//Platonic]

+Slight WWMH Tails x Reader in bonus section [Romantic]

[Gender-neutral Darling|Female Darling|Male Darling]

Potential ⚠️TWs ⚠️ :

Fiercely overprotective behaviour • Slight anger issues • Severe trust issues • Slight delusional mindset • Anxiety • Jealousy • Emotional dependency • Descriptions of bullying • Nine is somewhat snappy

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Nine is a mobian who grew up mainly reclusive throughout his life until you decided to come around. Having dealt with severe bullying alongside the obvious loneliness through the years having caused in quite the instinctive distrust, and the amount of time he’s kept himself isolated in his underground workshop not helping with his antisocial behaviour in the slightest. No matter how the two of you would have met, it’s likely going to start off with you finding yourself intrigued by the nine-tailed presence. Perhaps you are a naturally doting individual, felt mesmerised by the uniqueness of the extra metallic tails, found his aura lure you in, or something else completely; But whatever is was, something you hadn’t realised is that this had caused in unintentional staring, unknowingly pushing attention onto the fox. And Nine, being the rather defensive spirit he is, would immediately assume the worst and take offense to this; resulting in you being cruelly confronted and perhaps even attacked, demanding answers for the unwanted observation. But the harmless intend you had behind your interest was quite literally the last thing he would have expected to occur.

The yellow furred fox has lacked normal interaction for a very long time, so when you start to compliment him to no end, he feels a slight sense of awkwardness, not used to the tender gestures you offered and praise slipping off’ another’s tongue so easily. It made him feel different... yet it somehow gave him a sense of closure with your words in particular. Which was surprising to him to say the least, especially as it had almost made him forget he was literal seconds away from clawing your face open with the metal tips of his tails. He knew he had met oddballs before, but you truly took it to a whole nother level. Though trust still wouldn’t be the exact wording to describe his current state right at that time, as he obviously still holds his suspicions, but your comments had certainly shut him up for a while. He would clam up and just stare at you wide eyed as you excitedly circled your way around him, not knowing what on Mobius to do about this situation. But little did he know that this would be the mere start of a dangerous soft spot starting to develop.

Though you had gotten out of harm’s way at first meeting, unfortunately for your case, this has not stopped him from continuously trying to push you away at first hand; he still thinks you’re weird... Rarely anybody had gone out of their ways to even speak to him if it wasn’t for harassment reasons, much less pamper him like you do-! He’d likely remain to add in on snarky comments, hoping it could scare you off one way or another. But even something that caught up with him over time was the realisation that despite your affectionate demeanour being quite the irritation to him at times, for some damned reason he just couldn’t dare to lay a finger on you with harmful intend. When questioned, he’d often just end up telling you and perhaps even himself that it’s purely due to the fact that you lack fighting experience and are rather delicate for your kind, giving him the opportunity to indirectly insult you once again, even if he realistically just can’t get himself to hurt you.

Another awkward one when it comes to your doting nature, but unaware of the emotional attachment that is slowly starting to form within his own mind. He’d find the growing fixation with you to be strange and uncanny to him, most likely behaving fairly cold torwards you in response, trying to reason with himself. He knows he’s more than capable taking care of himself, so why does he legit feel as if he’s dying when lacking your presence? Even his companionship with Sonic paled in comparison to what he felt torwards you. Over time he’d start noticing how much more numb he operates when you’re not around. Even when including subjects that would usually excite the fox, it’s almost as if it lost all meaning to him. It honestly being a surprise to even him how quickly attached he had gotten

For a certain while, he would even just put the blame on you for creating these changes in him so frequently; feeling as if he could have kept all his focus on a future surrounding his mechanical work until you and your mesmerising tactics came around. But this wouldn’t exactly stick with him for long, cause in the end he would really just put the accountability on himself for not escaping these sentiments while he had the chance, realising it to be irrational to blame you for something out of your control now. Even at this rate, finding himself at a dead end right about now, it really just results in a switch being flipped around inside of him; a little bit of hope wanting to give these said alliances one single try to work out for the both of you.

At first the fascination with you happened to be nothing but guilt-free, it even having been considerable as wholesome in a way. He’d especially invite you over to his workshop a lot, seeming to be incredibly thrilled telling you all about everything he’s learned over the years and show you the latest inventions he’s been working on. It almost had felt as if these moments in particular were slowly starting to recover the inner child of his that he’s lost track off a long time ago. But something you didn’t know about was the unwell side to this that also just so happened to be in growth. You’d find yourself spending more and more time in his workshop, weirdly after Nine had decided upon giving you an one hour talk on why the place was more trustable than any other out there; lecturing you without true purpose and trying to get his said conclusions across. You cannot remember when you’ve last seen the outside world, but you trust Nine. Surely you could take his word for anything ... Right?

He would be especially starved for your praise and appreciation, finding himself melting right on the spot when even just a simple compliment gets tossed his way. When being an individual who is gentle with their wording, he really takes everything that leaves your mouth to heart; but there remains a risky segment to this. Just due to how accustomed he can get to your encouragement, he can easily be put in a state of fraught when the amount of it has been too little for his liking. This also being the exact little push in making him contribute in acts that could potentially be considered as dangerous for as long as it catches your attention. He also gets severely apprehensive and rather uneasy when you need to leave his workplace for personal reasons; his anxiety being very much capable to be pushed torwards a full-on panic attack in no time. This would likely end up in him questioning the point behind their wanted leave and instead offering to do the job for them, which would eerily sound more like a demand than anything else. When the offer is insisted, however; he’ll still go with you, no questions asked, being fearful for your welfare and literally snarling at those who even dare getting too close.

If danger were to fall on you, he would absolutely lose his mind. He’s already naturally protective of those who earned his approval, and he truly expects himself to be ready for anything that could be causing them potential harm; so when a hit still does manage to strike you, it makes him feel distraught and genuinely terrified for once in a while. He believes himself to be pathetic in a way, failing in your safety despite having made a strict promise to himself to keep your fragile self in high priority. He also tends to become extremely discomposed when something like this manages to happen, which would be somewhat surprising to say the least, as he’s usually pretty collected of himself. In a scenario like this he would get on the paranoid side when it comes to your welfare; literally demanding you to remain in Sonic’s eyesight while he takes care of the little nuisance... Despite the connection that’s grown between the two, he wouldn’t even trust Sonic much when it comes to your sake, but it would have to do for now. He’d for sure go out of his way to hunt down whoever the fool was that decided to inflict harm upon you, may that be in secretive or through whatever means; he will get them to be at his mercy and he will make them pay for their unjustified actions. Not giving much care torwards his own physical self and energy levels when it comes to that; avenging you through pure wrath just to prove himself to you.

Despite the aggression tendencies he may experience from time to time, he certainly isn’t one to harm his darling in any way possible. The least that could happen is a screaming outbreak being shown and him acting somewhat snappy torwards you for a day or so, but even these are extremely rare experiences; only really happening if you continuously push his buttons and try to get on his nerves by will. And even so, he just couldn’t get himself to remain mad at you

As mentioned before, other than his overprotective demeanour, Nine honestly just makes himself out to be rather cool and perhaps even cold torwards his darling at first hand, despite it under the surface being much closer to the complete opposite. This also includes in not realising how much it could actually affect both the relationship between one another and perhaps even the darling themselves if they just so happen to be a sensitive soul. But even that little facade of his gets crumbled into bits real fast when one small tiny hunch of you wanting to leave finds itself into the picture. When given the hint that you want a break, he becomes a mess. In a sense of recollection, Nine would overextend himself and work himself to exhaustion in order to get you to come back with him. This often ending up in fighting everything and anyone to obtain items as a peace offering, believing apologies by word to be far too insignificant.

May that not work? He might already just be on the mere verge of snapping himself. He almost becomes a whole nother mobian when out in this state, his emotions and his true instability starting to show. He feels a dreadful sense of desperation, one he absolutely doesn’t wish to remind himself of; but at this stage, he’d honestly take anything as long as it could prevent your leave. He would hunt you down, literally feeling as if he’s on his knees at this point. Overwhelming his darling with the unsanitary desperation lingering in his eyes as his broken tone burns its way through their ear canal, all while practically being pinned to a nearby wall. And when having them cornered like this, he doesn’t even give his darling a way to respond torwards the situation to begin with. Because as much as he wants to deny it, he wouldn’t even take a no as an answer anymore; giving them absolutely zero opportunity to make the choices of their own will and putting an end to the entire conflict finding himself in your arms, despite how you would’ve had a clear expression of both disapproval and discomfort plastered on your face. Honestly making you wonder whenever he truly wasn’t aware of your squirming form under his touch or if was his selfishness who simply made him uncaring torwards it.

Neither of the two being too far out of reach fromout your perspective.

Bonus section #2 : Differences

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To understand the changes they have between one another, it’s important to take note of the one thing that sets them apart from eachother in the first place. It’s accurate the particular state was caused by Sonic not being there for them when they needed it most, but the actual difference between the two would be their eventual responses torwards the mistreatment they’ve faced; ultimately Nine started fighting back all by himself, while for Miles’s case ... he literally snapped. Their current positions in their timelines would hold quite the difference as well; Miles’ mental state being the more unfavourable one out of the two, and having even worsened so as the years went on, while Nine’s weaker side would include his emotional state.

While Miles was closer to wanting to prove his worth to the world in the end, Nine would rather be captivated by the idea of getting back the youth he never had, returning those connections in his life that he’s always lacked. His desperation levels also lingering a lot higher than those of Miles do. But despite this, which may even come by surprise; out of the two, I can still see Nine being the more stable one, genuinely wanting to keep himself on proper levels of behaviour stability and the severity of poor choice making being a whole lot less. Unlike Miles, he knows and understands the differences between wrong and right; and though these could sometimes be infringed due to his emotions taking a toll on him, he deserves a whole lot more credit on atleast trying to keep himself restrained in instability matters. A negative part on his side, however, is how much more dependent emotionally he can become on a darling who holds a sweet demeanour torwards him. Though being one who tends to be calm and mature for his age, due to him having lacked a responsible role model growing up, I can also see him becoming reliant on his darling’s decisions and personal view on things, making him even more vulnerable torwards his obsession.

While Miles would usually just be one to showcase the roots of his thoughts and emotions without a speck of shame or reconsideration noticeable in there, Nine would definitely be the one who’s a whole lot more closeted with how he truly feels. He’s just been hurt so many times that it’s rather become a strong habit for self protection more than anything else, it being no doubt that he has major trust issues to work on. Though right at the same time, both remain to put a lot of faith in their darling, but for different reasons. Nine’s high hopes laying torwards the beliefs that his darling won’t just betray and leave him behind with the reliance he has on them, while Miles’ complexity rather being his trust that his darling shall be able to purify the unfair planet, much like he believes that they did to him.

An important opportunity Miles never got was much like with Sonic, Nine would specifically offer you the creation of a world with just the two of you, except this time it would very much be by will. A place where he’ll finally be happy and given the freedom he never had, one where absolutely nobody can seperate the both of you or bring your life into any considered danger. One where he could completely put his fate into your bare hands. A place better than New Yoke City or even Green Hill or any other universe could ever be-! No matter how long the both of you would have moved on from past occurrences surrounding the Prism Shard, Nine remains to be on edge ever since, as he surely doesn’t trust any dimension out there to be good enough for your sake. The only suggestion seeming to be acceptable to him being a world created from his own hands, truly believing you to desire the exact same thing.

Making him not understand why the tears keep rolling down your cheeks in acknowledgement to his masterwork.

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[edwardianmumbo]

Verbal Terminology in Autistic Tumblr Survey Results

After quite a long while (and for that I apologise) I’ve finished the results of a survey about the descriptivist uses of the terms Nonverbal/Non-Speaking and Semiverbal/Semi-Speaking in Tumblr’s Autism Community. This survey was originally intended to cover more, and just be a fun side project that unfortunately ended up with many flaws throughout the whole process. I'll go into specifics more at the end in the “Further Notes” section!

All that to say, I heavily implore you to do your own research and listen to others outside of this survey about these terms. Admittedly I think this survey is best taken as a small peek into how a very small group of people currently use these terms, in a fun non-informational survey format. (Also this was my first time doing image ids, so well i tried my best they might be really bad and for that i apologise in advance!!)

Demographic Questions

[image id: a bar graph called “What Would You Call Yourself” with the options going top to bottom the graph says Nonverbal at 16 (3.5%), Semiverbal at 118 (25.9%), Someone Who temporarily Loses Speech or Temporarily Can’t Talk at 308 (67.7%), Verbal or At allistic Level at 171 (37.6%), and Hyperverbal at 95 (20.9%) end id]

First things first I looked at the different ways survey respondents identified personally, and at a base level we can see most people said they had varying speech levels. The next highest given types overall were Semiverbal and Speaking Autistics, with Nonverbal being the least used term among survey participants. Due to this being multiple choice I also looked at what group of responses where most common:

[image id: a bar graph of Unique Term Use Types. The highest is Temporary Only at 141 respondents. The next Highest is VT (Verbal and Temporary) at 60, followed closely by Verbal Only at 59. The rest in order of highest to lowest is Semiverbal Only at 41, ST (Semiverbal and Temporary) at 33, TH (Temporary and Hyperverbal) at 29, Other Combinations at 21, VTH (Verbal, Hyperverbal, and Temporary) at 19, Hyperverbal Only at 18, SVT and STH and VH are all tied at 8, SV (Semiverbal and Verbal) at 6, and finally Nonverbal Only at 4 respondents. end id]

This graph more clearly shows that a majority of responders would consider their verbal speech levels to change, but only a minority of that group also considers themself Semi or Non-Verbal. You can all also see how a majority of responders considered themself either as just temporarily losing speech or a combination group using the Verbal option, which highlights a potential bias in the future questions. (Also the other section is for all combinations that got under 1% of respondents individually!)

[image id: A pie chart pf praticapent’s age groups. The highest at 56% is 18-29 year olds, with 13-17 place at 38.2%. The rest have the percents cut off but in order are 30-29, Under 13, and then 40+ year olds. End id]

Most responders fell in the age ranges of 13-29. This seems to follow general Tumblr trends after a quick search, but possibly leans a few years younger then the general user base. The lack of older adults taking the survey is unfortunate as some of these terms have been around for a while, and it’s always a plus to get an all ages response on surveys like these.

[image id: A pie chart titled “Where did you find the survey”, The top choice being “Another Tumblr Blog” at 59.1%, and the 2nd “Nd Culture Is” at 37.1%. You can see the slices for “From Someone I Know” and various Other Responses in the pie chart, with the other responses blurred out in the index sheet. end id]

This graph is admittedly a bit worthless, as I made it before deciding where I was going to post the survey to, so a decent amount of people, both those who selected “Another Blog” or Other mentioned getting it straight from the og post or a reblog of it. So needless to say i wasn’t quite exact enough by what i meant in this question (which was to see how far it spread vs any bias from just my “in-group” so to say), but it does does imply that that the survey didn’t make it far from the groups I posted it in. Which is expected with how little "promoting" was done during the survey period.

NonVerbal / NonSpeaking

[image id: a multiple bar graph showcasing the correlation between how responders self identified vs how they define Nonverbal. Going from top to bottom is The Fully Always option chosen by 3 from Nonverbal Only, Masking with no chosen responses, Little to No Speech at 2 from Nonverbal and other Terms Users, Allow Temporary at 9 from Nonverbal and other Term Users plus 7 from Nonverbal and Temporary and an intentional Nonverbal Only Responder, then All Above with 1 Nonverbal and Temporary plus a Nonverbal Plus Response, Followed lastly by Other Definitions with no responses. End id]

Before going over this data I want to reiterate that the survey had very few nonverbal people taking it, so this data is not going to be all possibly not even most, nonspeaking people’s option on defining those terms. Next The N Plus section on the graph includes the N and T groups as well as other responders who marked themself with more than just the Nonverbal role. That said it seems that the greater community tends to lean towards the “Someone who has periods or is always not able to speak and/or can't speak well” option, and well quite a few nonverbal autistics agree, there’s a group especially among those who only consider themselves nonverbal who prefer defining it as those who always can’t speak fully ever. This matches with trends i’ve personally seen in the nonverbal tags of nonverbal people preferring definitions that centre on the lack of verbalness, even completely or most of the time vs speaking autistics using more broader terms, but again with such a lack of nonspeaking people involved there is no solid reliability to the data.

SemiVerbal / SemiSpeaking

[image id: a multiple bar graph showcasing the correlation between how respondents self identified vs how they define Semiverbal. Going from top to bottom is Partly All with 8 from Semiverbal Only plus 7 Semiverbal and Temp and 10 from Semiverbal Plus, Next is Inbetween with 24 from Semiverbal Only and 42 from Semiverbal and Temp plus 53 from Semiverbal Plus, Lose Speech has 5 from Semiverbal Only plus 6 from Semiverbal and Temp and 8 from Semiverbal Plus,All Above with 2 from both Semiverbal and Temp plus Semiverbal Only, Context-Based with no responses, and finally Other with 1 from Semiverbal Only plus 2 from Semiverbal and Temp and 3 from Semiverbal Plus. end id]

Like The Nonverbal Section, The S Plus section on the graph includes the S and T groups as well as other responders who marked themself with more than just the Semiverbal role. Otherwise, from this graph we see an overall trend of including anybody “between nonverbal and verbal” regardless of how the respondents identified themself. There also seems to be less of a disconnect between those who are semiverbal vs the greater community when compared to the results of Nonverbal, although whether that is a bias of the survey or a general trend is hard to tell. Most respondents who chose Other seem to have given either an all of the above answer (which I might have manually included???) or mentioned a definition using the idea of always struggling with speech but at different levels.

Further Notes

One thing I really wish I had done was involve more nonverbal and semiverbal people in the whole process of making this, i think looking back there’s definitely moments were you could tell this was made by a speaking autistic and I really didn’t do nearly enough to include and uplift the voices of those who this survey was literally about. In a similar vein I forgot about pretty much every non-autistic community who uses these terms, but also didn’t make it clear enough that it was unintentional, leaving not only countless voices unheard but accidentally ostracising those whose voices are equally as important as what this survey managed to cover.

Alongside that I was very unclear in what some questions meant to the point even future-me wasn’t sure what the data was for, plus I bit off much more than I could chew, making for a messy at best survey experience. As such survey taker’s might notice not every question was given space here, and that is simply because I couldn't process the data in a timely manner.

I did however let people opt-in to sharing further notes about how they use these terms and will share some of those under the read more with no individual commentary so as to let people speak fully for themselves:

There is a gap in the language available to describe autistic difficulties with speech. Verbal should describe the ability to use language, written or spoken, but in the context of neurodivergency almost always describes speech only. Non-speaking would be a more appropriate term and would free up nonverbal as a term for autistics who struggle with written and spoken English (as in syntax or language in general, not spelling). This has been talked about in high support need circles but is not mainstream.

I think we should look to the wheelchair users for language design, specifically the differences with the language around full time wheelchair user and ambulatory/part time wheelchair user

i wish mostly speaking people would find other ways of explaining their experiences without using nonverbal/nonspeaking people's language. we already have a much harder time communicating and when our language is taken or used in different ways that makes people confused about the meaning and they assume that the experience of mostly speaking people is the same as mostly or fully nonverbal/nonspeaking people. when actually the overall experience is very different

I am not sure exactly where I fit within being verbal but losing speech and struggling to speak almost always, or if I am semiverbal. I think the lines between all of these terms can be blurry, but I think it's bad how verbal autistics who lose speech occasionally (and often talk about being able to push through this and force themselves to speak - which is how I feel almost all the time) have taken these terms which makes it very hard to find content from people whose experiences with speech are similar to mine or who are nonverbal. I think it's connected to how in general lower support needs autistics take most of the space in the autistic community and it can feel isolating for people like me who are higher support needs.

And well this survey was about English specifically, I want to share what this survey respondent said about how the terms work in their language and how that affects their usage of these terms:

third of all: the alternatives to that, such as "losing speech", "having verbal shutdown", or "going mute"... simply do not work in some languages. and as proof, let me show you my beautiful native language, that being ukrainian!

"losing speech" = our word for speech equals our word for talk. when losing speech, i CAN talk - but not by using my voice.

"verbal shutdown" = our word for shutdown is not being used in the same way as in english and there is no good alternatives.

"going mute" = our word for mute has a very long and complicated and problematic history, and is not something most people would be comfortable saying!

so, that means that i am left with absolutely no phrases to use in my language - because the only one, that being "going/becoming non-verbal" which is translatable and has the same meaning - is not an option anymore.

[iftheshoef1tz]

Ahoy! For Halloween, I thought I’d give you all a teaser for my latest project. 😈

Eris Vanserra is a young doctor in West Germany in 1968. After learning his mother has been keeping the old ways behind the back of his deeply religious, deeply abusive father, Eris decides the easiest, most direct way to vengeance is by summoning a demon. This scene takes place in Grunewald, a forest in West Berlin, where Eris summons said demon. This will be, of course, Azris, so y’all know who the demon is.

Special thanks to @queercontrarian who helped me develop this idea by suggesting it take place during the ‘68 riots in West Germany in the first place and who is also indispensable as a translator. This is unedited and unbetaed and will likely change its form before i actually post this thing. Enjoy!!

A break in the trees reveals the lit-up summit of Teufelsberg. He can’t quite see the three dome radio towers, but he knows they’re there. He’d seen them up close only once, when he’d gone skiing three years ago. It had made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, to be so close to the machinations of the American secret intelligence apparatus.

Now, though, there isn’t any snow, only the wet squelching of fallen, rotting leaves beneath his bike tires.

It had been easy enough to find his mother’s book, in the end – it had been in the kitchen next to the cookbooks. A smart hiding place, one Beron would never think to look for something important.

Decoding it had taken somewhat longer. It was handwritten in shaky cursive, sometimes in what seemed to be Middle German, and Eris had risked eye strain trying to tell the writer’s vowels apart. But there, hidden among recipes for poultices and medicines for pain or fertility, is a three line recipe, as it were.

The cold October air whips Eris’s hair into his face as he mouths the words to himself: ich beschwöre euch, Dämon. Gebt mir eine wahre und getreue Antwort, sodass ich an mein ersehntes Ziel gelange. Ich beschwöre euch.

It’s not the original Middle German, of course; Eris is on the other side of the Luther’s ninety-nine theses and he trusts his pronunciation of modern German much more than the other. It had occurred to him that the translation might affect which demon answered his call, but in the end, he had decided it didn’t matter. This was all a fool’s errand, regardless.

He laughs once at himself. It clouds around his mouth before being blown away by the wind. Rain is in the air, and he needs to get this idiocy out of his system before then.

It’s the kind of rebellion he has never had the time or energy for, and he feels as though he’s tilting at windmills. If he were a braver man, he’d simply murder his father himself.

Eventually, he feels he’s reached deep enough in the forest, and he slips off his bicycle. He hesitates before simply resting it against a nearby tree. Yes, it’s technically visible from the path, but it’s nearly eleven at night in the middle of a bloody forest. No one is around to steal it.

Leaves and branches crunch beneath his feet like rusty, crackling laughter, and he feels foolish again. He can turn around now, be back in his apartment by midnight, and not have his landlady be any the wiser.

But something pulls him deeper into the loamy dark, his torch beam hardly piercing the darkness around him.

Eventually, it is only Eris and his stupid quest in the dark of Grunewald, and he draws to a halt. It takes only a moment to kick away leaves and clear a small section of grass, and he slides a glass jar from his backpack.

The recipe had called for chalk or dirt, and he uses dirt he’d collected from the farm to draw a circle in the cleared space. It’s wobbly, and he swipes at his mouth in irritation. The motion leaves dirt on Eris’s face; he can feel it but doesn’t care.

Next is another small jar, with two slender sticks of incense. He’d stolen them from Nesta last week and figures the scent of cedar would be least offensive to a demon. It’s incredible how much effort he’s put into something so stupid. Perhaps, he thinks with a wry twist of his lips as he eases into sitting position, he should start considering that he’s doing this after all.

The circle is barely visible in the torchlight, and the lit end of the stick of incense also seems to disappear into the clutching dark. He is alone here in the dark woods.

Eris shuts his eyes against the sudden lurch of fear and inhales once through his nose. He exhales, then repeats. On the third breath, he murmurs, “I invoke thee, demon.”

The silence thickens around him.

“Give me a true and faithful answer,” he continues, his gloved hands clenching in his lap. “So that I may accomplish my desired end.”

The wind breaks the silence suddenly, moaning through the trees. The sound of it through the leaves sounds like a snake’s hiss, sharp and violent. Eris is alone and cold here, and no one will notice he is missing if something goes wrong.

“I invoke thee,” Eris forces himself to finish, barely above a whisper.

A faint shudder rolls through the earth, or maybe it’s just Eris himself, and he squeezes his eyes tighter shut. Would it be better or worse to open his eyes and find that his words have brought him nothing but embarrassment?

After a moment, the wind dies down, and Eris cracks his eyes open.

He is alone. The incense is no longer burning, its embers quenched by the hissing wind.

“‘I invoke thee,’” he snarls to himself and rushing to his feet. He kicks through the wobbly line of the dirt invoking circle, and shoves his hands into his pockets. “Bullshit.”

[…]

He turns to look behind him, his fear from earlier returning. It’s thick along the back of his tongue as he watches two perfectly round lights bob up the road towards him. He pauses, one foot sliding in the mud just off the road, as the tremulous lights steady and the rumble of a car engine reaches him.

Thank God, he thinks acidly. What a day it would be if demons weren’t real but aliens were.

The rumble grows closer, and Eris sticks out a thumb, slick and shining in the car’s headlights. It slows as it reaches Eris before finally stopping in front of him. The driver is revealed bit by bit as he rolls the window down – dark hair flopped carelessly across his forehead, piercing hazel eyes underlined by heavy bags.

“You lost?” the man says. His German is accented in a way Eris can’t quite place.

“My bike was stolen,” Eris says, not bothering to hide his shiver. “Could I trouble you - ”

“Get in.”

Eris blinks in surprise at the quick acceptance, but the man is leaning back in his seat as if he picks up strangers in the dark woods every day.

He slips into the car, winding the window shut as fast as possible. The storm spits a last few drops into his face, and he collapses back into his seat. The inside of the car is too warm, the heat turned up nearly to the maximum. The engine purrs beneath Eris’s feet when the man takes off, and Eris watches the man’s hand resting on the gear shift.

The skin looks waxy, and Eris recognizes them for the burn scars they are. He has the strange impulse to touch them, to make sure they are real in a way nothing else has felt tonight.

“What were you doing out here so late at night?”

Something in Eris rebels at the patronizing tone, but he quashes any visible reaction beyond pushing his sodden hair from his face. When he looks over, the man’s hazel eyes are so dark as to seem black.

Blandly, he replies, “Biking.”

The man laughs, just one short burst. “Of course.”

“Thank you for the lift,” Eris says. He arranges himself in a way he knows makes him appear smaller, more delicate. It angles him more fully towards the man and shows off the curve of his hip. Some men like that, Eris knows, especially when they don’t like to like men. “I was dreading walking home in the dark by myself.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?” He smooths a hand down the front of his sweater.

The man waves a dismissive hand at Eris, encompassing his whole body. It somehow manages to make Eris feel brutally naked, and he curls into himself with no coquetry in the motion. “Don’t do that thing you did just then. Make yourself so – ”

“I - ” The word falls pathetically from Eris’s mouth as more half-formed excuses pile up on his tongue. Maybe the man is a policeman or part of the secret service, and Eris has just broadcast his willingness to spread his legs for another man. God, maybe he’s an American.

Eris waits, breath trapped in his throat. But the man never finishes his sentence, and his hand falls to the gear shift again. The engine rumbles beneath them, knocking Eris’s thoughts into one another.

Beron will kill him if he’s arrested for this. He might kill his mother, too, for breeding such a deviant. It doesn’t even occur to him to be afraid that this man might kill him for the offer, which, despite it’s immediacy, lacks any real teeth.

“I think I can walk from here.” Eris is proud his voice doesn’t tremble; his hands are steady, too.

In response, the man purses his lips. He doesn’t pull over, though, and Eris thinks he might vomit. At least if his body turns up at some point in the future, no one will know he was with a man before this. The thought makes a hysterical laugh well up in his throat, competing with his excuses trapped there.

He wishes, suddenly, pathetically, for Nesta.

“Do you know anyplace quiet we could go to?”

The man’s voice is almost covered by the engine, and Eris has to swallow once, twice, before he says, putting a little of Beron’s sternness in his voice, “I’m not taking you home with me.”

At this, the man turns his head towards Eris. They pass under the first street lamp of the main road, and Eris narrowly bites back a gasp.

Eyes black as coal with no white showing, the demon says, “I think you and I have some things to talk about.”

[groovesnjams]

2 / 50

"Not Strong Enough" by boygenius

MG:

Writing about boygenius, at this point, feels impossible. I have an urge to defend them, to shout down some anonymous but not entirely imagined comment section* (it felt like everywhere I turned on the internet just fucking hated this group and it always always always boiled down to some projected misogyny) and a world that just couldn’t…quite…admit this was the greatest song of the year. Even in the places where boygenius unequivocally ruled there was this little whiff of embarrassment like they’re great but, ok, not that great. Well, they are that great! They don’t have to do something wholly original or reflect everyone’s personal identity back to them to be great! 

But we don’t need more of that, it’s a stupid feedback loop, I have to be the change I want to see in the world and that change is to write about this song without defending it! To do that, however, would not be entirely honest because, to be entirely honest, I was very much that person I outlined above for most of the year. I put “A&W” at the top of my dopey playlist and felt very vibey about it and even had a period where I got into Father John Misty a little bit because that made sense. And then when it got closer to calling it, as I was listening through that playlist a whole bunch to make cuts and remember things I’d forgotten, I listened to “Not Strong Enough” for the first time on headphones and it fucking ripped. It ripped my brain right open! This song is gorgeously produced, full of rich instrumentation that colors neatly in-between the wavy lines of the storytelling. It’s the kind of thing I want to choreograph a dance to, I want it to soundtrack a movie about an aimless, broken person who surrenders to life’s enduring beauty and awakens to their own possibility, I want to watch a music video where boygenius play in a barn with vaulted ceilings. Every detail of this song feels so specific and fully realized that I can’t help but play along. It speaks to some half-remembered, half-imagined past but it’s also coming to, in the front seat, still happening, still going somewhere. 

I get it, what I said about Chappell Roan, about being unlikable and thus lovable, applies here, too. I can’t make you like this song, it is unlikable and it got better every time I heard it (a lot, it was blessed and highly favored by Sirius XMU, who chose to make Mitski’s TikTok hit “My Love, Mine All Mine” their song of the year) and I love “Not Strong Enough.” It is my favorite song of the year.

*(To my complete and total amusement, shortly after I finished my first draft of this post, the comment section I was thinking of voted "Not Strong Enough" their song of the year. I'm not sure if there's a significant disconnect between commenting members and voting members or if I'm a woman of the people, charting the course of lukewarm acceptance to full on wholehearted embrace of this song. But, either way, good for all of us!)

DV:

Wow it's really tough to talk about "Not Strong Enough" without talking about boygenius and parasociality and fandom in 2023, huh? This may also be true of a lot of this year's list, but with the rest of the lot it's relatively easy to find other angles into the song. With boygenius the angles all lead back to the band, their dynamic, their process, their relationships. It's a little gauche isn't it? I don't feel like boygenius meant for the story of their 2023 to be about themselves but here they are at the end of the year where they went viral for Halloween costumes and they're winning gendered awards like Ron Swanson from Parks & Recreation, and we just have to hope things age better in reality than in fiction. But also, boygenius made "Not Strong Enough", which some days felt like it might actually be my favorite song of the year (a distinction shared by many others on this list, but one this song got more than most.) It's a song built out of climaxes, rolling and building, with hooks to spare and a secret weapon in the drummer, whose name is weirdly difficult to find but whose fills do more to make the song than even the jangliest guitar. So on one hand, I know more about this band's lore than I do about any other artist who I can't name a second song by. But on the other: "Not Strong Enough" is straightforwardly a gorgeous, propulsive power pop banger, delivered beautifully. When you have a Lucy Dacus and can hold her in reserve for a climax like this one, taking fully a minute and a half but never losing momentum, you're simply operating at a level that few other artists are capable of.

[vortainz]

How it ends

the ending of IZ is ,, a really odd topic

technically it has 4 endings, well, 4.5

1 : invader dib

no, it in no way was a planned ending ever, but i feel it deserves mentioning considering how prevalent it was

it originally started on TAIZS when the producer was interviewed, he went on to confirm there was a intention to steer the show towards IRK and talking about its “”existence””

(also istg there was a ask where he vaguely explains the plot as a joke but i can’t find it for the life of me)

there were multiple versions of it but there’s two that circulated the most

A: “this special would have allegedly followed Tenn’s kidnapping by the Meekrob, and an all-out war happening between the Meekrob and the Irkens, which would have ended with Zim (aided by Gaz) being victorious over Dib, The Resistys, and the Meekrob, and finally conquering Earth.” (fan wiki)

B: the focus of the show would slowly shift towards irk, dib would get more crazed trying to stop the empire, zim and gaz would team up (or date, depends on who you asked) and stop both dib and the empire. everyone else dies and zagf/r saves the rest of earth

2 : space smoothies

In a nicktoons magazine, IZ made its “””final””” return. in which it had its first comic iteration where zim successfully took over the earth, but just kinda gives up when he sees the merch of himself. dib complains and zim offers to just have a jolly ol’ time in space, them both leaving earth in disarray while just being buds

3 : dookie loop

The “”canon”” ending, basically zim traps dib and the rest of the universe in a timeloop due to not being able to finish a puzzle. blah blah blah i’ll rant about his reasoning for that in another post ANYWAYS,, he eventually finishes it and resigns to fixing the timeline, but the “fix timeline button” doesn’t work and the universe implodes, everyone dies.

4 : nothing is real

i haven’t fully pieced together the lore but this is what ive gathered

rk is god. kinda.

in their orginal universe, zim and dib are real people, dib has gone missing and zim conquered earth. the conditions are really bad till he finally gets the idea to just indoctrinate them all

rk uses the comics as a “coping mechanism” of sorts, avoiding what’s really going on by just reading the comics, it’s really the only think they can do anyways

here’s where my idea sort of splits

A : they continue reading the comics and recapping them all, imagining this fantastical world where life is just zim and dib fighting in middle school, each winning and losing occasionally. rk starts making their own comics and aus, getting more and more absorbed by the characters of zim and dib that anything other than them is incredibly distressing

they get so sucked into their own mind that at this point they feel as though they ARE the creator of these characters and comics. when the story in their mind gets too off track, when it’s getting to the point where it might end, they insert themselves into it and fix whatever issue there was

B : bk (brain kid) is god essentially, rk was originally from the universe as described before but was scooped up by bk at some point and put into the recap section of the comic universe, something similar to in issue 40. in the comic universe, IZ isn’t real, it’s just a comic. yet rk is still able to manipulate the story and interact with the characters, when the comic is finally coming to and end they step in and just start everything over again

oh yeah in both A n B what i mean by ‘the comic ending’ is that earth is burning and no one wins, both zim and dib are about to die

⬆️ sorry if none of this made sense 😭 i’m struggling to word it correctly + still theorizing

4.5 : timetravel

Probably the most simple one, zim conquers earth, dib dies by being stupid, zim gets killed by his younger self, the end. the only reason it’s “4.5” is due to it being specific to the timeline of that issue, as none of the other entries acknowledge it

[bonefall]

Reply Round-Up: Sausage and Story Beats

In this reply I respond to various questions that have been popping up about minor things in the Bonefall Rewrite, including some clan culture tidbits and general narrative direction

I’m replying to @halogenwarrior, I hope you're cool with me paraphrasing your exact questions and comments. I’m also breaking this up into two sections, one for Rewrite stuff and the next for Clan Culture things

Bonefall Rewrite

Leafpool being mistreated by StarClan is interesting, the motivations of the Three and Squirrelflight are better off for removing StarClan forcing them to do things, but is there a way to keep that struggle for Leafpool? (Reply to this post)

I’m keeping it in mind, but I haven’t thought of anything yet. It’s especially difficult because Leafpool is also unable to ‘drag‘ Jaypaw into the medcat role thanks to Longtail jumping in to train him as a warrior, so there’s very little opportunity to show StarClan sending Leafpool mixed messages.

But on top of it, I’m not sure I want StarClan to just do things that are bad for the sake of doing things that are bad. I’m quite fond of how I’ve fixed their malicious incompetence and made them much less horrible. I can’t figure out a goal that would make them bully Leafpool; in my Rewrite, they do not want the Three and are generally terrified of them. I’d rather have StarClan be consistent than force conflict in where it no longer is.

But, I’m thinking about it.

The title of Bonefall Bluestar’s Prophecy

Right now it’s Bluestar’s Friends because I think that title is delightfully cute in contrast to how the book is about Blue’s friend group forming, falling apart, her being subject to a terrible fate, the death of so much of her family, etc. But I can pitch some other titles and go with the most popular one

I’d like for each redux to have a new title to reflect how it’s different; so other titles could be

Bluestar’s Fate: Emphasizing the StarClan trial that frames the book

Bluestar’s Purpose: Pointing out how Goosefeather has foreseen her destiny and how Bluestar breaks predestination with her actions

Bluestar’s Flower: Referencing thistles as well as forget-me-nots

Bluestar’s Friends: Her friend group is the biggest change about this redux

Will every reduxed arc of the Rewrite have 6 books?

It’s not a hard rule, but it seems to be happening that way. Bonefall TPB perfectly fits into the 6 books of the original arc. Bonefall AVoS will probably be 5. At first I figured Bonefall OotS would be 4, but the more the Dark Forest Trainees get buffed up, the more it seems like 6 books may happen anyway.

TL;DR I just do what feels right but based on how much material I’m adapting, it’s looking like it’ll fall into place as 6-ish books an arc anyway.

Thornclaw and Brightheart Adoption; The Distinctive Tabby Queen

I’m not fully committed to Thornclaw and Brightheart being not biologically the children of Frostfur yet, but I am leaning towards it because everyone seems to find it to be a really interesting idea

If they were found and retrieved from the ShadowClan nursery...

Bluestar and ThunderClan would make some kind of effort to reunite them with their parents, but months go by and they are not found. Their mother may be a dead WindClan queen, or stolen from a rogue, but the trail goes cold and they’re already bonded to their mother Snowfur.

If they were the children of the Distinctive Tabby Queen...

It’s true that it would present a problem to the family tree, since I already had to wiggle and squeeze to fix the tree as it was...

But I could bump Speckletail out of the Tawny/Rain family like I was already considering, and put Distinctive Tabby there instead... she could even be the sister of Darkstripe and a child of Dappletail, Cricketkit.

To the tree it wouldn’t matter because the parentage of Bright and Thorn would get swapped to Frost/Lion for all intents and purposes (adoptions in the BF Rewrite only count towards the adoptive parents), but genetically it could mean Thorn and Bright could qualify for getting great hair.

Cricket would either invoke the Queen’s Rights, or I could simply have it that their sire was Lionheart anyway. As for her full name, Cricketleg or Cricketclaw would be good titles.

Or I could just keep the Frostfour as Frostlion kits biologically and split the litter.

That is the simplest option.

Clan Culture

Aaaand here’s the section for some misc logistical questions

How do Clan Cats make sausage casings?

Hog hunting is very rare because wild boars in England are themselves are both rare AND extremely dangerous (I am, in fact, going to be largely replacing deadly badger and fox encounters with hogs). But it isn’t impossible to hunt them, either. The Tribe would be able to kill them, along with sheep and deer, on a regular basis.

(I would like to make an entry on hog hunting, one day, basing it off medieval boar hunts)

But sausage cases can be made out of any intestine, actually. Humans just tend to use the tracts of goats, cattle, and pigs because that’s a good size for a human and those are the animals we hunt.

Clan cats can use geese, ducks, deer fawns, hares, rabbits, even rats. I’m also trying to find if it’s possible to use the intestines of large carp and salmon, but I can’t find the information I need with a simple search and would have to dig deeper.

I’ll do a ShadowClan Sausage entry for Warrior Bites at some point

Do you plan to use more cat-specific diseases?

Yes! I actually want to limit the Color Coughs to legitimately deadly outbreaks. It’s too casually used, I would like it to be associated with serious, encroaching dread.

Specific ear infections, allergies, and food poisonings should be more common imo, especially for sickness outbreaks that are narratively just supposed to be unpleasant, not deadly. I’m still working on specifics, though... a lot of the most common cat ailments are just, not the sorts of things I would like to include in the story for comfort reasons (UTIs for example)

[lostdrarryfics]

THE BIG FIND: DAY ONE

Welcome to the first day of our anniversary celebration!

The Big Find is a 10-day long Drarry fic-finding marathon to celebrate the blog’s first anniversary. Below is the Day 1 compilation of lost fics, both old and new, that we’ve been unable to find. Our aim is to get as much attention to these lost fics as possible, to help people finally find their missing fics! Anyone can participate by reblogging, reading through each list, providing additional fic details, and informing us the title, author, or link of a fic, and their respective number in the comment section. Happy finding!

1.1 I’m looking for a fic I read, probably 10+ years ago, before AO3 even existed. The only scene I can really remember takes place in the Great Hall and Harry and Draco have a play Quidditch competition using gingerbread men, and one of the boys makes their gingerbread man do a bunch of aerial summersaults and it made everyone in the Great Hall laugh. (original post)

1.2 I am looking for a sequel fic, it was in the mid of updates in Jan 2019-Feb 2019 in wattpad, and they were out of Hogwarts and Draco had run away (he and Harry had dated before he ran in the 1st book) and Harry, Hermione, Ron, Pansy, and Blaise had went on a trip to New York and found him at the place they were staying (he had disguised himself). (original post)

FOUND! 1.3 ao3, Draco is friends with the Golden Trio. They’re doing research in a library they found in the chamber of secrets. Ron and Hermione find a book written in parseltongue, and Harry summons a snake to clarify the word horcrux and the snake tells him that it’s a very dark magic and he shouldn’t do it. They figure out Harry’s a horcrux and he sneaks away from the library and stabs himself in the forehead with a basilisk fang. They take him to the hospital wing and tell Pomfrey that he fell while running and that’s why he has blood all over his face and Hermione shows her Ron’s scraped palms to convince her. She can’t heal his scar and calls someone from the hospital to try and heal it but the injury deflects magic so I think they end up giving him stitches. (original post)

fic is not the fanciful providence of death series by hoboheartache

1.4 Auror Harry, Draco is brought in as a consultant, likely a potions consultant. He consults for an ongoing case that concerns dark magic/potions. Draco had really bad anxiety. They have a BDSM relationship where Draco wants to give up control because he feels he made too many bad decisions and wants someone to control him. Harry wants control because he has never had enough of it. He had his entire life planned out for him by destiny and Dumbledore. There was an auror meeting, Draco is called in to give a presentation regarding a dangerous potion or dark magic. He has a briefcase. The aurors don’t respect him or pay attention, but he shows gruesome images of the subject they’re dealing with and they do. Harry is new to BDSM and that they might have started their relationship prior to or after meeting in the workplace. Bottom!Draco, if I recall correctly. Probably at least over 15k or longer. Draco was very competent at his job, and the case they were working on likely involved gruesome potion related things happening to the victims faces, which Draco presented slides of at a meeting. (original post)

fic is not yours is the earth (hold on, hold on) by chickenlivesinpumpkin

1.5 ffn, it was finished before deathly hallows was published (2007). Wolfstar raised Harry since he was a baby and when he was 13 Narcissus + Lucius died, and Draco ended up in Sirius’s custody. I think it had some 20 odd chapters. A lot of the conflict was Wolfstar trying to get Draco and Harry to get along and them feuding (and secretly pining for each other). There was a whole chapter dedicated to them sabotaging each others dates to the Yule ball. It ended with them getting together at Wolfstar wedding. (original post)

FOUND! 1.6 It’s their first date, hogwarts age, and I’m pretty sure it’s ao3. Draco has this magical umbrella that they sit under for a picnic, that I’m sure is off the road to hogsmead, and I think the date doesn’t end too well because once they “come out” of the umbrella it’s raining and eventually Draco explains that the magic of the umbrella is capturing a moment in time so they can relive it again and he’d hoped that first date was the first of many memories recorded. I think his parents had used it as well. (original post)

1.7 Draco and Harry are in a relationship. Either Teddy lived with them or they were taking care of him. Draco is a Healer in training, so he is always extremely busy. Harry starts feeling neglected. On the night of Halloween, Draco comes home and tells Harry that he is just there for a short amount of time, so that he can take Teddy trick and treating. Harry feels extremely hurt and asks if Draco even remembers that it is the death anniversary of Harry’s parents and that Harry was expecting Draco to be there for him. Draco feels extremely guilty but he has to go back to St. Mungo’s. Harry then says that if Draco leaves him now to go back to the hospital, he should just never come back. Draco is stunned and helpless but he still leaves. Fast forward to six years later, Harry takes Teddy with him to a party where he meets Draco. When Teddy sees Draco, he hugs him and asks him why he never came to play with him in the last six years and stuff like that. Teddy says that Draco should hang out with them and Draco tells him that he should ask Harry. If Harry is okay with it, he will come to see Teddy. Harry tells him that it’s ok. Slowly, they rekindle their relationship and Harry confesses that when they were together, he used to feel like he wasn’t important enough for Draco. Harry used to think that for Draco, his first priority was Teddy and then his job and Harry couldn’t see himself in that list. But Draco reassured Harry that Harry was and is the most important person for Draco. Draco tells him that he never dated anyone after Harry, never slept with anyone in the last six years and that he have always loved Harry. (original post)

fic is not the storm by kizkhalifa

1.8 Draco is sentenced to live in muggle world. He first works in a coffee shop then in a pharmaceutical company formed by a witch. On a full moon day, he suddenly turns into a werewolf and Bill helps him adjust. He takes the job as potions professor. Harry adopts Teddy, becomes defense professor. Harry’s magic goes haywire. (original post)

FOUND! 1.9 AO3, H&D are staying at Grimmauld, raising Teddy together. D&T finds a magical compartment in the house that they get into because they’re Blacks and they find old pictures of I think Sirius and Remus. Auror!H investigating some funky time travel curse on Hogwarts. Towards the end everyone goes crazy because he’s been gone for a week but H thinks its only been an hour or something. (original post)

1.10 Harry suspecting that Draco is a death eater in 6th year. He got suspicious because Draco can see the Thestrals now, and get more suspicious when notices that Draco became more powerful during summer, first when he saw Draco transforming water into oil (the salad one) during first dinner and the second when he saw him in a duel with a kind of cloud the professors were using to test students in defense, and Draco’s turn was intense because the cloud shot what seemed a killing curse at him. Harry started to find Draco more attractive. They met by accident sometimes in the bathroom where Harry find Draco smoking by a window. (original post)

FOUND! 1.11 Harry has erectile problems and Ginny tries to force it but ends up hurting his crotch. (original post)

FOUND! 1.12 Dudley’s POV, he hates Harry and loves that Harry hates him back, it’s what makes him happy bc he thinks he owns him in some way? But then… yer a wizard Harry! New friends! Adventures! Other bully kids! War! But Draco joins them and with the years Dudley realizes Harry doesn’t care about him enough to hate and that there is something special in the hate he feels for Draco (it’s love, actually, big surprise). I think Draco becomes a spy or he wants to but Harry is not okay with it. (original post)

FOUND! 1.13 8th years are having a party in the Room of Requirement. They have to wear colours from other houses instead of their own houses, otherwise they’re not allowed in the party. Zacharias Smith and Ernie Macmillon weren’t allowed in because they wore black. The 8th years were playing a game involving potions. (original post)

FOUND! 1.14 Draco was playing truth or dare with a mix of students, and when he was asked to show his dark mark, he showed them a mess of scars instead and he was like “im trying to remove it” (original post)

[jules-has-notes]

Dayton, OH — VoicePlay live performances

After spending quite a bit of time in Ohio the previous autumn, VoicePlay returned in July 2015 for a night at the Fraze Pavilion. The show was almost cancelled for inclement weather, but luckily the rain held off and the outdoor venue stayed dry.

Their opening act was Eleventh Hour of Kettering Fairmount High School, the host group for the Kettering A Capella Festival that VoicePlay had participated in the year before. These talented kids had also opened for the Sing-Off tour a few months earlier at the Troy, OH show.

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[NOTE: The videographer sings along a lot.]

Each performance of this blend of comedy skit and musical medley is always a little different. How much will the driver and passenger poke at each other's buttons? Where will the air freshener go? What song will Layne sing? Have a watch and find out.

Details:

title: Road Trip

original songs / performers: [0:50] "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" by Tiny Tim; [1:08] "Orinoco Flow" by Enya; [1:26] "Cum On Feel the Noize" by Quiet Riot; [2:35] "Big Shot" by Billy Joel; [2:48] "I Wanna Rock" by Twisted Sister; [2:57] "Voices Carry" by ’Til Tuesday; [3:14] "Shout" by Tears For Fears; [3:30] "Why Can't We Be Friends?" by War; [3:40] "That Smell" by Lynyrd Skynyrd; [4:24] "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" by Chicago; [5:43] "We Just Disagree" by Dave Mason; [6:04] "Let It Go" by Idina Menzel as Elsa in Frozen (2013) ** see this dedicated post for original song links

written by: "Tiptoe Through the Tulips" by Al Dubin & Joe Burke; "Orinoco Flow" by Eithne "Enya" Pádraigín Ní Bhraonáin & Roma Ryan; "Cum On Feel the Noize" by Noddy Holder & Jim Lea; "Big Shot" by Billy Joel; "I Wanna Rock" by Dee Snider; "Voices Carry" by Robert Holmes, Aimee Mann, Michael Hausman, & Joey Pesce; "Shout" by Roland Orzabal & Ian Stanley; "Why Can't We Be Friends?" by Papa Dee Allen, Harold Ray Brown, B.B. Dickerson, Lonnie Jordan, Charles Miller, Lee Oskar, Howard E. Scott, & Jerry Goldstein; "That Smell" by Allen Collins & Ronnie Van Zant; "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" by Peter Cetera & David Foster; "Let It Go" by Kristen Anderson-Lopez & Robert Lopez

arranged by: Geoff Castellucci

My favorite bits:

road raging Eli

Tony's flickering eye movements at the first iteration of "Cum On Feel the Noize"

♫ "We'll get WILD, wild, wild…" ♫

Layne jolting awake on the beat

Geoff's little twirl as he flees the vehicle

Earl using the pretend aerosol spray as deodorant rather than his usual hairspray motion

Hey, Layne, look up there. ☝

Eli almost laughing at the different interruption

Trivia:

VoicePlay had been performing and tweaking this medley/skit since at least 2010.

They made a professional recording in front of a live audience during the 2014 Sing-Off tour.

Layne usually sings "Royals" by Lorde as his interrupting solo, but sometimes changes it like he does here in an attempt to make the other guys break character.

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As much fun as this medley is to listen to, it's even more entertaining to watch the boys perform it live, bopping around the stage and playing together.

Details:

title: The King Has Returned (Lion King medley)

original songs: "Circle of Life"; [1:51] "I Just Can’t Wait to Be King"; [2:29] "Hakuna Matata"; [3:16] "Be Prepared"; [4:39] "Circle of Life" (reprise)

written by: Elton John & Tim Rice

arranged by: VoicePlay

My favorite bits:

the rhythm section step-touching their way through the "Circle of Life" chorus

Tony and Eli gesture-bickering over which of them "mine" refers to during "I Just Can't Wait to Be King"

Earl's little Elvis groove at the beginning of "Hakuna Matata"

Eli and Earl bouncing across the stage in time with Geoff's little downward riff

Tony and Geoff's alternating Twist moves

the crunchy transition into "Be Prepared", and their emphatic stomping

Layne making a butt-smacking motion toward Geoff to go with the whipcrack in his percussion line

the two beats of silence after "Pay attention!"

Trivia:

This medley originally appeared on VoicePlay's 2012 album "Once Upon an Ever After"

"Hakuna Matata" was also included in the "aca-Disney" mashup they created for the 20th anniversary of Disney On Broadway, as well as in their "Aca Top 10 — Disney Sidekicks" countdown.

"Be Prepared" later appeared in their "Aca Top 10 — Disney Villains" countdown.

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[NOTE: The videographer sings along a lot.]

VoicePlay isn't exactly a boy band, but they certainly sound good singing these hit pop songs from across the decades. And they've got a few moves to go with those talented voices.

Details:

title: Boy Bands medley

original songs / performers: "ABC" by The Jackson 5; [0:36] "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" by The Beatles; [1:19] "My Girl" by The Temptations; [2:08] "Sherry" by The Four Seasons; [3:04] "YMCA" by The Village People; [3:37] "(You Got It) The Right Stuff" by New Kids on the Block; [4:00] "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys; [4:40] "Bye Bye Bye" by *NSYNC

written by: "ABC" by Berry Gordy, Freddie Perren, Alphonzo Mizell, & Deke Richards; "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" by John Lennon & Paul McCartney; "My Girl" by Smokey Robinson & Ronald White; "Sherry" by Bob Gaudio; "YMCA" by Jacques Morali & Victor Willis; "You Got It (The Right Stuff)" by Maurice Starr; "I Want It That Way" by Andreas Carlsson & Max Martin; "Bye Bye Bye" by Kristian Lundin, Jake Schulze, & Andreas Carlsson

arranged by: VoicePlay

My favorite bits:

Geoff's slow realization that his mic is dying

the other four carrying on through "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" just fine, but knowing that the next transition could be borked

return of the bass right on time, but a third too low (Good recovery, dudes.)

Eli's little head tilt in the back during the chorus of "YMCA"

the crunchy transition from "Right Stuff" to "That Way"

Tony's fabulous pop timbre on the lead for the last two songs

"Everybody watch him drink that water." VoicePlay, modelling healthy hydration habits.

Trivia:

VoicePlay revised this medley and finally recorded a video for it in 2019 as the result of a Patreon poll.

This piece usually ended with "What Makes You Beautiful" by One Direction, but The Fraze didn't have a screen to project the visual gag that goes along with it, so the guys omited that part entirely for this performance.

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[NOTE: The videographer and her daughter sing along and yell a LOT.]

This video contains three separate numbers — Layne's drum solo, the "A Crimpella" medley of phonations, and an encore of "Don't Stop Believin'".

Details:

title: Layne's drum solo

written & arranged by: Layne Stein

Look at him go!!! 🥁

.

title: A Crimpella

original songs / performers: [2:12] "Walk the Dinosaur" by Was (Not Was); [2:25] "Witch Doctor" by Alvin & the Chipmunks; [2:32] "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang; [2:37] "We Go Together" from Grease!; [2:44] "Motownphilly" by Boyz II Men; [2:53] "Imma Be" by the Black Eyed Peas; [3:01] "Tutti Frutti" by Little Richard; [3:03] "Shoop" by Salt N Pepa; [3:10] "Jock-A-Mo" (aka "Iko Iko") by James "Sugar Boy" Crawford; [3:18] "Mahna Mahna" from The Muppet Show; [3:30] "Lovin, Touchin, Squeezin" by Journey; [3:51] "Goofy Goober Rock" from The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie; [3:55] "MMMBop" by Hanson; [4:08] "Hooked on a Feeling" by Blue Swede; [4:10] "Bawitdaba" by Kid Rock; [4:16] "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" by Neil Sedaka; [4:25] "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen; [4:42] "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga; [4:46] "Can't Get You Outta My Head" by Kylie Minogue; [4:52] "Limbo La La" by James Lloyd; [4:56] "All Night Long" by Lionel Richie; [5:13] "Wanna Be Starting Something" by Michael Jackson; [5:20] "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" by Steam ** see this dedicated post for original song links

arranged by: VoicePlay

My favorite bits:

the stomp sending Eli flying

everyone "watching" the UFO flyby and waving to it

the big wind-up before the others join Tony in rocking out

Earl's little chugging motions during Geoff's "ooga chaka" solo, that Layne then picks up for the next section

using the ♫ "goo-ood-byyye" ♫ as an actual exit line

Trivia:

This medley was part of their setlist for several years, including during the 2014 Sing-Off tour.

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title: Don't Stop Believin'

original songs / performers: [8:00] "Don't Stop Believin'"; [10:38] "Open Arms"; and [10:47] "Any Way You Want It" by Journey; [10:31] "Oh Sherrie" by Steve Perry

written by: all songs written by Steve Perry in collaboration – "Don't Stop Believin'" with Jonathan Cain & Neal Schon; "Oh Sherrie" with Randy Goodrum, Craig Krampf, & Bill Cuomo; "Open Arms" with Jonathan Cain; "Any Way You Want It" with Neal Schon

arranged by: Layne Stein & Geoff Castellucci

My favorite bits:

the rare pairing up of Geoff and Tony & Eli and Layne during the first set of harmonies

Earl giving the camera a pointed look

Geoff's growl note as everyone but Earl drops out

the stacking of the polyphony section

Trivia:

Contrary to the cameraperson's assertion, Earl did not "mess up" the melody. That's how VoicePlay's arrangement goes. It's intentionally different from the original Journey version that she was probably expecting.

VoicePlay had been performing this arrangement since at least 2009, when they were still going by 4:2:Five.

In 2016, they were the featured guests at Camp A Cappella, and recorded a video for this song with the campers.

They later recorded a full version of "Any Way You Want It" during the second round of their PartWork series.

For a couple years, Eli also sang with a Journey cover band called Raised On Radio in between VoicePlay gigs.

[bronyinabottle]

THE ANCIENT EQUESTRIAN ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM - POST-MAKE YOUR MARK CHAPTER 4 EDITION

Hello there! I’m here to sort of give a follow-up to a post I made a while back about G5 after having established it has a connection with G4 how it might have to go forward about it. Ever since then, the G4-G5 connection  has been… inconsistent at best. The comics perhaps have the most direct link what with the Mane 5 meeting Discord which is never referred to in either Make Your Mark and presumably not in Tell Your Tale (I have not watched much tell your tale, though sorry. I feel like I just can’t get past the art style and the fart jokes I heard about they did with Sparky (Did they really have to do that to one of the most sympathetic characters in all of MLP? Misty did not deserve that one iota) absolutely was a deal breaker for me.)

And Chapter 3 while it did have the Twilight cameo and maybe a vague idea of how Opaline rised to power… it didn’t really give us a whole lot to go off of it feels like. So I didn’t really feel like giving much thoughts on it.

But Chapter 4 has certainly provided something that’s substantial enough to discuss… but I’m not confident it’s for all the right reasons.

For the sake of those who have not seen Chapter 4 of Make your Mark, I shall put the rest after a Keep reading line section. As the first thing you’ll see.. is a very significant image that is a pretty direct spoiler from Make Your Mark Chapter 4. If you have already seen Chapter 4, or don’t really care enough to avoid spoilers feel free to continue reading.

^Probably most G4 fans reaction to this image

Before I really dig into this thing, there is some speculation that this is all just more gas lighting by Opaline about her origins to Misty and none of the details are true since there seems to be multiple versions of how Opaline came to be a threat. But… I’m not sure I see any intentional use of the “Joker origin story” trope where everything Opaline has said about her origin is a lie. I’m not sure the writers will actually make that a plot point when it seems like they have it all simplified for children watching (They won’t even share what Zipp knows about alicorns to the audience for crying out loud!). I feel like the idea that Opaline may be lying about this entirely may be giving the writers of G5 a little too much credit here. If I’m wrong, I’ll fully own up to it. But for now, let’s presume that Opaline is telling the truth or at least mostly the truth.

So to get this out of the way…

WHAT THE BUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKK?!

So… let me get this straight… Opaline has been around ever since Celestia and Luna were fillies. That in itself is hard to map out the time for that. But then you gotta start thinking. If she’s been around for that long? What in Equestria was she doing in the time since the royal sisters were kids up until G5? In short, what was she doing DURING the events of Friendship is Magic and so on and so forth? Why didn’t she say take advantage when the Celestia was the only ruler for about 1000 years?

And if she’s the one that ruined the peace in Equestria ultimately, why does she feel way too incompetent to have been the one to to have done so? Opaline doesn’t even find out Misty has betrayed her at the end, if she can’t even keep track of her ONE AND ONLY MINION. How in Equestria did she end the most peaceful era in Equestria’s history?

Another question that might be even worse? How come Celestia and Luna didn’t tell Twilight or the rest of Equestria about Skyros? I mean yeah, obviously neither Opaline or Skyros actually existed meta-wise when developing Friendship is Magic. But this is the kind of stuff that seems to prove that the idea of connecting G4 and G5 was always just an afterthought. This just doesn’t work with what Friendship is Magic has established even with it’s vague look at Alicorn lore. Apparently a land of the Alicorns exists now? Just how many Alicorns are there actually? Apparently the Journal of Two Sisters implied there was a place of Alicorns, but the problem of course is Friendship is Magic contradicted said journal with Flurry Heart’s birth in Season 6.

Also, if Opaline has lived that long. That actually makes it very possible for Celestia, Luna, Twilight, Cadence, and Flurry Heart to all be still around somewhere. Cause I guess G5 just confirmed that alicorns are truly immortal in terms of dying from old age. Honestly, at this point I wonder if things are about to get crazy and it turns out the rest of the Mane 6 got to become Alicorns too and are hanging out in Skyros or whatever just for an excuse to return all the beloved characters to G5. It’d be an utterly stupid thing to do, but it almost feels like it isn’t impossible the way they’ve approached the connection between G4 and G5 so far.

It’s just… ugh, ridiculous. Opaline was ignored by Celestia and Luna as fillies and she waits like how ever many years before bringing Equestria down during TWILIGHT’S reign rather then while Celestia (The one she probably blames more for why she plotted to take magic away) wasruling. Like why? Why did she wait so damn long? Perhaps it’s another case of simply being sealed somewhere for a definite amount of time just like Luna on the moon for a thousand years for all we know. But right now the details are sparse about this and it’s never been said that Opaline got out of some sealed space like Limbo or Tartaurus

But what is perhaps the absolute worst crime of the image…

WHY IS YOUNG CELESTIA’S HAIR NOT PINK?! RUINED FOREVVVVVVVVVVVEEEEERRRRRRRRR! #NOTMYMLP

(I’m kidding by the way, that’s just nitpicking lol)

Regardless, while Chapter 4 of Make Your Mark has some pretty decent and cute moments. It might even be the best piece of G5 media ever since the movie came out. However, any connection they make with G4 continues to be a headache that adds more questions than answers. There has been nothing to really downplay the idea that it’d have been much better if they had made sure G5 was it’s own universe just like G1 and G3 are entirely different universes from G4.

Another worry I have about G5 is actually something that might be out of Hasbro’s control. Netflix has a tendency to cancel shows, even if they’re doing well. How much time does G5 have before Netflix decides it’s done? Supposedly Make Your Mark has 1 more special and probably another Chapter/Season to go. But I wonder if the team behind G5 are going to be under the possibility that this next batch of Make Your Mark could be the last one if Hasbro and/or Netflix decide they’re not renewing for another season. Granted, even Friendship is Magic had to deal with that possibility. As Magical Mystery Cure would have been the series finale had FiM not been as successful as it was to get renewed for Season 4 and so on. But that was a time where Hasbro still had been very profitable, where as lately there’s been reports of them possibly selling some of their properties, not to mention laying off employees. How much can G5 of MLP carry on under these circumstances? There’s even fears that My Little Pony as a whole may end altogether based on how bad Hasbro has fallen financially. I don’t know if it’s quite that bad for them. But I wonder if it really says something for the company now that it looks like it has clearly not captured the same lightning in a bottle that G4 did.

Now obviously, I’ve said before that even if G5 turned out to be amazing it’d still have a hard time living up to G4 just because the peaks FiM achieved are unsustainable. Part of the reason FIM was so successful was the surprise that an MLP show grew such a diverse audience in the first place. But now that MLP has attracted a larger amount of fans then expected, it just becomes… the status quo that there are people who you normally wouldn’t think be watching a show about cartoon ponies. It’s no longer a shock that a grown man is watching a show about ponies with G5, that was part of what made G4 successful. People wondering why adults of all ages were watching a show presumably for little girls, some of whom became fans of the shows themselves as their curiosity grew. G5 wasn’t going to be able to capture that feeling all over again as a grown man watching MLP is now old news. That’s why even if it was great, it’d have a hard time repeating what brought so many to G4. 

It’s even harder when… it just doesn’t feel like G5 stands out much in my opinion. The Mane 5 (Or well, new Mane 6 now after the end of this chapter. In fact Misty just may very well be G5’s best character) are all fine characters in their own right, but the Equestria in G5 seems… lifeless compared to the one in G4. They’re almost always in the same 3 locations that have been there since the movie. There’s no sense of real exploration and real fantasy like there was in G4. While most of FiM takes place in Ponyville there was still the very idea that Equestria is a wide map, with even locations that are only mentioned and not ever actually gone to. That was a disappointment before in G4 where we never got see like Saddle Arabia for instance. But we still got plenty of other areas throughout G4’s run besides Ponyville, Canterlot, and Cloudsdale. And that's also ignoring the fact that besides Sparky and the animals, we've really not seen any other species from G4 still. (The cliffhanger of Chapter 4 seems to imply more dragons are coming but... I wonder if it's too little, too late at this point)

It feels like for me, the only reason to keep watching G5 is to see how Misty’s story plays through. And whatever is going to be Opaline’s final comeuppance. (Granted her own idiocy seems to be a comeuppance for her every episode). Izzy can still be fun to watch too, but otherwise the only other interest in terms of tying things with G4 just often makes things worse as with the story about Opaline knowing Celestia and Luna when they were fillies. Perhaps I’m just overthinking things too much, and I’m sure some may just insult me by simply calling me a G4 purist. Call me one all you like if you want. But something about G5 has not left me as invested with the series as I was with Friendship is Magic. I’ve given it a chance to try to warm up on me over time. But not much is doing it for me right now. I’ll continue to watch to see how Make Your Mark proceeds, as I mentioned earlier the next set could even be the end of G5 since I’m very aware of how much Netflix has canned things early alongside with Hasbro facing financial problems. I won’t say if I have a solution for MLP’s future as I don’t think I have a real solid idea. Every possibility runs it’s own risk. Like if G5 is considered a failure, and Hasbro decides Gen 6 is basically a reboot of Gen 4 with the Mane 6 we knew and loved for one last attempt to keep the Gen 4 fans invested or just pulling the plug and letting Gen 6 be entirely new even at the risk that it interests almost nobody.

Maybe it’s not quite THAT bad for G5 as of yet as it’s still only a few years since it started and I apologize if it maybe I'm overreacting to a small scene. Maybe depending on how many views Chapter 4 of Make Your Mark gets we’ll soon get news if Make Your Mark has been green lighted for more past what we know is still coming. For now though, G5’s only added more questions then answers for me personally since the last time I talked about the link between it and G4. And it may be at a point where it’s just too late to fix anything. Perhaps it’d be a smarter move to just try to ignore any reference to G4, or just to try to consider it an AU future of G4. Because I still have the same conclusion I had whenI last covered the “Ancient Equestrian Elephant in the Room”, G5 has some fine characters and content on it’s own. But if you take it as a Friendship is Magic sequel, then it has many shortcomings that currently look like they just can’t try to fix without making things worse.

I wouldn’t fault the G5 staff if they decided that they want to try to ignore G4 altogether. But I feel like at this very moment, Hasbro execs are breathing down their throats, and telling them that they must write a way to say… fit in the return of Twilight Sparkle in G5. And the dread of what else they could fuck up about the connection between the two generations getting even worse as a result.

[sergeantsporks]

Another Faceless Mask

I can’t find the original post, but uhhhhhh this one is based off of a post by/conversation I had with @lindendragon

Darius knew his mentor, he knew him so well, surely he'd be able to recognize him no matter the form he was in, right?

Right?

“This is getting incredibly old,” Darius grumbled, stumbling over the same section of the “owl house” that he had just five minutes ago, a kitchen.

I’m getting nowhere, and I haven’t seen a single sign of Eber, Raine, or Eda.

Everything had happened so fast, the head had seemed to erupt, and then this monstrosity had sprouted up around the sigil, trapping everyone inside. Walls had separated him from the rest of the rebellion, and he could probably assume they’d been separated from each other as well.

At least the children are far away, rescuing the Blight girl.

Darius wondered if they’d seen this thing form, if they even knew what was going on. If they had any brains between them, they’d stay far, far away from the huge mock owl house and the creepy child running it.

They were probably already sniffing around outside.

One more reason to get the hell out of here.

An axe swung down from the ceiling, and Darius twisted to dodge it.

Let’s play Owl House!

That had been what the creepy child had said. So this was a game? What were the rules? How did he win and leave? Make it out of the maze? He’d kept his hand on the left wall, if this maze were normal, he wouldn’t be here for the third time.

A game.

A child.

Darius sat down crisscross on the floor, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands.

“This game isn’t any fun,” he announced loudly.

Another axe swung down from the ceiling, but he shifted to his abomination form, letting it pass through him. He yawned, big and loud.

“I’m bored.”

More axes. Spikes jutting from the walls. Blasts of fire. Darius dodged all of them without getting up, breathing a little more heavily than he would have liked to show.

“Ugh. This game is too easy.”

He heard a grumble, and then the star child appeared, Eda’s kid clutched in his arms.

For the first time, a bolt of panic shot through Darius.

If he’s here, then…

“They’re safe!” King yelped, “They’re all safe!”

They’re safe.

Where though?!

“BORING?!” The star child yelled, “You’re boring, everyone said that the owl house was their favorite game, so you’re probably just a grouchy old guy, who doesn’t like having fun at all! Like Belos! Maybe you should join him.”

“Here, now,” Darius said quickly, “I just think the way we’re playing is boring, I’m sure it could be made more fun with a few adjustments.” He didn’t know what had happened to Belos, but based on King’s face, it hadn’t been good, and he wasn’t in a hurry to find out.

The child tilted their head. “Oh, yeah? How?”

“Return me to my comrades. And the dog, too. I’m sure this would be MUCH more interesting as a team sport. You don’t like playing games alone, do you?”

The kid thought about that, arms still wrapped tightly around King. “Mmmmmmmmmmm… Nah, you’re mean, insulting King’s game, you should have to play alone, so you don’t infect anyone else with your grouchiness.” He bobbed up and down in the air. “Oh! I’ve got it! I know how I can make it more interesting!”

He snapped his fingers, and a skull appeared, dropping into Darius. He caught it, fumbling. “What the…?”

The kid giggled. “There’s a mask to match it! I don’t know, though, there are a lot of masks and skulls around here.”

A lot… of…

Oh, titan.

“How many?” Darius whispered, fingers trembling on the skull.

This one isn’t him.

I’d be able to tell.

It’s not him.

“Oh, I don’t know, like fifty or something. Hey. Tell you what. If you can find all of them, and all of the masks, I’ll put you and all of your friends together! Not King, though.” He gave King a little squeeze. “He’s my friend, and he plays with me. But I’ll put the rest of you together. Okay? Okay!”

He disappeared again, and Darius gently set the skull down on the kitchen table. “I’m sorry,” he murmured to it. He opened all of the cabinets, and the doors of all the fridges and ovens and microwaves, finally finding a mask behind the spice rack. He set it next to the skull.

“Titan,” he muttered, swaying on his feet. Of course he’d always known deep down that his mentor wasn’t coming back. But…

How many of them were there?!

Darius opened the door into the next room. Ugh, this one was a storage room, filled to the brim with junk. Of course this was just a representation of Eda’s house, but he didn’t doubt that her real home was just as messy.

The skull was set in the base of a lamp, and he found another mask embedded in the walls. Darius pried it out, and it cracked in the process, collapsing into pieces in his hands.

“Sorry! Sorry.” Darius gathered up the pieces, taking a deep breath. “Keep it together.” He sealed the pieces back together with abomination, then used a fire spell to weld them shut. They went back to the kitchen, and then he turned back to the mountain of boxes, shifting through them one at a time.

Another skull.

Two more masks.

“If Belos isn’t already dead, then I’m going to kill him,” he muttered, opening the last box in the junk room and finding another couple of skulls. He moved on to the next room, and the next, and the next. Skull after skull, stacked as respectfully as he could in a terrifying monument of Belos’ crimes. Glinting mask after glinting mask, their identical surfaces gleaming mockingly at him.

Did you really know him that well? Or are they all just faceless to you, as faceless as the kid you almost dismissed without a second thought?

Darius picked up another skull—this would bring him even with the masks, he thought, dragging a hand across his face. He stacked it at the top in place, then heaved a huge sigh, turning to go out the door again.

“Dun-dun-duhhhhh!” The Collector reappeared, a huge grin on his face. “You did it! You got them all!”

Darius blinked. “What? No, I haven’t.”

What am I doing, if they think I’ve got them all, I should just agree!

The Collector counted. “Nnnnnope, that’s all fifty of them!”

“But I… but I haven’t found…” I haven’t found him yet. Darius’ heart started to pound in his chest. Does that mean…

“Nope! You got every single Golden Guard skull and mask! Even your mentor’s!”

Darius’ legs wobbled, and he fell to the ground, knocking over the pile of skulls. His trembling fingers wrapped around one of the skulls, and he turned it over and over again in his hands.

I would have… I should have known… I should have been able to tell…

Xxx

“GUS?! CAPTAIN?! LUZ?! BLIGHT?!”

Hunter spun in a circle, looking for any sign of his friends, but they were nowhere to be seen. So much for sticking together once we got back to the demon realm. He took a deep breath. Focus. Take stock.

They’d come here to find the adults they’d left behind. He may have been separated from the group, but he should still attempt to carry out the mission. In fact, now that they were split up, they could cover more ground, and then hopefully… they…

“Darius!” Hunter skidded to a stop in an eerie kitchen, filled to the brim with skulls and…

“Darius?” he asked in a whisper, “What’s going on?”

The bigger man was sifting through the skulls, lining them up, picking them up and then discarding them. “I can’t tell,” he murmured, “I can’t…”

Hunter knelt down next to him, taking the skull out of his hand with a shudder and placing it with the others. “Darius?”

Darius’s head whipped around, and the coven head stared at him with hopeless, desperate eyes, shadows deep around them. “I don’t know which one is him,” he whispered, eyes flicking back and forth as he looked into Hunter’s, as if begging him to understand. “I can’t tell…”

“Darius, I—how long have you been here?!”

Darius shrugged, turning back towards the skulls. Hunter caught his wrist, tugging him back. “No, do—”

Darius turned with a snarl, lunging, his hand transforming into a scythe. Hunter flinched backwards with a cry, throwing his arms up to protect himself.

The blow didn’t come, and Hunter looked up to see tears rolling down Darius’ face, the scythe trembling in the air. “I can’t just leave him!” he half-snarled, half-whispered, “Not again!”

Hunter slowly got up, gingerly pulling Darius’ arm down. It transformed back into his regular arm. “We won’t just abandon them,” he promised, “We’ll come back for them, we’ll—we’ll give them a proper funeral. I promise. But we have to go for now. We have to find the others.” Hunter bit his lip for a moment. “He’d understand,” he said finally.

Darius stared bleakly at him, then nodded, slowly getting to his feet. Hunter stood up, too, his hand hovering just above Darius’ arm as he guided him out of the tomb. He looked back one more time at the pile of gold and the pile of white, a pit yawning in his stomach.

We’ll come back for you.

They might have meant nothing to Belos, but… Hunter led Darius away, shaking his head.

They meant something to someone.

Even if it’s just me.

[jazzythursday]

🦜🦆🐦🦉🦤

Hi friend! Thanks for the birds! (Qs)

🦜 a pretty quote (you like the prose, or symbolism, or it's poetic, or you just like how it feels/the word choice!)

There’s a very special place in my heart for describing characters through another’s pov. This one is from Call to Rest/Call to Wake:

Wylan is interesting. He’s endlessly fascinating and constantly surprising. He’s a charming contradiction. A mosaic of conflicting information that buzzes in Jesper’s brain with the same rush of taking an unlikely shot and watching it hit right where he’d told it. Wylan is smoke and gunpowder wrapped in soft wool and cotton. The bite of teeth only to be soothed quickly with a kiss. Wylan is beautiful, and Jesper is a little bit obsessed.

🦆 asker's request: something that grew on you that you didn’t like at first, but you like now

This is such a good request, but also I had such a hard time with it lol. This one isn’t so much a quote I didn’t like at first, as much as it’s a quote I had to rewrite about a hundred times before I stopped hating it. From post s2 reveal:

Wylan nurses a cold drink by Jesper’s side and laughs along as Jesper and Nina commiserate and sing poor renditions of drinking songs. They spin and dance and Wylan finds himself drawn into the middle of all of it. In spite of how close a call it had been, he can’t dredge up any of the residual worry he’d expect. It’s too hard to fear death, when the way Jesper kisses him makes him feel this alive.

🐦 a romantic quote (can be sweet or sad or sexy, or just your favorite interaction between them!)

I have a lot of favourites from I Need to Leave (Please Stay), but this is definitely one of them:

He leaves Jesper, after a night of wonderful, wonderful sex. He leaves Jesper in bed, pre-dawn just barely peeking through the curtains of the room they’d occupied the night before. Jesper Fahey is gorgeous, even puffy from sleep and softly snoring into a pillow. He has the most perfect lips Wylan has ever seen, skin like rich caramel and coffee and limbs like overgrown tree branches stretching up to the sun. His body is the perfect size to cover Wylan’s entirely above him. He thinks it may be the closest he’s felt to safety in years, long before coming to the Barrel. He’s disastrously lovely, kinder to Wylan than he thinks he probably deserves. Wylan leaves before he’s left, and he shakes then, too.

🦉 a clever quote (something you're proud of!)

Also from I Need to Leave (Please Stay):

Jesper fists his hands in the collar of Wylan’s shirt, pressing him back and drawing him in all at once. Wylan is between Jesper and the wall of his bed, kept and safe under the at once familiar and yet completely new weight of him above. His coat—red—is discarded somewhere along with his hat. His smile is burning, beautiful, and the kiss he pulls him into is a charged, heady thing, open mouthed and full of promise. It is the electrostatic attraction between opposite charges. The ionic bond between metal and nonmetal that forms Strontium Chloride, each touch sparking bright red in the dark. The world is made of skin and skin, lips and lips, atoms and atoms. It is a lit fuse. It is a prime number in an infinite sequence. It is a suspended chord held in a long appoggiatura, resolving into the harmony of a vast and swelling orchestra.

🦤 a quote you had to delete :( (but still wanna share!)

Pretty sure this was originally from Careless Is the Fall, but it didn’t fit the section it was for:

Wylan learned to be careful early, though he thinks he may have forgotten that lesson somewhere along the way. Maybe between his swim in the canal, his trip into the Fold, and meeting Jesper.

[jaejae-graffty]

I’ve been using OpenUTAU for roughly a week now, and I’m getting the hang of it. I still have much to learn, though, and there’s a bunch of terminology in using UTAUloids that I find it outright overwhelming.  This is the first cover I’ve made with OpenUTAU (been mostly using it for my own compositions up to this point). I’m quite happy with the way it turned out, although I’m pretty sure there’s other folks out there who can make better OpenUTAU outputs ready to shoot me down. I’m just gonna post it here for the time being, as this is a cover song and not a「lucydream」track, so I’m not upload it on Newgrounds and SoundCloud. I’m trying to learn hwo to make a lyric video/visualizer, so it might be on YouTube, but it’s gonna take another while before I actually get any work done. -/- The song is originally in Japanese, but I translated it into English while I was bored. I only know minimal Nihongo, so instead of aiming for a literal translation, I just made it as cohesive as I can for a western audience. Not to brag, but the lyrics actually got pinned by the band themselves when I posted it on the original song’s comment section months ago The lyrics are down below: Eversolitude「OVERWRITE」 Music: Eversolitude Lyrics (original): Eversolitude Lyrics (translation): Jaejae of「lucydream」 0:28 There's only emptiness when time leaves the room I wonder if I can go back by closing my eyes 0:51 I am now getting tired of staying safe and put I'm just protecting scars that aren't even there 1:03 I feel like an hourglass being filled with more pain than I can ever muster my whole life It's only a matter of time before I fall and break myself 1:14 (OVERWRITE) I am here, all alone (WRITE) overwriting myself (WRITE) to the point where I don't know what to do Oh, as I wait, I hear footsteps getting closer Oh, as I wait, I grow in fear and hope that they leave me alone 1:48 Turn around and return to the sea in hopes that a hand will pull you out I'm getting sick of drowning in my room over sentimental things and cheap pain, it makes me choke I see you, acting like you suffered a tragedy when you're just using words to make a narrative Are you fine now? I've waited for too long 2:21 Start over, start over Rewrite everything, rewrite everything 2:29 It's alright if you can't remember things the way we used to way back then What matters right now is I see everything, crystal clear Our purpose melts away with each and every single breath our bodies make, it's just like watching clouds pouring rain onto our very own heads Let's overwrite the time we spent together into something only we can make with everything we have 3:04 (OVERWRITE) 3:06 (OVERWRITE) Our dream has ended, (WRITE) so let's overwrite our (WRITE) dream so we can live together once more All I see is blank, it means that our dream is no more All I see is black, it means that I can't see you for our time has passed 3:40 Feel the rain fall onto the clock, pushing its hands forward to move on Overwriting our dear abominable memories, breathing new life into our dreams -/- As for the voicebanks used, I have listed them below: Clean Vocals: [Milk - English -] by Xepheris https://xepheris.wixsite.com/milk/milk-english Backing Vocals: [湯鬱声からす_ENG Retake] by revolocities http://karasu.utau.us [Kumi Hitsuboku - English (Complete)] by Cubialpha https://cubialpha.wixsite.com/koomstar/downloads Unclean Vocals: [TREI 【PRIMAL AWAKENING】] by Team Shizun https://team-shizun.wixsite.com/welcome/trei [Kumi Hitsuboku - Erase] by Cubialpha https://cubialpha.wixsite.com/koomstar/erase [Maiko Hakaine] by Maiko Nagasaki (DAZZLE VISION) http://gekkayo.biz/hakainemaiko_born/ -/- Feel free to let me know if you like it or hate it XD thanks

[cdelphiki]

Talia rescues the children early?? 👀

haha that one is so fun! I did re-work most of it to be Second Chance which I posted a couple years ago, but I kept all the original just because I was too attached.

In the original she told Bruce about Athanasia and Damian (from Jason and the Three Terrors) from not long after Attie's birth. (wait, is it a 'birth' still if she was grown in a lab?????)

here's a large section that got changed. Keep in mind these are rough drafts.

She- she hadn’t wanted to betray her father. Hadn’t wanted to betray the League.  This was her life.  She’d been raised in this, she owed everything she had. Her training. Her wealth. Her skills. Everything to her father. 

But-

But what did that matter?

Was it worth it? Was her son worth it?

Her daughter?

Athanasia wouldn’t exist, had she not lied to Bruce.  That much she knew.  

The technology to clone children.  To modify genetic material so she could create a daughter from her son’s sample.  That technology did not exist outside the League.  

She had no illusions that Bruce could commit to her, would create a second child with her in the way their first came about. 

Even if the excitement she saw in his eyes when she told him about Damian, about the pregnancy. Even if that had lasted past his birth. Past his first birthday.  Talia didn’t see them creating a second child. 

And if they had? It still would not be her daughter. 

Not the little newborn she had hidden in her quarters. Being cared for by Ravi, her trusted servant. 

How could she have handed her daughter over to Ra’s, too?  She’d barely had time with Damian.  Not since he learned to walk, and barely before then. 

The fact that he knew to call her ‘Mama’ was all because she snuck in to see him. Ordered his nursemaids to leave the room. Swore them to secrecy.

Had killed, a few of them…

As Talia stood there, watching her son struggle to stop crying and listen to his trainer, Talia made a decision. 

Because nearly two years ago, when she’d told Bruce about her ‘miscarriage,’ she’d made a huge mistake. 

Her father’s influence was toxic. 

This training? 

It was hell. 

Talia loved what it’d turned her into, she loved her skills and abilities.  

But if this was the cost?

This? 

Her children?

There was only one place on earth where she’d be safe, where they’d be safe. One person able to offer that protection. And once Talia told him, she knew he’d move heaven and earth to get her away.  

Then later on:

“Holy shit,” Jason says, and Bruce is almost about to chastise him for cussing in front of a baby, but he feels bad because he kind of forgot about Dick and Jason being there, too, and he probably should be introducing them to Damian, when Jason says, “Is that another baby?”

And bruce snaps his eyes open to look over at Talia, who is pulling another baby out of her shirt?? And the baby starts to cry a little, and talia is instantly shushing her and placing a pacifier in her mouth and rocking her.  

Talia looks up at him and there’s guilt on her face. But Bruce isn’t sure what to think.  He’ll galdy harbor Talia and her second child, absolutely no quiestions asked.  Especially if it means he gets to know Damian.  

“I’m sorry, I was afraid father would intercept my message, and I could not let him know she existed.  I would have told you.”  

“Who, who is-“ Bruce starts, but he can’t quite find the words.  

Talia answers, “This is Athanasia.  She is your daughter.”

“Mine?  But-“ he knows that cant be accurate.  He hasn’t seen talia in two years.  There is no way. 

“I-“ talia says guiltily, “I created her, using yours and my genetic material.  Using our cloning technology.”

“You-“ he said, but then just stared.  

He had two babies?

A daughter? 

[haleyhalcyon]

How to write a You Don’t Know Jack-style trivia question

by Haley Walker, the head writer of Salty Trivia with Candy Barre, a YDKJ fangame

The anatomy of a YDKJ question

As the tagline says, YDKJ is where “high culture and pop culture collide”. A good YDKJ question is first and foremost a soft trivia question that most people can reasonably confidently expect to guess. It also has a little pop culture coating around it, like the hard candy shell on a Tootsie Pop.

The “pop culture” bit could be references to movies, video games, music, memes, or TV shows (or their modern equivalent, online streaming service originals). It could even just be a stupid pun.

Asstronomy How many Earths could you stuff into the volume of Uranus before it just couldn’t take any more? A. 6 B. 63 C. 630 D. 6300 —YDKJ2011 E1 Q1

Oh, and of course, official YDKJ questions have a lot of fart jokes in them.

High-to-Pop Balance

The questions should be fully understandable with cursory knowledge of the reference in question. For example, someone who has only kind of heard the name “Paul Rudd” in passing could get all the questions right in YDKJ2015’s Paul Rudd episode. In fact, none of the questions ask anything about Paul Rudd.

Let There Be Rudd If Paul Rudd’s real first name were like Paul the Apostle’s original first name, what would he be called? A. Raul Rudd B. Saul Rudd C. Gaul Rudd D. Simon Rudd —YDKJ2015 “Paul Rudd Episode” Q4

Be careful, though, to make the pop culture reference clear enough, without sacrificing the understandability of the trivia question underneath it.

The ideal YDKJ question is a Tootsie Pop, with a soft trivia center inside a hard pop culture shell. When there’s too much lollipop, it’s too much effort to get to the tootsie roll center. Too little lollipop, it’s just a tootsie roll on a stick.

Examples

Let’s review some fanmade YDKJ questions.

This is a well-balanced question.

Moderating’s Hard Say you were spamming in a server. Mostly what were you caught doing? A. posting multiple chicken pics at once B. starting beef with others C. slapping someone with a large fish D. not shutting up about pork

The high culture layer is what kind of meat Hormel’s luncheon meat Spam is made of, and the pop culture layer is the act of spamming that the Monty Python skit gave name to.

This is a question with too much pop culture.

Mythic Baked Liquids Guess what Pastry's Skill Quote this rhymes with In test, Delight of Denise. 1: You are able to control all water and have a Crush on the Moon. 2: You want your Enemies to WITNESS something. 3: Perhaps something about the SEAS?

This question is all pop culture, and requires more than a cursory knowledge of what "Pastry's Skill Quote" is. (The question writer then clarified that it's supposed to be some kind of thing from Cookie Run, but that doesn't explain anything and doesn't cause us to be able to guess that the right answer is "Witness the might of the seas", and that’s kind of the point of why this question is so unbalanced.)

I would raise an example of a question with too much high culture, but ample of them are already in Jeopardy!, so I won’t harp on about it.

Pitfalls

Some sources are not very reliable, including Wikipedia, but there are a lot of other places that are less reputable.

Names of phobias come up in fanmade YDKJ questions quite often, but the vast majority of them are invented by some random person with a less than stellar understanding of Greek and Latin. If you can find it in Wikipedia’s list of phobia names that aren’t in the “Jocular and fictional phobias” section, it’s safe to use. Otherwise, if you can’t find a medical paper that uses that name, it’s wise to discard it.

Terms of venery are another iffy subject. Aside from the very famous “flock of birds” (but “murder of crows”), “pack of dogs/wolves”, “herd of cows/horses”, “pride of big cats”, and “school of fish”, you should generally shy away from them.

Writing patterns

There are some common pitfalls that a YDKJ question can fall into, most of which arise from the wording not being clear enough. Here are some phrases to mitigate the issues.

“Which of these [things] is the MOST/LEAST likely”

This pattern is used when there are multiple correct answers, or the options all apply to a different degree. It is also used to signal that it’s a matter of opinion or simple wordplay.

“Based on [criterion]” or “Because [criterion]”

This pattern is used to clarify why. I will show you a bad YDKJ question for a change.

Pixar Movies Make Me Gassy If I wanted to reenact the movie Up, what would I definitely not want to attach to my house? A. hydrogen balloons B. helium balloons C. carbon dioxide balloons D. ammonia balloons —YDKJ2011 E25 Q6

The intended answer was C. carbon dioxide balloons, because it was the only one of the three had a lower density than air at room temperature. However, you wouldn’t want to attach the rest of them to your house for various reasons: Hydrogen and ammonia are both hazardous to handle because they are flammable, while we are running out of helium, so they would be very expensive to use. This is not even to mention that ammonia has a very strong odor. (Did I mention YDKJ has a lot of fart jokes?)

Adding the phrase “Based on” to the question, I can rewrite the question to clarify why Cookie would definitely not want to attach to his house:

Hydrogen: Because it is the most flammable, what would I...

Helium: Based on the price, what would I...

Carbon Dioxide: Based on its density, what would I...

Ammonia: Based on the level of health hazard, what would I...

“If/Say/Suppose [premise]. [question]?”

This pattern is used to introduce a premise that too complex to be woven into the question itself. If you need multiple sentences to introduce the premise of the question, even after the little rant Cookie sometimes does before the questions, you may want to reword the question, work on it some more, or scrap it.

[jaydonsjam]

Ghost Rider I/Hellstrom I

Marvel Spotlight #5-7

(#5-7 Written by Gary Friedrich pencilled by Mike Ploog

#6-7 inked by Frank Monte)

I loved the origin for Johnny Blaze in Marvel Spotlight #5 even though at times it’s unintentionally funny. I don’t know why but every time his adoptive father, Crash Simpson would call him a coward it would just make me laugh cause he went so hard on him with it. It just came off melodramatic just so there’d be tension in the family. I did like the fact that Johnny’s adoptive mother, Mona sacrifices herself to save him. I found that to be a really powerful moment. Along with the fact that she makes Johnny promise her that he won’t ever ride in Crash’s show. Crash being diagnosed with cancer hit home for me (my mom died of lung and brain cancer) and the idea that Johnny turned to Satan cause he was desperate to help his foster father made sense to me especially in their world of the supernatural and superheroes. Cause if I could’ve saved my mother I would’ve. I’ve always liked that part of Ghost Rider and it makes him even more interesting than a lot of other superheroes. He has powers given to him by Mephisto or Satan and uses them to fight evil. I do like that twist and it’s why Ghost Rider (especially 90’s-00’s GR comics) is one of my favorite characters. Note: this is my first time reading these early GR comics. Then of course the reveal comes when Crash dies in a show and Satan tells Johnny that he promised to heal his disease not save him. Classic can’t trust the devil stuff. It’s classic for a reason cause it works as a plot device. Don’t trust the devil, kids. I don’t like Johnny’s love interest, Roxanne Simpson and I found the idea that her being a pure soul can banish demons and save Johnny to be a little lame. Plus she spends most of these issues getting kidnapped.

We start issue 6 with Johnny Blaze being harassed by a group of bikers called Satan’s Saints. He knocks them off their bikes and then their leader, Curly offers him a membership cause he’s cool. Now in my Morbius posts I have mentioned that I find the idea that people think Morbius is wearing a mask to be completely unbelievable. Here, it’s the same situation except for the fact that GHOST RIDER HAS A SKULL FOR A FACE AND IT’S LIT ON FIRE. It’s such a stupid idea that everyone just thinks it’s a mask/helmet. It infuriates me cause it makes everyone seem to be stupid. It doesn’t work. Anyways, Curly is revealed to be Crash reincarnated by Satan so that he can get Johnny’s soul. Again, they use the pure soul/love that Johnny has for Rocky prevent Satan from getting his soul so instead the Devil sends Crash as Curly to retrieve Rocky so they can sacrifice her. It’s kinda weird how willing Crash is to sacrifice his daughter to be alive again. There’s a fight at the motorcycle show with Satan’s Saints. It’s cool and Johnny successfully save Rocky and everyone in the crowd believes it was a part of the show. Johnny sees himself as a danger to Rocky so he ends up leaving her. Guess what happens next? She gets kidnapped.

Crash begins the sacrifice of Rocky but is interrupted by Ghost Rider. Satan gives Crash a flaming sword and basically says he needs to kill Johnny. They have a fight in hell and Crash ends up sacrificing himself to save Johnny. There’s a weird moment where a cloaked figure in hell helps Johnny leave after taking Crash’s body. I will say I liked the fight in hell. It was really cool imagery and I liked that Crash had a redemptive ending. Plus the imagery of Johnny carrying Crash was really sad. I love when the fight is happening, we see lots of red, yellow and Orange flames but once Crash has sacrificed himself, the main colors become shades of blue. Overall with my problems aside, I enjoyed the hell out of this first arc but next story arc is where things get rough. Btw, the ending to this arc is in the first pages of issue 8 but I wanted to cover it all in this section.

Marvel Spotlight #8-11

(#8-11 written by Gary Friedrich

#8 pencilled by Mike Ploog

#8 and 10 inked by Jim Mooney

#9-11 pencilled by Tom Sutton

#9 inked by Chic Stone

#11 inked by Syd Shores)

This storyline came off problematic and used a lot of racial stereotypes plus casual use of R-slur. The Apaches had pink-red skin and it just came off offensive and honestly, racist. I hated this whole story arc and frankly, I almost gave up reading it. I was really looking forward to Ghost Rider and we definitely went off the rails here. Plus, Roxanne got kidnapped again and I’m so tired of the damsel in distress trope. We can only go up from here right?…right? Also, is everyone a satanist in this book? Damn, the satanic panic really had people by the throat in the 70’s.

Ghost Rider #1-2

(#1 and #2 Written by Gary Friedrich

#1 pencilled by Tom Sutton

#2 pencilled by Jim Mooney

#1 and #2 inked by Syd Shores)

I’ve made my point about the way they portray the Apache characters so I won’t retread that just know that it continues here (it’s not as bad but still annoying).

I was excited when the first issue of Ghost Rider opens on Daimon Hellstrom visiting his mother’s grave. Daimon is a character that I had written down to explore more of so I was pumped to see that he takes over the Marvel Spotlight series for a while. Anyways Sam Silvercloud and his father meet with Daimon to see if he can help his possessed wife Linda Littletree, who is a villain named Witch Woman. By the time he gets there though Linda has been taken over completely by Satan and she runs to find Johnny Blaze. There’s a cool scene when Daimon gets to their house and he wraps his wrists around the Chain of Ankhs and tells them not to open the door or help him in any way no matter what he tells them. It’s just a cool setup and immediately makes you wonder what Hellstrom’s deal is. Johnny Blaze is in the hospital after a crash and then at night he transforms into Ghost Rider and heads to Copperhead Canyon to stop Bart Slade from attempting the jump. I will say Bart failing the jump and dying in a fiery explosion was unexpected and raised the stakes a lot more for me as a reader. I gotta say too that Johnny continuously has to flee the police (just wait till I get to issue 3) and sometimes I have to question the writing because it makes Johnny seem like a total moron.

Issue 2 makes Johnny look even worse cause he pushes Rocky down so that she’ll leave him alone and let him give up to Satan. It’s hard to like Johnny when the writing makes him hit women and seem dumb as rocks. Witch Woman (possessed by Satan) appears and wants Rocky’s soul along with Johnny’s so GR refuses and makes hellfire appear between Rocky and WW. I haven’t mentioned this but I love that Ghost Rider can wield hellfire but I’m missing his chains and penance stare. These early Ghost Rider issues are really rough and I’m struggling to be positive here. More motorcycle bad guys appear named Big Daddy Dawson’s Ruthless Riders and these ones are Nazis so there’s that. They start to fight but Witch Woman transports herself and Ghost Rider to Hell. Rocky is then harassed by the nazi bike riders but we don’t find out what happens to her until next issue. Johnny refuses to give up his soul as long as Rocky is in trouble so Satan reveals himself by burning the Witch Woman. He sends his demons against Ghost Rider and they hold him down as the Devil holds his sword above Johnny and ready to stab him. They are interrupted by someone. I love how Jim Mooney draws Hell with a dark cave structure but with yellow and orange flames in the background. Also I gotta say that I’m confused about Satan, Lucifer, Mephisto etc. the Hell stuff is so confusing in the Marvel universe. Anyways, before I move on to the next issue in this story, Daimon is freed by Sam after pleading that Linda is in trouble. We don’t see his costume but he’s in his Son of Satan garb with the yellow boots and red pants. They hid his full costume because they wanted you to pick up the Son of Satan issue of Marvel Spotlight to get the reveal. It’s the same with the ending of this issue. It’s clear that the person who stops Johnny from getting killed has to be Son of Satan but all we see is a speech bubble coming out from the corner of the page. I actually liked how they hid Daimon’s full reveal cause it made him more mysterious. That’s another thing, we don’t ever see Daimon’s face throughout these 2 GR issues, he’s always in shadow or shown from the back. It worked for me.

Marvel Spotlight #12

(Written by Gary Friedrich and pencilled by Herb Trimpe and inked by Frank Monte)

Daimon Hellstrom is freed from the Chain of Ankhs by Sam Silvercloud revealing Hellstrom’s alter ego the Son of Satan! This issue takes us back to the events of Ghost Rider #2 but with the perspective of the Son of Satan. We get a costume reveal of the red and yellow shirtless cape and pants look. He’s holding his badass trident and has his Satan tattoo on his chest. I gotta be honest this was a badass moment. He uses his trident to shake the ground and make a storm and call his chariot. It just shows how powerful he is. It’s a great first reveal. Plus I like going back and seeing his perspective. It catches us up on how he found Johnny in Hell. He’s a bastard too cause he saves Rocky from the Nazis but then when he figures out that they went to hell he leaves Rocky in the desert. Daimon fights off Satan’s minions and we get a reveal that his trident is made from Netheranium which makes Satan’s powers useless. It explains how Son of Satan can fight his father and not just be easily defeated cause it’s the Devil. He leads Johnny and Linda out of hell and then rides off in his chariot leaving them in the desert. I laughed so hard cause he’s such an asshole. The dude flows with arrogance but he can back it up. I’m so excited to continue exploring his character and story. This was definitely my favorite issue from these comics that I read for this post.

Ghost Rider #3

(Written by Gary Friedrich and pencilled by Jim Mooney and inked by John Tartag)

I liked how Ghost Rider learned he can create a bike out of hellfire but the moment he transforms back to Johnny he loses it. One thing that sets Johnny apart from other heroes/anti-heroes is the fact that his powers are on a time limit. If it’s the day, he’s screwed cause he’s not invincible but at night he’s almost unstoppable. We get the return of Big Daddy Dawson who kidnaps Rocky (again she gets fucking kidnapped. This is worse than early Spidey comics). Rocky is only around to be saved. This seriously sucks. She has no interesting character traits, she’s a plot device. Oh, wait she’s pure of heart so there’s that. That’s cool right? Johnny gets hurt, again because he’s an idiot who tries to jump a police blockade!? Johnny has to be stupid. He just has to be. He’s hospitalized and Dawson knows this so he takes Rocky to the hospital cause he wants money from Johnny (he is a famous stunt biker so it makes sense that he’d have money). Every issue feels like it’s just retreading the same story over and over. It’s quickly becoming my least favorite book to read. Johnny fights the Devil or other bikers or problematic villains. At least this issue ends with the Nazi biker driving into a fuel tank and exploding. That was the most interesting thing that happened this issue besides GR creating a hellfire bike. Sorry I hate complaining and being negative cause I know it’s not fun to read but I gotta be honest with my feelings. Thanks for reading this post! Next up we’re Adventuring Into Fear!