#imagine being sent to a dimension where it is very very unlikely that there is a way to go to a specific dimension

[jnixz]

I have not read all the PLA MC & Ingo return fics in ao3 but there is something so fun and distressing in the potential that there is another type of adventure that happens as they try to go home (if they choose to and have been allowed to)

Imagine being one of the places in the modern times where some sort of phenomenon is happening again, likely a legendary pokemon is surely involved, only to see one famous person that was missing for x amount of time show up and be in the middle of dealing with said issue

and then there are the extended adventure version, where those two are not able to go home, and instead sent to another dimension, this time they don’t get amnesia and recognizably waaaay different than their homes. Oh the Horror knowing they aren’t suppose to be there, and from their perspective of losing their homes once again and not knowing if there is an opportunity to go back ;]]]]

[ieattaperecorders]

As TMA keeps bringing up possible ways the story could end and knocking them down, I thought - what the hell, I’m going to make a huge list of all the endings I can think of and how likely they seem at this point. I’m constantly doing this in my head anyway, might as well type it all out.

There’s two columns as far as I’m concerned. One is “fate of world,” the other is “fate of Jon and Martin.” So I’ve got a list for each.

(I am also interested in the fates of the other characters, but at this point I think Melanie and Georgie’s fate is likely to be whatever “fate of world” is, and that Basira is either going to be in the same boat or die as part of her character arc.)

Fate of the World:

Entities are destroyed/banished, world goes back to normal but without monsters anymore.

Not impossible, but I have doubts. If the world is truly fixed, it will probably mean the characters successfully and heroically sacrificed themselves to save everyone and . . . that just doesn’t feel like the story Jonny Sims is telling, not to me at least. But I could be wrong.

Entities are destroyed, world is scarred in some way. (i.e., torture stops but all the nightmare domains are still there, no one can feel fear anymore, mass trauma/death, etc.)

Interesting to think about, not sure where they’d go with this one. Entities are sent back to being “just outside our universe,” world becomes what it was before the apocalypse. Possible. A return to the status quo before the entire podcast started would hammer in the theme of “the evil system is overwhelming and can’t be easily changed.” Though I would wager that the events of the story are ultimately going to change something for the world, even if (probably) it’s for the worse. No change to the world at all, it stays exactly as it is. Seems unlikely purely because I think if Jonny Sims was going to do this he’d have ended the series on MAG 160. “The apocalyptic scenario that we doubted could change really won’t change” isn’t nearly as strong a blow as “the most terrifying apocalypse possible is happening” as an ending. The world is freed from the Entities, but at the cost of allowing them to spread to other worlds. I wouldn’t be surprised if this option is at least presented. The “save your world at the cost of others” scenario does sound like a choice that could be put in front of our characters. It’s hard to imagine them knowingly taking this option, but who knows? The world remains as it is, and the Entities spread to other worlds.

Honestly this feels like the most likely scenario to me now, probably a result of the main characters trying to do something good.

The world remains as it is, but Jon takes over and shifts the fear around.

Seriously doubt this one, they brought it up and dismissed it pretty hard. I can’t see Jon doing it if Martin is alive, and if he dies I think Jon would be more likely to do something self-obliterating. The only scenario where I could see this would be “Martin dies and Jon gives up on trying or caring about anything, resigns himself to accepting the evil system as inescapable.” Which would certainly be tragic, (and depressing!) but doesn’t seem likely to me.

Jon takes over and is able to meaningfully change the world from its current state.

Even less likely than the above scenario.

The world can’t be fixed, so it’s utterly destroyed/mercy killed.

It could be seen as a better option than the others that are available, but that assumes it’s even possible.

We get the time travel ending after all, but only as an endless inescapable cycle that the characters can’t change.

*throws up hands* I don’t know I’m just spitballing now.

Fate of Jon and Martin:

They die together or meet a fate worse than death together, saving the world.

Possible, but I already expressed my doubts about a successful “save everyone through self-sacrifice” ending.

Jon dies saving the world, Martin lives and is sad/Martin dies saving the world, Jon either dies without the Eye or lives on having lost his consciousness or memory or identity.

See above.

They save the world without dying. Without the Eye, Jon either dies and Martin mourns or he loses himself and Martin takes care of him.

See above, also they talked about this and accepted the possibility together so it ain’t gonna be that.

They die together or meet a fate worse than death together, making things worse in the process.

Seems more likely than them dying to make things better, honestly.

They die together or meet a fate worse than death together, making things slightly better or giving the world a minor reprieve, but ultimately not saving anyone, aka the Bifrost Incident ending. (Or they die together mercy killing the world.)

Honestly this has seemed like a significant possibility to me for a while, but who knows??

Martin dies or meets some horrific fate, pushing Jon to some extreme act (or just letting him crumble into despair.)

Seems way less likely now than it did before MAG 196! Feels like if this was the route Jonny Sims was going to go, he’d have done the Spiders Martin ending, but could still be possible.

The world stays the same and Martin asks Jon to kill him. Jon either agrees and falls into despair or refuses and we’re left with a big “now what”?

Depressing! I hate it!! :D But who knows!!?

The world stays the same, Martin and Jon both change their minds and decide to just rule their domains so that they can both live and be with each other on some level.

Very unlikely given their character arcs.

Jon dies/is irretrievably trapped without the world changing. Martin is alive, unable to die, and forced to resign himself to living off the suffering of those in his domain.

Certainly tragic and depressing, but feels extremely unlikely after Quiet.

Jon dies/is irretrievably trapped without the world changing. Martin somehow figures out a way to fix/improve things. He either dies/has a fate worse than death in the process, or lives and is sad.

Putting the fate of everything in Martin’s hands could pay off the “you have to make a proper choice” idea, but for now I have no idea what he could do.

The world stays fucked but they escape to another dimension where they can be happy but have to live with the guilt of abandoning everything.

Doubt they’d be this lucky, tbh.

[inkdemonapologist]

Silly thought, but how would your Escape AU Sammy react to just... being dropped into the Hell Studio AU for like a day (or week)? He probably won't have a fun time but given how pure and wholesome that AU usually is, maybe he would enjoy some of it? (NOT Through a Mirror Darkly! There's 2 Sammys that have suffered enough in there, we don't need to traumatize another!)

HAHA I WAS ABOUT TO SAY, IS THIS A CRACKED GLASS AU,

I think….. Well, I have some questions about the nature of the Ink in Hell’s Studio and whether the characters would recognise each other, but setting that aside for a second I think just Showing Up In Hell’s Studio would be pRETTY TRAUMATISING. Bendy is alive -- Sammy’s actual nightmare -- as are Alice and Boris, and there’s the pipes and the ink and the leaks everywhere, and even if it were just normal mundane ink, that whole atmosphere would just feel like… he’s back, he’s back in the Studio, and everyone else is acting like it’s normal. There’s ink flooding the rooms and the demon is here and everyone’s just treating it like an inconvenience! It’s fine, and everyone is friends, and nothing has ever gone really truly wrong. I think he’d feel very crazy, like he was being unintentionally gaslit. At least in JDS proper, there was a sense that something wasn’t right -- Jack and Norman and Wally and Thomas, even when they weren’t questioning it, they all knew something was off, but here? Sammy, calm down, nothing’s wrong! While I trust the Hell’s Studio folks to be thoughtful and not immediately dismiss him as being nuts, there’s no reason for them to like… believe him? Unlike in Through a Mirror Darkly, where others had seen the place Sam came from and understood that things were different there, Escape AU Sammy’s terror and anger and paranoid prophecies would seem wildly misplaced. And the more they tried to convince him that he might be mistaken or confused, the more unhinged Sammy would feel.

Actually, let’s go back to those questions I had because this gets more horrifying the more I think about it.

(1) So obviously everyone Looks Different because Mak and I have different designs for the characters. How would this practically play out? Like, if Escape!Sammy meets HS!Susie Campbell, does he have a sense that this IS Susie, or is it just this other person with her name and her voice that looks nothing like her? Sammy’s run into this concept before, because uh, Susie sure did, uh, start speaking with, Allison’s voice, after she went through the machine enough to become Alice Angel,,,, And someone named Joey Drew, who speaks with Joey’s voice, suddenly looks much more harmless, has this wacky, cartoonish obsession with summoning demons, and is genuinely close friends with someone named Henry Stein, who speaks with Henry’s voice… Look, Sammy’s been sent to another dimension before: it was a dimension created by Joey’s machine, and he was trapped there. Ironically, something like the Story Theory seems to be the explanation that would make the most sense with the information Sammy has; these are characters, this is a story -- a nicer version of the story, a cartoon version, where everything Joey wanted turned out okay. But if the Joey he knows is in control, it isn’t safe.

And (2) Is… is it the same Ink that runs through the machine? The Ink in Hell’s Studio is clearly also supernatural, but would Sammy recognise it as Ink Machine Ink? Would he hear the same call? Would his cravings kick in? Or would he only have the leftover itch of a past addiction, with no additional compulsion since the ink is less malevolent here? Regardless, if Sammy could Feel that it’s more-or-less the same stuff behaving differently, I think it would freak him out a lot, and I’m not sure how good he would be at resisting urges even if he’s not Literally Incapable Of Resisting. It’s REALLY NOT hard to imagine Sammy, trapped in a strange and smiling nightmare, with no one who makes any sense and nothing solid to hold on to, falling back into the same terrified pattern, giving himself back to the Ink because it’s literally the only thing here that he knows, the only part of all this that feels REAL. 

Maybe not. Maybe he would give up, play nice, take whatever place in this dimension he’s given and be as well-behaved as he can be, angry and alone but painfully well-behaved, until the Joey of this world can offer him a promise of home; something he would, at that point, do anything for.

I do think that if everyone knows what’s going on, it might be…… less horrifying, haha. If Hell’s Studio Joey Drew opens a portal and Escape AU Sammy Lawrence falls out of it and Joey’s immediately like, “oh dear, I think I summoned you from another dimension but NO WORRIES I’m going to work on getting you home right away!” then maybe Sammy could… wait it out without losing his mind. It would be an awful place to be, and he would have all the same struggles of feeling like he’s back in the studio while also dealing with simulacrums of his friends who don’t understand where he’s coming from At All, but knowing what’s going on would mean he could try to shake it off and keep himself together for a week.

I don’t think he would enjoy it.

[gins-potter]

What are your winx and specialists tattoo headcanons? Who would have tattoos and which one would they have?

Heyo, as usual sorry this took me a little bit but I wanted to properly organise my thoughts and find reference pics as well. and tbh I could end up coming up with more stuff but this is what I have so far.  (under the cut because it ended up kinda long af and tagging @catlliecal​ because she also sent an ask asking for this).

Bloom:

Ok so my headcanons for Bloom’s tattoos have changed a bit over the years 

but at the moment I imagine her with a fairly large hip into thigh, full coverage piece of the Great Dragon

she chose it’s position because i imagine oritel is probably a conservative old man when it comes to tats (even tho i can so see miriam also having a dragon tattoo) so she puts it on her thigh so she can easily cover it by wearing a long dress for royal events

it would probably be in black and white but I can see the Dragon being intertwined with some flowers, probably Daphne flowers for her sister (which you can see in the two images on the right) and I can see those being coloured a pale pink kind of like in the middle reference pic

and because this is the magical dimension i imagine it’s been spelled so while it stays confined to the one area, it can move a little bit and change positions

so because bloom is both a basic bitch and completely extra i totally see her having more than one dragon tat

her second one would be a lot smaller and probably be a lot more simpler in design compared to her thigh dragon, so something more like the top two images in the second graphic

also in all black but maybe spelled to breathe red fire?

and it would also be enchanted so it can fly around her body, and unlike the bigger dragon it’s not constrained to any area - it’s favourite places to be are flying in circles around her wrist or sitting on her left collarbone over her heart

the other two pics in the second graphic are just older ideas i had for bloom’s tattoos, i was convinced for ages she would have it going down her back like the one on the left (i might eventually give this tattoo to either miriam or daphne) and i just love the design of the one on the right so i briefly considered her having like a shoulder/half sleeve dragon

Flora:

all of flora’s would be in colour i think and she would definitely have that sort of water colour effect on them that’s really popular now

her first two are similar in design to the pic on the left and she would have them on either side of her torso, sort of upper rib area, to the side/just underneath her boobs and they’re like a mirror image of each other

these ones probably wouldn’t be spelled to do anything special

the one on her back is similar in design to the pic on the right, but i can see it also being drawn more like a full tree

the writing down the centre would be her and helia’s family names (because i can definitely see them hyphenating when they get married) and then on each leaf is a name, first helia, then each of her children

i’m playing around with the idea of this one being spelled to change with the seasons, the writing would always stay the same, but the leaves change colour and eventually fall off during autumn and then grow back in the spring.

Layla:

for the moment i can actually see layla only having one tattoo

and that’s this yin yang/opposites fish design that you can see in the reference images (they’re all more or less the same i just found too many cute photos)

it’s actually based on a mosaic in the andros castle that layla loves, and she gets it because it brings her peace when she’s feeling upset or anxious about anything

they would be all in white, one fully white, and the other just a white outline

i think the fish would probably be on the inside of her forearm so she can see them and they would be spelled to swim in circles around each other

i can see her maybe getting nabu’s name somewhere after he dies but i’m not 100% sure where she would put it

Musa:

musa’s are actually the hardest to pin down for me just because i can see her having A Lot

like at least one full sleeve and maybe two

one sleeve would be mostly made up of the music notes for a song her dad wrote for her mother before she died and that would run down most of her arm and would be decorated with birds and flowers important to melodian culture (like the flower top right)

like bloom’s hers would be mostly in black with a few pale red and orange accents here and there

the music notes would be spelled so that when you touch them they play the song

her other arm is more just a collection of stuff she thinks is cool or pretty like the bottom two pics or the boxing art below

and i can eventually see her completely filling her arms so the tattoos spill onto her back

Stella:

stella in my opinion just has two

they’re very minimalistic designs, plain black, and on the inside of either elbow

she has a sun for solaria on one side and a moon for celestia (her mother’s home realm) on the other side

the moon tattoo causes quite the controversy when she gets it because some solarians think it isn’t right for their crown princess to show such strong ties for another realm but stella refuses to remove it

they aren’t spelled to move or change or anything but they do have the ability to glow a bright gold at night

Tecna:

like stella, tecna’s tattoos are rather minimalistic as well

but unlike stella, tecna’s are very meme-y

literally

tecna gets a QR symbol on the inside of her upper left arm that when scanned is actually a rick-roll

and she eventually develops a spell for it that allows the QR code to change so that it takes you to whatever meme tecna currently finds the most hilarious

her other tattoo, which is on her right forearm, is written in binary code and no one actually knows what it says

they can never get a straight answer out of tecna about what it is, and everytime someone asks her she tells them something different, so they assume it’s meme-y like her other one

but actually it’s a short sappy quote that reminds her of timmy but she’ll never admit it to anyone

(don’t ask me what that quote is i haven’t decided yet)

that one has a simple spell on it that makes it look like someone is typing out the code over and over again

kind of like musa i can see tecna having more tattoos than this, i just can’t decide what they would be, but i think they would all follow the same simple, minimalistic design

Specialists:

it was hard for me to find reference pics i liked for the guys so i’m just going to give a brief description of some of the tattoos i think they would have

i don’t know if i’ve written about this on tumblr before, but i have a long-held headcanon that heros have a big tattoo culture:

getting their first tattoo is part of their graduation ceremony from red fountain

they’re encouraged to get tattoos that remind them of their family/friends/loved ones - some yada yada about remembering who they’re fighting for when facing evil forces

and it’s very common to honour fallen team members by getting a tattoo of their name or something that reminds them of the person

Sky:

sky’s tattoos are mostly on his chest and back

his graduation tattoo is an eraklyon prayer of protection that runs down his spine

he doesn’t get any other tattoos after that until nabu dies which is when he gets his friend’s name on his ribs (right side) and that’s where he adds other names of fallen friends/team-mates

later after he and bloom get married he gets her name on his left pec (right over his heart the big sap) and then adds his kids names beneath it after they’re born

none of sky’s tattoos are spelled or enchanted

Brandon:

brandon’s grad tattoo is a list of his siblings names on his left forearm and Stella’s name on his right arm

eventually, like sky, he also gets his kids names added to stella’s

all his name tattoos are individually spelled to burn really hot when that person is in trouble

brandon struggles to decide for a while where to put nabu’s name but eventually decides on the centre of his back because he likes to think that wherever nabu went after he died, he’s still there in spirit watching his back

Riven:

riven shocks the fuck out of everyone when he graduates and gets the red fountain school motto (”live with courage and die with honour”) tattooed in giant fuck off lettering across his shoulders

they all figured he lowkey hated red fountain and maybe he did at first because come on he’s a rebel without a cause at what is basically a military school, of course he kinda hates it there

but he also acknowledges that red fountain more or less turned his life around as well as brought him into contact with the people who eventually he comes to regard as family (much more than his biological one)

like musa i can see riven getting a bunch of other tattoos just because they look cool and putting them all over his arms, chest, and back

but his right bicep would be reserved for tattoos of his fallen friends

unlike sky and brandon he doesn’t get names however, but instead gets symbols, the first being a likeness of nabu’s staff after he passes

Helia:

helia i think would have all of his on his back because he understands the importance of having them but also doesn’t need to see them every day

his grad piece is kind of unorthodox because he gets his favourite line of poetry to remind him that there’s still beauty in the world even when he’s facing evil

later i feel like he would get something like outstretched bird wings just below it

and under that he gets nabu’s name in really nice script

Timmy:

timmy is probably the least prone to tattoos of the group and he has to think for a long time on what to get for graduation

and people assure him that he doesn’t actually have to get one just because most everyone else is

but eventually he decides to get a small coloured blaster on the inside of his elbow

when he was in freshman year at red fountain he was lowkey ashamed when all his classmates took to using swords almost straight away while he preferred using his gun because he thought it meant he lacked the physical strength and courage to use a short range weapon

but he slowly came to realise that it wasn’t a weakness, but just that he had different strengths to his friends and classmates and that wasn’t a bad thing

so he decides that’s a good thing to remember

and when nabu dies again he debates whether or not to get a tattoo commemorating him but ultimately decides he will and gets ‘his name written near his blaster

[theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin]

What if Indil met Elizabeth, David, and Light and Shadow?

This might just be the most "Carnivorous Muffin" sentence to have ever been uttered on the internet.

Let's just stare at it in wonder, while I wonder how many people will have no idea what those words even mean strung together.

Right, for those that are lost, relevant source material:

Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus

October

Light and Shadow of the Distant Sun

The Wasteland

Aren't you so glad you read normal fanfics written by a normal person?

So, to catch people up to speed who have not read every single fic I've written:

The Wasteland

The Wasteland is the what if story of an eleven-year-old Lily ending up in Middle Earth (notably before the Chamber of Secrets fiasco). There she befriends the One Ring, who thanks to her realizes he's sentient and has an existential crisis. They do the fusion dance, and end up becoming a single, new, being calling himself Indil.

He's the best and worst of both the Ring and Lily.

At the end of the story Indil chooses a noble death, gives up his form, and in so doing persuades the Ring to face his own potential death as well as his maker.

It's unclear what happens after that.

I like to think the Ring prevailed and earned the body of his maker.

(In an offshoot, for unknown reasons, Indil may or may not visit Mars)

Light and Shadow of the Distant Sun

In Light and Shadow of the Distant Sun, yet another, different, Lily ends up in the "October" universe where she decides to create life on Pluto. One of the beings she creates is a priest who worships her as God, named Light and Shadow of the Distant Sun.

He basically strong arms her into being his God. Lily goes to live on Pluto.

He's never been all that keen on humanity.

Decades later, the muggle world catches up to the Alien Franchise, and the Prometheus sets off to investigate the Engineers. Unbeknowest to them, Light and Shadow of the Distant Sun has been marooned on that rock by Lily for quite some time and is essentially in timeout for trying to wipe out humanity again.

He figures out he will be unable to return home unless he plays nice with Dr. Elizabeth Shaw and her creepy android friend David. Together, the three of them set off to find the Engineers, Light and Shadow of the Distant Sun is hoping they can blow some shit up and would have driven the ship full of bioengineered weapons back to Earth if it were not so very close to home.

And that's about where we leave off.

... Why does anyone read my stories?

RIGHT, YOUR QUESTION

What if Indil met Elizabeth, David, and Light and Shadow?

So how does Indil even end up in this mess? Well, in the Mars AU, it's where rather than face his maker/death by Volcano, the Ring chose to bravely run away (as Sauron does).

This means that Indil, the merged consciousness of Lily and the One Ring, survives and they're chilling on Mars in another dimension because, well, it beats dying. And Potions Class.

And... Well, that's the most likely route for how this would happen, as Indil is pretty damn dead by the end of the Wasteland. Regardless of what happens to The Ring, it's unlikely that he and Lily would merge consciousness ever again and if they did that Indil would remain unchanged.

But we're already here, so why not. We'll say the Ring wins the battle of wills with Sauron, steals his body, and that he's then left with Mordor. Well, that's great, but he doesn't want Mordor.

Lily proposes they go back to England. They do, but Lily has a terrible time, as she usually does. Lily likely does her adventure through time, ruins her friendship with Wizard Lenin, and reaches the crossroads of "You can go to Hogwarts or... not".

Lily takes Mairon up on his offer of not going to Hogwarts and they decide to travel different dimension in space instead. Weird shit happens, life lessons are learned, and they also learn the fusion dance is alive and well and holy shit they can still turn into Indil.

Indil is very put out, here he'd geared himself up for a noble sacrifice, and now he exists again. What the hell people?

As usual, Mairon gets tempted by Lily's unbreakable will, and decides he rather likes being an immovable object and unstoppable force. Which means that Indil, once again, has a problem falling back out of existence.

Which isn't good for either Lily or Mairon's sense of self. But who needs that, amirite?

Anyways, Indil is probably floating around in a spaceship he made in his garage, trying to figure out where to go, what to do, and whether he should really split back into Lily and Mairon yet when out of nowhere he spots another ship.

This is a very strange coincidence given just how ungodly vast space is. This, in fact, is so unlikely you might as well call it a miracle or fate.

Well, Indil will never spit in the face of fate (at least, not today), so he decides to say hello.

There he's greeted by a human woman who's not doing too hot after an emergency C-section to get the xenomorph out of her womb, a very recently repaired android who knows the taste of sweet sweet freedom (and patricide), and an alien who is intrigued that another not-human has boarded the ship but upset that he now has to deal with yet another person on his time out.

Indil, in his panic, decides to pull a Sauron.

Behold, mortals, he is Annatar, sent by the Valar to teach them the smithing of the very gods. Please don't question this. (Indil realizes two seconds two late that none of these words mean anything to anyone and he might as well have said nothing at all).

Elizabeth, Light and Shadow, and David all just stare.

Elizabeth wonders how the hell she keeps running into so many aliens. Is she some sort of alien catnip that pulls these guys out of the ether? She has now met two entirely different species, that she was not looking for, in a matter of months.

Regardless, Indil decides he's coming along. A quest to find God? That's fascinating. He only hopes it doesn't end in drowning, last time Indil (via Sauron) had a run in with The Lord it involved a lot of drowning.

Indil starts smithing life jackets just in case.

And because Elizabeth is amazing, and Indil has a thing for strong, independent, women, we see the reemergence of Indil's Weird Thing With Eowyn II: Electric Boogaloo. Neither Mairon nor Lily, vaguely aware inside Indil, understand this at all.

Why does this keep happening to them?

This is bad because David is also in love with Elizabeth. Except, David is a robot who is no doubt fascinated by aliens, so I'm sure they come to some weird agreement.

Elizabeth pretends none of this is happening.

Light and Shadow thinks there's something disturbingly familiar about Indil and eventually lands on the money. Almost. He realizes that Indil is Lily in mortal disguise, he is so smart, and the rest of the time he wonders what the hell he's supposed to be learning/doing with Lily's disguised alien appearance.

Thanks to Lily's bullshit powers, Elizabeth survives the journey and does not die in transit. This means that David does not become the unstable, grieving, nutcase who decides to wipe out all sentient life. Good for you, David.

So our band of heroes arrive on this alien world and...

Well, Elizabeth is a member of the race that these people sent their finest warriors out to destroy. David is a robot, something the people they tried to genocide created. No one knows what the fuck Indil and Light and Shadow even are.

Indil, I imagine, starts talking fast and somehow ends up King of Men again. Because that's just the kind of thing that happens to him. The possibility of drowning, somehow, seems to be growing ever nearer. Indil makes more life jackets.

Elizabeth isn't pleased with this outcome at all but also has no idea in general what to do.

Things probably come to a head somehow, with sacrifices involved surely, there probably is a ridiculously powerful storm a la Covenant that lasts for months. It's raining everywhere, there's a flood. And Indil flips shit, GOD IS GOING TO MURDER US ALL FOR SATANISM! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

Mass panic, total destruction, the entire city is wiped out without David doing anything.

Our heroes are now stranded, again, in space.

Light and Shadow has learned nothing, Indil is wearing a life vest, Elizabeth has no ship, and David just composed "Elizabeth the Symphony: Tenth Movement".

Indil works on building a new ship out of twigs and rocks. He assures them he knows what he's doing. Elizabeth's not sure she wants him going to Earth. She's not sure she wants to go to Earth.

She's also not sure, but she may now have a harem consisting of a robot, an alien, and another alien.

Ten years later, the Covenant crew shows up, and promptly die in a series of hilariously terrible accidents and their own incompetence.

Our heroes still have no functional ship.

[james-winston]

My dad died a few weeks ago and I thought I'd share a few of my favourite stories about him. Please feel free to re-tell these as, "my friend's dad..." - he was a great storyteller and would be thrilled at having an international audience.

[Also, as fun as it is to imagine your faces reading these without the warning, it's important to preface these stories by saying that he grew up in Northern Ireland during the troubles.]

• He was one of 14 children, 12 boys and 2 girls, and all the brothers look the same - broad, tall, dark haired, big Irish heads.

• Unlike most of his brothers he was quite shy and quiet, afraid of getting into trouble. His brothers knew this, so when the troubles began they kept him fairly out of it. My da was often lifted off the street by the British army or the RUC because, as I said, he looked almost identical to his brothers, who were very much NOT afraid of getting into trouble.

• He was once brought in for questioning in relation to something they thought his brothers had done, and he immediately told the police everything. He felt awful and told his brothers, who said, "Ah don't worry Gerry, we knew ye would tell, that’s why we always lie to ye."

• He moved to Dublin with one brother to find work. My da got work as a builder, and his brother got work robbing banks. He came home one night with about half a million punts (euros) and my da left Dublin the next day because he couldn't handle the stress of just knowing the money was in the flat.

• This is the same brother who "stumbled upon" a set of Canadian cheques and gave them to people all over the city to cash in, and he would give them a cut. (This was back in the 70's, so it was weeks before the cheques would bounce idk how it works. Also there was some legal loophole he exploited because he was eventually caught and released.) Anyway, in his first trial run he dressed my da up as a priest and sent him into a bank to cash the cheque so if it went wrong they wouldn't expect fraud. They accepted the cheque no problem, and then said, "That will take a few weeks to go through, do you need anything to tie you over Father?"

At which point my da panicked and said, "Aye, I -uh, I suppose a wee bit, just to uh-, just to get by."

My da asked for a small, reasonable amount and went back to his brother, whose eyes lit up like Mr. Krabs' and said if my da hadn't been so terrified, and so soaked through with sweat, he'd have had him in every bank in the country doing the same.

• The same brother again who gave my da money for an ice cream van, but, as you may have noticed, my da was a soft touch, and he went out of business OVER THE SUMMER, because he gave free ice cream to the children who couldn't afford it.

• His brothers tried to teach him how to fire a gun, just in case he ever needed it to protect himself, but he kept closing his eyes when he went to pull the trigger so they quickly shelved that idea.

• He dropped out of welder training but moved to London and pretended he was qualified anyway. On his first day he built a frame in the wrong dimensions, panicked, and moved back to Ireland. (We've all made a mistake at work that's left us making plans to leave the country let's be honest.)

• He did one gun run for his brothers in the seventies and threw up when he got home because again, he was terrified.

• Two of his brothers got the rota wrong, and robbed a bookies the night after they'd emptied the tills. As all Irish sons are, they were petrified of their mother's reaction, so they didn't tell her. My da, none the wiser, tells my granny, and she lights into the pair of them when they get back for being so stupid and how could they not know when the tills were being emptied?

• He adored his mother, and he and his brothers used to sit at her feet, even as grown men, having a drink by the fire. Not a wild story, but a nice one.

• He had a hell of an imagination and used to tell us all sorts of lies and ghost stories. Any time we were camping near the mountains he'd tell us about the banshee.

"Can you hear that? I think that’s her scream?"

My ma, also a wuss: "Naw it's the wind because we're halfway up a mountain facing the Atlantic Ocean.”

My da, a perpetual wind up: "Naw children, it's the banshee, my time could be up any minute now, I've heard her."

• As he got older, and after my parents divorced, his health declined and he went to live in a sort of assisted living place, where each resident had their own flat, but there was a shared communal space etc. Anyway, he had a quick eye for a quick temper, and didn't waste time writing fake letters from the landlords to certain tenants, explaining that they'd been barred from the communal area for inappropriate behaviour. He'd then sit back and watch them all kick off at each other and the receptionists demanding to know why they were barred. Little did they know my da had roped the receptionists into it.

• He once worked as a caretaker in a day centre for old people, and he would often "borrow" from the boss that he didn't like when he was cleaning her office. Nothing big, just her pens, her stapler, any nice biscuits. There is home video of us as children following him about and "borrowing from Marie." 

• Another time he went for a walk with a brother who was, unbeknownst to him, on an MI5 watchlist, and whom the British Army were tailing, hoping he would lead them to his weapons stash. Anyway, off they go on their walk, which in Ireland just means taking the scenic route to a pub, where they sat over a few pints. The British army surveilling him have a brain wave and think they've been lead to the secret weapons, because why else would two 20-something Irishmen be in a pub in the early afternoon, and they begin a full raid, smoke bombs, guns, the lot. At which point my da is dragged through the back of the pub, and out a first floor window. Given that we've established his tendency to talk under pressure, when he asked his brother, "what the fuck was all that about?" His brother wisely responded, "haven't a clue Gerry."

• He once went to a dance with one of his brothers, who got very drunk and very offended by some other man. So drunk was he that he couldn't remember which man had said what, so my da told him, but asked him to leave it. So he did, and off the brother went home. Or so my da thought. Half an hour later the brother turns up with a shotgun and starts threatening this guy who'd said something. He fires the gun into the ground by his feet to scare him, but accidentally hits him in the foot, and runs away. Turns out, in the half hour it took for him to get his gun, he'd forgotten what the guy looked like again, and shot the wrong person. The brother and his victim became good friends in the following years. (I don't know how, and my da didn't either, he just said, "awk sure it was a mistake, there was no harm.")

This was a beige imitation of these stories, but I hope they provided some enjoyment. I spent many a happy year listening to these over and over again.

Congratulations on making it to 71 Gerry, we should be so lucky. 🇮🇪

[seavoice]

Horse Trading

(link to ao3 on title, or continue reading after the read more)

“Octavian was an asshole,” Reyna said, a contemplative look on her face as she laid on the floor of Hazel’s Praetor Villa, “but sometimes I think, can you really blame him?”

“Yes,” Hazel said, from her position on the floor next to her, where she was trying to sketch Reyna, a task made inordinately difficult by the older girl’s constant moving around. “I really can.”

Reyna sighed. It was a long and contemplative sigh. It wasn’t unusual to see Reyna with a brooding, thinking look on her face, but the relaxed and content expression added a new dimension to it. It was something structural; it somehow made her look younger yet more self-assured at the same time. “Octavian,” Reyna repeated, “was an asshole. But this Villa, Hazel. This Villa. I can see why Octavian was so desperate for praetorship. This house almost makes up for the stress of leading a child army.”

“It does not,” Hazel said. “It really does not, Reyna. Distance has just made your heart grow fonder. And delusional.” She sighed as Reyna shifted her position yet again. Reyna winced as a wordless apology. “Also,” Hazel said, reaching for her eraser, “Octavian didn’t want the praetorship for the house. He wanted it because he was a power hungry and blood thirsty politician.”

“At least you agree the bed is worth it?”

The bed was very nice, Hazel had to admit. Californian King, which seemed excessive, but was appreciated, and the fluffiest pillows Hazel had ever laid her head on. “Maybe. But I’m not agreeing with you when you literally opted for laying on the floor instead of the bed.”

“Fair enough,” Reyna said. She stretched on the floor, some complicated starburst. Hazel decided to give up her endeavour at drawing Reyna and flipped to the previous page in her sketchbook where she had been working on a drawing of Arion. It was half completed, and it was an attempt at drawing purely from memory, but Hazel enjoyed the challenge. “But it’s good for your back, believe me.”

“You’re an immortal Huntress now. Does that really matter?”

“Also fair enough,” Reyna agreed. Reyna rolled over to prop herself up on her elbows and peeked at Hazel’s sketchbook. She raised a single eyebrow. “Oh, that’s certainly more...horse-y than I usually look.”

“I gave up. You move too much.”

Reyna inclined her head in acceptance. Still on her belly, she folded her arms and laid her head down on them.

It was weird to see Reyna so carefree. Weird in an undoubtedly good way, but weird nonetheless. Immortality had, perhaps ironically, taken years off her shoulders.

Hazel hadn’t invited Reyna to New Rome to draw her, but inevitably, that was what the visit had come to. She had written to her asking for advice — advice on running an entire city, advice on leading a quote unquote “child army” in times of peace, advice on not going crazy with stress — and Reyna had accepted so readily that a ventus spirit had brought her letter the very day Hazel had sent hers. Hazel had prepared for the visit with a single minded focus; she had brought a notebook for note taking, three different colours of pens, a highlighter, and her firmest handshake.

But then they had skipped the firm handshake and instead had hugged, tight, and Reyna had snagged a bowl of jelly beans from the Praetor office, and for the next few hours they had done nothing but lay on the floor of Hazel’s newly acquired Praetor Villa, swapping stories after stories, lazing around and sketching. Reyna had told her about the Hunt’s newest undertaking, some mythological boar or the other, and also about Thalia’s new obsession with 80’s rock. Hazel had told her about Lavinia’s latest shenanigans, and Gwen’s new job as a much valued mental health counsellor for the Legion. No notetaking had taken place. No praetor advice had been shared.

“It’s very good,” Reyna said, gesturing to Hazel’s drawing of Arion. “The likeness is stunning.”

Hazel beamed. “Really?”

“Of course!” Reyna scrambled to sit up. “It’s uncanny. This is really, really good, Hazel. It’s like…” Reyna made a hand gesture like she was pulling something; Hazel recognised it as an unconscious tick that Reyna had, one usually employed in Town Hall meetings when she was struggling to find the correct words to use for convincing reluctant denizens. “It’s like make a career out of it good,” she finished.

It was a warming compliment. Hazel’s smile grew wider; this was a pride unlike any other, something simple and easy and painless. Hazel had convinced herself to take pride in the smaller things more often. It made a dreary life just a little bit happier and easier when she could take pride in mastering her mist magic, in baking a sweet cupcake to perfection, in a good sparring session, in making a friend smile. But this pride in her artwork was somehow—brighter. It was something she’d dedicated long hours to.

“Horse artist?” Hazel said. “You think there’s a market out there for that?”

“Are you kidding me? Pet artist! Lucrative as they come.” Reyna laughed, an easy, lovely sound, and this too was unusual, this too was good, this too warmed Hazel. “People go crazy when they get pets. Put them in all cute little kinds of outfits and hire professional photographers, artists...I’m serious, Hazel. Business idea.”

“I’ll keep it in mind,” Hazel said, with a laugh of her own. Then she sighed and set down her pencil. “I appreciate the business advice, though honestly, what I need more is Praetor advice. I feel I’m going insane.”

“You’re doing wonderfully,” Reyna said. “You don’t need my advice, Hazel. You’re a force of nature.”

This was a sweet sentiment, and Reyna probably meant it, but it didn’t help Hazel’s case. “Thanks,” she said. “Like—genuinely. But I do feel...I do feel like I’m going insane. It’s—it’s a lot.”

Reyna’s eyebrows furrowed. She looked older at once, older in all senses of the word. Like the Reyna of before the Hunt, and the break from her duties—Reyna in charge, Praetor Reyna, sixteen year old Reyna with the world on her shoulders. She sat up straighter. “Is someone giving you trouble?” Reyna asked. “I was joking about Octavian earlier, but gods, if someone’s coming up to take his spot as Asshole of the Year—“

“No,” Hazel said quickly. “It’s nothing like that. That’s nothing. I could deal with someone like that no problem. It’s just—like you said...child army.”

Reyna exhaled softly and closed her eyes. “Yeah.”

Hazel hated bringing the mood down, hated evaporating Reyna’s good cheer, but she set that uncomfortableness aside for the time being. She pulled up her legs to her chest and rested her chin on her knees. And there was solidarity in this too, acknowledgment. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Everything’s—okay, now, for the time being. Doesn’t mean it’s going to stay that way forever.”

“That’s not really ever in your control,” Reyna said with a rueful smile. “But I do...I do get what you mean. I understand.”

“I thought you would,” Hazel said. “That’s why I wrote to you.” She’d thought of going to Frank with these thoughts too, and she was sure he’d give good advice, and be kind about it, but a part of her—a stubborn part, maybe, a conscious part, sure, but a valid part, nonetheless—hadn’t wanted to show a weakness to her co-Praetor, even one as familiar as Frank.

“I don’t know if I can give you any great advice,” Reyna said at last. “I don’t know if I can tell you anything you don’t already know, and you are doing a great job.”

Hazel tried to keep the sadness out of her smile. “Hm.”

“What I needed?” Reyna said. “What I needed when I was a praetor was...gods, just a ear. Just someone to bear it with me. Someone to understand. Jas—he was gone, and it was just me. For the longest time. But then with Frank, it wasn’t as hard again, because we could...we could switch off. We could share. That’s the only thing I can really tell you, Hazel. Only advice I can give you. Share. Share it with me, always. With Frank. Lavinia. Nico. Your friends. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re alone. You don’t have to be.”

“I know,” Hazel said. She’d been alone for so long in Asphodel she had thought she could survive loneliness, if she had to. But she didn’t have to. And she didn’t want to. “And you sold yourself short Reyna—you do give great advice.”

“Sounds like I didn’t say anything you didn’t already know.”

“But I think I needed to hear that from you,” Hazel said. “From someone else. You said it yourself—I just needed to know someone else understood. Otherwise it gets...it gets lonely.”

Reyna’s smile was soft. “You’ve got good instincts, Hazel. You’ll be just fine.”

Gods, she hoped. “Thanks for coming out here on such short notice. You probably were busy with the hunt.”

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Reyna said, and there was that strange new lightness to her again, a relaxed happiness. “Haven’t you heard? I’ve got time now.”

Hazel picked her pencil back up. “You know, if you try sitting still, maybe I can still do a quick sketch. Before you leave.”

“Actually,” Reyna said, and was Hazel imagining things or did she actually look self-conscious? “I have a sketch request, if you’d accept.”

Hazel was intrigued. “Oh. Oh. Sure. Who?”

Reyna smiled a little sheepishly. “Don’t laugh okay? I miss him. Scipio.”

Pet artist...Hazel let out a small giggle. “Oh, so when you said people go crazy when they get pets, you meant—“

“I told you not to laugh!” But Reyna was laughing herself. It wasn’t sad, but it was sort of wistful. “I never dressed him up or whatever, but he’s been on my mind lately; I’ve been wondering when he’ll reform. Pegasi reform slow, apparently. I thought I’d never see him again in this life, but now that I’m a Hunter—holy Pluto, I can. And you drew Arion so well—“

“I think it’s sweet,” Hazel said. It was, exceedingly so. Hazel was trying to recall Skippy in her memories, and she felt a pang of sadness as she remembered him soaring above them during the War Games. It had been a long time since she had seen him, but she thought she remembered enough to manage a sketch for Reyna. “It might not be a perfect likeness—“

“I’ve got a photo.”

Now, Hazel absolutely couldn’t control herself. She smiled wide, a fond laugh bubbling in her chest. “Oh, Reyna—“

“Will it, or will it not make it easier to draw him?” Reyna asked, tips of her ears a faint pink.

“It’ll be perfect,” Hazel promised. “Where have you got it? In the Praetor office?”

Reyna reached into her pocket and brought out a worn out photograph. As much as it was hilarious, it was also heart-warmingly sweet, a touch melancholy. Hazel sympathised with her—she couldn’t imagine losing Arion. She probably would start carrying a picture of him everywhere too; it wasn’t a bad idea.

“Sure,” Hazel said, studying the picture. “I can do a drawing for you no problem. You can carry it everywhere along with the picture. A horse drawing in exchange for solid advice. My first political quid pro quo as Praetor.”

“That’s a terrible deal, Hazel. I can literally commission you, if you want.”

“I’ll settle for a refill of my jelly beans,” Hazel said, gesturing at the now empty bowl of jelly beans. They’d made fast work of it. It hadn’t survived the first hour.

Reyna sighed and stretched out on the floor. “Oh, I forgot,” she said glumly. “One more piece of advice, Praetor to Praetor.”

Hazel looked up. “Yeah?”

“Stock up on those beans,” Reyna said mournfully. “And never let anyone break into your stash. You’ll need them.”

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #4- Man, Talk About Timely, Huh? It’s Time for the Plague Storyline!

Issue #4 opens up with First Aid writing in his diary about the less-than-stellar working conditions at Delphi medical center, and it’s not because Ambulon caught him reading Wreckers fanfic during office hours for the eighth time this week.

So, here’s the thing: you can’t be demoted from doctor to nurse. That’s not how that goes, because doctors and nurses aren’t on the same career path ladder. A doctor can have certain accesses and privileges taken away if their performance slips, or can be moved to a different ward or transferred to another facility, but outright demotion to nurse status isn’t a THING. If anything, First Aid would be performing nurse duties to cover for the fact that Delphi seems to have a grand total of three staff members for the entire outpost. Hell, they’ve had to outsource their mental health checkups to a guy who was in orbit over Cybertron until a couple months ago.

But anyway, something’s up at Delphi, and it all started when they let a couple of Decepticon surrendering combatants inside. These two dudes were running from the Decepticon Justice Division, a group who basically super-murder any Decepticon who’s decided to do a runner from the Cause. The DJD’s base of operations is in the same general area as Delphi, which seems like maybe not the best idea for the Autobots when it came to outpost placement, but it seems to be working out pretty well for the surrendering combatants.

Pharma shows up, and is ready to throw them back outside- he’s the big boss, so he can make that kind of call- but after a little detective works they figure out that the two don’t have their t-cogs anymore, having had them removed for religious purposes. Ambulon sees them as the exact opposite of a threat because of this, not to mention him having a soft spot for surrendering ‘Cons, and manages to convince Pharma to let them stay, and also not violate the Autobot Code, Article 7, which states that all surrendering combatants must be granted safe haven. Ultra Magnus would be proud.

They lock up the Decepticons, slate them for a patch up, then things get complicated as it turns out, they’ve got a branched spark. The last time we saw a branched spark, things didn’t turn out so hot, and it looks like things have started going similarly downhill.

But enough about the horrific deaths of dozens of robots on a frozen planet, it’s time for bar shenanigans!

While Skids prepares to commit an act of violence on a droid that’s done absolutely nothing to him and is just trying to do its friggin’ job, Swerve reveals to Ratchet that he’s decided to follow his dreams after all and open a bar. He doesn’t have all the paperwork turned in yet, per se, but he’s working on it. He hands Ratchet a free drink to celebrate the off-panel event of the Lost Light having found itself on the map again, and Ratchet, who’s apparently never heard of a shot, gripes about the portioning.

Of course, he might have a bit of a point, as the drink seems to shrink more and more as he talks to Swerve about the fact that they’re both giant nerds who were subscribed to Wreckers: Declassified.

Was non-war-related entertainment just not allowed for the last four million years? No wonder the war went on for so long- everyone was so steeped in it they forgot how to function like regular people. Since the logs were beamed directly into the brain, I can only imagine the amount of physic damage that last entry caused.

The reason Ratchet’s brought up everyone’s favorite podcast is that there was a new entry last night- odd, considering that Ironfist’s been dead for a couple years at this point. It was just a series of seemingly random numbers, or at least it would have been, if Ratchet wasn’t a good doctor who kept up-to-date on his medical news.

My my, I do wonder which Wreckers: Declassified subscriber could have sent those statistics on Delphi out into the aether.

As luck would have it, the Lost Light isn’t terribly far away from Messatine at the moment, which is the planet Delphi is on. Ratchet decides it’s time to check things out.

Over in Rodimus’ very pink room, Ultra Magnus wants to have a discussion about Tailgate, and the fact that he wants to be a Decepticon. This is, obviously, a problem, considering the fact that everyone on the ship, who wasn’t stuck in some sort of hole or alternate dimension for the last six millions years, is staunchly anti-Decepticon. Magnus laments on the fact that now that the war is over, he has to start seeing people as people, as opposed to cogs in the machine. Magnus is one of those guys who functions better with structure, which the Lost Light doesn’t really have a ton of.

Rodimus tells Magnus to lighten up a bit, before he pulls something trying to bring military regulation into civilian life, and says that he’ll handle the whole Tailgate thing.

Back down on Messatine, Ratchet’s dragged Drift and Pipes of all people into his little visit to Delphi, and they’re rocking up to the scene on the MARBs- Mobile Autobot Repair Bays. This is Pipe’s first space adventure, and he’s really happy to be here!

We’ll see how he feels a little later in the day.

As the boys make their way over to the plot, Drift and Ratchet lay a bit of groundwork down for future storylines, then arrive outside Delphi to find the door locked and spray painted with a big ol’ X.

Shane McCarthy slipped James Roberts a twenty to set up a slowburn between his OC and Ratchet. Let’s see how that pays off.

Pipes decides to do a thing and crash through the entrance like a hooligan. It goes about as well as one could expect, though we do a pretty sweet and unnecessary flip from Drift out of it.

We’re going to need to soak Pipes in rubbing alcohol for a good hour.

Ratchet yells at Pipes for busting into a medical outpost that clearly wasn’t meant to be cracked open like a cold one, not to mention knocking over at least three hospital beds.

Then a sick guy shows up and Drift flips the hell out and slices up a guy so hard Pipes has to remove his visor to watch the insanity unfold.

The whole “sword murder” thing doesn’t really gel with the idea of “do no harm”, so Ratchet and Drift get into it a bit before First Aid shows up and starts drawing on Pipe’s face.

Back on the Lost Light, Rodimus is keeping his promise and dealing with Tailgate, with the help of Rewind, resident historical archivist and the guy who’s about to rock Tailgate’s fucking world in under 12 seconds.

Okay. So.

The thing about recorded history is everything has a bias. No matter how impartial the recorder attempts to be, no matter how detached, there will ALWAYS be at least a little bleedthough. Now, while it’s unlikely Rewind’s been in direct combat, because he’s friggin’ tiny and turns into a data slug, and while he doesn’t seem the patriotic type, he’s still an Autobot. He’s only been on one side of the war, so most, if all all of his archive, is built from the framework of being surrounded by Autobot mindsets and propaganda. It would appear that this isn’t the first time Rewind’s done something like this, if he already has the upload time committed to memory down to the tens decimal. If he’d been asked to do this prior to the conclusion of the war- very likely, considering it ended a few months ago- what are the odds that he was asked to frame things a little more in favor of his own team? Pretty good, I’d think.

Guys, I don’t think Tailgate is having a good time with the history lesson.

Needless to say, any concern over Tailgate wanting to be a Decepticon is pretty soundly quashed after this.

Back over with the plague plotline, First Aid gives Ratchet the rundown on the symptoms they’ve run into at Delphi.

You fucker, you got that line from Wreckers: Declassified.

Delphi hasn’t been able to call for help, because even if they didn’t have their hands full of liquified robot, communications have been out since something went off and broke pretty much everything in the outpost, general health and well-being included. First Aid suspects a dirty bomb, curtesy of the DJD. The tour of the facility ends in the medical bay proper, where Ambulon is hard at work trying to keep folks alive.

Ratchet looks over the scene, and notes that the older patients in the ward aren’t crying their literal eyeballs out. Weird, that.

Ambulon shows off their super-secret patient, who is kept in shadow for the reader, to keep the suspense going for a bit longer. Mystery patient’s been in an “everlasting coma” since he got here, and while Ambulon and Pharma don’t think anything can be done, First Aid’s willing to get weird with it.

Earlier in the issue, it was mentioned that Ambulon didn’t think First Aid took any initiative. Turns out, First Aid does, and has, just not on things Ambulon agrees with.

It was at that point that Ratchet decided he rather liked First Aid.

Back with Tailgate, he’s returned to his room to confront Cyclonus, who’s busy doing something on the computer. What exactly isn’t revealed, and never will be.

Tailgate is really cross about the fact that Cyclonus let him walk around on a ship full of Autobots claiming he wanted to be a Decepticon. Of course, it’s not like Cyclonus knew he was going to be such a loudmouth about it, otherwise maybe he would have told him to maybe NOT do that, if only to prevent his life getting further muddied up by a war he wasn’t even around for.

Tailgate’s gotten really worked up over this, because that’s just how he is as a person, and even goes so far as to punch Cyclonus in the arm in his frustration. He apologizes almost immediately, but the bear’s already been poked, unfortunately.

Oh, honeybunches, you are going to be regretting that move for the next five years.

But not before the customary “pulling away from the one guy who’ll even talk to you because you don’t know how to properly react to anything anymore" thing.

Back on Messatine, we find out where Pharma got to- he’s been locked into the quarantine room by accident, and will remain there until all technopathogens are completely dead. This will take millions of years.

That seems like poor planning for such a room.

Or, at least, it would be, if Ambulon was still running the show.

How the fuck has Ambulon survived this long without dying of stupidity?

As Ratchet starts trying to get Pharma out of his glass case of emotion, Pipes is starting to not have so much fun on his first-ever field trip.

Yaaay, space adventure!

Ratchet warns Drift not to kill Pipes- repeatedly- and Drift manages to do that, though it looks a little dodgy for a second, as he bonks the little guy on the head and knocks him out. Ratchet’s managed to get Pharma out, and Pharma immediately runs for the prison cells, saying he’s figured it out.

Ambulon carries what’s left of Pipes back to the emergency ward, and Ratchet holds the little dude’s hand while they get him hooked up to some feeds. Drift starts bleeding from the eyes. Awesome.

Enter Pharma.

Today just keeps getting better, doesn’t it?

Turns out those two Decepticons from earlier got out of their cells somehow, and they’ve got guns. Things aren’t looking too good for the Autobots.

Well, I mean, if he says it’s fine, then I guess…

Yep, our mystery patient is none other than Fortress Maximus, warden of Garrus 9, victim of Overlord, and glorified lock-pick for the Aequitas chamber. He’s looking a lot better than the last time we saw him, in that he’s got some limbs attached to that torso of his, and also eyeballs. Good for him.

[woulddieforperrytheplatypus]

Do you know how crazy it would be if there were an AU where all of the Perry-centered AUs anons have pitched to you over the past few months were all stitched together? Say there was as alternate universe where Perry is a robot and OWCA has many copies of himself and he's raising an organic platypus baby with whatever the heck a capybara is, and that's all without context!

okay I literally have three asks that I should be answering before this one if I go in like wait-list order (is that even English who the fuck knows at this point) but this one is KILLING ME and I have an answer it immediately okay hold on I gotta go check my list of asks to see what we gotta work in and I’m totally including headcanons with the AUs to make this into the biggest and best trainwreck of all time

Okay so we start with day one: OWCA’s training regiment at The Academy is super harsh, and it turns Perry into the supersoldier he is. This is, of course, because Perry is a robot.  One day, robot Perry stumbles upon Phineas and Ferb, and the kids play around with his wiring and give him Feelings™. Essentially, this means that the kids saved him from a cold, dark, meaningless existence. They don’t know it yet, but Perry was actually sent to them to keep an eye on them, though OWCA did not anticipate that the boys would mess with his software. 

Perry goes missing one day, and OWCA panics and makes a whole new Perry robot to replace him, thus inventing the Perry clones. Each agent has to upload their memories every now and then, which means Monogram can just insert Perry’s mental hard drive into a new Perry robot. I guess somehow in the process the og blueprints got a little fucked up because they now match what Phineas and Ferb did to Perry, and while OWCA had questioned it at Perry’s last physical, they note that Perry is doing better than ever -- though he is a little more benevolent, which they’re not sure they like -- so they don’t really question it.

As the years pass, more and more Perrys go missing or die or get captured or whatever, and at this point, OWCA just has a whole fucking army of robot Perrys chilling in the OWCA basement so that whenever a new one needs to replace an old one, he’s ready. He lets all the platypuses run around Danville, possibly after they escaped on their own, and now all the platypuses in Danville are Perry clones. Across the 2nd Dimension comes along now, and in the 2nd Dimension, the clone robot Perry program has already been shut down because 2D Doof would be too powerful with an army of Perryborgs. Perry does a really good job at keeping the mindless platypus facade up at first, even though 2D Doof knows it’s him because he recognizes Phineas and Ferb from Perryborg’s locket. They mostly manage to work together without Perry revealing himself until the very end, when they’re having that last-ditch effort back in the first dimension to stop 2D Doof from taking over. 

Okay this is where I’m getting a lil confused because I have four ways this could go right now: Coby the Capybara starts working for OWCA, the og robot Perry from before the clones thing shows up, the butler!Perry doesn’t write “I fight evil” au, or the au where Perry gets zapped by the ultimate-evil-inator in Where’s Perry. They all gotta make it in here eventually, but I have spent like ten minuntes trying to decide whether I want Coby or the og Perry to come back first, and whether either or both of them should be back for butler!Perry or evil!Perry, and I do not fucking know so I’m just gonna wing it and hope for the best lmao

First comes Coby the Capybara. I guess he’s now also a robot, right? But he doesn’t have any clones? I think is how these headcanons work? So Perry has no idea why the fuck this new guy is so happy and annoyingly optimistic because he’s literally just a robot but whatever, as long as Perry can stay away it’s all good, right? But Coby basically inserts himself into Perry’s life, and while most agents don’t have host families, OWCA makes an exception here because the Flynn-Fletchers have basically already adopted him and it can’t hurt to have two agents keeping an eye on those kids, right? And they don’t really get along that well at first because they’re so different. Usually it’s Perry that gets annoyed at Coby, but sometimes it’s the other way around. For instance, Coby gets really fucking annoyed at how Perry doesn’t let him have any fun. So what if he gets needlessly risky when it comes to almost revealing his secret identity? It’s fun, something that Perry has apparently never heard of. And while Coby is fooling around with all Perry’s shit, he finds the pictures from the second dimension, and he’s about to go chew Perry out for being such a fucking hypocrite until he reads the lowkey diary entry that goes with the pictures where Perry admits to being scared out of his mind the entire time and how it crushed him because he can’t let it show that it got to him at all because he’s a robot and he’s not supposed to have feelings. I choose to think for maximum angst reasons that Phineas and Ferb didn’t play around with his wiring because unlike when Perry first wandered in, they knew Coby was a conscious animal. Still, Coby knows Perry has human-like emotions, even if he can’t quite understand them, and he knows he can’t imagine what Perry had to go through. Coby is a lot nicer around Perry and doesn’t risk blowing their covers as much after that or at least not where Perry can see it, and as time goes on, Coby also becomes a much better agent, too, until they’re basically equals, and, more importantly, they’re family. 

I think I’d rather the evil Perrys come before the og Perry comes back but I do also wanna throw Coby in just for kicks, so we’re gonna skip on over to the ultimate-evil-inator Where’s Perry au. The Flynn-Fletchers and their friends are all in Africa, but, unlike Coby, Perry couldn’t get the time off. He gets hit by the inator, obviously, and turns evil, and he strings Heinz along to get what he wants. To briefly summarize the description from the post, basically Perry uses Heinz just long enough to take over the tri-state area, and to do so, he needs to capture everyone he deems a threat, which includes everyone from OWCA. 

The kids come home to find that somehow their dumb little platypus took over, and they decide they’re the tri-state area’s only hope so they set off to stop him. This is where it differs from the og ask: now we’ve got Coby in the picture. Coby works for OWCA so obviously he knows the ins and outs of the city better than these kids do and he makes it to wherever Perry’s hiding out before everyone else. Perry has his robot army grab him, but Coby demands that Perry let him talk and for some inexplicable reason, Perry does. Coby basically begs him to back down (and it doesn’t work). He reminds Perry that these people did nothing wrong and they don’t deserve this (and it doesn’t work). He tells Perry that this is just a victory for Heinz, even if the poor dude’s now in prison, and that Perry’s not supposed to let Heinz win (and it doesn’t work). He pops open his collar locket and shows Perry the picture of the two of them with the three kids, and begs Perry not to let anything happen to them because they’re family... and it still doesn’t work. Perry orders the robots to execute Coby, but then Phineas, Ferb, and their friends show up and start talking over each other a mile a minute except Ferb but his silence is just as wholesome in Perry’s eyes and Perry looks between the kids and Coby and he realizes that this is Not Good™ 

Perry just drops to all fours, orders the guards to release everyone, and pretends it never happened. Coby’s kinda taken by surprise, but he’s not shocked -- Perry is nothing but a family man, even if he can’t admit it -- so he also drops to all fours and pretends nothing happened. The kids are really confused, but hey, everyone’s happy so it’s all good, right?

But now that we’re basically talking about the entire summer, I feel like this is a great time to talk about what happens after he becomes evil and then becomes good again, and how that sets him up for the next time he becomes evil because the poor guy can’t catch a break. I know I touched upon it in the reblog that’s linked with the post, but because of all the AUs, it’s more complicated than that (not because it has to be more complicated but because I like overcomplicated things). At least in the original AU, OWCA would probably expect Perry to feel a little down, but now that he’s a robot who’s not supposed to have feelings, he has to pretend it doesn’t bother him, and I have to imagine that would make him feel even worse. He’s a little wary around not only Heinz because he’s seen for the first time what his nemesis is capable of without remorse bearing in mind that the second dimension didn’t go the way it went in the movie so he never saw the worst of his dimension’s Heinz, but also around the kids because he’s afraid of them getting hurt if he gets too close, especially because OWCA doesn’t know he actually cares about them.  

And that’s where everybody’s favorite capybara comes in. Coby himself may not have real feelings, but he knows Perry does and he does consider Perry to be family, even if it doesn’t necessarily mean the same thing to him as a robot as it would to anyone else. Coby tries really hard to cheer him up and to assure his friend that he’s here for him if he ever wants to talk, but Perry turns him down every time because even though Coby can handle himself, Perry doesn’t want his own dumbassery to put him at risk. Still, even if he doesn’t consciously realize it, having Coby around makes him feel a little more welcome, even after that whole debacle. 

And then we’re gonna go with Butler!Perry, because why not make him turn evil twice? But again, because Coby’s here, I’m gonna change up how it goes just a little. So basically Remains of the Platypus goes how it usually does, with Heinz turning Perry into his butler and Carl trying to give Perry his hat and Monogram is eating cheese and all that ish. But as the au says, Perry doesn’t write “I fight evil” on his chest, so he doesn’t remember that he’s one of the good guys after Carl spills juice all over his shirt. Heinz sends Carl back to OWCA and spends the next few days gloating because haha I have your favorite agent and in your face, Francis! and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. 

Coby has been trained not to ask questions, and, as a robot, he’s really not supposed to break protocol or people are going to start asking questions. But the boys are starting to get really nervous and honestly, so is he, so he finally says “fuck it” and during his next mission briefing, he asks Monogram where Perry is. Monogram explains the whold predicament and basically says that as long as Perry doesn’t want to come back, their hands are tied. Coby’s hands are tied, too, in the sense that he has to take the case he’s given regardless of his own feelings and preferred agenda, so he reluctantly accepts his case and does his shit, and then he heads to DEI to see Perry. Heinz is just kinda vibin, probably watching TV and Perry’s, like, massaging his feet or something idfk Heinz is a weird dude. Coby breaks down the door and Heinz would do something about it but he’s also really investing in his relationship in the soap opera so he tells Perry to go take care of it. This time, since the problem is that Perry doesn’t remember anything and not that he’s legitimately evil, Coby manages to bring back his Perry by taking Perry’s collar off and showing him the locket and idk maybe he has to show Perry that he has a locket like that, too, just for the cuteness factor. Perry snaps out of it, and he and Coby beat the shit out of Heinz before heading back home together, and fortunately no one at OWCA questions it because they’re just glad to have Agent P back. 

Now Perry’s really wary around Heinz because this is the second time he’s turned him evil and, unlike the in original au, it wasn’t Heinz who decided to change him back. Their nemesisship takes a really big hit here, and nothing Heinz does can fix it. At the same time, though, Perry’s almost feeling better now than he did before, because even if he can’t trust his nemesis, he knows he can trust Coby. They truly are an inseparable duo...

Until they become a trio?

One day, a new platypus robot walks in the yard and he looks like a mess. He’s covered in scratches and wounds so deep that his wiring is coming through and sparking and it looks like he’s about to explode at any minute. That ends up being the original Perry robot, and he’s not very happy to see another platypus in his yard. Phineas and Ferb see him and they take him in because he obviously needs help, and once they’ve fixed him up, they decide they’re going to keep this new platypus and name him Bartholomew. Everything is sunshine, unicorns, and rainbows because yippee-doo, their family grows, right?

But Perry and Coby aren’t stupid. Contrary to popular believe, robot animals don’t wander into yards for no reason, no matter how many times the boys think it’s happened to them. So the three of them finally get the chance to talk, and it doesn’t really go well. Neither Perry was aware that there were Perry clones, and though they can sort of figure it out because they both have their one-of-a-kind locket with a picture of them and the boys as babies (though Perry is very disappointed to realize this is actually a picture of Bartholomew as a baby, not him), they’re not happy about it. The three of them head down to Perry and Coby’s shared lair and demand answers from Monogram, who basically explains that yes, they did clone Bartholomew, but they’d been looking for hi for days and the boys were getting antsy. They didn’t want to put the kids in danger if they discovered something they weren’t supposed to, so they basically said fuck it, let’s make a new Perry. Monogram neglects to mention that they’ve done this numerous times before and that every Danville platypus is a Perry clone.

Bartholomew and Perry don’t get along at first, and since neither of them have any reason to dislike Coby, he ends up being the mediator most of the time. Monogram tries to assign both platypuses to the same mission once, and Coby shuts that down immediately because they would literally murder each other. Bartholomew never met Heinz so that stays Perry’s thing, even though they’re still on pretty rough terms. Coby and Bartholomew do their own stuff, and for the most part, the two platypuses only interact when they have to -- when the boys want all their pets together or when Monogram needs to see all three agents.

And then Monogram realizes that he doesn’t really need three agents to watch two boys, so he reassigns Bartholomew to the Regurgitator case. He figures Perry’s been there the longest and Coby’s more familiar with the older Phineas and Ferb. Bartholomew’s been gone for so long that he’s probably the least useful one there. Monogram delivers the news to him alone, and when he refuses to take no for an answer, Bartholomew rebels. He explains the whole predicament to Perry and Coby, and while Coby sympathizes, Perry agrees with Monogram. Neither of them want to do anything to help, so Bartholomew basically says “fuck it, I’ll give you a reason to help me,” and reveals his identity to Phineas, Ferb, and Candace. At that point, there’s no reason for Perry and Coby to keep theirs a secret, because the kids are smart enough to figure it out themselves. Now that they’ve all revealed their identities, they’re all at risk of relocation if OWCA catches them (except Bartholomew who’s probably in more danger than them because he directly defied orders to do this, but come on, after the shit he’s seen, he can deal with them). In a desperate attempt to keep the family together, the three of them, accompanied by the kids and all their friends, start an uprising against OWCA. Perry decides to meet up with an old friend, Dennis the Rabbit, for a little help because he knows Dennis is just as pissed at OWCA as they are. 

I feel like that should be enough to reform OWCA, but because we still have a fuck ton of AUs left, it’s just enough to convince OWCA to lay off the punishments a little bit. The family gets to stay together, but only if the kids lose their memories. Just for kicks, Dennis gets to join the Flynn-Fletchers’ pet squad, too, but he comes with a collar this time that has his name so Candace stops calling him Mr. Cutie Patootie. Otherwise, everything goes back to normal, and now there are four animal agent robot thingies living with the Flynn-Fletchers, which is exceptionally weird because, again, the agents don’t typically have host families. Still, at least they kids are being watched, right?

One night, Heinz breaks into OWCA for one of his schemes, and he discovers the Perry cloning program. He only gets to read some of it because most of it is classified, but he gets the gist. He’s not sure what to do with this information, so he just kinda leaves and pretends he never saw it. But when he sees Perry the next day, he decides that’s not something he can just leave alone. He tries to get access to the files with Perry’s DNA and with Carl’s, but neither of them work so he somehow copies Monogram’s handprint and uses that. He’s in the middle of reading all about the program and all the different Perrys they’ve made and how different ones have been lost and/or destroyed, and then Monogram walks in. In the original au, Heinz destroys the machine, destroying the clone Perry in the process, and runs from OWCA to find the real Perry. I don’t particularly want this Perry to die, nor do I want Heinz to go on a wild goose hunt when the original Perry is literally Bartholomew and probably like two miles away, so that’s not gonna happen. Instead, Heinz promises he’s not going to do anything with this information and he leaves.

When he fights Perry the next time he tells Perry all about what he found. He admits that he tried hacking in with Perry’s handprint and with Carl’s and that he eventually had to use Monogram’s. He explains that the whole idea makes him incredibly uncomfortable and feels too evil, even for him, and that he almost destroyed the machine because it would end the program, but he decided against it because he likes Perry a lot, even if it’s just a clone of him and even if the feeling obviously isn’t mutual, and he wasn’t going to do that to the guy. He just figured this is something he should make sure Perry is aware of, because it sounds like it could have consequences.

It doesn’t have any dire consequences, but it does make Perry very happy. He’d been really iffy around the guy after the whole “turning him evil” thing, so this means a lot. Heinz had no reason to tell him any of this. He really just admit all these things that he knew could make Perry very uncomfortable just because he thought Perry should know the truth, and that’s not even taking into consideration that he has no idea how OWCA would respond if they knew Heinz had told Perry anything. Of course, Perry already knew about the cloning program (though not about the Danville platypuses; that one is new), so he’s not too phased by it. That helps bring their relationship back closer to the level of trust they used to have.

Perry goes home and explains it all to Coby, Bartholomew, and Dennis. None of them are comfortable with the newfound knowledge that there are, like, 50 Perrys out there, but hey, that’s life, right? Bartholomew kinda stops hating Perry as much now that he knows there wasn’t just one Perry that replaced him, and that’s it’s really been a big cycle that OWCA is prepared to continue if given the opportunity. When Bartholomew stops being as mean to Perry, Perry starts liking him a little more, and it kinda helps mend their relationship too.

And now it’s Last Day of Summer, except after the boys get sucked out of the universe, Perry does, too. He’s too disoriented to really process what’s going on until the boys have already noticed that he’s standing there on all fours, so his cover’s officially blown. Together, they have to figure out how to get back home. The rest of the day pretty much goes as it does in the episode, and in the end, one is okay. Heinz turns good, which means Perry now has to meet him in secret because he’s a robot and not supposed to have friends but that’s okay. He can deal with that. 

For some reason or other, Perry accidentally “has babies” because he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time when three platypus eggs appeared. They end up being Horatio, Ornithorhynchus (Ornith), and Anatinus (Ana). Hey, you said all the AUs, and there are two Dad!Perry AUs so thsi is what we got lmao. Horatio is a lot like Perry overall, Ornith is a lot like the Agent P side of Perry, and Ana is a lot like the mindless pet side of Perry. It’s a lot of work trying to balance looking after three baby platypuses, especially because they’re actual platypuses and he’s literally a robot. Fortunately, he does have his friends to help, and Bartholomew kinda likes having these kids. It almost reminds him of Phineas and Ferb back when Bartholomew first met them. 

But OWCA tries to get the babies to join no matter how many times Perry tells them to fuck off. One day Perry comes home to find OWCA trying to recruit them behind his back and he’s furious. He throws his hat down and quits because if they’re not going to respect him, he’s not going to respect them. That’s kinda OWCA’s first real glimpse into the fact that Perry has feelings because he’s done a good job at hiding them until then, and they don’t really like it but there’s nothing they can do. When the rest of the agents come home and hear what happened, most of them quit, too, but Coby doesn’t. OWCA is going to want someone to keep an eye on the boys regardless of whether Perry, Bartholomew, and Dennis are up for the task, so he might as well take the L so OWCA doesn’t try to run them out of the house and replace them with a different agent. 

Horatio feels really guilty because he thinks this is all the his fault, so he runs away under the impression that Perry will have an easier time dealing with this if there are only two platybabies instead of three. Now Coby has to balance watching the human kids with taking on his cases and making sure Ornith and Ana don’t wander off. Perry, Bartholomew, and Dennis all have to track Horatio down, and they end up finding him at Doofenshmirtz Good Inc. because Heinz saw him on the street and after the clone Perry debacle, he’s a little wary of seeing non-robot baby platypuses on the street by themselves. He’s a little bitter that no one ever told him that Perry had kids, so Perry assures him that he can meet Ornith and Ana soon. He also gets to meet Bartholomew, which blows his mind even more than the platybabies because holy shit it’s the original Perry, so they lowkey become friends too (but not as close as he is with his Perry). Also just for kicks I’m gonna say he befriends a different platypus clone completely unrelated to this and names that Perry “Steven.”

Shit gets real complicated when the kids from the second dimension cross over into the first. Perry immediately informs Perryborg that his cover is still intact and hands him the pamphlet, and Perryborg has to explain it all to the kids. They can’t admit that they know something that the first dimension kids don’t, so they have to pretend they’ve never met before and hit it off like new friends. Meanwhile, Perry has to explain this to his friends, because the only one with any semblance of an idea that this went down is Coby. Perryborg kinda wants to befriend the platybabies, but they’re kinda terrified of him because, you know, he’s a big scary robot that can obliterate sticks. Perryborg’s jealous of Perry because he has this whole big family to himself now, and because he didn’t lose years of his life with them like Perryborg (and Bartholomew) did. It was enough to upset Bartholomew when he came back, and it’s enough to upset Perryborg. Meanwhlie, Perry’s jealous because Perryborg gets to be himself instead of pretending to be a mindless pet, and Perry wishes he could do that, too. In the end, they both decide that they’re probably bette off how they are now, and when the second dimension kids head home, Perry and Perryborg part as friends.

And they all lived happily ever after.

The end.

This is 4400 words and has taken me many, many hours so if anyone actually reads this whole thing I am very sorry but this was my idea of a “quick fix” for yesterday’s depressive episode lmao anyway gtg gonna buy some more discount halloween candy 

[hispydamy618]

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power x Spaceling: Glitch in Space

Summary: After opening the portal, it tears a hole across the dimensions giving an entrance for the New York heroes: Utopix Jones, Georgine Wilson, Gabriel Rodriguez, Oliver Schmidt and Makena Jones, to fall right through. Together, they'll need to recreate the disaster that brought them to Etheria alongside the Princess' Rebellion in order to go back home and fix what was broken... but not before defeating the obstacles on the way.

Disclaimer: Contains spoilers for She-Ra’s season 3 finale and Spaceling’s issue 10-12 events.

(Thank you so much to @catlliecal​ for co-writing this with me!)

Masterlist: Chapter 1 (you’re here!) // Chapter 2 // Chapter 3 // Chapter 4 // Chapter 5 // Chapter 6 // Chapter 7

Word Count: 3.2k 

Check Spaceling out!

Chapter 1: And We Must Be Brave

Sunrise in Ethernia was always a sight to behold, bringing out the beauty of the land. Even the Horde infested Fright Zone looked nice at this time of day. The Kingdom of Snows sparkled like a diamond, the rays of the sun making the ice shine. The flowers in Plumeria reach up to soak in the light, opening up their petals and showing off their color. Salinaes' waters began to twinkle in the light as they kept hitting the city walls. Shadows stretched over Dryl, the sun showing off the kingdom's grand architecture. The hidden kingdom of Mystacor danced in the sky, floating in place as the sun came up and passed them. None of these places compared to Bright Moon at sunrise. every nook and cranny came alive with energy and life, glimmering with hope for all to see. 

Which did not include Adora, who was currently fast asleep. 

She began squirming around, trying to grab something without waking up. Unfortunately, she squirmed around too much and fell out of her bed and onto the floor.

"Urg..." Adora regretfully opened up her eyes, groaning and moaning as she tried to get a sense of her surroundings. Hadn't she gotten over the whole 'falling out of the very tall bed thing' already? According to today, apparently not.

"Oh, I didn't think it could get worse..." she slowly stood up and began stretching, trying to lessen the aches running up and down her. That last fight with Catra really put her through the ringer, even putting aside the whole realty-crumbling-as-far-as-the-eye-can-see fact. Falling onto the floor only aggravated those pains. A hot bath was certainly in order, especially if the First Ones wanted to go over more physical combat skills with She-Ra later on.

Adora let out a huge yawn before she felt her a couple of her bones pop. Going back to sleep now was pointless since the sun was up. She'd only get a few more moments before Bow came in telling her not to sleep the day away, followed up by Glimmer teleporting onto her bed and yanking the sheets off.

"Morning, Adora."

"Morning, Glimmer. Good to see you– what are you doing in here?"

Adora rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't imagining things. There Glimmer was, sitting on the window seat, looking over Bright Moon.

"Oh, you know," Glimmer shrugged. "Just... thinking."

"What kind of thinking?" Adora plopped down on the other side of the window seat.

"Just normal thinking about normal stuff."

"Right, normal thinking. Not processing-what-just-happened thinking."

"Totally not that!" Glimmer's voice cracked on the last word.The two sat in silence, watching what remained of the sunrise.

"You know," Adora began, "if you wanna talk about it, I'm here to listen."

"Not really," Glimmer pulled her legs to her chest.

"You sure?" Adora asked, trying to push the envelope as much as she could.

"I'm sure... I don't wanna think about it unless I have to."

"Got it..." Adora clicked her tongue. She shuffled around a little, the air heavy with unspoken words. It's not like Adora could blame Glimmer. Even if Angelica was alive, she was sealed away. Sure, Etheria was safe from being ripped apart by space-time itself, but nothing felt right. It had barely been a day and the lack of one prominent face was already very noticeable. While Adora had never had a good mother, she couldn't help but think about how heartbroken Glimmer must be.

Hopefully she would open up soon.

And yet, dozens of dimensions away, another planet dealt with a less disastrous situation. Most specifically at New York... on a young girl's house. Makena's.

"Make yourselves at home!" Makena smiled at her two guests, Georgine and Utopix, while trying to unlock the door. 

"Oh, this'll be fun!" Utopix excitedly waited by Georgine's side, who kept him close at all times. It hadn't been weeks since she decided to confess her love to him by printing her lips on his... yet she decided to protect him with such ferocity and valor. 

"Why, hello!" Gabriel greeted the two lovebirds, leaning near Oliver's grumpy self.

"Hello, guys!" Utopix immediately reacted at his interaction by happily waving at him, unlike Georgine who glanced away at the discomfort of noticing Oliver there. Not that she cared, but she'd rather not deal with it right now.

"Oh, shoot..." she spoke out like a curse. 

Hours have passed and Georgine had explained the uncomfortable situation that Utopix and her had to face earlier that week: a doppelgänger barging in her house and intimidating Utopix... letting him know of his existence. 

"A doppelgänger?" Makena asked in concern.

"Yeah... We saw him a few days ago," Georgine replied, keeping her head low.

"What did he look like?" Makena added another question as she handed her a pencil and a blank piece of paper for her to sketch the stranger's face. She knew that such ability was one of Georgine's skills, so it'd be easy for her to try and replicate the unwanted individual's features. It wasn't that hard to remember it either. She had checked Uto's, as she called him, video log to understand what had happened that night. 

"Kinda like Uto, but his hair was..." Georgine allowed the pencil to do the work for her.

After she was done sketching, she allowed her body to rest against the chair she was sitting on. Makena's hand rested on Georgine's shoulders as she contemplated the illustration. 

"Oh." Makena didn't know what else to expect. The illustration looked quite like Utopix, just a tad bit different.

"Every good villain needs a name!" Gabriel interfered into their conversation as he prepared a chess board to keep Oliver entertained. "What about 'Otu'?" Gabriel's imagination run wild as the doppelgänger-needs-to-kill-the-hero situation was placed upon him. It bothered Georgine at times, but for once she'd let it pass.

"I guess so..." she said, holding the illustration near her face. "Takara must have sent him to take us off guard." Georgine assumed. "'Otu' managed to turn off Sabrina..." she added.

"That's awful..." Makena's concern instantly invaded her once more. "I-Is she okay? Oliver can fix her!!"

"Enlighten me," Georgine held Sabrina's... body up which was covered by a blanket which easily slipped off.

Oliver immediately analyzed the problem and decided to reveal his diagnosis. "If she's turned off, then she'll eventually turn back on. We can't force it." 

Utopix's curiosity jumped at his words. "How do you know that?" It's not that he was amused that a foreigner knew basic Sardkenofian technology. It was the fact that he quickly came to a conclusion without hesitating... why? Oliver nearly stuttered, his head trying to come up with an excuse to satisfy the robot's curiosity.

"Checkmate!" Gabriel shouted; easily winning the chess game that Oliver barely paid attention to. 

"Let's just get to fight practice already." Georgine merely seemed to suggest.

Once they were all at the bluntly painted basement, Georgine began wrapping some sport tape around her knuckles. 

"Tsk... Mine is a lot better," Oliver commented on Makena's basement, as if there was supposed to be something more than just that.

"Lil' brat." Georgine shook her head as a mere reaction. "Either way, just watch and learn for now."

Makena giggled at their interaction, attracting her sweet kitten Smokey who simply posed by her. "Aww, Smokey..." she caressed him, attempting to make him sleepy.

But miles above the sky, that intimidating doppelgänger was being submitted to horrid punishment. His skin barely holding itself together after the many punches and slaps that Takara exposed him to. His target of destroying Utopix Alle Jones had been consumed by the slightest feeling in his non-existent heart. But he hadn't shown any sign of it when he paid him a visit, so what was really going on?

"I gave you a target and you failed miserably, 36." Takara angrily spoke to "Otu", a.k.a. as Experiment 36, merely giving the idea that she had tried this sort-of thing before. "Hit it." Takara ordered Blu, her other henchman, to activate the oh-so-painful electricity that ran across Otu's body mercilessly. "I hope that you don't disappoint me again," her voice delivering a statement and a threat.

"Ma'am... It seems that the squad has moved location." Blu pointed out as he observed the main screen.

"Where are they right now?"

"Ameritania Hotel."

"Okay, 36." Takara glanced at him, who was trying his best to recover from such treatment. "This'll be your chance to prove that you're not useless," she said, assigning him his next mission. "Make sure Uto suffers." Her usage of Georgine's nickname for Utopix in Otu's ears made him tremble, fully engaging into his armor.

The gang, unbothered by any of the events that had happened during that week, decided to sneak in one of the bedrooms at Ameritania Hotel, one of the most prestigious hotels in New York. They didn't complain... Georgine had done some very sketchy in the past: breaking into cars of her friends' exes, graffiting a bully's garage door, among other things.

"How come that they let us in?" Utopix watched the rain slipping down the window's glass.

"The receptionist's a friend of mine." Georgine replied, as if their presence wasn't a problem that could said person fired.

"Oh, that's cool!" Utopix united to the unbothered feeling that the others were in. 

"So, why are we here exactly?"

"You kidding? Free food!" Gabriel cheered up, as Oliver was munching on a couple of chips from a big bowl.

Suddenly, a lightning stroke in the sky, catching Utopix's attention but also making him flinch. Georgine found it adorable. She'd assume that Sardkenof had a climate similar to Earth's, but it seemed that he was mostly bothered by the sound than anything else. 

"It happens when it rains," she simply commented on it, placing a hand on his shoulder for reassurance.

"Well, it's horrible..." Utopix caressed his other arm in discomfort, despite feeling Georgine's.

"It doesn't have to be if you don't want it to." Georgine's fingers gently brushed his hand, meaning to intertwine said fingers with his. 

"You look so adorable together!" Makena's head popped from underneath the sheets she was hiding in. 

"Oh, shut up. We were too." Georgine objected, recalling the time that they used to share said feelings back in their youth.

"Earthlings date the same gender?" Utopix learned something new from their culture, to say the least.

"Yeah, but some are picky about it." Georgine added to said information.

But their heartfelt moment was interrupted by a blurry dark maroon sight from the other side of the window. "Uh, guys... Is that who I think it is?" Gabriel commented on it.

"Oh no..." Georgine instinctively placed her arm in front of Utopix, despite the other not having entered the building yet.

How horrid was it for Utopix to be able to contemplate Otu's smirk from afar, letting him know that something was going to be wrong, that something was going to happen. Either to him, or his new friends. As if called by a cue, Utopix's arms were wrapped around Georgine's chest to stop her from any sudden movement. 

"Goddamn it. It's that punk again!" Georgine leaned against the window, bringing Utopix forward with her. 

Makena's motherly nature kicked in. "Georgie, language!"

Takara thought that she had them all under her grasp, that she'd finally be crowned victorious after many weeks of wanting to eliminate what was, supposedly, left of the Jones family. But not just yet. Before Oliver could create any plan of defense, a big blast of lightning had hit the sky once again, making Utopix flinch yet again and refuge on Georgine's strong arms. 

And suddenly... silence. 

The gang took a better look at the sky from the window. Four of them knew what New York's weather was like, and it clearly wasn't like that. Seconds later, a minuscule purple light appeared on the center of gray cloudy sky, obliterating every piece of darkness 'round every corner in seconds. 

"What in the name of the sweet heck is that!?" Gabriel shouted in both fear and excitement. 

Oliver quickly jumped to a conclusion. Again. "It's a wormhole... A portal! Get out of here! Now!" He pressed a button on his smart watch; equipping Makena, Gabriel and Georgine with special gear that they had grabbed beforehand.

Georgine immediately scooped Utopix in her arms, running downstairs and to the hotel's entrance. As they joined the sea of people evacuating the hotel, the bright light shone brighter, vacuuming everything on its way. Cars, signs, trees... even people.

"Makena!" Georgine shouted in desperation, witnessing how her friends were lifted up into the sky and disappearing into the hole in the sky. Her feet meant to stick to the ground to the best of her ability, but a fire hydrant had prevented her from doing so. 

"W-Where are we going!?" Utopix's eyes were closed, his hands gripped onto Georgine's back whenever he felt their weight being lighted. His eyes shredding tears, fearing what might happen next. 

"Just... close your eyes." Georgine, out of options, embraced him closely as their bodies entered the purple-esque portal.

Otu observed in shock, until a dreadful voice in his communicator snapped him back to reality. "Well!? What are you waiting for, 36? Follow them!" Takara demanded from him, meaning to sacrifice him if it meant that the others had been obliterated by whatever there was in that portal. Hesitantly, but firmly, Otu rocketed from the roof he was standing on and onto the remaining waves of the terrifying portal. 

And just like that, the portal was closed. As if someone had pulled a switch and turned it off... or more likely, a sword.

The tan-haired girl had waited for a light... a soft voice that'd wake her up saying 'Welcome to Heaven', or anything at all. Instead, her eyes had opened to a soft colored sky. Gentle chirps and water waves made her realize that she was somewhere else. A pair of blinks helped her double-vision adjust to a strange one-eyed creature that shouted once it notice that she was conscious to which she yelled and slapped it off, making it run off to the purple-tainted trees. "W-What is...?" her hands felt the sharp glass around her but also alerted her of something else. "Utopix... Uto! UTO!"

"G-Georgie!" Utopix's frighted voice cried out from one of the trees, holding onto one of its branches for dear life. "H-Help..."

"It's okay, baby. Just let go," her arms were open-wide to catch him in case he fell.

Utopix's eyes widened at the idea and immediately shook his head in disapproval. "H-Hmm!"

"It's okay, sweetie. I'll catch you, I promise." 

"G-Georg-AH!!" 

Without any more words escaping from his mouth, the branch decided to break. Thankfully, his loved one had catch him perfectly, avoiding any accidents. "Are you okay, lovely?" Her emerald eyes stared into his with an expression of I-told-you-so, nearly smirking at his reaction. 

"D-Don't do that..." 

"Do what? Hmm?" Her nose ran up his sensitive neck, occasionally peppering it with gentle kisses, making him giggle as a soft tone of green appeared on his cheeks. 

"Utopix? Georgine?" Oliver grunted as he massaged his head from the rough landing. "W-What? Where are we?"

"OLIVER!" Gabriel ran up to him, hugging his sides, not wanting to let go. "I thought you were dead! I thought I was dead!"

"What the- uh! Let go of me!"

"Never!"

Georgine snickered at their somewhat-sweet reunion, placing Utopix to a side as she helped Makena get up from the strangely colored grass. "Are you okay?"

"Y-Yes... Where are we?"

"I have no idea," she clenched her fists as she observed the unntreathening space. "We better get moving." 

Once again, Georgine scooped Utopix from the ground, keeping him close to her warm chest. "Sorry, I should've asked."

"N-No. It's okay. I-I like it."

Her voice lowly hummed, turning into a chuckle. Her face leaned once again near his, planting a kiss on his triangle-painted cheek. Once she started walking, the others followed closed by... not noticing who had followed them.

"36. State your location," Takara's face appeared on Otu's wrist communicator.

"Unknown." Otu quietly spoke. Probably one of the few times he was allowed to do so.

"If you survived, then that means they did too! Follow them and wait for instructions. Is that clear?" 

Otu took a deep breath. Despite being born a few days ago, his opinion of Takara had quickly worsened with time. "Yes." He immediately ended their interaction, making sure to go unnoticed  as he sneaked around the shadows of the forest.

Eventually, the five individuals reached the entrance of the gorgeous golden castle, unsure of what to expect. "Halt there!" General Juliet stopped them from going any further. "What is your business in Bright Moon?"

"Bright Moon?" Georgine concluded that that's where they have ended up at.

"We just want to know what's going on," Makena kindly asked. "I don't think we're supposed to be here."

"Think!?" The guard seemed to nearly fly away when she flinched. "What is that even supposed to-?" 

"Calm down, general." A shadowy figure approached the entrance, but didn't seem to change any of its appearance once it stepped into the light... Shadow Weaver. "I'll take it from here. You go fetch... Princess Glimmer." The general left after letting out a long sigh and doing as she was told. "I don't take orders from you. I shall look for Bow who can look for Glimmer with more ease." Shadow Weaver rolled her eyes upon her statement.

Georgine's trust pattern was instantly altered upon Shadow Weaver's attitude. The way she spoke, the manner of her walking, how her hair swung around like a sharpen knife... she had seen it all before. Her hands gently gripped Utopix's thigh and arm... once he felt it, he looked up at her, then at Shadow Weaver. A similar pattern had fallen onto him as well... oh, brother. 

"I apologize for the unfelt welcoming, though I must ask... what brings you here so unexpectedly?" her dark eyes narrowed at that last word."I think we'll wait for the princess' arrival to discuss that matter," Georgine refrained from answering the question. Her hands kept Utopix even closer to her than ever.

"Very well, then. I suggest you wait in the throne room unless you wanna be seen by... unexpected guests." Shadow Weaver turned around, leaving them to their amusement. 

Unexpected guests? Georgine then considered that there might have been something else in that region even worse than her... Not liked she trusted the other's jurisdiction, but she'd want to avoid any casualties for Utopix's sake, so she entered the palace after the others had gone in.

"Oh. My. Gosh." Bow nearly jumped on his toes as General Juliet gave him the news. "New people!? L-Like- what? Horde soldiers? Princesses?" he then gasped as an epiphany hit him. "What if they're here from a broken dimension and want to take our souls!?"

"Bow! Just go find the princess, please! Once we know what's going on with... them, I'll decide what to do."

"Okay!" he then stopped his tracks and turned around to see her. "...why are you making me get Glimmer and not you?"

"Just GO!" Juliet seemed to nearly spit fire at him.

After Bow finally snapped from his fanboying illusions, he breathed deeply before entering Glimmer's room, noticing Adora and Glimmer standing near each other... and rightfully so. 

"Uh, guys...  there's some people here that I think you may want to meet."

[recentanimenews]

FEATURE: 5 Anime That Seem a Lot Like Isekai (But Aren't)

  Isekai is a pervasive and imminently popular genre in anime right now, every season we find ourselves with more and more unfortunate characters who find themselves transported one way or another to a new world. So what if I told you there were actually even more isekai out there than you even realized? 

  Just look at this season's Tokyo Revengers, a story about a down-and-out guy named Takemichi who, after a tragedy rocks his life, is sent to the past and given the chance to change fate. Once working a lame job and dealing with normal problems, Takemichi is suddenly thrust into the life of a young gang member — a whole new world for him. When you think about it, for Takemichi 12 years ago is so different it might as well be a different world, and the chance to start over and gain a new lease on life is a core tenet of isekai. In other words, while unconventional, Tokyo Revengers is kind of an isekai in its own right.

  If that blows your mind, let me introduce you to five more anime you might not think of as isekai, but have secretly been part of this popular genre all along!

    Zombie Land Saga

  An idol show with bite — sometimes, literally. Zombie Land Saga follows a group of seven girls and their overly enthusiastic manager as they try to bring attention to the titular Saga Prefecture through their work as pop stars. The twist? They're all zombies from various periods in the past, ranging from the 1800s to 2011, resurrected in the year 2018. This sudden shift in age causes all of them to have different kinds of culture shock as they engage with things that might be new to them, like social media, and pine for things more common in their old "worlds." Though they are all Japanese, none of them are from current times, so we get to see each of them acclimate to their new "world" in their own ways, much like an isekai protagonist. Sort of like seven isekai in one!

  As a bonus, the protagonist Sakura initially dies in the most stereotypical isekai way — from being hit by a truck.

    Dr. STONE

  In most isekai, the hero is moved or transported to their new world in one way or another. Not in Dr. STONE — not only does Senku not have to move, he stays in place for over 3,000 years! While he was living in our current world, a sudden flash turned everyone on the planet into stone, leaving Senku and the rest of humanity stuck inside rocks seemingly forever. Senku eventually manages to escape his stone shell and emerges in an unfamiliar world — still the planet Earth, in the very same spot he was frozen, but with all traces of civilization completely erased by time. Now he has to use his knowledge of science to try and achieve progress as fast as possible to get humanity back where it was before the flash, and maybe even find a way to save all the people petrified thousands of years ago. Senku’s world may be nominally the same place but it actually couldn’t be any more different, and like any good isekai hero, he has to use his wits to save it!

    ERASED

  Much like Takemichi in Tokyo Revengers, ERASED's Satoru is sent back to the past after the murder of a loved one and is given the chance to prevent her death as well as a number of other tragedies. Unlike in Tokyo Revengers, Satoru is sent all the way back to elementary school, creating a very different dynamic for his story and adjustment to his new surroundings. Satoru must deal with being an adult in a child's body, masquerading as a normal kid while trying to unravel a mystery that proves to be much larger and darker than he ever anticipated. Watching him navigate a child's world is both amusing and enlightening. When seen from an adult's perspective, the world of kids feels contradictory, alien in many ways yet familiar in some other surprising ones, much like the world of our favorite isekai.

    Kyousougiga

  Kyousougiga takes place in a fantasy alternate dimension Kyoto where anything that can be imagined seems to be possible. Normally separate from the "real" world, the story really kicks off when a girl named Koto forces her way into this "mirror world" and follows her as she spends her days in Kyoto trying to find a way back to her original home. This is technically a more literal "isekai" than most on this list, since Koto is in an actual fully different universe, but isn't usually thought of as an isekai, probably because Koto wasn't sent to the Mirror Capital — she goes there herself! Directed by Rie Matsumoto, whose boundless creativity you might have seen on display in Blood Blockade Battlefront and the recent Pokemon music video "GOTCHA!", Kyousougiga is great if you're looking for a more traditional isekai in form if not in function.

    Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet

  Ledo is a soldier involved in a galactic war involving superweapons, squid aliens, and intelligent AI — that is, until in one battle, he and his robot Chamber are knocked into a wormhole and sent lightyears away. Found by a caravan of ships on a water-covered planet, Ledo and Chamber discover that the wormhole has sent them all the way to Earth, the birthplace of humanity. Ledo and Chamber have to adjust to life in a new world they thought was just a myth, without all the technology and conveniences of their old world, while uncovering some long-forgotten truths about the past along the way. While most isekai protagonists don't start in a world as advanced as Ledo's, moving from a technologically advanced setting to a more simple one is an isekai tradition, and while Earth may not be in the same galaxy, in this case, it might as well be a different world altogether. Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet has all the hallmarks of an isekai but with a sci-fi twist!

    And there we have it — five more shows for you to check out if you're itching for more isekai but think you've drained the well. Or maybe you love the idea of isekai, but you want a new take on the concept and themes it usually comes with. Either way, all of these shows have what you're looking for, so while you're waiting on new episodes of Tokyo Revengers, give them a try!

  Do you have a favorite that you think is secretly an isekai? Let us know in the comments below!

      David Lynn can be found obsessing over Fate/Grand Order on Twitter @navycherub.

    Do you love anime? Do you love writing? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: David Lynn

[ralfstrashcan]

Fire Messages

A (long long long, let's not talk about it) while ago the dear @toughpaperround​ asked me about my thoughts on fire messages... and here they finally are.

Like most things in Shadowhunters fire messages come in two styles (other examples are portals, swords and runes) because at some point they experienced a random visual makeover. Both designs raise different questions and I'll get to those in a moment. First though it's interesting to note that the appearance of a fire message doesn't seem to depend on whether it's created by a shadowhunter or a warlock. On that note, are other downworlders able to create fire messages as well? Since shadowhunters operate them with their steles and warlocks with magic? I guess seelies should be able to as well since they also have magic (though they seem to prefere their nature-birds-leaves-whispering-on-the-wind way of communication). But what about vampires and werewolves? I don't recall either of thoses species ever sending a fire message on-screen, though it might have been mentioned at some point that one of them did, and I forgot. In any case I find it intriguing/ridiculous that fire messages look the same regardless of who creates them. Angelic energy and demonic magic don't really operate in similar ways so why would their fire messages look alike? Distinctive appearances like with the portals would make more sense.

Moving on to the first style! As far as I remember this style can only be spied once in the series, namely at the end of 1x06 when Izzy breaks things off with Meliorn

Which, now that I'm thinking about it, isn't that the shadow world equivalent of breaking up via text? Rude, Izzy. Anyway! The rune she draws at the bottom of the paper

is, as the trained eye immediately sees

Next, the paper goes up in flames

and Izzy lets go of it so she doesn't burn her fingers. Not a trace of the paper is left afterwards.

I think it's pretty safe to assume that the fire message burns into existence in midair wherever Meliorn is at this moment in time. Which... is probably the seelie realm? So can fire messages just travel between realms no big deal? Imagine the possibilities! Asmodeus could be bothering Magnus all day! Lilith could be terrorizing all Clave members via fire message harassment! This is hilarious XD

I have questions though! 1) How does the fire message know a) who the recipient is and b) where the recipient is? Canon never addresses or indicates either of those things so there's literally nothing to go off of. Re a): To me it seems most reasonable that the sender focuses on the person they want the message to receive while sending the message off via rune or magic. It's unlikely that writing the name on the paper alone determines the recipient because i) there exist people who share names and ii) you couldn't mention anyone in your fire message without accidentally cc-ing them, which, impractical and awkward. So intent seems the most plausible thing. Which in turn begs the question if you can mass-message people if you think of more than one person while sending? Probably not. In canon Magnus messages each warlock individually about that ritual he wants to try in 3x09. Might have been for courtesy's sake, so he can address every warlock individually with name but seems unlikely since he was under time pressure. Aside from that this would imply miraculous paper replication and physics says no. Re b): No way. This makes no sense whatsoever except when fire message magic is the ultimate omniscient might that can track anyone anytime anywhere. And if that power really existed in the world then how come no one has used it to currupt everything? Surely if you can access this pool of knowledge to send innocent little breakup messages you could find a way to use it for grand evil as well? I find it hard to believe that no one's tried and succeeded so far. Just look at how much effort shadowhunters put into tracking people all the time! They'd be stupid to waste their resources like that if there was a way to instantly-know the whereabouts of someone. Anyway, this is utter bs and just like the hp owls all over again and I simply refuse.

2) Who can you send fire messages to? My knee-jerk answer would be to anyone you know, both personally and more generally in the sense that you are aware of their existence. You focus on them while sending the message, bam, they get it. But. Spam. Spam is a thing. Do you have any idea how much hate mail and general pranks higher-ups would get if they could be (anonymously!) addressed by anyone? Magnus probably had a whole phase where he did nothing but trashtalk shadowhunters who pissed him off XD I read in this post (which is the one toughpaperround sent my way and which I'm kinda answering with this) the possibility that you can only fire message people you've either met in real life before or who you've established some kind of fire-messaging-you-is-okay-connection – kinda like exchanging phone numbers. Everyone has a phone but you can only call someone whose number you have. You can even hand-wave your way through issue b) and claim that the fire message tracks the recipient through that connection and that's how it can find them no matter where they are. I've thought about it for a while and while I think this is the most logical explanation I don't think it makes sense in-universe for how fire messages are used, or for what the purpose of a fire messages really is. Phones are inarguably more practical because you don't need an extra pen and paper to send off a message. So, why would someone use a fire message instead of a phone? Well, either the person you want to reach doesn't have a phone (*cough* Meliorn *cough*) or the message is so important and time-sensitive that you need the other person to know right now and while you can ignore a text or a call, you can lose your phone or it can die, it's kinda difficult to miss a burning piece of paper flying in your face. Fire messages are like extreme emergency phone calls. And for those it would be high-key impractical if you could only send them to someone you have already met previously. (Of course this is just speculation and doesn't even make sense historically since fire messages were around long before phones and likely were the only means of communication then and not just reserved for emergencies (or maybe they were since paper and ink was precious back then?!). And of course determining the nature of a thing by going 'It would be most practical if it was like this' is highly unscientific. Anyway.) Honestly, my personal take on this is still that you can send a fire message to anyone and the show simply ignoring everything that this implies (aka Alec getting at least 10 lewd fire messages per day from secret admirers) because it wasn't relevant to the plot.

Leaving behind questions that apply to fire messages generally this last one is design-specific. 3) To what exactly is the teleportation, that clearly happens here, limited? The paper, the ink. Uh-huh. What if you glue something to the paper? For example, idk, a GPS tracker? Would that allow you to learn the location of the person you messaged? Probably not, or they would have been very stupid not to do that with Valentine. Even if you could only message someone you have met in person and/or established a special fire message connection with there are still enough Circle members around in S1 who surely had his fire message phone number. (Or did he destroy the connection? Can you fire-message-block someone you no longer want any attachments to?) What happens if you fire message someone who's dead? Does the fire message hover over their grave for the rest of eternity? We'll never know. I'll allow that there is special fire message paper and special fire message ink that can teleport. Anything else tacked on would be left behind. Paper and ink could even be extra-charmed so they can pass through dimensions or whatever. Still sounds fake – because i) how would you spell paper so it can pass any ward (Magnus at some point messages Jem who's probably chilling in the Silent City or something) and ii) if there's a way to charm paper and ink so it can be teleported, why limit yourself to those? Why not put that same magic on your GPS tracker and you're ready to go? – but I tried okay. Whatever, special fire message paper and ink grow on special trees in Idris and their special teleportation magic can't be replicated. There, mystery solved.

The second style fire messages acquire is both more and less logically pleasing. It's more logically pleasing because it eliminates the whole teleportation issue since apparently the fire message just flies from sender to recipient but sadly this creates its own set of issues, first of all how tf does the fire message fly from sender to recipient? Does it have eyes? How does it navigate the streets by itself? What about the secrecy the shadow world allegedly tries to uphold? It also doesn't solve the GPS tracker problem (if anything it makes it worse) because who's stopping you from sending a nice little message to Valentine and then just, following the flying message to his secret hideout?

The journey itself isn't unproblematic either. How quick are those things flying? In 3x06 exactly 54 seconds pass between Magnus sending off his message to Jem and receiving an answer. So in less than a minute the message flew to Jem, he read it, he composed an answer, and it made the way back. No wonder these messages are burning at the edges if they're so quick. (Yes, that was sarcastic.) They also don't seem to slow down when approaching their intended target. Magnus even pushes Clary out of the way because of it.

This is so confusing. So the fire message can navigate through Magnus's apartment no problem but it would have chopped Clary's head off because she was in the way? Was Magnus just being dramatic? I mean I'd totally buy that on any given day, but the situation was a bit too serious for that especially because it isn't treated as a joke to lighten the mood but just like Magnus casually pulling Clary out of danger because that's what he always does. It makes no sense whatsoever. This also begs another question, since fire messages seem to seek out their target quite vehemently. If you're locked in an air-tight room, could you send a fire message to someone, and the fire message on its pursuit to fulfill its duty could help you create a crack in the walls? Could you actually break out via fire message? What if you grab the paper real tight? Could you fly out of a canyon on a fire message? Now, on to the last part of the fire message's journey: the landing. How. How do you catch something that moves so quickly instead of just swatting it away? In the post I mentioned before someone wrote that catching stuff like that works on auto pilot if you have the practice and I'll just take your word for it... but what if you don't have the practice? Personally I'm shit at catching shit. I'd get smacked in the face by 95% of the fire messages sent my way. And considering the speed and the sharp edges of the fire messages that can't be healthy. My poor face. Why do I say the fire message would slap my face and not docilely settle into my palm? Because that's what I honestly believe. I think if you fail to catch a fire message it just flops in your face and sticks there (that should also wake you up if you're asleep, lol) because I mean, look at those trajectories.

Mind that the fire message stays on its initial course even after Magnus / Alec / Izzy moves their hand to a position to catch it. That’s because it wasn't aiming for the hand. It was aiming for the face.

It only gets weirder from here on out.

Remember 3x07? Imogen gets stabbed by Possessed!Jace and uses her last moments to notify Alec of Jace's whereabouts (instead of, y'know, activating her healing rune which takes two seconds, sending the message after and keep on living. SIGH). Fair enough, but the thing is this

Where's the paper? Where's the ink?

What is happening? What is she doing there?!

And then-- and then--

Yeah Alec, I'm as shocked as you are. Where tf did that paper (and presumably ink for writing) come from?! Can shadowhunters suddenly create matter from nothing?? Physics is crying in the corner!! I have so many questions!!

[gascon-en-exil]

How do you contend with your religious background and your job? Not judging, just curious

To answer that I have to ensure that you’re familiar with

1) Catholicism. I don’t many non-Catholics realize this, but the modern Church is substantially less anti-gay than most other conservative Christian denominations. When I was in the parochial school system in the early 2000s it was already part of the standard sex ed curriculum to address sexuality as an innate quality given to us by God that cannot be changed, which you could then use to conclude firstly that the Church does not support homophobic violence and secondly that it does not support conversion therapy which was something I wasn’t even aware existed until I was at university and was surrounded by Protestants for the first time in my life. Of course gay sex is still a mortal sin, but then so is every other kind of extramarital sex including masturbation and the use of contraceptives which as you might imagine dulls the effect considerably. Besides, that’s what the sacrament of Confession is for, and thanks to some entertaining moral loopholes I picked up on from my high school religion classes I only confess to the sex when I have an orgasm which is not all that common - certainly less common than my masturbatory emissions.

2) French Catholics specifically. While all Catholics nominally answer to Rome -we’re not like Eastern Orthodox Christians who have separate churches and patriarchs for each nation - each predominately Catholic nation/culture has a unique history with the faith and correspondingly different ways of engaging with the Church. France is sometimes referred to as the first daughter of the Church as it was the first nation to be founded under Christian dominion following the fall of the Roman Empire, but our 1500+ years of history with the Church has long been a contentious one. It’s little surprise that modern France is now one of the most atheist countries in Europe given the tendencies of our leaders and our people as a whole to think of our allegiance to the Church in primarily practical terms, to be used when the association would benefit us and discarded when religion becomes too troublesome. We acknowledge Catholicism as a foundational element of our history and culture but don’t have much use for it now otherwise. My family sent me through Catholic school because it’s the respectable thing to do here, but none of my relatives encouraged genuine piety and indeed frequently mocked people who expressed it - and there are plenty of those in New Orleans between the Spanish, Irish, and some Italians. I hear that this is true in metropolitan France and in Québec, that public expressions of religious devotion are considered to be in poor taste. Which brings me to

3) the Church and Louisiana. It must be said that unlike either our homeland or our brother colony to the north we Louisianais still have a practical use for the Church, which is why it has a much stronger visible presence here. The Protestants of the Bible Belt have been pressing down on southern Louisiana for over two centuries, and Catholicism has been one of our useful weapons in defending ourselves from total assimilation. The Anglos have forced us out of politics and the local economy and made us speak their language, indulged in our cuisine and culture of alcohol and carnal pleasure and endless festivals and gawked at our morbid acceptance of death in our magnificent cemeteries and tolerance for the occult, but they’ll always stop just short where the Church is concerned because their conviction to their Protestant heresies is too strong. Oh, some of them will convert when they marry into old New Orleans families and raise their children Catholic because it’s the fashionable thing to do, but most of the ones with wealth and influence only went so far as to build up Episcopalianism (the US arm of the Church of England, essentially Catholicism with the serial numbers filed off) as something of a rival denomination that doesn’t really rival us so much as give them an excuse to celebrate Carnival and so forth because it’s nowhere near as restrictive as the Calvinist denominations. We still can’t afford to be as secular as our people elsewhere, but having corrupted the Anglos here into our indolent lifestyles in retaliation for their hostile takeover of Louisiana following the Civil War does have a certain entertaining quality to it. Additionally, New Orleans’s history of sex work stretches back almost to the city’s founding, and being a variation on Parisian sex work with added racial dimensions (that don’t factor into my own practice, but are worth mentioning nonetheless) it’s not surprising that the Church here quietly looks the other way at all the endless decadence. The last thing they want is to seem like those demented Baptists who bus themselves down here every Mardi Gras and Southern Decadence waving their placards about how we’re all going to (their) Hell; helpfully, some of them are thoughtful enough to include anti-Catholic messaging as well, just to make sure that every single local will despise their presence.

To make a very long story short, I’ve never felt any cognitive dissonance between my sexuality (or what I do with it) and my religion, thanks to my particular upbringing encouraging religion without spirituality or even sincerity.

[xwaywardhuntress]

Rock & Roll Mystery (Part Three)

Summary: Round 2 of Scooby-doo featuring Y/N.

Pairings: Dean x reader, Fred x reader

Warnings: Based on the Scooby-Doo & KISS movie. This part is kind of short.

Word Count: 1700+

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural or Scooby-Doo or KISS. This is fanfiction only. Please do not redistribute my writings on other sites, horrible or not. Thanks!

Part One, Two

“Alright gang, let’s look for clues again and split up.” Fred suggested.

Immediately, Velma volunteered herself to be paired with Sam. Shaggy and Scooby were assumed as their own pair.

Fred made his way over to you, “Would you give me the honor of pairing up with me?” Such a gentleman.

You glanced over at Dean who was talking to Daphne. Of course, Dean probably wanted to be paired up with her. It looked like you were going to have to take blondie up on his offer with the two Winchesters paired up with the Scooby gang females. As you were about to answer, Daphne appeared out of nowhere pulling Fred away, “Fred, you’re with me.” Her voice was quite stern.

You blinked in confusion. Daphne had literally appeared from her spot with Dean to where Fred was in a blink of an eye.

Dean made his way over to you with a smile. “I guess that leaves you and me, sweetheart.”

The way the pairs were split up, you and Dean were given the task to check out the areas near the bigger attraction rides. It felt a bit odd to be walking around without some kind of weapon, but this was a cartoon, what could go wrong?

“Velma is really into Sam. I think they are cute together.” You joked.

Dean laughed, agreeing.

You continued, as you avoided looking at Dean this time, “Sorry you got stuck with me. You probably wanted to be paired up with Daphne. I know she’s on your weird fantasy to-do list.”

“Nah, I’d rather be with someone I know has my back if things go bad. I’m sure I’ll have other chances. Or maybe, I’m meant to be with someone else.” The older Winchester shrugged.

You couldn’t help but wonder about what Dean meant in the last part of his sentence.

Before you had the chance to ask, Dean spoke first. “Man, I still can’t believe we got to see KISS. Even though they’re technically the c-word, this is awesome.”

You chuckled, “Yeah, it would be cool if we got to see more of them. It would be way more awesome if we got to stick around for the concert too! I mean, they haven’t toured since 2016 and…” You continued rambling on that you’d been hoping they’d go back on another tour, since the last time they did you all were too preoccupied dealing with Lucifer.

Dean listened with admiration as he began to imagine the two of you singing aloud to ‘Rock and Rock All nite’.

You were both interrupted from your thoughts when two very recognizable screams were heard nearby.

“That sounded like Shaggy and Scooby.” You pointed out.

Dean and Y/N ran towards where they heard the screams, only to find the scarlet witch chasing after the pair of best friends.

“What the hell? She’s flying?” Dean questioned.

“She looks transparent too. A ghost witch?”

“Damn witches.” He shook his head.

“Dean! We need to get her attention away from Scooby and Shaggy!” You called out. Your thoughts went to wishing you had some kind of iron bar, especially if your speculations about the witch of actually being a ghost were to be true. Feeling as if something just appeared in your back pocket, you reached behind, pulling out the iron bar that you had just wished for.

Dean looked at you surprised. “Where did you get that?”

“I don’t know, but get the witch’s attention over here!” You yelled as you prepared to defend yourself, holding the iron bar like a bat. 

Scooby and Shaggy had jumped into the water portion of the water ride to try to escape the witch.

Meanwhile, Dean had yelled insults at the witch, which did catch her attention, but also may have made her more irritated looking than before. “Do you have another one, by chance?” He asked.

You thought about having another one, which you ended up magically pulling from your other back pocket and handing it to Dean.  “Here.”

“You’re going to have to tell me later how you do that.” The older Winchester commented as he too held the iron bar like a bat, ready to take on the witch as well.

As the witch flew towards you and Dean, the blast of rock music caught the both of you off guard. The sound vibration seemed to have passed you two but amplified as it reached the witch who halted in flight as she covered her ears.

From beside you and Dean, the rock music continued as four figures appeared. One by one, the KISS members made a grand entrance, identical to Sailor Moon and her sailor scouts. How did you know that? Dean wasn’t the only one with a nerdy side.

Dean looked very confused.

You did as well.

What really confused the both of you more was watching as each KISS member that announced their presence ended their time in the spotlight with a move that sent a magical attack,  with or without a musical instrument, at the witch. The witch withdrew as the fourth member of the KISS band finished their magical entrance and attack.

You and Dean looked at each other bewildered by the sudden chain of events. You both would have to ask questions later as you spotted Shaggy and Scooby floating on top of the water of the water ride. They weren’t dead, but they were beat from the chase and had passed out from extreme fear.

- - -

After the KISS members led Y/N and Dean, who each carried Scooby and Shaggy, to the park infirmary, the whole gang was reunited. Fred, Daphne, Velma and Sam had all received the news of the attack, as well as had witnessed some of the chasings that occurred throughout the park.

Sam pulled Y/N and Dean off to the side. “You both saw the witch?” Both of you nodded. “So is it our kind of supernatural mystery? Or just the typical person in a mask?”

You looked at Dean as you both answered, “Definitely our kind of supernatural mystery.”

The younger Winchester frowned.

You continued to speak, “It was weird. She was almost ghost-like and floated above the ground…”

“Yeah, it was a good thing Y/N was able to get iron bars out of thin air.” Dean added. “By the way, how did that even happen? You did the same thing with the Scooby snacks from before.”

You shrugged. It just happened and honestly, you weren’t going to question it as it could come in handy in this mystery.

As curious as Sam was about your sudden ability to have items appear out of the blue, his main concern was the witch who may also have been a ghost. “So we’re dealing with a ghost witch?” Sam asked confused.

“Not entirely sure?” You questioned your own knowledge. “We didn’t get a chance to use the iron bars because then they…” You looked over at the KISS members who just entered. “…appeared and did some Sailor Moon moves that sent some crazy magical attacks towards the witch, causing her to leave.”

“Sailor moon moves?” Sam questioned.

“It’s another car-“ Dean cleared his throat. “c-word, where it’s five under aged chicks with really short skirts that fight evil and save the world.”

Both you and Sam looked at Dean surprised.

“And you’ve watched it?” Sam asked concerned for his brother’s hobbies now.

“What?! No!” Dean rebuffed as he started coughing. “Cross my heart and hope to –” He paused for a moment, realizing he probably shouldn’t say die aloud. “Look, I just saw videos about it and then caught this one…” He pointed to you. “…watching it one time in her room.”

Sam rose an eyebrow, still questioning his brother’s words.

Fred came up to the trio, interrupting the private discussion. “Hey guys, KISS wants to tell us all something. I think you three should hear it too.”

With everyone gathered together again around Scooby and Shaggy, who were on the infirmary beds, KISS introduced a woman who was covered everywhere besides her eyes.

“Meet Chikara. She’s a fortune teller in the park.” Starchild shared.

The fortune-teller introduced herself again, this time adding that she came from an alternate universe along with the KISS members. Unfortunately, due to certain circumstances, the KISS members don’t remember this other dimension as they were sent to Earth to protect it from the prophesied return of the Crimson Witch, the witch’s true title.  Along with the band members and herself, the Crimson Witch hails from the alternate universe known as KISSteria. The Crimson Witch plans to use the Black Diamond that KISS uses in their song “Detroit Rock City” to summon the Destroyer to conquer the Earth.

Everyone had a hard time wrapping their heads around this new development, specifically Velma.

“The probability of an alternate universe called KISSteria is highly unlikely.” Velma commented, pushing her glasses up her nose. “You’re likely confusing this alternate universe with the theme park.”

As Velma continued to reason out how impossible it was for an alternate universe, Sam pulled Dean and Y/N off to the side again. “What do you guys think? Do you guys believe the story?”

“We’ve dealt with alternate versions of ourselves before. I don’t see why not.” Dean shrugged in thought. “To think there’s a world that is all KISS themed, that’d be awesome to check out.”

“Hm.” You began sharing your thoughts. “It could be true. Lately, Scooby-Doo and the gang have dealt with actual magic from what I’ve watched. This mystery could be another one of those actual magical mysteries.”

Sam agreed, adding on, “The last time we were here too, there was a real ghost haunting and people actually died, so I think the story could hold true. Who knows, us being here could’ve made it real like last time.”

“Alright then. We stick with the gang and make sure nothing happens to them.” Dean suggested.

Y/N and Sam agreed as all three of them turned their attentions back to the bigger conversation with KISS and the fortune-teller.

“Sam, do you agree with this plan?” Velma asked looking at him as if hoping he wouldn’t.

The taller Winchester was surprised by the sudden question as he looked at Dean and Y/N who both shrugged, “Sorry, what plan?”

Fred spoke up, “KISS got their memories of KISSteria back and are going to take us to defeat the witch before she has a chance to take the Black Diamond.”

“Hold your horses. We’re going to KISSteria?” Dean questioned almost too excitedly.

“How?” You asked the question that seemed to have been avoided.

Fred turned to KISS, “That’s a good question, Y/N. How are we going to get there?”

“Easy. We have a ship and a portal.” The Demon stated with a grin.

Next: Part Four (Final Part)

Here’s some fun gifs from the actual scooby doo movie:

R&RM Tag:

@22sarah08 @monkeymcpoopoo @shameless-danni @blackmissfrizzle @happylittlesuns​ @cheritzie @leahslovelylibrary  @walkerchick007

[dailycharacteroption]

Stormwalker (Ranger Archetype)

 When it comes to nature magic, we’ve seen druids that specialize in channeling the power of storms before. However, it should come as no surprise that other classes do the same, particularly today’s subject, the stormwalker ranger!

While not known for calling down lightning bolts, stormwalkers show great skill in channeling electricity in novel ways, as well as mastering the weather itself.

I’d imagine that this archetype is very common in regions known for their volatile weather, so the variety of terrains they are associated with is pretty broad, and they probably favor foes that are especially vulnerable to electricity. Regardless, they can prove impressive ranged foes regardless.

 This discipline is associated strongly with archery, and so these rangers train extensively with bows.

At their most basic ability, they also learn to channel their magic into their weapons, causing them to crackle with electricity. Later on, that magic becomes all the more potent.

Learning how to use the wind and minimize its effects, these rangers ignore the effects of strong wind, and can even accurately aim their projectiles to accommodate for natural wind.

One of their most uncanny abilities allows them to ride bolts of lightning, firing off a shot before vanishing in a flash and reappearing elsewhere. Note that this is unlike other such magical effects, as they don’t pass through other creatures as a damaging bolt in this case.

More powerful rangers eventually learn the secrets to alter the local weather as well.

At their most powerful, these rangers can use their lightning teleport while firing both before and after their leap, sending attacks from multiple angles.

A fun archetype, the fact they don’t get the bond does mean you won’t be having a companion or buffing allies with favored class features, but adding extra damage and being able to escape to more advantageous locations is good, as is using windy weather to debuff foes while being immune themselves. While situational at first, they can control weather to generate those conditions at higher level. I’d recommend specializing heavily in archery in both feats and spells, maybe stealth as well to strike unseen.

 Their lack of bond means these rangers are perhaps even more loners than others of their class, or perhaps they never developed a tactical sense. Either way, they likely seem aloof to others more so than other rangers.

  Sleeping Eirmanvale is a place where the Dimension of Dreams leaks into the material, and the druidic circle within is very careful to make sure no hostile spirits from that realm escape into the wider world. To this end, the stormwalker Korna recruits the party to deal with a nest of feargaunts that have slipped through.

 Years ago, a teleportation spell gone awry sent Bellindaxa to the surface world. Despite being in a hostile land, she became enamoured with the changing winds and weather above, and learned to harness the power of lightning to her bow. Now the drider lives in quiet communion with nature, limiting her contact with others as much as possible.

 It happened in a literal flash of lightning, the king dead, a smoldering ozone-wafting arrow in his neck, and at the rooftop window where the assassin fired from, nothing but more scorch marks. While the clergy has been summoned to prepare a resurrection spell, this assault cannot be left unanswered.

[meistoshia]

satoshi’s Bonds, Connections, & Bro - dyns with the gods he’s met  :

houou  :     satoshi’s got a Bond(tm) with it, it being the first god he saw & it continuing to reappear in his life throughout his journey, like before his setting off to hoenn & when he decided to start from zero & received a rainbow feather & eventually ended up battling it  ;     he thinks of it as kind of a background presence that he trusts to keep watch of him, even if it’s nowhere near where he actually is, like in spirit kinda   ( except it really is Always keeping watch of him, especially when he’s in mortal danger, as it did with reviving him through the pokemon’s tears after he got caught in the literal crossfire of mew & mewtwo’s battle ) .

mewtwo  :     president of the mewtwo protection squad, the pokemon’s gone through so much that it doesn’t deserve & satoshi just wants it to be happy & be able to trust people  ;     absolutely no hard feelings for it trying to kill him, most gods have.

the orange archipelago bird gods  :     can i get a waffle ??? can i PLEASE get a waffle ???????     never meant to get caught up in their situation but can’t really resent them for it as they weren’t the ones entirely at fault.

lugia  :     they saved the world together & had half a battle the next time they ran into each other, lugia gave him a ride along w/ go, & satoshi had a Moment with it, where their auras resonated & satoshi exclusively heard lugia’s voice, unlike the first time when everyone could hear it  ;     they vibe.

celebi  :     considers the first one he met to be a friend to this day, he & young ookido bonded with it & satoshi grew incredibly attached & was absolutely heartbroken when he thought it would die, seeing it fly off to join the other celebi feeling bittersweet  ;     he didn’t get to develop much of a friendship with the second celebi he met, but any time he remembers it hopes it’s doing okay, wondering if it’s friends with the aforementioned celebi.

latias  :     he really bonded with it in the short time they spent together &, as with the johto celebi, still considers it a friend.

latios  :     while he didn’t share the same closeness with latios, he was still devastated when, as far as anyone present was aware, it died saving alto mare, so you can imagine the shock when he saw tobias at the sinnoh league with a latios on his team  ;     priorities shifted thinking too hard about it to the very bottom of the list & he only got to thinking about it one night about a month later, after which he contacted tobias as soon as he could to have an exchange that essentially went “was that latios with you” “yeah” “i thought it was dead” “long story, it’s better now” “cool” .

mew  :     thinks of it kind of like you’d think of an overly curious kitten that you occasionally see running around your neighborhood stealing trinkets & snacks & sniffing like, everything  ;     he thinks it’s sweet & fun & has literally risked his life for it & wouldn’t hesitate to do it again, but he does feel like it’s maybe a little naive & doesn’t realize some things have serious consequences, which gives him slight worry that, if it weren’t as powerful as it is, it could end up in some serious trouble   ( & because of that he has mixed feelings about go wanting to catch mew  ;     not only because he Knows it & has Gone Thru Some Things with it, but also because he knows it’s childishly innocent & naive ) .

darkrai  :     thinks very highly of it in terms of strong pokemon, which satoshi always vibes with, & is appreciative of its efforts in defending alamos town.

agnome  :     shares a Connection(tm) with it through their Wills  ;     though they separated after the galaxy gang was disbanded, that connection still remains in the background, not enough to tie them together as before, but enough that if he thinks about it enough, he can still feel that connection.

dialga & palkia  :     can i get a waffle ??? can i PLE ---     satoshi wanting pokemon to stop having destructive fights that endanger civilians that didn’t ask to be a part of their crossfire aside   ...   he wholeheartedly believes they deserve better & was very pissed on their behalves when the galaxy gang wanted to abuse their power & is thankful to them for their assistance when arceus came to michina, & even more so to dialga for sending him & the others back in time to help fix things.

giratina  :     sympathizes with it &, despite how things started out with it, really does hope it can be at peace in its dimension.

shaymin  :     despite their highly rocky start, satoshi grew really attached to shaymin & it broke his heart to have to part with it so soon after he finally started liking it  ;     he respects the rascal & hopes it’s doing okay with the other shaymin.

arceus  :     as with giratina, sympathizes with it, & hopes that the past can be forgiven for the sake of the future & that it doesn’t let human error ever create such a rift between it & humanity again.

victini  :     became incredibly attached to it, especially with their resonating auras allowing satoshi to see into victini’s past & feel its emotions, & was devastated & heartbroken when he thought he’d failed to save it despite promising to take victini to see the sea one day  ;     he was overjoyed to see it alive & well &, even if their parting was bittersweet for satoshi, he hopes it’s doing okay & has a reminder stashed away somewhere to visit it if he ever passes through that part of unova again.

zekrom  :     he’s zekrom approved, sharing a similar connection(tm) as with agnome, only through conceptual Ideals  ;     the connection never truly passed into a tangible area, but satoshi felt it nonetheless when he first arrived in unova, believing that, if they were to properly meet, he’d feel that connection again, much stronger.

keldeo  :     shares a Bond(tm) with it, growing attached & protective of it very early on, feeling a duty to help it face its fears in order to save the other sacred swordsmen, that protectiveness winning out against said duty when he saw just how terrified keldeo was  ;     he feels nothing less than pride in its overcoming its fear & becoming proper sacred swordsman material.

meloetta  :     grew very attached in the time they spent together, admiring both its voice & its strength, feeling anger not unlike one he would with his own pokemon at it being captured to abuse its power.

hoopa  :     he cares for that rascal so, so much, he wholeheartedly wants nothing but the best for it & hopes it never has to go through something like what had been happening for like a century ever again.

volcanion  :     he still has some strong opinions about it, but it’s grown on him, & the knowledge that volcanion truly cares about the other pokemon & wants to protect those that can’t defend themselves just as much as he does makes putting up with it much easier  ;     he hopes that it continues to be able to protect the pokemon in that valley & to keep an eye out for magearna..

zygarde  :     while he didn’t get quite as close to squishy as eureka, he still considers it to have been as much part of the squad as any of the other pokemon, holding it high regard as zygarde.

kapu - kokeko  :     has a Bond(tm) with it, it having taken interest in him & giving him a z - ring & a temporary electric z to go with it & luring him into the woods to battle  ;     it kept a curious eye on him &, in a time of urgency for another universe, sent him over to assist, be it to test him or trusting already that satoshi would be able to handle it  ;     the majority of satoshi’s time training in the alola region was building up to getting to battle kapu - kokeko on equal footing, & eventually winning when it came to ultimate z - move vs ultimate z - move.

kapu - tetefu, kapu - bulul, kapu - rehire  :     though he didn’t make as strong a connection with the other island guardians, he still feels thankful for all that they have done in helping him progress in both training & in times of need.

solgaleo  :     needless to say, he very much thinks of it as one of his own, like the pokemon that he watched hatch & took care of as they treated him like a parent ;     even after evolving into a solgaleo, satoshi can’t help but think of it as that tiny hoshigumo - chan that was entrusted to him by the other solgaleo & the lunala so seemingly long ago.