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spacebarbarianweird · 5 months

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The Dead, the Half-Dead and the Undead

Synopsis: Baby Alethaine is ten and, apparently, the thing she is a dhampir isn't the only problem Astarion and Tiriel have to face.

Tags: dadstarion, dhampirs, necromancy

Alethaine's age: 10

Thanks @queenofthespacesquids for beta-reading!

Read on AO3

Masterlist

Headcanons

Astarion immerses himself in one of his books. It is a complex text that has been written by some ancient magic who had probably been completely insane

Necromancy is an interesting subject, but damn difficult for those without an innate aptitude for it.

It's still midday, but out there in the underground part of Daggerlake, it doesn't matter. The city is divided into two parts, above ground and underground. The city is mostly populated

by dwarves, halflings, and humans but for some reason it feels like home for Astarion.

Besides, the town dwellers had decided they'd better have a vampire of their own than be threatened by other undead.

Astarion is still puzzled by this. Yes, these people should be grateful to him and Tiriel for saving them from a particularly nasty fairy pact. But letting them stay? Tiriel, a half-elven warrior, is one thing, but him, a vampire? Do they really want to share the town with him?

But they are fine. They treat him like others would treat some retired wizard or a former mercenary. But he knows he must be careful - one mistake and the neighbors will remember who Astarion truly is and that there is a reason why he never goes to the upper town in the daylight.

And there is a complication Astarion always has to take into account.

“Dad! Dad!”

Astarion looks up and sees ten-year-old Alethaine. She is upside down, but the hem of her dress brushes the ceiling, ignoring gravity. There's a bit of forest dirt on the girl's shoes, and he can distinguish the smell of wood.

“I told you not to go alone,” Astarion says. When she was younger, Astarion often found it difficult to parent her. The moment she asked something or started crying, he was ready to do anything just to make her feel better. It took him time to get a grip and establish boundaries. He is her father. If he wants the best for her, he has to be strict sometimes. Even if the response is tears and anger.

“I didn’t go to the woods! I was in the meadow. It’s still in the town!”

Fair enough. The meadow is a favorite place for town kids since it is indeed the forest but their asses won’t get whooped by their parents.

“So, what is it, princess?”

Alethaine jumps on the floor with a soft “thump” and she inclines toward him making direct eye contact. Astarion still wonders sometimes if her eyes black because his eyes used to be, too, or because of her dhampirism.

Dhampir.

Half-undead. Does Alethaine even understand what it truly means to her? Town kids don’t really care and adore her ability to walk on ceilings and steal sweets for them. But will it last long? She is ten. When she and her friends grow up, they will notice things that make her different. Will they start fearing her the same way town dogs start howling if Alethaine or Astarion pass by? Will they avoid her? Will they force her out of town to go seek her own kind?

“I want a kitten.”

“Princess, last time I checked cats don’t really like us, either.”

Alethaine sits beside him and forces him to close the book. “No, you don’t understand! A week ago, I found a kitten! She didn’t like me at first but I’ve been bringing her food. And today Wyv let me hold her! She doesn’t mind me at all!”

“Wyv?”

“She is albino! She has red eyes and white fur! I think she went missing from her litter. Or maybe her mother's cat forced her to go. Please! Pretty please! She is so tiny, she won’t make it on her own! And I will take care of her!”

Alethaine stares at him with puppy eyes and her elven ears twitch with anticipation.

“Mum won’t mind, she will be happy there is an animal that doesn’t react to me as if I am some evil entity!”

“Princess, there is a very big chance this poor creature will run away once it senses me in the house. Last time I checked I am still undead.”

“And I am half-undead! Wyv got used to me, she will get used to you, too!”

Astarion flicks the tip of her nose. “But if your mother asks, you forced me to say “yes”.

Alethaine squeals and wraps her hands around his neck forcing him to drop the book. Astarion chuckles when he feels the soft prickling of her teeth on his skin.

“I will be right back!” Alethaine rushes outside, slamming the door.

He had 200 years of pure misery and it still hurts him to see how much was taken from him. But then… Thirty years of something else. Something he hadn’t wished to have.

A woman to hold and to love who is brave enough to trust and care.

Fifteen years of adventures, when they could go wherever they wanted and do whatever they desired. Then, they were offered to stay in Daggerlake, a small town near the Unicorn Rim.

Home was a concept unfamiliar to both of them and Tiriel sometimes begged him to return to the road.

But he was adamant. He needed a home. He needed a place to stay. To own. He wanted a place to stash all the artifacts and books they'd found, a comfortable bed to sleep and make love.

Tiriel wanted it, too, though didn’t admit it.

And five years later the thing he’d least expected happened.

He barely remembers how it was - he was so drunk on blood, he felt his undead heart beating. Then he found Tiriel and dragged her home to pin her to the bed.

As a result…

Alethaine.

His daughter. His flesh and blood.

Sometimes he treats Alethaine as a matter of course. Most men in Daggerlake have children, and usually more than one. But sometimes Astarion gets distracted and forgets where he is, and only comes back to reality when Alethaine taps him on the shoulder and then Astarion looks at her in awe, wondering how he even deserves her.

Ten years. Such a tiny piece of time but Alethaine’s whole life. Astarion can already see the woman she is becoming. The woman he will be proud of, the woman who will have the freedom he had to fight for.

Suddenly, Astarion realizes Alethaine has been missing for far too long. The meadow isn’t really far away and it’s already sunset - Astarion feels it.

Astarion locks the house and goes looking for his daughter.

It's already night when he gets to the meadow. Alethaine is there sitting on her knees with her head bowed.

“Alethaine, what did we talk about not being outside after sunset?”

She doesn’t answer. Astarion comes closer and sees that her face is red as if she has just stopped crying.

“Princess, what happened?”

“It’s my fault” she sniffs. “I should have taken her with me right away,” her shoulders tremble and Alethaine bursts into tears once again.

Astarion kneels beside her, not knowing what to do. He still hasn’t learned how to react to her tears properly - so he does the only thing that works all the time with both her and Tiriel and also works for him.

He hugs her.

Through her muffled cries Astarion manages to understand that the albino kitten got out of the shelter and someone kicked her with such effort she died instantly. Now the kitten’s body lies in a small hole in the ground with her mouth wide open and stains of blood on the white fur.

'It's not your fault, it’s the fault of whoever did this, not yours.’

“No, you don’t understand! I could have taken her with me! If you had said “no”, I would have given her to the neighbors! And now she is dead! She is dead because of me!” Now Alethaine almost screams with all the sorrow a ten-year-old girl is capable of.

Astarion hugs his daughter tighter. He often stays with her on his own when Tiriel leaves to do some adventuring job - and usually, Astarion has no trouble. But right now the only thing he needs is for Tiriel to be at home. Because she can find the right words. She always can. Because what exactly does he need to tell Alethaine? It’s the first time she’s witnessed death. And it was the vilest example possible.

An innocent creature was killed for fun.

Well, maybe he should find that person and break their legs. It won’t help but maybe it will make Alethaine feel better.

“Alethaine, let’s go home.”

Alethaine doesn’t answer.

“Princess, come on,” he repeats.

His vampiric senses feel that something is wrong. As if something eerie, and unnatural has started to happen.

Astarion glances at the dead kitten.

Then the kitten moves.

“What in hell…,” he mutters.

It opens its eyes which glow an unnatural green color. The paws twitch, and the mouth opens showing small fangs.

“Dad! Look! Wyv is alive! She was just wounded! And I thought she was dead!” Alethaine exclaims, grabbing the dead kitten. “We need to show her to the healer!”

Alethaine’s eyes glow with the same eerie shade of green.

Necromancy.

Alethaine has just used the “Rise Animal” spell.

A spell so difficult it takes mages years to learn it.

Alethaine drops the dead kitten on the ground as if it were a poisonous snake.

“No… What is wrong with her, Dad?”

The kitten immediately sits up and freezes. Waiting for orders.

“She is dead, isn’t she?” Alethaine sniffs. The kitten doesn't move, staring at her with its resurrected eyes.

Necromancer. If being a dhampir wasn't enough for her. Necromancers have always been outcasts with their abilities to raise the dead and cast the darkest of spells.

Alethaine is one of them. Twice an outcast.

“Alethaine '' Astarion makes her face him. “Listen to me carefully. There must be strings, connecting you with the kitten. Like a puppet doll. You need to cut them.”

“But she will die”

“It is already dead. it’s not a life. Put it to rest.”

Alethaine wipes tears and the weird glowing fades. Alethaine concentrates, looks at her hands, and then makes a movement with her fingers as if she were tearing threads.

The dead kitten falls on the ground like a puppet.

Alethaine sits down tired and exhausted. Resurrecting a creature, even small animals, is a difficult spell requiring much energy even from adult mages. For a ten year old it’s the equivalent of hiking in the mountains.

Astarion takes Alethaine in their hands.

“Dad?”

“Hm?”

“Will you and mum still love me if I am a necromancer?”

“Of course, we will.”

“You can’t get necrotic damage, can you?”

“Well, I am very undead myself. So fear not, you won’t harm me even accidentally”

“And mum? She is mortal, she can get hurt.”

Astarion sighs. Damn, ‘Tiriel should come back sooner, I can’t answer all those questions’.

“You won’t hurt her. Don’t worry.”

Silence. The little dhampir doesn’t believe him. Alethaine sniffs again.

“Did it hurt when you were resurrected?”

Astarion has to make an effort to keep himself composed. It is still traumatic. Still hurts. Two hundred years of pain. Tortures. Isolation. Transformation.

“I am a vampire, not a ghoul. Ghouls don’t feel anything. They are already dead. you resurrected the flesh but Wyv didn’t feel anything.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am. Alethaine, promise me you won't try to practice alone, all right? No one must know you are a necromancer. People won’t understand. ”

The rest of the walk home is passed in silence. That evening Alethaine refuses to eat, and all attempts to cheer her up fail. She's heartbroken and scared, and whatever is weighing on her mind, she just can't process it.

He needs to think something up. The sooner, the better. Before Alethaine harms herself or someone in the town.

Alethaine can't sleep.

It's been a week and she feels terrible. There are whispers on the edge of her mind, dark and frightening, they call to her, they promise her something.

Alethaine can't shut them up.

She sees threads stretching from her fingers to the dead animals. Worse, she feels the threads leading to living people.

Cause them necrotic damage, the darkness whispers. It is going to be fun! Strike fear in them, make them scream, make them cry! And drink their blood if that’s to your liking!

Tiriel didn’t say anything when she heard what had happened. But Alethaine sees uneasiness in her eyes. Of course, she is afraid! There are strings attached to her as well, one or two necrotic spells and she is dead!

Astarion left two days later - he said he would try to look for something. Alethaine cried and begged to take her with him, but he refused.

Alethaine has locked herself in her room, barely leaving. But the silence and solitude are the fuel for nightmares. For the darkness. For tempting whispers.

The little dhampir gets out of her bed and goes to her parents’ bedroom. Tiriel is fast asleep under a blanket. Peaceful and quiet.

Alethaine fumbles at the door. She is ten, not three! She is too old to sleep with her mother. But the thought of spending one more night alone with those whispers feels awful.

“Kitten? Are you alright?”

“Mum… can… I…”

“Come here.”

Alethaine gets under the blanket and her mother’s arms immediately wrap around her.

“I am afraid,” Alethaine finally admits.

“I know, Kitten. Dad will think something up.”

“What if I hurt you while he is away?”

“You won’t”

“How can you know that? I am a necromancer!”

Alethaine turns around to see her mother’s face.

“Alethaine, you are also a dhampir and I don’t remember you ever trying to drain me. And you’ve had your fangs since you were five months old.”

Alethaine relaxes and hugs mother back.

“Mum, did you always know dad was a vampire?”

“Hm, I learned it on the third day I think. Woke up to him trying to bite me. He is lucky I’d already liked him.”

“And you weren’t afraid to be with him?”

“No. Your father was a troubled person, not easy to handle. But he was worth it. I know you are scared. People don’t take it easy when someone can cast dark spells. But it doesn’t mean you have to be alone or be a bad person, even if it’s expected. You will meet people who will accept you for who you are. Who will love you. One of the kindest men I knew was a warlock with a devil pact. Things aren’t always what they seem.”

Your mother’s blood is so warm! You’ve tasted it once, remember? When you were dying of bloodlust! Bite her, take what is rightfully yours!

As if hearing the intrusive thoughts, Tiriel hugs her daughter tighter.

“Whatever happens, we will always be with you. We will help you, we will support you, and no matter what happens, you can always trust us. Even if you do something really bad. ”

Alethaine sniffs and buries her nose in her mother’s neck.

The darkness steps away, and the girl falls asleep.

She doesn’t have nightmares for the first time that week.

“Alethaine,” she feels a soft tap on her shoulder. “Wake up.”

Alethaine opens her eyes and sees she is still in her parents’ bed. Tiriel, fully dressed, stands at the doors.

“Hm?”

“Dad is back. Could you go down to the basement?”

Alethaine, still half asleep, dresses up and goes down. Her senses immediately tell her Astarion isn’t alone.

“Hello, princess,” Astarion strokes her head the moment she gets closer.

A man in a dirty red robe sits on the wooden bench. His head is bald and his right eye is missing. Instead, there is a blue gemstone with intricate runes.

“Astarion, don’t you tell me she is a dhampir.”

“Oh, she very much is! Alethaine, this is Nris. He is going to be your teacher.”

“Astarion, I deeply appreciate you for saving me from that devil but I am not morally ready to teach a dhampir necromancy!”

“I doubt you will be able to pay me. My services are expensive. And I can always sell you back to the devils. I need you to teach my daughter necromancy. End of story.”

“For fuck sake… How old are you?”

Alethaine steps back. “T-ten”

“Fuck, this is the worst age ever! In a year she will hit puberty and it’s bad even without dhampirism and necromancy!”

Alethaine looks at her father.

“Dad, I don't like him.”

“He is a necromancer, princess. People aren’t supposed to like them.”

“Astarion, I knew I shouldn’t have made deals with you! A devil is better than a vampire! At least with devils, I know what to expect! Alethaine, you know what your father did? He took advantage of my desperate situation and forced me to make a pact with him.”

“Nris, don’t be stupid. It’s a working agreement!” Astarion grins. “And I can summon your former master any time, and, I fear, this time he will be harsher on you.”

Nris curses again, and Alethaine makes a note to use one of the slurs next time she gets into a fight.

The necromancer stretches his right hand, covered in weird tattoos. “Come here, Alethaine.”

Nris sends a shiver down her spine, but Astarion only nudges his daughter slightly, forcing her to approach the mage.

“Dhampir, necromancer, and all this with Fey blood. You did pick the wild cards out of Tasha’s cauldron. What exactly did you do to make your father save my ass from the devils?”

“I-I revived a kitten.”

Nris flinches. “I hate sorcerers to my guts! I’ve spent decades learning how to revive small animals - and you did it just like that! But good for you that you didn’t resurrect a human because if you had, the townsfolk would have burnt you alive. I was trying to make the darkness talk to me and it still doesn’t answer back but it calls upon you like an old friend. Life is truly unfair, Alethaine Ancunin.”

Alethaine is silent, unable to stop staring at the gemstone in the eye socket. The runes move resembling trapped flies.

“Very well, let’s start from learning the basics!”

Astarion leaves the basement. When he glances back he sees Alethaine drawing runes on the floor while Nris is giving her the lecture.

Astarion is tired. He didn’t have time to rest during the week, and besides, the worry of leaving a ten-year-old necromancer who didn’t understand how to control her powers alone with Tiriel plagued him like a nightmare.

Nris doesn’t look like the most decent or talented mage but he is bound to him by a pact and doesn’t have any desire to return to the devils. So, he is going to live in the secret basement under their house and teach Alethaine as much as he can.

Wild cards out of Tasha’s dungeon. Yes, that’s true. An unlikely child with dangerous skills.

Astarion finds Tiriel in the inner yard, throwing axes into the wooden wall. He approaches her and hugs them from behind, placing his chin on her shoulder.

“Tired?” she asks.

“Can I take your blood?”

She touches his curls with her tender fingers. “Of course.”

Astarion indulges his fangs in her neck. Blood streams down his throat, calming him down. Tiriel falters. He immediately releases her neck and takes her in his hands to carry Tiriel to the bedroom.

When they get there they lie together on the bed, their fingers intertwined. Due to sharpened hearing Astarion feels a distant echo from the basement. It seems like Alethaine and Nris have started a screaming match.

“You really didn’t warn him, did you?” Tiriel asks, drawing invisible symbols on his back.

“Maybe. Kind of.”

“Well, at least I won’t be the only mortal in the house.”

“Tiriel, don’t make him your drinking pal, I beg you!” Astarion laughs.

“What? A mug of ale after a difficult day hasn't hurt anyone yet.” Tiriel touches the tip of his ear. “Meditate. I will be with you.”

Astarion nods. Thirty years of happy memories are enough to give him bliss. He concentrates and lets the flow of memories take him to reverie.

Astarion holds Alethaine for the first time. A newborn girl is probably still in pain after being pushed into the world. He hears her fast heartbeat as her living heart pumps half-undead blood through her veins.

He cradles her in his arms. Alethaine is so warm, so delicate, so innocent. It’s not yet clear if she is a dhampir but Astarion knows he loves her. It’s a different form of affection, unknown to him. A selfless love for a child, a desire to make sure she won’t endure the same hardships as he did.

And she must not know.

Astarion gives himself a promise. His daughter will never know about his past. it will never taint her. The pain, the touches, the humiliation, the violence - she will not know a word of it.

Her mindset will be free of that dirt and of that darkness. He won’t pass it.

“Thank you, my love,” Astarion whispers. “This is a gift.”

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faeiri-tft · 8 months

Note

PLEASE do the toontown online rant i want it so badly

this post kinda got away from me, and by "got away from me" i mean this 3000 word toontown rant is Part One. there will be a Part Two to this later in which i actually talk about the fanservers i wanted to talk about. anyway let's go

toontown online (tto) was a children's mostly-turn-based subscription MMO released in 2003. after a few years of obviously being on life support, disney gave a one-month notice that tto (and several other games) would be closing on september 19th, 2013. on the same day the game closed, the fan-run server toontown rewritten (ttr) was announced (with multiple other fanservers/fangames/reimaginings being established since), and is a few months away from outliving the original game

see, one thing about tto that allowed fanservers to crop up so quickly and easily was that it had, um, interesting choices. very interesting choices. like, "kids could use a code injector to turn their backyards into giant mashed-together nightmarescapes"-level choices

youtube

(loose video description: a rabbit toon running around a chaotic mismash of rooms, obstacles, and npcs that Should Not Be There. audio caption: Evanescence's "Bring Me To Life".)

but ok let's talk about the actual game first.

toontown online (tto)

the game starts with you creating your player character - you can pick from eventually-9 species, a couple body types, and 2 dozen preset colors. the gender code is a spaghetti nightmare but you won't learn this until the fanservers come about so don't worry about it. you're then taken to the Toontorial, which explains maybe 20% of the game's mechanics before setting you loose into the main game

the toontorial also gives you the basic "plot", such as it is: Toontown is suddenly* under attack by a bunch of boring businessrobots called the Cogs. their goal is to turn toontown into a dreary gray featureless corporate hell; their business activities are so boring that they're physically painful to be around. luckily, they can't take a joke, so the toons have figured out how to defeat them: by playing pranks on them until they laugh so hard they Explode

*originally, the game installer had a little animation giving a backstory for the Cogs' creation. this was never referenced in game, removed pretty quickly, and i think even the devs kinda forgot it existed

that's...pretty much the whole story! in that context, your toon progresses through all of toontown, helping some mostly-pretty-interchangeable shopkeepers, reclaiming buildings from the cogs, eating ice cream, etc. occasionally, the cogs would Come Up With New Tricks (read: major content update) and the toons would Find A Way To Fight Back (read: same major content update). that was the closest thing to Plot, unless you count "the devs scheduled a bunch of invasions of high-tier cogs right before the game's closure". but...i doubt most the kids really expected a Plot. mickey mouse was there

the gameplay:

the Free Account

there were two...pretty different approaches to playing toontown online. when the game launched, there was a 3-day free trial to the entire game, after which you got kicked entirely until you subscribed. at some point, this was changed so that the first area, Toontown Central (TTC), was Always Free - you could do all of that area's quests/"taskline" and limited activities, indefinitely, and in theory this would make you beg your parents for the rest of the game

i have no idea if this actually got more subscriptions or not. from what i can tell it just spawned more warrior cats

(source)

there were. a Lot of warrior cats. there were some other social activities, too, such as Fashion Shows (with your limited range of clothes) and Begging Subscribed Players To Summon Cog Buildings To TTC and Getting Chat Banned. ...however, as one of the subscription kids i didn't really interact with this side of the game, so i'm not the best person to talk about it

2. the Paid Account

mmm look at those crisp clear graphics. hell yes

a subscription account gave you access to this whole map, along with all these areas' tasklines. to progress through the game, you must complete a variety of "ToonTasks" for the Toon Resistance (it's called that. their catchphrase is "Toons of the World, Unite!". you were giving disney money for this). these reward you by increasing your max health (your "Laff Points"), slowly unlocking more combat options, and sending you to different, higher-difficulty areas of toontown

some of these tasks were...longer than others. generally, though, they all boiled down to: "just go fight some cogs"

combat:

(source)

toontown battles are turn-based: the players use their attacks ("gags") first, and then any surviving cogs attack you with, usually, office equipment and puns thereof (unless the cog is e.g. a Loan Shark, in which case they can just fucking bite you). if you defeat a cog, it explodes; if the cog defeats you, you "go sad" and are sent back to the safety of the playground, lose your gag inventory, and can't leave until you heal.

early on, most your battles are 1v1, but later on almost everything is a multiplayer 4-ish-v-4.

an...interesting feature here in the game's early days was that you could only Type Your Own Words to someone who shared their "friend code" with you IRL. otherwise, you had to use this thing:

(source)

you had a set list of phrases you could string together, which generally covered most the things you wanted to say. but it could get frustrating when you wanted to have a real conversation with your toontown friends! so...as the source above mentions, people obviously found ways around the system. turns out that if you let players move objects around their houses, they will use that to Draw Letters and pass their friend code along regardless

eventually - before the warrior cats, of course - disney presumably realized this system was pretty goofy (🥁) , so the game got a real chat, albeit one that functioned on a very strict whitelist. my favorite is that it didn't let you type numbers, however you could just say won too tree for hive etc. like. disney i really don't know what to tell you. anyway

(isn't he charming)

cogs come in levels 1-12, with levels displayed above their heads, and as you'd expect their damage output and HP increase with their level. however, the game doesn't...actually show you cog HP? instead they have a little colored light on their chest that fades from green to red until they explode. you see numbers on all the damage you do, and you see your own HP/laff, but never the cogs'. also lategame cogs are Too Tall For You To See Their Level once they line up for battle (which isn't actually that bad but it's funny). there's a formula for HP per level, but it's never mentioned in-game. i guess someone can teach it to you but then you have to watch them type "a level tin cog has won tree too health" and is that really worth it

(as you can tell i just…don't get this. "my kid is practicing arithmetic with toontown!" - marketing angle expressly denied by god. the stealth edutainment was right there)

anyway! in theory, you have seven base combat options ("gag tracks"), which combine in a variety of ways:

toon-up, which restores your teammates' health;

trap, which does guaranteed high damage but only if someone uses lure;

lure, which stuns the cogs for a few turns and is the only way to make trap work

sound, which does low damage to every cog;

throw, which does medium-high-ish damage to one cog; multiple throws combined give percentage combo damage, and hitting a lured cog will also add percentage "knockback damage";

squirt, which is exactly like throw but less damage;

and drop, which does high damage but cannot hit lured cogs, and has low accuracy unless you hit the cog with something else first

each gag track has 6 levels, which you unlock by using that gag track a bunch. you can't carry as many of the high levels with you - i mean, putting one piano in your backpack makes perfect sense, but two is just silly, right

a few years into the game's lifespan, level 7s were added - these were huge AOE that you could regain with every 500 track EXP. there was also something called "organic gags" to promote the please-log-in-every-day gardening system

every player starts with throw and squirt, and throughout the game you slowly unlock four more gag tracks. your choices are permanent: once you have your six tracks, you're locked out of the seventh forever.

in theory, all of this opens up a huge variety of combat options!

in practice, the battle strategy looks something like this:

use sound

as mentioned, almost all of lategame will be 4v4 battles, which means sound will almost always outdamage everything on earth. you don't even need four foghorns (the highest normal sound gag) to break 200 AOE damage, and the highest health a cog EVER has is 200*. and two of the boss battles can reward you with gag restocks and heals that you can use mid-battle with no consequences (other than having to grind for those rewards a bunch). and failing THAT, you can just...ration your foghorns and take 2 turns to clear a set of cogs, interspersed with healing.

(*okay there was something called "v2.0 cogs" but they were...strange, and we just used sound anyway)

sure, once level 7s were added you could use those occasionally. and you could fall back on lure+throw if you didn't want to use your sound restocks. but even then, for most of tto's existence there was something called the "knockback bug" which. well. just look at it

(link for transcript. it's tvtropes sorry)

if you are a target-audience eight-year-old this translates to "lure + throw will only do enough damage if the cogs Feel like it." like it's really just insult to injury at this point. this was the result of One misplaced variable and was not fixed until the game closed

in the tto era, if you didn't have sound, you were kinda doomed to be kicked out of every fight forever

(bonus fun fact: there were Four entire battle themes and they were 40-second midi loops. let me out)

the bosses:

each of the four cog departments has a Boss Cog. to face off against them, you have to assemble a cog disguise and collect enough merits/stock options/whatever to be allowed into the boss's office.

(pictured: your convincing disguise)

when you enter, your disguise pops off due to Reasons, and you have to fight through...a bunch of waves of normal cogs. it's basically a really long normal battle. once the minions are dealt with, you have to, inexplicably, do a live-action battle against the boss themself:

youtube

(loose video description: four toons defeating the CFO by using magnet cranes to hit him in the face with safes for 32 seconds.)

the live-action rounds aren't supposed to go this quickly, but it's still...kinda strange? certain reoccurring game areas require Parkour, but there are no battles like this outside of the Four bosses. the CFO's room is the only place you see these cranes and they have A Lot Going On. the other 3 bosses have their own unique weird mechanics. before the first boss was added we neither had nor needed the ability to Jump. it's just weird

once you've defeated the boss, you're given a reward of varying usefulness (the best/most unbalanced reward type is Unites, which are a free heal or gag restock you can do inside or outside of battle. essentially lategame toons can simply choose not to die. riv2u etc.)

and, um. then you get some more merits/stock options/whatever and do it again. and again. and again. and again. and agai

the grind:

so the thing is that tto was a subscription mmo. every addition to the game had to be measured, above all, in terms of "how can we best get kids to beg their parents to give us money." this especially shows in the suit grind:

(source/source)

you have to defeat each boss 78 times in order to get all their laff points - and as you proceed, you have to defeat an increasing amount of cogs to even be allowed into the boss (although once you max you get in for free).

by far the easiest way is to run through the designated HQ facilities - basically, cog fights interspersed with some platforming or minigames. you only collect your merits/whatever at the Very End of the facility. the only way to increase what a facility gives you is if your last battle ends during an "invasion" - a timed period where One Specific Cog replaces all street cogs, usually summoned with boss rewards.

the sellbot HQ grind isn't so bad. bossbot HQ - the endest-game HQ - frequently requires you to do an hour-long facility and on six separate occasions you have to do seven of them. if the invasion ends before your final battle, you have to sit around until someone summons another. if you lose your internet connection because it's 2008, or if your parents make you come to dinner, or if hacking or the game's general bugginess cause a server reset because you're probably in the busiest district for the invasion bonus, you have spent that Entire Hour On Nothing. the CEO (bossbot cog boss) probably also takes an hour because you and your fellow players are 10

this shit, combined with laff points locked behind gardening (time-gated), racing and golfing (multiplayer minigames with absurd requirements), and fishing (RNG-based with some fish being absurdly rare. i watched my mom fish for one every day for a month), meant that maxing a toon took Years, if you managed it ever.

it wasn't, um. it wasn't good

ok so what else is wrong with this game:

i had "aged out of the game" (lol) by the early '10s, so i'm not the best person to do a writeup of the hacking/scripting situation of those days. that said, what i'm going to do is give you a few examples, and i want you to just...look at them

(source)

(source). early '10s youtube was funny i'm trying to decide if i miss it

(source). fun thing to note here is that other players had collision, so a swarm of t-posing toons could just barricade the gag shop if they wanted to

youtube

(video description: toon who has Replaced His Head Model With An Anime Logo throwing thousands of jellybeans at everyone) (cw mild flashing just in case? and also the feather headband accessory)

i should note that the Bring Me To Life vid i started with was client-side, meaning only the player could see their technicolor hellscape. this guy's face was server-side. i do Not Think you should be able to do that

youtube

(video description: a player demonstrating use of a bot to get into the nutty river district, followed by other players using it to go to different game areas)

the above video was posted on august 17th, 2013. if you don't want to watch an Unregistered Hypercam 3 recording at about 5 frames per second, what's going on here is:

the player goes to a specific location and says a specific speedchat phrase.

a bot toon teleports to their location and provides some prompts on how to use it

the player tells the bot, via speedchat, to teleport to the (currently closed from the outside) busiest district so the player can follow

these "taxi toons" were server-sided, persisted across server resets, were made by a future fanserver dev, had younger kids referring to them as a "glitch" as if this were something that could Accidentally Happen, and stayed functional until the game closed

like...a lot of the "hacking" was just baby's first script download. this one - afaict also created by the laughing man head guy - is like...the fact that after years of no substantial game updates, someone effectively programmed their own "QOL feature" (note: not actually good for the poor mid-00s server being turned into a clown car) into a silly disney MMO and it just fucking sat there for a year is just. it's just.

i don't know what this is. this is not Playing The Game Toontown Online. this is nothing. this is everything. there are comments from 2013 on some of these videos saying stuff like "hackers killed toontown", but your game cannot have this happen if it is not already dying

and, like...it was. i'm not sure how many moderators there were by this point, but at the very end of tto, the number of active devs was One. the original devteam recently brought this up at the 20th anniversary celebration: devs just...slowly started getting pulled from the game, one at a time. there were a few updates after bossbot HQ - Field Offices, which i've basically never heard anything good about in their tto form ever; the Silly Meter, a yearly event...thing whose main function was to add unskippable dancing-inanimate-object cutscenes to your street battles; Parties, which...yknow parties were okay actually. i accept parties. but they weren't exactly a Major Game Update like the ones that had come before. in 2011 we gained the ability to Wear Hats. in 2012 the test server got some actual QOL updates that never made it to the main game; the final test server update was some maintenance in february, and then nothing for 18 months. disney was not providing enough resources to address the scripting because disney was not providing enough resources to address toontown. imagine being the last dev standing on an MMO that was older than some of its players, was losing its business model to mobile gaming, and spent most of its life falling apart at the seams. just imagine it, for a second

it couldn't have kept going, not like this.

on august 20, 2013, the closing announcement came: we had a month left of toontown online. the test server shut immediately; subscription refunds went out, and the game became actually F2P for the month; the part of the announcement that went like "we're shifting our focus to other games!" made a bunch of twelve-year-olds hate club penguin as if club penguin wouldn't also close in a few years; all the holiday events went off at once; and...

there wasn't a "thanks for playing!" popup. everyone online just got kicked, all at once. it was finally over

hey wait.

#toontown #toontown online #tto #tft talks #tft stuff #<- this goes in that tag i think #this was like. enrichment. thank you

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meowsgirldrawing · 6 months

Text

AUNTIE LAE'ZEL IDEA I CAN'T GET OUT OF MY HEAD-

For sure I'm going to write this when I can but I need to say it before I loose my mind! GODS-

SO this is mainly pertaining to Astarion romance, mainly cause he's the only one I'm familiar with personality wise so far. And he's the only one who's kids I've made.

But imagine Auntie Laze'zel-

Post! Game, Tav and Astarion have two little dhampires.

While everyone else was welcoming to the little bat-pups in their own ways, Lae'zel was..standoff-ish at first.

Don't get her wrong, she's happy for her friends comrades, she's just unsure how to proceed with these little blood suckers.

If her relationship with both Tav and Astarion are in the high, she's seemingly more nervous than unwelcoming. Confused possibly.

She knows how to treat children, somewhat, but babies??

Little toddlers that can't do anything for themselves?

Yeah, no, she's going to wait until they can at least understand the difference between a cat and a dog- And Tav why are you pushing the non-hatchling into her arms??

She's frozen as she holds their daughter. Her white curls, the only thing she shares with her twin brother, soft and tangled in her hand that supports the head. Tav helps her adjust as Astarion chuckles teases on the side. She'd snap at him another time, she's too busy staring at the defenseless, weak creature in her arms.

Eyes blink open, tiny nose unlike hers scrunches and she's staring into wide, red eyes tinged with orange.

She braces, having seen enough of other's childen waking up and immediately screaming their dislike of whatever they see. Not that she values a child's opinion of her looks. She'd could care less, but her ears care alot.

It doesn't happen. Happy and curious cooes start, eyes crickling as the girl reaches up. Grasping at her braids. Gently tugging and feeling the warriors hair.

"She's your unfortunate copy, Tav." Theres weight on her arm and a tight hold accompanying it. Her tail. Just like how Tav always wraps their's around Astarion or people she's closest too, the baby wraps as much as her tiny tail will allow around....

No, she is not turning soft, hush your ridiculous lies, Astarion!

She continues with that sentence for years, even when found playing 'teecups and crowns' with Amarylis and watching over Axel's non-serious training. Who she even gets pulled into playing with the dog with or finding weird stones along the stream, nothing but trying to find gold that could only be burried in the earth. But she doesn't say a word to the young halfing about that, just grabs the collar of his shirt if he wanders too far off, a soft hissable warning falling from her lips.

She's not used to kids, it's clear to the parents. But she tries, because they show a side she's not used to. They won't have to fight for their freedom, or lives or anything of that sort. They'll be able to choose to fight. And if having a toy crown on her head that has the girl with an affectionate tail giggling and finally finding a stone that has the boy, his outrageous curls doxed in his first half shave, grinning and spouting praises you'd only hear from young ones, is the biggest proof of that, she's alright with it...mostly.

And if you think the protection stops there...HAHAHAHA- No.

One time Lae'zel was in charge of the kids who wanted to go to a nearby carnival. Astarion and Tav allowed it, seeing it as a nice opportunity for some alone time and bonding time for Lae'zel and her little warriors in tow.

And if you call Lae'zel nearly breaking a man's arm off as bonding time...sure.

An older man, possibly a hunter by the looks of how his eyes shifted and how he posed in his following of the three, dared reach for Axel who was too busy staring wide eyed at the golden clocks on one stand to notice his creeping.

Lucky for him, Auntie Lae'zel came in, hissing and glaring, hand on the always sharp dagger she has at her hip.

To others and the guards, it looked like an attempted kidnapping so the man was taken away as soon as Lae'zel got a few good hits in, possibly a few cuts.

'Great.' She grumbled in her mind as she watch the man be dragged off, spouts of vampire children going unheard by the guards who merely rolled their eyes and gritted out words of justice.

She turns, half expecting to see eyes wide in fear at her, only to find a small body slamming into her front. Axel, at the age of 9, goes sniffling into her tunic, clutching at her back with tight fists.

"Auntie Lae!" His sister's teary eyes meet her unsure ones, "Are you okay??" She frets, coming in close aswell.

She ignores the murmurs, the looks as the crowd around them disperses. Her thoughts still trying to come together.

She tsks, patting the girls head instead of answering and pulls Axel away form her, only to kneel infront of him. "Next time, watch your surroundings. Understand, pup?" A common nickname from her companions. It calms the boy down, his red eyes getting wiped as he nods and sniffs, "Y-Yes, ma'am..."

After wiping his face and giving him a somewhat awkward hug, one that has Ama giggling and Axel blinking, they continue on, enjoying the carnival to the best of their ability.

And it seems to work out well. As soon as Astarion and Tav arrive home, the twins running up to their open armed father as Tav approches a tired Lae'zel. They chuckle and -

"What?!" Astarion bawks.

They look over, seeing the twins glance at each other then back at Astarion.

"Can you teach us how to fight like Auntie Lae'zel?" Ama smiles like she's asking for a delicate flower, while Axel gives a wicked grin in comparison. "YEAH! She beat up a bad man at the carnival today!" He giggles, "I think his arm broke cause I heard a loud crack!"

Tav blinks. Lae'zel stares. Then smirks, "I take back my first statement, they are like him."

#oc inserts #oc x canon #baldurs gate 3 #baldur's gate oc #baldurs gate 3 astarion #astarion x tav #astarion x reader #lae'zel #bg3 lae'zel #bg3 #bg3 astarion #bg3 tav #teifling oc #teifling tav #dhampir #headcannons #slight drabble #lae'zel kicking ass and being an awesome aunt #auntie lae'zel

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transfemoliorionsound · 5 months

Text

reblog if you want 👍 feel free to talk at me in the tags

#10piecetalks #polls #mcyt #mcytblr #warrior cats #aaaaaaand post

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warrior-cats-rewritten · 1 month

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If I had to rewrite Changing Skies:

Tawnypelt

The Clans are going to fight the humans.

Tigerstar is too busy leading and keeping everyone calm, so he sends Tawnypelt and whatever friends she wants to go on a mission to find out how they can stop the Twolegs.

Tawnypelt doesn't really WANT to, but does it because she wants her son to know she trusts his judgment.

She brings along Crowfeather (let me cook) and Brambleclaw. (LET ME COOK)

First major event is Crowfeather dying. He gets a terrible wound on his back leg from doing something Tawnypelt TOLD HIM NOT TO, and the infection kills him.

Tawny and Bramble are on their own now, and tensions are high. Not only that, but they have NO CLUE what to do, and the Twolegs are getting closer every day...

The only clue they have is with a strange kittypet named Rufus, wearing a strange bulky collar.

Tawnypelt is getting angry, and tired with Brambleclaw. He isn't the brother she thought he was, and their relationship has been fractured since the reveal that he trained in The Dark Forest. Sure, she supported him during TBC, but that ended up not being HIM and it was a terrible mistake to make...

It's his insistence that she listen to him, that he "prove himself", that he is the choice-maker and... Tawny's had enough.

"Brambleclaw, you're older than most cats around the lake, for Starclan's sake, GROW UP ALREADY!"

He leaves, insisting that he knows what is best, and she'll feel so sorry once he's right! No one ever believes in him, just because of his father!

She finds his body the next day. Rufus helps her bury him, but there isn't time to dwell, she needs to keep going. Rufus keeps walking up to humans wearing sleek white pelts that hild little flashing boxes up to Tawnypelt, he keeps saying it's fine but the way he lets them PICK him UP is going to give her a heart attack!

Kids these days. (Affectionate. Bewildered. 3 seconds from signing adoption papers.)

Leafstar

Leafstar is suffering from depression, and notices that her sight is starting to dim.

Fidgetflake tells her that she is developing cataracts, and Leafstar just takes it as "one more thing to happen to me". Her mate has died, her daughter Stormheart was killed in the horrific war against Splashstar and Berrystar that she herself barely made it out of with her last life... Her children have grown and have kits of their own, they don't need her anymore, cats don't want to talk with her...

She's completely lost her spark, and finds no joy in anything. She's not only losing her vision in a physical sense, but she's lost her 'vision' for Skyclan.

She also needs to hold the election for a new deputy, as Skyclan does things differently, and Hawkwing has been killed by a polluted stream.

The candidates are: Violetshine (who now has trained Beetlepaw instead of Reedclaw), Macgyver, and Rileypool (death swapped with Sagenose and mentored Kitescratch).

Violetshine is selected, and immediately some cats are calling for her to be made leader instead. A vote goes through, but not enough cats vote in the theoretical Violetstar's favour. (She doesn't mind!)

Leafstar is distraught when the construction comes Skyclan's way, poisoning their main stream and leading MANY cats to sickness, including her sweet granddaughter Wrenflight, born of Harrybrook and Bellaleaf.

The others Clans have less sympathy. Skyclan is using kittyp-er Daylight Warriors, they'll be fine if they just go back inside their homes. Maybe Starclan's angry that they're taking resources.

She slams her paw down onto the Moonpool's thin frozen surface, it cracks beneath her paw, the cold water spreading its horrible chill, ignored as Leafstar snarls at Starclan.

"Answer my pleas, stop punishing me, or my Clan, or I am taking us back to The Gorge, Other Clans be damned. Help us, or you will prove to me that you truly are a bunch of useless dead cats parading around with sparkling fur and empty promises!"

A ghostly figure appears, just for a moment, whispering to her.

"You may not have sight any longer, and I know all hope seems lost, Leafstar, but brighter times are coming. Do Not Let The Moon Fall."

Moonpaw

Since the writers wanna be awful about Sunbeam, I'm going to one-up them and do this pre-emptively.

Nightheart brought Sunbeam to Riverclan. He wasn't made Leader or Deputy, no, that was given to Icewing and Minnowtail.

Sunbeam, tragically, passed in childbirth soon after she got pregnant by accident... She left Nightheart with a single kitten, a tiny tortoiseshell tabby molly with a white chest, and wide blue and yellow eyes.

Nightheart, still stubborn about names and meaning and holding a grudge against his mother for not providing him with the Orange Gene, names his daughter Moonkit, determined to constantly remind her how she Doesn't Have To Be Like Sunbeam. She has quite a few friends, some in different Clans!

Moonpaw is apprenticed to Flame. An ex-Kin member that joined Riverclan during WCR!AVOS who Nightheart hates with a passion. Guess why.

Moonpaw is a good kid, but her relationship with her father is strained beyond belief. She wishes he would stop... Acting like this. Like he's the only cat to have ever suffered, stop arguing with her sweet mentor over the pettiest thing, stop comparing her to her mother in the most backwards way he can by trying to push her to somehow be the opposite of a cat she's never met...

She is good friends with Frostfeather and Whistlemoon, especially Whistlemoon, for obvious reasons. Moon buddies!

Moonpaw is dared by an older apprentice, Rapidpaw, to "go spend a night at the Moonpool when it's a new moon with all the ghosts!"

She's scared, not of the dark but if her dad finds out. "Sunbeam LOVED breaking rules!" He would always say, "But you can be good and do what YOU want. Just because your mother liked to stand out, doesn't mean you always have to! You can be special in your way!" She always saw Frostfeather glaring when he said that...

"Rule breaker." Frostfeather would scoff. "Didn't know her at all..."

Anyways, aside from a fright from a possum, she makes her way to the Moonpool with ease.

Too much ease.

She walks around, stepping into the pawprints on the ground, and batting a little plant that's growing at the entrance.

Not scary!

She walks into the main chamber, eyes sparkling and growing bigger as she lays eyes on the Moonpool for the first time.

It's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen.

In awe, Moonpaw slowly steps up to it, looking at her own reflection in the sparkling, crystal water, she pokes a paw in.

The gentle ripples lap at the edges, and Moonpaw swears she can hear a soft whispering.

Immediately though, she is bombarded with noise, giggling kittens, cats chatting with one another, and a soft warning.

"Careful, don't fall in!"

Moonpaw looks around for that voice, softer than any others, yet more clear. She stares into the crystal clear, sparkling water of the Moonpool, deeper, deeper, and deeper, drawing her in and making her more calm than she's ever felt...

She falls into the Moonpool.

#warrior cats #warriors #warrior cats rewrite #wcr #leafstar #leafdapple #tawnypelt #crowfeather #brambleclaw #moonpaw #nightheart #sunbeam #frostpaw #whistlepaw #changing skies #moonpool

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thewandererh · 18 days

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bOO‼️

@if-you-heart @if-you-mind @if-you-soul

told heart this but i drew fanart of ya’ll’s sweet angular soul guy :]! i couldn’t not…look at his dumb face…..🥺

i have two versions because the lighting experiment came out ok-ish. t was originally blue (because it was coming from the left side lmao) but red looks better 🤷

it’s a little simple and the composition is messy, but it was a good stress relief + shading practice :D! im proud of it. i’ll definitely draw him (and the gang) more though if i can!! been getting better with hair recently and tested out my skills with this one :]. styling and keeping consistent with hair is tough, but oddly relaxing. did some lineart in the car somehow 👀??

he looks like such a,,,bro i can’t….. i love how stupidly spindly he is

i was attached to this stupid lanky fictional(???) man the *moment* i saw this post. absolutely bonkers. i was so charmed by this concept i shared it to all of my friends you don’t understandjshdkdhdgsgd /silly /but yeah i did do that XD

also you fazgang have been reblogging and liking my stuff 🐥 <- looks up at you like this chick

which,,,,thankie,,…🐥🐥😳💛✨

.-.

for you onlookers have some more posts by the fazgang (what the if-you-hms-gang call themselves) to gaze upon. you will not regret,,

.-.

i’ve noticed a trend that i often tend to write big paragraphs about a simple piece of art i’ve made, which is okay but i get the lack of interaction lol. im very proud of my art, and go on rambles on why i like it. the formatting i turn to aswell as the text and images almost turns the post into a collage? visually?? i love collages so it works out XD! but anyways,, im not upset over notes, i just like getting my art out there. so thank you to everyone whose viewed, read, liked, and followed for the ride :]. im glad you appreciate my stuff, it’s what i can offer <3. it won’t be consistently one fandom but im glad to not be alone in my interests. good god that sounded like a traumatized rant (maybe it was but:)

TLDR: check out if-you-heart/mind/soul :]! they are very cool and nice💛

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preciouslandmermaid · 4 months

Text

of songbirds, swords, and spice (4)

pairing: Opla!Zoro x Opla!Sanji x Fem! Reader (no use of Y/N or L/N)

tw/cw: violence, blood, spider-creatures, see master post for complete tags

🏴‍☠️ read on AO3 🏴‍☠️

(masterpost)

<- (previous chapter)

Zoro stretched his legs out and folded his hands behind his head. Finally, some peace and quiet. Or however much quiet he could get on the Going Merry anyway. He shut his eyes, preparing to get a few hours of sleep before they arrived in Raven’s Crag.

“Mrrow!” Four paws landed on his thigh.

“What the hell?”

The black cat?! Zoro picked the cat up by the scruff and it narrowed its large, yellow eyes at him. A stowaway.

“Aren’t these things bad luck?” He said to no one before moving the fluffy creature off his lap. The cat, who was undeterred and stupidly stubborn, jumped onto his lap again the second he closed his eyes. “Knock it off.”

Zoro scooped it up this time and carried it to the other end of the room, setting it down on a crate, before he returned to his napping spot. The cat swished its tail, watching him, but didn’t move from its new perch.

“Stay over there,” he said. The ocean waves crashed and lapped against the hull of the Going Merry in swelling, gentle surges. He found the sound of the ocean soothing. He could sleep anywhere, it’s true, but there was something about sleeping near water. The crash and surge, the pull and push, the saltwater tinge to the air, and rush of the wind snapping the sails. It created a natural lullaby.

He sighed, tilting his head back, and listening to the waves rather than the cacophony of voices above. Usually, he didn’t have trouble falling asleep, but your voice was new and unfamiliar. He wasn’t sure why the old lady requested that you come along. You were a performer—not a fighter. Just because you managed one battle without vomiting at the sight of a dismembered arm didn’t make you a warrior. Zoro’s eyebrow twitched. What’s her deal anyway? He rolled his shoulders, struggling to get comfortable.

A soft paw batted the side of his head near his earlobe. What the--! The cat’s paw remained aloft – ready to smack his earring again.

Zoro narrowed his eyes. “You again?”

The cat lowered its paw and yawned, showcasing its large canine teeth and angling its ears back. Zoro wasn’t intimidated if that’s what the creature was trying to do. He had a sword. That was more impressive than two big teeth and some claws.

“What do they call you?” He lifted the charm on the cat’s collar. “Mimi?”

The cat gave no indication that it recognized its name.

“You really are bad luck,” he grumbled, “I never have trouble sleeping.” He got to his feet and stretched his arms over his head. “Stay,” he told the cat before ascending the steps to the main deck.

The sunlight refracted across the rolling blue waves and Zoro lifted his arm to block the harsh light.

“Can you sing a sea shanty?” Luffy asked you.

“Can you write a song about me?” Usopp asked, looking hopeful. Zoro rolled his eyes...These kids.

Sanji said, “What about a love ballad?”

You crossed your arms and pressed your lips into a line. This silence didn’t deter them. The trio of Luffy, Sanji, and Usopp requested different songs simultaneously.

“Would you guys cut it out!” Nami yelled over them, “She already said she doesn’t want to!”

Zoro rested his wrist on Wado Ichimonji and decided he might as well ask the question that’s been eating at him since the night you met.

“Why do the waiters at your grandmother’s bar wear earplugs?” he asked.

Everyone fell silent. Their attention left Zoro and moved toward you, expecting and awaiting your answer. You narrowed your eyes slightly at him. The sails overhead ballooned with a fresh gust of wind and the ropes swung in the breeze casting shadows like long, wiggling snakes on the main deck.

You said, “You noticed that, huh?”

“It was hard to miss.” Zoro deadpanned.

Your smile tugged at your mouth. “And yet I recall having your complete attention.”

Zoro stepped forward. “That’s what I’m still trying to figure out,” he said, “so what’s your deal?”

You shrugged, graceful and casual, like you two were discussing sword forms and not the mystery of your grandmother’s bar.

“The bar gets rowdy,” you replied.

“That’s what I said,” Luffy said, his tone was bright.

The bar gets rowdy? Yeah, right. Zoro stared down at you. The sunlight burned radiance across the planes and slopes of your face. She’s lying. You had to be. Your explanation was lukewarm and it didn’t account for the strange, solitary sensations that consumed him during your performance. Your performance and the earplugs had to be related somehow. He just couldn’t figure out how.

Usopp glanced between you and Zoro.

“Come on, guys,” Usopp said, “let’s stay focused. We’re finding a mysterious lost treasure for someone.”

“I’ll make lunch,” Sanji suggested, before saying your name and adding, “I’d love your help in the kitchen.”

“No thanks. I’m gonna stretch my legs,” you announced and offered Usopp and Sanji a smile. “I’ve gotta get used to being out on the sea again.”

Zoro watched you walk to the other end of the ship. She’s not getting off that easily. He waited about three seconds before following after you.

“Hey,” he began, narrowing his eyes at your back. You sighed, leaning against the railing, but didn’t turn around to face him. “If you double cross our crew…”

You looked over your shoulder. “You’re gonna slice me in half?”

Zoro scoffed. “I was thinking in quarters.”

You turned to face him, though your elbows remained on the railing, your pose was relaxed and wholly nonthreatening. Zoro’s pulse throbbed in his neck.

“You have nothing to worry about, Roronoa Zoro.” The salty air played with the collar of your shirt and Zoro looked away, clenching his jaw. “This crew saved the golden cupid...and if we manage to find Pandora’s puzzle box...then there will always be a warm meal and a cold drink for you at Estella’s.”

He glanced at you from the corner of his eye. Maybe he was being paranoid after their run-in with the Black Cat pirates or their altercation with Arlo’s gang after Nami’s abrupt betrayal. He didn’t want to get double-crossed, although he couldn’t see the benefit of you – or the old hag – trying to betray them.

“Fine,” he said flatly.

Maybe now I can get some shut-eye…The thought reminded him of the cat, Mimi, stalking around in his room.

“By the way,” he said, “that cat is onboard.”

You laughed. “Oh, of course she is.” You shook your head, “I’ll let Sanji know. Maybe he can make her some tuna.”

“Feeding your cat isn’t part of this deal,” he grumbled, annoyed. First, the cat took over his nap spot and ruined his afternoon and now she’d eat some of their supplies? What sort of bullshit was this?

“One,” you said holding up a finger, “she’s Estella’s cat. Two.” You held up a second finger. “It’s not really up to you, is it? I think I’ll take it up with the chef and see what he says.”

Zoro didn’t have a good argument against you, so he settled on rolling his eyes and returning to his bunk to get some well-deserved rest before the Merry reached Raven’s Crag.

The dingy swayed as it pushed through the shallow waves and your stomach followed the roiling, uncertain motions of the waters below. Something didn’t feel right. You would normally chalk it up to your baseline paranoia around strangers—but...your unease went deeper. Maybe all the stories about Raven’s Crag were getting to you. Everyone on the island said Raven’s Crag was dangerous, some even went so far as to call it cursed. ‘That’s why no one lives there’, they’d say before ordering another drink from the bar. What if something happened to Estella back home? Was paranoia or intuition that twisted your stomach into sailor’s knots? You shook your head and tried to clear your mind. One thing at a time...

“There’s nothing to be nervous about,” Sanji said, sitting beside you and looking pointedly at your bouncing knee. “We’ll find it.”

“If it exists,” you said.

“Madame Estella seemed certain it was here,” he said.

“Yes.” You sighed. “Yes, I know.”

Estella left a rather important detail from her story when she told the Straw Hats about Pandora’s treasure. Over the past five years, it had been you who helped her to find and collect the other boxes. The jade box had been the first and the easiest. You used your devil fruit powers, beguiling the previous owner, and tricking him into giving it to Estella. The onyx box, however, was kept on a marine base within the evidence room under lock and key. You and Estella spent nine months on that island, working your way into the upper echelon of society until General Samuel Bellamy invited several wealthy citizens for brunch. You and Estella had barely made it out after accidentally triggering the alarm when removing Pandora’s box. The last box in her collection, the one made of lapis lazuli, had been underwater in a shipwreck.

Truly, it was a miracle that Estella knew about any of their locations, but that one was especially surprising. You were useless since the ocean sapped all of your strength, but Estella had smiled at you before diving into the waters. Your hands curled into fists on your lap. The current had been strong that day...a storm was on the horizon and the ocean was restless, hungry.

Sanji muttered your name. His gaze burned into your cheek.

“We made it,” Nami announced, shaking you from your reverie.

The tepid saltwater and sand rushed into your shoes and clung to your shins as you leaped from the dingy and helped push the boat onto the shore as best as you could. The palm trees rustled loudly overhead. Your foot snagged against the dry, powdery white sand.

“What’s—” Zoro began one hand on his sword hilt.

“Wait,” you said, snapping your attention from the boat’s edge in your hands and toward the beautiful blue sky. “That’s not—”

Your words were cut off as a hundred screeching calls filled the air and their enormous black wings flapped, upset the palm leaves, and stirred the dry brush at the beachhead. Roughly a dozen, giant ravens descended upon the crew, their beaks open wide to reveal rows of tiny teeth, and their eyes glossy and bright and murderous.

You reached for your kusarigama—a sickle attached to a metal chain with an iron weight at the end — attached to your hip. You hadn’t used the weapon since settling on Nightingale, but you practiced the motions and your continued diligence paid off as you slid into a stance and spun the end of the chain.

A raven opened its’ beak and lunged for Nami, and you launched the weighted end toward the raven. The chain spun around the raven’s beak, closing it, and you tugged—the metal biting into the flesh of your fingers—forcing the beast to bow its head. Nami’s staff cracked the side of the bird’s head and you tugged the chain free, pulling up the slack, after the creature dropped. You could hardly keep track of everyone’s movements through the chaos of undulating black wings and sharp, curved black beaks and curled talons.

Zoro’s sword flashed beneath the sunlight, blood, and dark feathers followed.

Your body ached, familiar with the movements ingrained into the grooves of your muscles, but unfamiliar with fighting things that fought back (your usual enemies were coconut trees and bamboo). You jumped backward through the powdery sand, avoiding a strike of dangerous talons, and you crashed into the hard and warm muscled plane of Zoro’s back.

“Watch where you’re going,” he growled before pivoting on his heel and using his sword to deflect the beak strike coming toward you.

“I was.”

“Didn’t look like it.”

“How” – your fingers tightened around the kusarigama’s grip– “do you manage to fight with that sword shoved so far up your—”

Luffy yelled, “Gum Gum Punch!” His fist launched through the air and landed squarely into the raven’s rib cage sending the bird sprawling into the sand.

“I had it!” You and Zoro shouted simultaneously at Luffy.

“Sorry,” Luffy said, smiling before he turned his attention to a different raven. “Hey, Sanji!” The captain called out to him, “Do you think we could eat these?”

“You’re seriously thinking about food at a time like this?” Nami asked.

You shook your head and were unable to ignore the smile tugging at your lips. This crew is so fucking weird, you thought with a foreign flutter of affection. You brought another raven to eye-level by trapping its beak with your chain and Sanji roundhouse kicked it, knocking your chain free, where it seemed to float in the air for a second before you yanked it back toward you.

The final two ravens squawked, and took flight in a blur of sand and wings, leaving their fallen on the beach scattered among the crew. You wrapped the chain, secured your kusarigama at your hip, and flexed your sore, unpracticed fingers. You scanned the beach and pointed at an outcropping of gray rocks.

“That’s the crag,” you said. You looked at their sweaty faces and bit your lip. “Estella could be wrong,” you warned, “the box might not be there.” She had never been wrong before, but they didn’t need to know that.

“We won’t know until we get there,” said Luffy, walking toward the crag. You wiped the sweat from your face and sighed. There is no swaying Luffy from his destined path, is there? You almost admired his bullheaded tenacity. Almost.

Your hands pulsed, your blood throbbing, your knuckles scraped raw, and nails blunted from climbing up onto the crag. You pulled yourself up the final ledge, each breath laborious, and laid yourself flat against the hot stone. Your salivating mouth tasted metallic and unpleasant. Sanji squatted next to you, and his shadow spilled across your face and blocked the sun.

“Here,” he said, offering you a small flask.

“Water or booze?” you asked.

His lips quirked. “Water.”

“Shame.”

You took a small sip of the water before holding it out to him.

Sanji lifted his hand. “Keep it.”

You raised an eyebrow and bit your tongue to stop yourself from questioning or quipping at him. You were starting to understand that Sanji enjoyed providing for others. He cooked because he believed no one should go hungry, but he also had a true and burning passion for it. He gave you water because you needed it. There was no ulterior motive. No secret to unravel. He was just providing for you as he would provide for anyone on the crew. Not that I’m part of this crew, but the sentiment still counts.

“Thanks,” you finally said, standing.

Luffy stood before the great, black maw of a cave’s entrance with his hands on his hips.

“This is the place, right?” he asked, looking over his shoulder toward you.

“I think so,” you said. In your experience, Pandora’s treasure box locations increased in difficulty over time: a marine base, a shipwreck, and now deep within a cavernous network. You looked at this crew of oddballs, at the scuffs, bruises, and blood they spilled fighting the ravens and climbing the cliffside. I can do it alone. The warm breeze kissed your skin and the bright blue ocean crested with tiny, white waves along the shore below. I’m the one who Estella trusts. They got me here, but they don’t need to see this through.

“We’ve made it this far together, but you can turn back now,” you said, “I don’t want anyone dying for this.”

Luffy frowned. “Only you?”

Your heart dropped. His stark, honest words had momentarily stunned you.

“What?” you breathed.

“Don’t be stupid,” Zoro muttered, “we just fought a bunch of demon birds. There’s no way we’re turning back now.”

“I think she’s got a point,” Usopp said, “one of us should really be waiting on the ship. I volunteer.”

“It’s dangerous,” Luffy continued as if the others hadn’t spoken, “so you’d rather go in there alone and die alone?”

“It’s a wild goose chase, Luffy.” You crossed your arms.

“It’s her dream!” he said, “don’t you have a dream you want to accomplish?”

“My dream is impossible.” You bristled. Your dream wasn’t a treasure hunt, nor was it to become the best of something or the queen of the pirates. Your dream was a fantasy you repeated to keep your nightmares quiet. Your dream would never see fruition. It just couldn’t.

“There’s no such thing,” Luffy said while approaching you. His hand lifted, palm dropping toward your shoulder, and you moved out of the way at the last second. Luffy stumbled at the sudden lack of counter-balance and you grimaced.

You said, “I don’t like being touched.”

Sanji tilted his head to the side.

“Oh, sorry.” Luffy’s tone was earnest. “Whatever your dream is, I think you should go after it.”

You squinted at him rather than answer his statement.

You said, “You’re coming, aren’t you?”

“Yup.” Luffy nodded.

“Me and Nami will guard the entrance in case any more of those birds come back,” Usopp held his slingshot aloft. “We’ll shout if anything happens.”

“Shout loud,” Zoro said as he passed Usopp and entered the cave.

The cave’s cool air was a blessing against your sweaty, sticky skin. You led the crew, even though you didn’t have a map or idea of where the box might be. Estella said ‘Trusting one’s self is the greatest gift’ and you didn’t know if that applied to treasure-hunting, but you decided there was no time like the present to try.

“These caves are odd,” Sanji said, gesturing to the glowing greenish crystals that were embedded into the dark rocks above. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“It’s something with the moon,” you said, watching your shadows play against the stone and crystal walls. “The full moon helps charge them...or so Estella says. She has a book about the caves on Nightingale Island.”

Zoro dug his fingers around one of the lower crystals, yanked it free and it continued to glow in his large hand. He swept his arm across the cavern floor, shining more light on the bits of rubble and dirt, but no treasure box lay waiting for you. His hair brightened beneath the crystals and gave it an almost illusory neon effect.

The cavern curved left, but remained a single, narrow pathway, without any divergences. As odd as that was, since caverns like these usually spilled like a network of threads, you were grateful. You didn’t want to add ‘getting lost in the crystal caves’ to your list of travesties.

“Where’d you learn to fight?” Luffy asked.

“Here and there,” you replied, “Estella needs me to protect her.”

“Did she teach you how to use that chain thing?” He mimed spinning it over his head, as you had done at one point during the battle like the chain was a lasso rope.

You laughed lightly.

“No,” you said, “we spent about nine months on this one island, seeking Pandora’s onyx box, and during that time I trained with a woman named Camilla.”

Luffy’s eyes lit up, emboldened by the viridescent glow of the crystals, and he said, “Cool!” His voice echoed strangely and you stopped suddenly.

“We’re close to something,” you said.

“How do you know?” asked Sanji.

“Our voices sound different here,” Zoro said, sounding bored.

“I wasn’t asking you,” Sanji said, rolling his eyes.

You peered through the muddled darkness tinted by a glowing light. Your heart skipped. Could Estella be right? Was the final box of Pandora’s treasure here? You quickened your pace and followed the path with one hand on your weapon. The crystals sparkled above and mirrored your reflections on their glossy, green surface.

The pathway opened into a cistern with tall glistening edges of slick cave walls, dripping and glowing crystal stalagmites, and shocks of white, thick spider webs running through gaps. Does something live here? You scanned the space.

“Holy shit,” you gasped. At the center of the room was a natural conglomeration of crystals and a bone-white puzzle box nestled at the center, glimmering like a beacon beneath the luminescent light.

You ran forward, kicking aside a bleached-white bone where it went clack-clack-clack into some rocks, and jostled loose golden berry lying around on the ground.

Something grumbled beneath you. No. That wasn’t right. The solid ground gave way, crumbling like a sandcastle devoured by the incoming tide, and your arms windmilled—your scream caught in your throat. The rocks beneath your feet fell to a nest of large, white ropes, and your body tensed—awaiting the inevitable crash and broken bones.

Luffy grabbed your wrist. He pitched into you, the ground unstable, and this time—your scream released—and gravity twisted your body so your spine was to the painful ground below.

“Luffy!” Zoro shouted.

Luffy stretched like saltwater taffy, he clung to your wrists, and both of you dangled above death trap of sharp rocks and rubble. Above, at the very ledge, Zoro’s muscles bulged as he held onto Luffy’s ankles. How is he holding both of us?!

“Climb up,” Luffy said, “climb over me like I’m a rope.” He smiled like this was an ordinary occurrence and you both weren’t a few hundred feet away from certain death.

“I’ll drop,” you said, “I’m closer to the ground. I’ll survive it.”

You glanced at your feet swinging through the empty, dark air. You actually couldn’t tell how close the ground was. The strange, white ropes glowed eerily beneath the muted crystal light, and pockets of it were disturbed and quivering from the fallen rocks. Is that--? Your brow furrowed.

“I can pull you both up,” Zoro announced, his face pinched tight with effort. “Just – just hold on.”

“I already am.” Luffy tightened his grip around your wrists and a wave of nausea coursed through you. Your skin prickled with a clammy, uncomfortable sensation. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, you reminded yourself, using every ounce of self-control not to vomit.

Zoro pulled, grunting as he did, and Luffy’s legs disappeared over the ledge.

Although you couldn’t see Zoro, you heard him shout; “I don’t need your help, stupid cook!”

“I’m not trusting an idiot swordsman with her life,” Sanji yelled, “or with Luffy’s.”

You clenched your eyes shut, squeezing Luffy’s thin wrists, feeling his rapid pulse beneath your fingertips as your heartbeat rushed in your ears and your mouth filled with saliva.

Luffy said your name and your eyes re-opened, “I’m not going to drop you,” he said softly.

He said these words like a stalwart, unwavering promise. He said them in the same way he said ‘I’m going to be king of the pirates’ and despite your past, your ingrained paranoia, and your reasons to distrust him—you believed him, and something sharp prickled behind your eyes.

Luffy’s midsection was yanked over the ledge and Zoro finished pulling the both of you onto the overhanging ledge. As you brushed the cave dirt from your legs, Sanji hunched his shoulders and met your gaze.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Fine.” You looked toward the chasm that separated Pandora’s box from you. You hadn’t brought rope or grappling hooks and you were ill-prepared to vault or climb onto the other side. “How are we going to get over there?”

Zoro pointed and said, “Hug the wall and maneuver around the chasm.”

Your mouth opened to tell him about the risk, but a sudden scuttling noise drew everyone’s attention to the ceiling.

“My web caught a tasty treat,” it said before lowering itself, a web attached to the crystals hung from its spinnerets. The creature was a human from the waist up, her breasts pale and nippleless, and her straight, long, black hair framed her pale face and six, red slit eyes.

Sanji blanched.

“This is your cavern?” You said. You knew grabbing the box wouldn’t be easy, but a giant spider-woman was extreme.

“My cavern,” she said, tilting her head, “and my food.” She clicked the mandibles on the sides of her jaw.

“Luffy, can you reach the box?” You unclasped your kusarigama and extended the chain between your hands.

Luffy cracked his knuckles. “I want to fight this thing.”

“I’ll get the box,” Sanji said, “I don’t fight women.”

He inched closer to the walls which had narrow ledges to precariously climb across. Your heart fell into your shoes. Sanji...You recalled the smiling, overjoyed faces of the children from the orphanage after Sanji made them breakfast, his fond and thoughtful expression when he talked about Zeff, his kindness in the kitchen, and his concerned gaze when Zoro pulled you and Luffy from the ledge. You couldn’t let him risk his life for Estella’s dream. You couldn’t. He’s going to fall if he tries to get it.

Zoro scoffed. “She’s not a woman.”

“I am Arachne,” the creature said.

“Sanji, wait—” you said.

The Arachne swung from her webbing towards the group. A warm, large muscled body collided with yours, sending you sideways into rubble and rock. Your skin smarted and burned where it hit the stones and jagged crystals. You blinked, stunned, as your mind lagged to piece together the details.

Zoro rolled off of you, blade drawn, and jumped to his feet. He saved me? You understood his earlier rescue because Luffy had been involved. He wouldn’t let his captain die—he was protective of him, cared about him even. But saving you didn’t add up. It didn’t make sense. Pirates weren’t loyal to people who weren’t their crew. You shook your head. Roronoa Zoro had saved your life twice. You adjusted your grip on the hilt of your kusarigama.

Time to repay the favor, you thought before charging the Arachne. You slid on your knees, ignoring the pain as the tiny rocks dug into your skin, and ducked beneath the creature’s large, hairy legs. Your chain whipped out, wrapping one leg at the joint before you rolled out from beneath her and jerked the chain over your shoulder for leverage.

The Arachne screeched in indignation, wobbling, although she remained steady on her other legs.

“Hold it steady,” Zoro shouted as his sword flashed in a quick, upward arc as he ran beneath the tied-up leg.

You stumbled forward as the leg was dismembered from its body and flung off in another direction.

The Arachne hissed, scrambling up the wall, and toward the ceiling. You spun your kusarigama, feeling safer with the weight in your hands, and the glowing steel beneath the crystalline fragments.

“Hey!” Luffy yelled, “where are you going?”

You spared a glance to Sanji. He was about halfway, his arms spread akimbo, his back to the wall and his feet crossing carefully over the ridge.

Luffy’s hands shot toward the Arachne and grabbed its rear legs, pulling her back, and the Arachne fired several sticky ropes of webbing at Luffy. He jumped, dodging the first splatter of webbing with impressive speed, and used his momentum to launch himself toward the Arachne.

Luffy landed on her back. They were halfway up the wall, closer to the ceiling than the floor, and your palms dampened as your adrenaline transmuted to fear. What if he falls? You weren’t sure if his Gum-Gum powers made him invincible to gravity and you didn’t want to find out.

You shouted, “Luffy, be careful!”

It’s part human, you worried your lip between your teeth, by that logic, my devil fruit powers should work on it. However, Sanji, Luffy, and Zoro weren’t safe. They didn’t have earplugs or headphones. You couldn’t risk using your voice on the Arachne and hurting them and you didn’t want to distract Sanji from his treacherous and focused climb to Pandora’s box.

Luffy wrestled with the creature, his legs were wrapped around the Arachne’s torso, and his fists moved too fast for your eyes to follow.

Zoro snapped your name and followed with, “Give me a boost.” His eyes were above, focused on Luffy, his green hair hidden by a black bandanna.

“You can’t reach him,” you said, interlacing your fingers, lowering yourself into a crouch, and bracing your back against the cavern’s wall.

Zoro said nothing and smirked. He ran toward you, planting his foot in your cupped hands, before launching himself up towards Arachne and Luffy. His boot scuffed against the wall and he grabbed the hanging webbing that swung from the Arachne. The creature slid downward but remained on the vertical wall. Her balance was affected by Luffy’s attacks and the weight of Zoro on her ‘tail’.

His muscles strained as he climbed the web, shedding pieces of webbing that fell like strange, spindly fluffs of white.

Sanji called your name and you looked. He held the box above his head, victorious and smiling, and your heart swelled. All this trouble for such a small thing, you thought.

“That’s mine!” The Arachne hissed, her face gushed blood, and half of her eyes were swollen shut from Luffy’s onslaught.

She reared back, bucking Luffy from her, and scuttled downward carrying Zoro with her. Luffy landed as a heap of limbs next to you, but his head popped back up, a little dazed but otherwise okay.

The Arachne’s intention was clear. She meant to attack Sanji—to punish him for stealing. Well, you weren’t going to let that happen. You planted your feet, your eyes narrowed and focused on the angles, the speed of her long, spider-legs, and the shape of her long, pale neck.

Kusarigama flew from your hand, its’ sickle-side cut through the air, and the cold chain unraveled through your fingers. The sickle zipped past her head and you tugged the chain, quick and forced, and the blade reversed direction and its’ curved edge sliced clean through her neck. A second passed. The Arachne’s head seemed to float through the air as it was rendered from her body with an arching spray of crimson that appeared black in the verdant pale light of the cave.

Her head hit the ground with a soft and rolling ‘thump’.

“That went well,” you said, breaking the silence, and a hysteric smile threatened to take hold of your lips. None of the children are going to believe this.

“Do you think anyone will believe that we fought a giant spider-lady?” asked Luffy.

Sanji said, “It’s no less believable than defeating Arlong’s crew.”

Your eyebrows raised. “You beat Arlong?” You thought Usopp had been lying when he shared that story.

Zoro sheathed his sword. “It was easy.”

“We make a pretty good team, don’t we?” Luffy said before smiling, though you assumed the question was rhetorical and didn’t answer him. You nudged the Arachne’s head with your foot and it rolled off the ledge and into the darkness below. It was eerie how easily you slipped into this crew’s dynamic. You didn’t fit in with them—you didn’t, but you could. And that was the scary part. However, you wouldn’t entertain ideas or dreams of leaving Nightingale Island. Your place was next to Estella and your future and fate were tied to hers.

You owed her after everything she did for you, after everything you’ve gone through together. No matter how easy it was to fight alongside the Straw Hats—you had your place in this world and it wasn’t with these pirates.

(author's note:

I'm sorry this took a while to post. I hope the length makes up for it <3 also happy belated birthday to Sanji !! xoxo )

#one piece fanfiction #reader insert #zoro x reader #zoro roronoa x reader #zoro x you #sanji x reader #sanji x you #vinsmoke sanji x reader #zoro x sanji #sanzoro #zoro x sanji x reader #zoro x sanji x you #sanji x zoro x reader #ot3 #opla fanfic #one piece live action fanfic #wip

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girlashfur · 3 months

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Transmisogyny In The Warriors Fandom : The Mothpool Issue

hi, my name is muyang / @girlashfur and i'm a transfeminine being who enjoys the fictional series of warrior cats. i've been into this book series for as long as i can remember, ever since i was a little kid. and growing up with this fandom, i've noticed a reocurring issue among it, which i aim to do a break-down of now.

the issue is transmisogyny. for those who are unaware : transmisogyny is the unique combination and overlap of misogyny and transphobia, specifically targeting transfeminine individuals. it's a widespread issue in just about every corner of the world, even spaces for transgender and otherwise queer individuals seem to have a problem with being transmisogynistic, intentionally or not. the warriors fandom is not exempt from this; and they're not special, either, i'm yet to encounter a popular fictional fanbase that doesn't have several transmisogynists among it's members. but the warriors fandom seems to have a peculiar way of going about it.

to start, i want to clarify that there seems to be...a surprising lack of transfem warriors fans to begin with; i can name about three off the top of my head, not counting myself, compared to hundreds of cisgender, transmasc, or otherwise tme (transmisogyny exempt) fans. perhaps we're just underrepresented, i'm sure there's more of us out there, but nonetheless i'd like to make it clear i'm writing this mainly based off of what i personally have experienced and witnessed in this fandom. my word may not speak for every transfem person, and that's okay.

transmisogyny isn't always violent and obvious; it's not always slurs and misgendering and harrassment, although don't get me wrong, plenty of transmisogynists do engage in such a way. but it can also be a subtle practice, something most tme people would not pick up on. like all systems of oppression, it can also be a learned behavior, one somebody witnesses happen (typically unpunished) and assumes is okay to recreate. one of the ways this can happen is through the objectification and sexualization of transfeminity. stereotypes are a common form of this. oftentimes, transfeminine characters are portrayed as violent and agressive, masculine and gruff, or as suave and predatory womanizers, sometimes a mixture of all three.

the warriors fandom does this often. there are several characters that are commonly headcanoned as transfem by the fandom, and most are victim to being portrayed this way. a few i can think of off the top of my head are cats like russetfur, crowfeather, mapleshade, darktail, tree, and yes...mothwing. mothwing is a bit of a special case, because i believe most people only headcanon her as transfeminine so they can ship her with leafpool (the ship commonly named mothpool) and imagine the two with biological kittens, in some aus, even as the three's parents.

this is a form of objectification already, although one might not catch onto it immediately. mothwing's transness is turned into a token, a special card to be exchanged to fit the fandom's idolized version of the ship. one could argue it could be interpreted as sexualization as well; while the warriors fandom tends to stray away from outright sexual portrayals of the cats (for good and obvious reasons), mothwing being transfem is still only done for the purpose of making her a cat with a penis, so she can have kits.

mothwing isn't canonically a particularly violent or angry cat, nor does she seem to be particularly romantic (she actually doesn't have a canon mate at all, being a medicine cat). however, in fandom based portrayals of her, she's often twisted to fit these stereotypes. sometimes she's designed to be large and masculine with the excuse of it being because she's a tigerkin, or sometimes she's portrayed as being very proud and open about her love of leafpool (who is often portrayed as shy and defenseless, practically hiding behind her). i've seen several aus with transfem mothwing in them "conveniently" include things like her formerly training as a warrior, or killing another cat (such as crowfeather) "for leafpool", or even portraying her as evil, typically falling to the manipulation of her father.

mothpool as a ship isn't really the issue here. it's the fandom's doing. the two have quite a few canon interactions that could be portrayed as romantic, and sure, it's really not my buisness what people ship as long as it's legal and all...but when you get exposed to so much hidden transmisogyny tied to one ship, as a victim of transmisogyny, you grow kinda wary of the ship as a whole. the few transfeminine people i've spoken to about this issue seemed to share my feelings as well. the moment i see a mothpool shipper mention making mothwing trans, i get shivers.

another point i'd like to make clear is that it's not every mothpool shipper doing this either, even out of the ones who do make her trans, i've met a few who portrayed it well and seemed very open and concerned about my views on transfem mothwing as a transfem person. i'm also certainly not saying you should go harrass people for shipping what they want, that's not my point nor is it helpful. as i've mentioned before, there's a good chance some of the people portraying mothpool in harmful ways like this don't fully realize what they're doing, and think it's okay because it's something they've seen before. i don't want those people to think they're bad for falling into those false beliefs, as long as they change them when they realize how they're offensive.

what i'm aiming to do here is give my two cents on why i generally dislike the ship as a transfeminine being myself, and to also spread awareness to why i feel that way. if i can make some people out there rethink some transmisogynist views they had perpetuated before, then my work is done well. as i'm finishing off this little essay of mine, i hope my message was explained clearly and gently, as it should be. see you guys in the next post, muyang out.

#ashie rambles #warrior cats #warriors #waca #long post #transmisogyny #ok to rb #mothpool #<- i feel scared adding that tag but yall need to see it #anyways!! i'm hesitent to post this but idk i'm feeling impulsive i'll do it...hope yall can behave yourselves #if this gets enough traction i might disable replies just for safety

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the-owl-tree · 7 months

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genuine question bc I haven’t read the books since. Idk a long time, why do ppl hate nightcloud so much?? I have literally only ever heard of her as an afterthought. Like she’s the third choice for crow feather bc he needed to take a mate to not be seen suspicious and just picked her, there’s no love between them, and afaik he basically forced her to raise her son by herself, not counting the moments of attention he DID give which seemed to be overwhelmingly negative and even abusive. Isn’t she allowed to be bitter and that when he’s very clear abt his apathy and even resentment toward her and her son?? Or am I missing some context

People took Crowfeather passing the blame onto Nightcloud for Breezepelt's behavior at face value, despite two arcs worth of books proving that wasn't true at all. I'd argue the writing team ALSO believed this, as with how they characterized her in the subsequent Field Guides. Immediately, Nightcloud's past actions were re-contextualized to be negative, to further push this idea that she was this old coddling bitch mom who didn't let poor Crowfeather be involved with his son (look at the language of the field guides, they genuinely wrote "she should be glad to be alive").

Crowfeather was (and in some circles still is) a pretty popular character, and a lot of people were quick to latch onto the idea that he was blameless. I can't remember if CrowPool was or wasn't a popular ship, I lean towards yes, so take this line with the knowledge my memory is fuzzy, but I'd also argue that Nightcloud being the "replacement" mate was what made people even more hostile to her.

So, what is Nightcloud actually like? I'm only going to cover scenes where Nightcloud is either mentioned or actually appears, so no Outcast, click the first link for a better look at that. I'll only cover Po3 and OoTS for now.

Nightcloud's Appearances in the Power of Three

Our first meeting with her is in The Sight, where ThunderClan intervenes when they're being chased around by a dog. Her first piece of actual dialogue is her defending Breezepaw from Crowfeather, which is not coddling, especially when given the added context in Outcast that Crowfeather is verbally abusive towards his son. She also proceeds to lecture him about his manners towards a ThunderClan cat, so, she's not the one encouraging his rude streak.

She is then absent for most of the book until the end, when during one of the contests at the Daylight Gathering, Lionpaw and Breezepaw get hurt in a collapsed tunnel incident and she understandably is quite distressed. Then Leafpool drops the "i'd give every drop of my blood for you Crowfeather" line and Nightcloud just tries to divert attention from that, understandably uncomfortable with what's being said.

One of the scenes that's commonly used as "evidence" that Nightcloud stopped Crowfeather from bonding with Breezepelt is this one:

No hissing or swatting. She just doesn't let him help, and considering we now know Crowfeather has been absent from the beginning and isn't above hitting and screaming at his kid, I think it's understandable that she arguably isn't going to stop just so he can help. But that's my interpretation, I think this scene in itself proves nothing of the sort either way and people were reaching when trying to use it as evidence.

Nightcloud's remaining appearances in The Sight is her watching over Breezepaw and Lionpaw as they recover:

That is the entirety of her appearance in The Sight. Onto Dark River! Where her first mention is Leafpool identifying her and Jaypaw sensing some jealousy from Leafpool, as the patrol is going to check in on WindClan and get information because of uh scents. you know usual warriors border bullshit. We then get Jaypaw noticing her breath, and finally him sensing jealousy from Nightcloud (that she does not act on). This is the entirety of her appearance in Dark River:

Cue Leafpool being polite to Crowfeather, and Crowfeather waving as many red flags as he possible can.

And onto the infamous Outcast! Where Nightcloud has *drumroll* one fucking appearance.

She also has one appearance in Eclipse where she's part of the patrol that attacks Lionpaw, but I'm not even going to mention it it's quite literally just him going "Nightcloud!" before the scene shifts to his and Heatherpaw's conflict. She is entirely absent in Long Shadows, there is no appearance of her beyond allegiances.

And finally in Sunrise, she is entirely absent until near the ending. She's first mentioned by Crowfeather when Jayfeather asks him if he knew the truth, then noticed at a gathering by Hollyleaf:

When the secret is revealed, Nightcloud stands with Crowfeather. No hissing or hitting or turning on him, here is the entirery of her appearance when Hollyleaf reveals everything:

This is it. This is the entirety of Nightcloud involvement in the story, she is barely mentioned and she is barely a character. Her appearances are dwarfed by Crowfeather and Breezepelt, and she is literally just a normal mom character throughout.

Nightcloud's Appearances in Omen of the Stars

Nightcloud is absent throughout the entirety of the Fourth Apprentice. She is only mentioned in the allegiances. She has one appearance in Fading Echoes:

Then there's Night Whispers, where her first appearance is her arguing with Crowfeather while Flametail goes "yikes!":

Her other appearance is the infamous grabbing scene that people latched onto as proof that Nightcloud was an abusive monster who was hurting poor Crowfeather and was forcing him to not bond with his son. Breezepelt and Lionblaze get into a border dispute and it escalates into a fight:

Leafpool intervenes and asks Crowfeather why he's not doing shit, he then proceeds to throw up multiple red flags in front of her and does the red flag dance:

We finally get Nightcloud where she comes in and pulls Crowfeather away from Leafpool. Despite using her claws, presumably because she does not have fucking THUMBS to grab onto him, no blood is drawn. She just pulls him away in an already emotionally charged and over dramatic situation. This is not comparable to Crowfeather's abuse of his son and with everything else I've presented, her grabbing him is not indicative of their relationship, ESPECIALLY given the circumstances of the action:

Her last appearance is her talking about shredding RC cats, it's not relevant but uh it's there. That the entirety of her appearances within the book.

She has no appearances in Sign of the Moon. She then has a two appearances in The Forgotten Warrior where she is hostile to Hollyleaf (which feels understandable to me considering what Hollyleaf did):

She has one onscreen appearance in The Last Hope where she defends Jayfeather from the Dark Forest attack with some other WindClan cats:

Her only other mention is Crowfeather blaming her for Breezepelt's behavior:

In canon, this never happens. We never see Nightcloud encourage Breezepelt to hate Crowfeather, but we instead see Crowfeather spending an entire book abusing Breezepaw when Nightcloud is away. This is bullshit, but the fandom took this as truth and immediately turned on Nightcloud despite no actual evidence.

There are three takeaways from this:

Crowfeather blaming Nightcloud is....false. It's false. We see no canon evidence of this, and in fact the books tell us another narrative.

Nightcloud is barely a character. She has so few actual appearances that calling her "complex" is a lie, she is a narrative tool that moreso supports Crowfeather and Breezepelt's conflict than any story of her own.

Even if Nightcloud did do all that offscreen, Crowfeather STILL abused his child and that is directly tied to Breezepelt's motivations within Omen of the Stars. Nightcloud's behavior does NOT negate the harm that Crowfeather did to his own son.

#warrior cats #nightcloud #breezepelt #crowfeather #deer rambles #stealing bonefall's essay format LOL but it's useful for organization.#anyways. i've wanteed to make this post for a while sooo ty anon for the excuse to

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