#it's a funky timeline of age in the family | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bluegekk0 · 5 months

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Okay, so I have been reading through your other posts about Zote and find it kinda interesting he is younger than he actually seems. He sounds like an oldish man, he kinda looks oldish but he is maybe the same age range as Tiso or Bretta. Considering that he also has a rough backstory, he could have aged faster. It reminds me of the images of the WW2 soldier before and after the war from 1941 and 1945 and how much he aged. Did Zote simply age way quicker than he should, or is it just bad genes?

i imagine it's either bad genes, or his species just has this kind of appearance which has traits we usually associate with old people (like for example the mouth shape, or the wrinkle-like lines under the eyes). maybe a bit of both. of course, the stress of his childhood could've definitely played a part, but i'm definitely leaning towards that appearance being something common for his species

as for his voice, it's deep, yeah, though i wouldn't necessarily say it sounds like an old man. it just sounds like a regular grown man deep voice to me. i've meet some people who have voices way deeper than what you'd expect based on their age, so it could be a similar case for him. or perhaps he makes it deeper on purpose to sound more mature and experienced than he really is? would certainly fit him

i agree that he's probably in the same age range as bretta and tiso. hard to tell how old exactly since they probably age differently to humans. but i imagine him as in his early 20s

also, some character and worldbuilding ramble below because i'm in a rambling mood

ages are funky for the whole fpk family since they're a bunch of immortal beings, but i think it'd be fun to compare zote to the rest. i also want to talk a bit more about how aging would work in the au for non-immortal beings

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fpk - in actual years he's about 335-340 years old. so by mortal standards he's very old, but compared to how long wyrms would live on average before they died to starvation/other wyrms, he's very young and inexperienced. he was one of the last few wyrms that hatched before the species was declared extinct, likely the very last generation, so in wyrm years he would be in his 20s or early 30s. definitely not an old man if you look at him from that perspective. if i were to describe him in human years, possibly for the purposes of the modern au, then he would be in his early 40s

grimm - i haven't decided what his actual age is in years, i know he's been around for longer than fpk, but he's also relatively young for a god since he's from a younger generation of higher beings. perhaps in the range of 600-700 for an actual number? as for how that would translate to a more human like age, he would probably be in his 40s. but again, it's very difficult to estimate that since he's a god and not a member of any species, so there's no point of reference to use. i suppose not having a specific age makes sense for him, with how much time passed and with all the replaced bodies, he would definitely stop counting at some point. also, i like the idea of him just making it up every time he's asked how old he is

hornet - in actual years, she's close to 50 years old. but since she's immortal just like her father, and because aging works differently in the universe, it means that she's not actually this age. in human years, i imagine her as someone who's 18 or 19. very young adult, barely scratched the surface. though i love to imagine the reactions of mortals when she says how old she is, since she would be considered an old person by most of them hahaha

holly - they're older than hornet, timeline wise they'd be about 60-65 years old. as for human years, early 20s is how i view them

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lewk - at the current point in the au he's about a year and a half old, though in human years that would translate to something like 4 or 5 years old

it's all a bit over the place but that's the reality of working with beings that all stop aging at some point. compared to anyone else in dirtmouth they're definitely all very old

it's difficult to determine the age at which the mortals in the universe mature, mostly because i imagine it's different for each species. but i think in many cases it would be similar to how a lot of animals age, so they would reach maturity faster than humans do. as for the average lifespan? i don't think it's that short, in that case it would be similar to an average human lifespan, they just mature a lot faster (and so it takes them a longer time to reach "old man" age)

as for why that is. well, in nature having offspring is crucial, and so many species reach maturity relatively fast so that they can reproduce. so it makes sense that this would be the case for all the different species in the au, since they're descendants of small creatures that lived years ago among the giant extinct beasts (such as wyrms, as well as the giant insect like creatures from that one piece of concept art). but times have changed, many of them developed communities, the quality of life improved, and so i could absolutely see the average lifespan increasing drastically

now, there's a lot of suspension of disbelief here since that's not really something you see very often in nature, but for the sake of the au i like to think this is the case

so, in short. someone like zote would be considered an adult at around 8-10 years old in actual years. but since he's 20ish years old, it will be a while before he can be considered an old man. i imagine he would reach that status once he gets to 50+ years old, if he doesn't die to a wild animal or slips and falls off a cliff before then, that is. don't ask me how he managed to not get himself killed for 20 years, i have no clue either

so, ignoring differences between different species, i imagine the average lifespan for a mortal living in a safe community would be about 60, maybe 70 years old

of course this is all subject to change. there's bound to be a day where i think about this again and realize it makes no sense. but i still wanted to ramble and share some ideas i had

#ask stuff #feral pk au #au worldbuilding #save #modern fpk au #<- in case i decide to go with these ages #zote #fpk #grimm #hornet #holly #ages

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aemiron-main · 7 months

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Henry and Patty and George and Creelarke: Have I Changed My Mind About George?

So, like I said earlier today, even If Henry is George, it was still described as Betty/Patty having a crush on George, not the other way around. And in this post, I’m going to talk about a.) the idea of Henry and Patty’s dynamic and how it could tie into creelarke and b.) whether I believe George is Henry.

So, starting with a.), this tweet mentioned the potential of Henry and Patty having a stobin-esque relationship which, regardless of the identity of George, Henry and Betty are clearly connected somehow (which we already knew from the TFS animated trailers), and I think a stobin dynamic (with Patty as Steve with an unrequited crush and gay Henry as Robin), which I think would be perfect.

And that also brings us to Vickie- if Henry is paralleled to Robin, then what about Vickie?

Well, Vickie is a nerd who seems to have a tendency to ramble, and who has some funky hand gestures/an animated personality

And who else do we know that’s very similar?

SCOTT!!! SCOTT CLARKE, LOCAL DRAMATIC NERD WIRH FUNKY HAND GESTURES!!! If Scott is paralleled to Vickie, with Patty and Henry being paralleled to Steve and Robin respectively, it would be perfect. Especially with Scott being younger and therefore likely even more Vickie-esque/rambly!!

I am staring DIRECTLY at the potential for Patty watching as Henry stares at Scott/Scott and Henry with their Gay Vibes vs Patty getting over her crush, like how Steve watches Vickie and Robin/encourages Robin to talk to her.

Now, shifting gears a bit- do I think that George is Henry? Have I changed my mind?

So, first of all, while I’m focusing on what I think is Actually True rather than What I Want To Be True, it’s still worth noting that I don’t mind if Henry is George/like I said, even if he is George, I don’t think theyre going to make him straight/put him into a romance with Patty. I’d love for Henry to be confirmed as George tbh because it would mean that we’re likely to get that Patty-Henry Stobin dynamic which I’d love AND it means that we have more confirmed Henry content (the auditions) to analyze.

And now, as far as what I think is actually happening/whether or not George is Henry:

The whole age thing still throws me for a loop, and it’s one of the main things (in addition to how closely the kid from the audition resembles Lonnie but that’s a whole other works considering that that kid hasn’t to been cast/considering what Stav talked about here with the casting weirdness) that pushed me away from believing that George is Henry.

Like Henry is 12 and Patty’s dialogue in the audition seems to put her as 15+, and I really don’t seem them a.) Having an older teenager crush on a 12 year old or b.) completely ignoring Henry’s canon age and just aging him up. Both of those choices don’t align with what we’ve seen from ST so far as far as relationships (ie imagine S1 Nancy crushing on S1 Dustin, because that’d be a pretty similar age gap/dynamic as Patty and Henry), and just ignoring Henry’s age/changing it doesn’t align with the attention to detail in ST/how specific they’ve been about the Creel family’s ages in the newspapers/how Henry is clearly 12/not a teen in the show, AND the fact that the play has been confirmed as being CANON, so it’s not just an offshoot where they can change whatever.

However, with that said, there’s also all of the weirdness with a.) Alice being listed as being 15 in the Weekly Watcher, b.) Edward moving to Hawkins two years before Henry and the Eddie Munson missing poster age weirdness and c.) the whole Owens vs Victor thing I’ve been posting about (esp today’s posts re: Owens and Victor and TFS) and the potential for timeline/Edward weirdness during TFS which could affect ages because even though Henry is listed as being 12 in the Weekly Watcher, Edward doesn’t ever get his age listed.

Like, I’m still not convinced that George is Henry (and even if he is, I still 1000% think Henry is gay/dont think he’s going to have a romantic relationship with Patty), because the age stuff throws me for a loop. However, I’m more open to the idea of Henry being George if there’s timeline/Edward weirdness messing with Henry’s age because the age thing is one of the big things that makes it difficult to agree that Henry is George.

So, basically, my thoughts on George are mostly the same as they were before- that if they aren’t doing any sort of timeline age weirdness, then it’s extremely unlikely that George is Henry.

The only things that have changed regarding my thoughts on George are:

1.) The fact that the George kid from the audition who REALLY resembles Lonnie wasn’t cast in any role at all, (which again, stav talked here about how that’s weird).

This changed my thoughts is because part of my reason for believing that George isn’t Henry was the fact that the kid in the audition REALLY resembles Lonnie and did NOT resemble Henry at all.

2.) The fact that the guy who was cast as Victor REALLY resembles Owens, and how the lady cast as Virginia REALLY resembles Owens’ wife, more than she resembles Virginia, and that being combined with what I talked about in this post with the Victor-Owens parallels and the idea of Owens being Edward Timeline Victor.

This changed my thoughts re: George because it ties into the age issue that I talked about earlier, because Edward, unlike Henry, doesn’t have a confirmed age, and there’s so many ages and dates (such as Victor’s age) that DO get changed in the Edward timeline. So, if we’re seeing the Edward timeline in TFS instead/some sort of timeline fuckery, then that’s a whole new box of potential for age changes.

And even though he’s been listed as Henry Creel on all of the TFS stuff, there’s still absolutely the potential of Henry and Edward having accidentally swapped into eachother’s timelines somehow/all of the swapping places references in ST/the Fringe parallels and Peter Bishop ending up in the other Peter’s timeline.

3.) Alice not being cast yet/being weirdly absent

Alice not being cast yet changed my thoughts re: George because just like 2.), it has the potential to tie into timeline weirdness, like I talked about in this post and this post, and with Alice specifically being connected to changing age weirdness (her looking 12 in the show but being listed as 15 in the Weekly Watcher), and her also being connected to timeline weirdness (with Connie Frazier likely being Edward Timeline Alice/Mother Alice), and how her apparent absence could be connected to us seeing the Edward timeline in TFS & Mother Alice being present instead of Daughter Alice/Karen Wheeler being Daughter Virginia/Karen being the Creel daughter in the Edward timeline, and therefore they don’t need to cast an “Alice Creel” in TFS because the Creel mother (which Is Alice in the Edward timeline) is already present and casted (her casting is listed as Virginia but that makes sense if theyre not revealing timeline stuff yet/shes the Virginia equivalent) and the Creel Daughter is already present and casted (Karen Wheeler/Karen Childress which her lastname is a whole other can of worms that I need to dig into), so casting a daughter named Alice Creel in the Edward timeline would be adding an extra, new character who doesnt exist in the Edward timeline/we would end up with two Creel daughters.

Basically, my stance previously was “George might be Henry but it’s extremely unlikely,” and now my stance is “George might be Henry and it’s more likely than it was previously now that timeline stuff is staring to pop up because timeline stuff opens the door for feasible, canon-adhering age changes”

So yeah! Just wanted to put this out there because I know one person in particular was making some super bitchy posts regarding my previous posts about George and TFS and acting like I was suddenly proven wrong/acting like i was Completely Fully Convinced With No Evidence That George Isnt Henry- hence why I wanted to explain why I believed so firmly that George isnt Henry (the age stuff, the audition George actor’s resemblance to lonnie & the initial absence of anything pointing towards timeline weirdness) and why now that’s changed slightly (the audition George not being cast, the timeline stuff becoming more likely based on things like Victor’s casting and Alice’s absence).

#stranger things #the first shadow #creelarke #henry creel #edward creel #patty newby #timeline theory

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justkeepwalkingnothinghere · 3 months

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tell me about castor :D

HOOKAY, HI. The floodgates have been opened, folks! It’s about to be walls of text!

So you wanna hear about my son! I have waited so long to tell almost his entire life story here on Tumblr. Many on Discord have heard, but not much has been told on my blog. Today, that changes!

LET’S DO THIS!

(Please note: The Spellcastor AU is still under development and details may be changed)

Full Name: Castor Windchime.

Nicknames: Spellcastor (Eda), Window decor (also Eda, upon first meeting).

Parents: Quince and Layla Windchime (May Layla rest in peace? Still iffy on that decision).

Age: Somewhere in his 40s, who knows.

Occupation: Supplier of potion ingredients (former), Seller of human collectibles (current), Another job that I will not reveal at this time for spoiler reasons (REDACTED).

Hexside Track: Illusions, Bard (behind closed doors).

Sexuality: Pan.

Wild Witch: Yes.

Likes: Storytelling and using his magic to do so, music, Boiling Isles history, cookie dough eye-scream, boiling rainstorms, goreberries, his morning coffee, being with loved ones.

Dislikes: Belos, Odalia, the coven system, anyone who threatens his friends and family, when his ears get cold on the knee, goreberry flavored anything.

First off, WHO is Castor? As stated before, I see him as my son, but in reality, he is my Owl House OC! Originally intended to be my self insert/witchsona, he quickly snowballed into his own character entirely with his own AU in the works. This boy and his story are my pride and joy.

His story is a long one, and while there are a handful of details and even chunks that I won’t be talking about for the purposes of avoiding spoilers, I am warning that you may wanna stop here in case you wanna find out everything once the fic comes out. At some point. Eventually. Let’s go!

While this AU focuses on present day Owl House, from Luz finding herself in the demon realm, to taking down Belos once and for all, Castor’s story began decades ago. Let’s go back a ways… reaches the Deadwardian era Too far! Too far! *Ahem!* Let’s go back…less far than that.

The dawn of Belos’ reign and the beginnings of the coven system. (This is when the timeline starts to get a bit funky but it doesn’t matter much. I am about ramble about Castor’s parents as I am equally passionate about them)

Castor’s parents, Quince and Layla, met in a pretty standard way. They found each other when they weren’t in the best places in life. To start, Quince was forced by their parents to become a scout for the Emperor’s Coven the moment they were qualified to do so. Most of their teen years were spent training, something they didn’t wanna do. Their family wasn’t the most savory of Belos supporters, and Quince began to resent them for it. But sure enough, once the day came, Quince passed coven tryouts and was soon to cross the threshold of the Emperor’s Castle. Rumor has it they even went on some missions alongside Steve’s father.

Layla on the other hand made her choice. Not many in the BI would know it, but Layla was at one point a wild witch. Unfortunately, when Belos set to outlaw wild magic, she feared for her future. Her entire family did. She saw no other choice but to pick a coven, and stick with it. To stay safe. Especially when the risk of petrification grew. She specialized in beast keeping, turning her home into a sanctuary of sorts when she would bring creatures back with her to take care of them.

But of course, being in the coven system was a tough, arduous job. With the power to drain you mentally. Everyone needs their break every once in a while. Quince and Layla would one night take theirs at Grimgrub’s Pub, after a particularly long day. Which is exactly where they met, spotting each other from across the room. Nothing new for Quince, they had met a couple new people this way. The two hit it off that night, an almost instant connection. Sounds like the start of a beautiful friendship, wouldn’t you say?

It soon enough became a blossoming romance, Quince and Layla having to develop ways to see each other in secret, and away from the prying eyes of Belos and the scouts. Think sneaking in through their bedroom windows kind of a deal. By the time they married, they had both been in their covens for many years, and it did have an effect on them. But once they had Castor? Quince and Layla knew their coven days were over. Knowing that it was no place to raise a child, especially once Belos would inevitably get involved, Quince grabbed their wife and infant son, and the three made a run for it to the right arm of the Titan. Far enough away from Belos to at least try to get things in order. Within the walls of this new cozy home that is still under the Windchime name to this day, the family of three started their completely new life.

(Putting the continue reading here because this is when I get way in detail about Castor’s life story. Last chance to turn back!)

When he was a toddler, there was no telling what track Castor would pick when he’d go to Hexside. Later on though, Castor had actually grown a love for storytelling. From fiction and even Boiling Isles history, he found that illusion magic allowed him to make his stories come to life, a clear picture of the perfect scene. He had a knack for this since he was little, it coming as no surprise to his parents when he immediately picked illusions at Hexside. At school he was your average student. He got good grades, practiced at home, went to an after school writing club. Even began to study bard magic once he gained an interest. But this doesn’t mean everything was good. Castor, sadly, didn’t have much of a social life. All he had were a few acquaintances in class.

Other students often looked down on him and fellow illusion track kids for their choice of magic. Not many people saw illusions as interesting or useful. The distaste for illusion magic was worse than in Gus’ time. Most days, Castor was alone. That is, until a certain “Lord Calamity” came a knocking. You see, Eda was an infamous figure of chaos at school, and she had made one hell of a name for herself. It was a common occurrence for students to hear the end result of one of her pranks or schemes at random points of the day. And Castor would often see a yellow school uniform and ginger hair pass by in a blur as Eda fled the scene. He usually tried his best not to get caught in one, not wanting to get in trouble, or at worst, lose a limb.

As you can probably guess, Castor was one day picked by Eda to play a signature role in her latest scheme. It required illusion magic, and judging by the light blue sleeves of Castor’s uniform, she felt he’d be perfect for the job. Castor agreed, albeit reluctantly, and what followed was some of the most fun he ever had. The storyteller and bringer of chaos found that they got along quite well! Castor was called to action again soon after, Eda bringing her sister Lilith along for the action this time, and Eda had set the standard for how things would be for these three from here on out. Before long, they were suddenly sitting at the same lunch table together, hanging out after school, being study buddies, practicing magic, you name it! Castor finally had people he could call friends.

Fast forward a few years, about 7 months before the curse. The trio had been best friends for a long time, doing almost everything together. Eda and Castor would meet in their hideout (the one with all the doors) and plan out schemes of all sorts, mostly just to get on Faust's nerves. Eda had even invited Castor to her house to learn how to carve a palisman with her father, Del. Castor emerged from the Clawthorne house with a small, orange mouse sitting in his shirt pocket. A mouse named Munchkin. Lilith had gotten him even more involved in Boiling Isles history, welcoming him to the inner circle of history nerds. And of course, you could find Castor in the stands, cheering on the Banshees and supporting the Clawthorne sisters nearly every grudgby game. Everything was going to be just fine! That is, until Eda almost got expelled. Once word had gotten out, Castor was the first to hear every little detail of Eda's day at HECK, and thus, the first to hear about Eda's new friend, Raine Whispers.

Understandably, Castor was ecstatic to hear of Raine's bard status, having been practicing at home since he got an interest. Surely, a few tips and maybe even some in person lessons would help him improve on his work! Raine sounded like a charming fellow Castor would love being around, and was really excited to meet them sometime. But what Eda didn't expect was to see a familiar face show up at the lunch table the very next day. Castor and Raine hit off right from the get go, becoming closer as time went on, from bard private bard lessons (with Eda joining in, too), to collaborating on Eda's pranks since they had gotten more complex with two people helping her. Castor's bard skills had improved A LOT, and soon, he would be able to wield and play his flute with ease. Including Lilith, it was the perfect team of best friends, along with acquaintances in Darius, Alador and Perry Porter.

Before long, Castor and Lilith had begun to notice some sparks flying between the young bard and wild witch. They knew there was something between them. Castor thought it was adorable and wanted nothing but happiness for them. Lilith had even coined their ship name, Raeda. She and Castor would sometimes talk about Raeda's pining, with Darius often joining in. Eda and Raine were completely oblivious to their crushes on each other. Neither of them knew, despite it being painfully obvious. Which lead to some folks, mostly Darius, getting annoyed with the pining.

I'd say more, but the next big chunks are the ones I won't be giving. The biggest spoilers possible. But really, what else needs to be said? Castor and Lilith rejoiced when Raeda finally got together, Faust retired and made Bump principal, Castor and everyone were all there for Eda in the first months of the curse, Castor and Raeda's best friendship stood for many years, Castor still kept in a little bit of contact with Lilith even after she joined the EC, was heartbroken when Raeda broke up, and moved in with Eda a decade later when he faced some troubling times. He met King, opened up the Human Collectibles stand with Eda, and felt that all would be well for years to come. That is, until one fateful day...

"And this...well this'll make good kindling." "Excuse me, sorry, that's mine, thank you!"

Was that...a human?!

(End ridiculously long backstory!)

Thank you, and goodnight!

#toh #the owl house #toh oc #the owl house oc #original character #castor windchime #spellcastor AU #asks #info dump #my god this took way too long to write #thank you and goodnight #but please ask more about Castor if you ever wanna hear more about him!#it means a lot to me when people get curious about him!

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rontra · 2 years

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Your Pramanix comic is really cool! Do you mind if I ask what the un-translated parts mean, and what's Ensia saying on page 6? What language is it even? And timeline-wise, when is the final scene set? :O

thank you!!

ah...now i must answer for my indulgence... BHJDGKJNMG SORRYYY THIS IS LONG BUT

in the dream sequence, everyone's speaking norwegian. i thought overlaying the translated text gave it a cool like "echoey" feel 😳 since it's a distant memory and a dream at the same time, that sort of separation between sound and meaning feels bigger. it's a vibe

(also it's my first language so it's easy to use without having to study up beforehand LMAO)

(there's obviously several various different cultures that serve as inspirations for kjerag's visual design and lore, but sort of, linguistically(?), it borrows some from norwegian (such as Kjerag being a real place--and popular hiking spot!--in norway, not even super far from my family lol). you could say this all started when Arctosz dropped a norwegian "fy faen" right into the Break the Ice script, implying some things about the language that is Spoken there, which i'm Still Recovering From bc it was Very Funny)

(let enya say faen)

Speaking Of, that's one of the untranslated bits huh. BHJDFDN there's a couple

fy faen - a high tier curse word, everybody's favorite. "faen" is the main swear, "fy" is an intensifier to amplify the profanity. on page 9, it might be most thematic to translate it as a truly heartfelt "god (fucking) damn it"? LOL (i could also see myself rendering it as simply "fuck" depending on mood; neither is a direct translation). let enya say faen

kjære kjeragandr - this repeated refrain is the title of the comic, "dear kjeragandr"

ensia on page 6 - she's trying to say "kjære kjeragandr" too, but she's very young here--she's started talking but hasn't grasped all the sounds yet. i sort of fudged the rendering of that to try and make it identifiably "an echo" of what enciodes said, even if you couldn't understand what it meant. (she can't say R yet, so it's skipped entirely, while the remaining vowels are repeated as another Æ to simplify it for herself.)

the main loss here is "KJ", which is a very difficult sound--often the one kids acquire very last--which is being substituted with the far easier to say "SJ" sound. this is sort of niche detail, but basically KJ being so difficult is probably the reason "kjerag" in most ingame lines and text is written/pronounced more like "Yerag"; "kj" is not typically a shared phoneme between these languages, so you can't easily transcribe it and many can't pronounce it. because it's a sound you acquire late in the game, ensia doesn't have it down yet at her age and replaces it with a simpler one.

(a SJ (pronounced "SH" as in SHH or HUSH) is the common substitute for KJ, and in some dialects it's beginning to replace KJ entirely even among adults as the language changes. 🧐)

anyway.

as the memory segues into its more erratic form and finally into direct reality, the ethereal sensory gap between sound and meaning in the early memories diminishes and the text is rendered entirely in english. i imagine they're still speaking another language though (whatever they call their language in-universe HSBFHDB THEY ARE SPEAKING KJERAG)

the final scene (where enya wakes up) is set before Break the Ice. it's only after this that kjarr will become more proactive and strike out on her own with the doctor and such... 😏 go funky little goddess go

anyway sorry for rambling i just accidentally put a lot of thought into my gacha catgirl comic. thank you for giving me the excuse to talk about it. HJBDFGFDKMJGB

#i edited in a readmore bc it was killing me.#kjære kjeragandr

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pain-suffering-even · 1 year

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headcanons: Baek Yoonho

Quick headcanons -

Name: Baek Yoonho

Age: 29

Gender: Male

DOB/Place: February 18th, 2031 in Jeonju, South Korea

Rank/Type: S Rank Fighter

Guild/Occupation: White Tiger Guild Leader

Past Occupation(s): Fiend Guild

Skills: Beast Eyes

Weapons: Claws

Family: Cho Garam (mom) (alive)

Baek Jongdae (dad) (alive)

Baek Namgil (older brother) (alive)

Core headcanons -

Hidden talent: Really good with tying knots (not because hes into anything funky, but because of boy scouts)

Favorite food: Rice and mushroom curry

What motivates them: Proving he’s better than just a country boy from a small town, internal sense of justice

Treasured possession: A picture reel of him and his pets in the pool (he keeps it in his wallet all the time)

Deepest secret: He has trouble connecting with people and socializing and he's always self conscious about it (it's the undiagnosed autism)

Best/Worst thing to happen to them: His brother being there for him when he was younger/His parents misunderstanding him

Random memories: Hysterically crying over one of the chickens pecking him when he was younger not because he was hurt but because “McQueen didn’t like him anymore and now he's sad that he lost his chicken friend,” meeting Byungyu at one of the summer camps of his and becoming best friends, his older brother taking him out of town every time there was a festival so that Yoonho wouldn’t have to put up with the loud fireworks, volunteering at one of the animal shelters just outside of Seoul and slowly falling in love with Moscow and Black Magic before finally adopting them together as they’re the best of friends, Byungyu introducing him to the hidden lakes and ponds in the woods and going swimming in them,

Best friend/Worst enemy: Min Byungyu/Choi Jongin (not really)

Good/Bad traits: Strong, thoughtful, observant/Defensive, competitive, insecure,

Things they’ve done/like to do: Wash his pets in the kiddie pool, playing basketball and swimming with Byungyu, getting fouls in basketball, volunteering at animal shelters in his hometown,

Personality type: “Entertainer” ESFP-A (89% extraverted, 11% introverted; 33% intuitive, 67% observant; 23% thinking, 77% feeling; 49% judging, 51% prospecting; 76% assertive, 24% turbulent)

Nervous habit: Cleaning/fiddling with his nails, drumming his fingers on the table, picking/biting his lip, pulling at his hair/threading his fingers through it,

Things they’re afraid of: Being misunderstood or misinterpreted, the dentist (sensory hell),

Things they want to accomplish: Buying a house out in the country, volunteering more,

Additional headcanons -

4 dogs, 1 cat, 4 hamsters , 3 rabbits, and a chinchilla

Pixie dust, the creamy colored Scottish terrier; Scooby, a large grey/blue great Dane missing part of his hind leg; Baggins, the giant and old saint Bernard; Black Magic, the blind rottweiler he got as a puppy; Moscow, the deaf Prussian blue cat; Cappuccino (light brown), Americano (dark brown), Macchiato (red brown), and Frappuccino (white with spots), the hamster sisters; Zeus (fluffy and white), Poseidon (brown with white patches), and Hades (mottled blue/grey), the rabbits; and Mama, the partially blind chinchilla

Likes sweet and sugary things in general

Always knows when it's gonna rain. Always. He's always correct, too (He’s got a pre-awakening knee left injury that aches when it rains plus his animal like senses confirming it)

Their Timeline -

Age 16: hurts his knee in basketball

3 years pass

Age 19: gets his rank

Age 20: moves to Seoul from Jeonju + joins the Fiend Guild

Age 21: gets Pixie dust + Mama

Age 22: gets Scooby + Baggins

Age 23: gets Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades

Age 24: gets Moscow + black magic

Age 25: first red gate experience

Age 26: first Jeju raid + creates the White Tiger Guild

Age 27: second Jeju raid + gets Cappuccino, Americano, Macchiato, and Frappuccino

Age 28: third Jeju raid (Baggins + Scooby pass away)

Age 29: now

#baek yoonho #head canons #solo leveling #only i level up #fandom: solo leveling #mentions of other characters #long post #original characters

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princess-of-the-corner · 2 years

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Okay here's my thoughts on the bnha monster au so far:

Let's start with Izuku because his shit is Complicated™.

So. Izuku is a Changeling. The Fae kind not the mlp kind. A Fae child swapped with a Human for... whatever the fuck reason why do Fae do that?

Now. I debated on what to do with the Human he was swapped with. I thought about doing what Cap did with OM!Sabrina and just. Making an OC to be the Human that Izuku replaced. And honestly Faezuku was tempting.

But........

Y'all know I'm here with the 'Dad for One' stuff. And AfO did canonically kinda kidnap/adopt a child. Plus I already decided that the whole AfO/OfA situation in this AU involved a Fae Contract.

So really it writes itself that Shigaraki is the Human that AfO swapped Izuku for.

I need to fuck around with this a little because Izuku and Shigaraki are different ages in Canon but I can either adjust ages or explain some Fae Nonsense.

That said, while they were swapped, even more fuckery happens because like hell am I leaving Izuku in that family. Something or other happens and they die(miiiight be AfO's fault), with Izuku ending up adopted by Inko. I can explain away Izuku looking like Inko as some more Fae Magic, the whole Changeling thing has him inclined to make his appearance resemble the family he's in. (by the time we get to the main story his appearance is solidified and can't be changed to a different default.)

Anyway!

Izuku has no idea what he is. He has no idea Magic is a thing. He knows he's a little 'off' in some ways but thinks it's probably just the adhd/autism cocktail. He does have some funky Fae memory where he remembers more about his younger years than a Human should, so he does vaguely remember different adults in his life before Inko and is aware he's adopted. But other than that.......

Well. The only real strange thing is that he likes being in the woods. He feels 'right' there. Not that he's uncomfortable at home, but it's just the Fae nature. He'll spend a lot of time out there. Sometimes he loses track of time and will spend the night in a tree or something. It scares Inko every time but she eventually decided to just get the kid a cellphone so that he can check in.

Let's hop over to All Might for a minute!

I mentioned before that OfA is a Fae Contract. The basis is that it will give you a lot of Magic Power, connecting through each user like in Canon, but at the cost of being tied to whatever Contract was made between the users when it's passed down. Mostly it is some variation of 'use this power to protect others'.

Which. Yeah is what All Might is doing at this point. I don't know if 'superhero' is the right word but he is the person who deals with keeping people safe. Whether it's from the Human vs. Monster thing, or the Monsters that do cause problems.

Now let's finally get to my favorite Katsuki.

SO.

I need to hammer out the relationship between Izuku and Katsuki. Since this is a 'no Quirks' AU, there.... isn't really anything that could cause their fallout as kids. Like, yeah I do think that Katsuki's need for positive attention, no matter how shallow it is, could lean toward the adults at school manipulating him into aiming his anger issues into bullying other students rather than helping him deal with it. But without the difference of Katsuki having a Quirk and Izuku not, there isn't anything to really turn him against his friend entirely.

I think he might just be generally mean and they fell out of friendship for the most part but less targeted bullying.

Anyway. Things are normal up into this AU's version of the sludge villain incident. Which I'm moving up to 'just before high school' rather than a whole year before for timeline reasons.

Also instead of sludge it's a Werewolf.

Yeah you can see where I'm going with this. I made that joke to Cap and I'm sticking to it.

So for whatever reason, both Izuku and Katsuki end up in the woods one night. Whether they're there together or just both ran into each other is up in the air. But they're attacked by a very big and very angry 'wolf'.

They try running for it, but the wolf catches up to them. They try to fight back, but teeth and claws and monstrous animalistic hunger really get the better of them.

Eventually All Might shows up and is able to subdue the beast. He does check over the boys, ask about if they were bit or if they need help. but.... you know how Katsuki is. Just a 'fuck off I'm fine!'. They're a bit roughed up, but nothing they really need to go to a hospital for, right?

All Might takes them at their word and leaves. The kids walk home and Izuku insists that they at least patch up the minor stuff. Gives his mom a heart attack and they lie about the wolf thing. As they're doing that, Izuku sees that Katsuki did get bit. He's worried about it. He wants to go back and find the guy who saved them, but Katsuki brushes it off that it's probably fine.

It's not fine. But we only find this out the next Full Moon. Where Izuku, unafraid of the forest even after last month's trauma, fell asleep in a tree and wakes up to a different wolf on the forest floor. A smaller blonde one. And, as the sun rises, the wolf passes out and turns back to Katsuki.

Izuku feels like he's going fucking insane. But does climb down to check on his friend. Katsuki is very out of it. Being exhausted and in a lot of pain and confused and waking up naked in a forest with no memory of the night before.

Izuku: "So. Uh. I.... I think you might be a Werewolf."

Katsuki: "There's no way in hell."

Izuku: "Look I just saw a wolf turn into you and it was a Full Moon and you got bit a month ago and is there any other fucking explanation?!"

Katsuki: "...... Not one I can think of, no."

They don't know what else to do so they end up looking for All Might. And they do eventually find him thankfully. And explain. And ask if he can help because come on aren't there cures or something?

He tells them 'yeah Magic and Monsters are real'. And he apologizes for not insisting on checking the boys over better because now it's too late. They ask what he means, and he is honest. The only cure for Lycanthropy has to be given within the first Moon Cycle. Once the infected goes through their first Full Moon, it sets in and the cure won't work.

Well shit. Katsuki is not having a good time with that information. And Izuku feels like he should've done more too.

All Might offers to help handle the situation so that Katsuki isn't a danger. Which like. Of course for a hot second they're like 'oh shit he's gonna kill him', and Izuku is 110% down to fight.

He clarifies very quickly though that there's a school where other Magic and Monster kids go. Not only could Katsuki learn more about his own abilities and other Magic stuff, but they do know how to keep Werewolves safe during the Full Moon.

Izuku wants to go to, but... it's not really for Humans and he still thinks he's a Human. Now we the parallel to Canon of how All Might was looking for a successor and all. And seeing Izuku both the first time against the wolf that bit Katsuki and just now ready to fight him when he thought there was a threat, he decides the kid's a good candidate.

Of course there's more discussion on that. But this is... interesting. Because it is originally Fae Magic that has been passed through a few different hands and is now, unknowingly, back in the hands of a Fae. A Fae who already should have a large power due to lineage but hasn't ever used it, and is now supercharged.

Basically he's ridiculously OP lmao but that shit's just Canon.

The kids end up at UA which is. Basically Monster High vibes tbh. With the rest of the UA staff and students as various monsters. Which I have not thought of what all they are yet but rip

#bnha monster au

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c4ndy1d10t · 2 years

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random hcs and thoughts i have at night

what if crushers actual voice is the deep voice he has when he is fucking pissed and that he does that annoying pitched voice for shits and giggles

are crusher and watts siblings

pickles real name is max because haha his voice is similar to the funky bunny named max from the game and comic series called sam and max

crusher and pickle are furries

does crusher have asthma

is speedrick actually a bad guy or this fandom got me overthinking characters again

is my au at this point a whole new batmm

i shouldnt have rewrite my au again but im still keeping sparkle as a villain but i aint making her again a ripoff amber heard

axle city is more toxic than twitter

bump bumper man is the true villain in this show

do trucks shit,piss etc

how the fuck do trucks sweat

how the fuck can blaze also time travel like bitch watch out you might fuck up the whole timeline

daringotn is so fucking clumsy to the point he probally is not even surprised and says "yoinks" if he falls off a mountain and almost die

everyone in axle city knows that kids (especially around the ages of 3-6) are watching them so everyone tries to be as family friendly as possible and get a new fucking identity when recording starts

axle city probally has zero freedom

#batmm #blaze and the monster machines

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transprincecaspian · 11 months

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Fic Recs

Hi! I finally updated my fanfic recommendation page on my blog (which you can view here)! This will be updated regularly, but I will copy and paste it as is so you can take a look at what I'm reading!

Here are a list of the fanfictions that I have either read or are currently reading and think that should get more attention!

“Not Another Dragon Age Fanfic (The Lone Wolf Cries)” by dork_trash94 Kieran finds himself suddenly transported to Thedas, and vows to keep a close eye on the Dread Wolf to stop him from betraying them once again. As he finds out, a ‘close eye’ unfortunately means actually being close - and it doesn’t help that the game’s timeline is changing, either. Lots of pining, sprinkle of yearning, some funky Time-bending, and a frequently flustered Solas. (via @fenharel-apologist94 on tumblr)

They’ve also just released the first chapter of their newest fanfic!

“Tea Leaves and Sweet Dreams” by dork_trash94 Kieran was not prepared to meet Solas - the infamous and reclusive TA for Professor Flemeth’s Magic Theory and Application class - in person, in his tea shop. Much less the same academic program.

I am currently in the midst of reading this next fanfic but I positively adore the author’s use of language! Dwarves are not usually my favorite fantasy culture but I have so grown to love the Aeducan and Brosca storytelling here. It is the first part of a four part series so we are all in for a treat!

“Of Diamonds and Dust” by @dragonologist-phd Marja Aeducan and Darvis Brosca lead lives as different as one could possibly imagine. Marja Aeducan, a member of the nobility and second in line for the throne, has spent her life maneuvering the dangerous political machinations of the Diamond Quarter. Meanwhile, Darvis Brosca, a Casteless dwarf rejected by society, does whatever it takes to survive on the streets of Dust Town. When a Grey Warden arrives in Orzammar, the lives of Marja and Darvis are forever changed. Driven from the city by misfortune and betrayal, the two must join the ranks of the Wardens in order to save their own lives. But the surface has far greater dangers than they realize. The noble and the thief will need to stand together if they’re going to fight against the oncoming Blight, the brewing civil war, and the strange surface malady called “sunburn”. Also, the contemporary fic to read alongside it: “And So They Burned”

I have been reading “South” for over a year now and I need it to get widespread to a wider audience. His use of imagery and their idea of Tolkien’s world is so refreshing. They also have a lot of other LoTR fanfics that you should check out, too!

“South” by oxbridge The Grey Company rides south: Through Eregion, Dunland, and beyond.

Other fics that I’m currently reading and think should be shared!

“Dead Pasts and Dread Futures” by youworeblue The Inquisitor’s heart broke after the Exalted Council when her family of friends scattered to the winds. She was emptied of hope as Solas’s power and reach grew. Left with a dead past and dreading the future, Ixchel Lavellan lay down and chose not to wake up. As the Veil began to unravel, and the fabric of reality tore apart at the seams, a desperate ally sacrificed everything to give her a second chance. And Ixchel will never forgive him. (via @dreadfutures on tumblr)

“Keepers” by AkbalKiin A necromage in the plains causes a stir to the local folk. The Inquisition investigates and recruits an elf, a former Keeper, into their rank for his knowledge on Dalish archaeology and his stealth abilities. The Inquisition tests his skills as they close in on Red Templars as part of a plan to thwart Samson and Corypheus. (via @nightmarist on tumblr)

“Une Autre Histoire D'amour” (series) by fondofthehowes Exploring the relationship between Étienne Montmartre, an Orlesian warden better suited to be a bard, and Cassandra Pentaghast. For a woman that long pined for the concept of a man that would sweep her off her feet, she never anticipated that she would not only find it, but that he would be far more than that too.

“Would That I (O Unrepentant, Faithless, Treacherous)” by @thiefbird Saved from Alistair’s vengeance to presumably die to the Archdemon, Loghain Mac Tir is at a loss to find himself alive after the end of the Blight.

#cas reads #fanfic recs #cas recommends #dragon age #dragon age fanfic #lotr #lotr fanfic #fanfic #ao3 #my mutuals my beloveds

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pctaldrunk · 7 months

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@haedshaker asked : 🎲 - send 🎲 and i’ll place our muses into this generator and post the resulting muse combinations and a few ideas on how to make it work! (accepting!)

The generator did not tell me how many I should list...so I put down five : " D HOPEFULLY THAT'S NOT TOO MANY OPTIONS JKLFDSJDAFJ;JSFAKFL

S.heng M.inglan - Lucky for both of us I have a kind of cultivator au to pull out of my sleeve - in this funky verse, Sheng family is probably a small sect (tm) that exists but under the umbrella of the greater sects. Easy lean into Q.inghe in this verse, but anyway, regardless - maybe they met a lot as smaller children (and then eventually bigger children) for intra-realm (tm) sect businesses? like in a sense their dads are kind of like business partners except ig in this analogy due to funky feudalism it'd be like his dad is her dad's boss - so they're taken to all the company meetings and have to sit at the kiddy table together. In some ways they're pretty similar. n.ie "i don't know x 3' h.uaisang meets s.heng 'what do u mean? -smiles like she's dumb but is rolling her eyes in her head-' m.inglan. she's also lowkey a transmigrator (tm) trying to survive this world she found herself in so like...plenty of fun interesting wildness maybe.

Yao Haiyin - I'm so sorry the bio for this guy isn't even UP but I can give you a quick rundown. He's the epitome of "showed up fifteen years late w/ a starbucks" tbh like. The short version is "his mother established a sect and to gain control of it his father threatened her with his safety and made himself sect leader till she died in captivity. Then Haiyin overthrew dear old dad in a coup ridiculously young and became sect leader himself and pretty much closed the sect and himself to the world for a couple years." i.e. while the rest of the cultivation world was fighting a war and then getting into shenanigans afterwards h e was setting up a coup and regaining political power in his own sect and setting shit up bit by bit until basically post siege of the burial mounds 1.0 he crashes onto the scene fully formed. smth smth I feel like they got a few similarities and like...they could be friends. friends who have tea and play a couple rounds of chess and don't ask each other about their maybe slightly awful plans, etc. etc.

Nie Shaoxi - tbh I came up w/ Shaoxi because I thought about N.ie sect leaders historically dying young and how young some of their kids had to be and I thought to myself "there have to be people who specifically pass on burial rites / other such traditions in case someone couldn't do it in time." so. y e a h. in terms of age and timelines she'd probably be like an aunt figure, though she would only emerge at the point in the timeline when n.ie dad..well, gets dead. she's a little weird and a little wild but like...she would genuinely care about these children (tm) and would do her best to be a Responsible Adult Figure ok.

Hanzhu - Ok, hear me out - tweak it a lil. Take the og backstory's undying loyalty, move it to the n.ie fam by some circumstance. It is believable to me that they probably would have saved this little girl from her terrible poison tester fate and take her in in some capacity. it was probably not what she did when she worked for the old sect leader or M.ingjue, but newly instated N.ie H.uaisang...gets his own personal sword out of her. Essentially she's a 100% loyal free agent who makes up for any plan's lack in martial ruthlessness - while leaving the general sect (tm) out of whatever...not necessarily dirty but definitely questionable deed needs doing. Throw in a pinch of angst re: the moral dilemma of using someone who would die for you to do nefarious things and expendably using a living (tm) relationship (and maybe near familial, depending on how we decide to fidget the backstory / establish this relationship) with someone you've known for a long time and could probably (even if you personally cannot bring yourself to due to any plethora of issues) trust 100% to avenge the dead...and it could be a little delicious.

M.u S.heng - You know I think this could be interesting. Something something maybe they met in the years H.uaisang was researching...well, the whole deal with N.ie M.ingjue's corpse but also demonic cultivation, but a l so...All The Good Funky Forbidden Cultivation Stuffs. Enter Mu Sheng, rogue cultivator, half demon, who also cannot control his powers but c a n control ghouls with his...uncontrollable powers. Go from there.

#haedshaker #((u rly got the 'ocs and canons that might as well be ocs' bundle cRIES))

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skruffie · 1 year

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I know every few months I come on here and I’m like “I THINK I’M ON THE VERGE OF A BREAKTHROUGH” but actually for real this might be a breakthrough on something I’ve been trying to figure out for a while.

I was browsing on cousin matches as per usual but decided to try chipping away at one family that’s been bugging me for YEARS because the only thing I had to go off of was our cousin’s ex wife saying “we suspect that [ancestors] were sisters” but because there is no paper documentation that could prove it, all we have to go off of were the DNA matches and also the fact that both these families were neighbors. TONIGHT though I’m circling around again and found a photo where a researcher was saying this:

“ These five women are all part of an extended Native American Family. Standing are Clara Lou Moseley, Lulu Donnelly and her unnamed sister. Sitting are Anne Roberts and Dorcas Marshall McDonald, with her son Billy. “

Stay with me, we’re gonna get funky. Donnelly is the family name that our cousin is related to, and McDonald is mine. What caught my attention here specifically was ALL PART OF AN EXTENDED NATIVE AMERICAN FAMILY which brings me closer to confirming that Mary Norris (Donnelly) and Kate McDonald are related. So, with the name Dorcas, I looked her up and saw that she was Hoffman before McDonald and her husband was Ernest Jr. The funky part is that Ernest Sr has two people listed as his parents: Tracey Charlie and Annie Starr. A few trees do list James McDonald as his dad and there’s a census that confirms Ernest Sr as the stepson.

Annie Starr was born around 1875. One of my grand uncles James McDonald was born in 1867. Okay, not far off. Ernest SR was born in 1890.

Now, my James was married approximately 1900 (1910 census lists him as 10 years married to his wife that we know). I think that the biological dad for Ernest SR is my relative. This makes the most sense to me timeline wise that fits the description of the photo.

Another note, but this one is incredibly tragic: while trying to look into this I noticed that Dorcas, her husband, and their son all died the same day in 1945. On the child’s findagrave profile it indicates that they perished in an automobile accident in Trinity River. Their son would have been very close in age to my own grandmother. The photo of everyone in that extended family together was taken in 1944.

#family ancestry #if i hear back from this other researcher abt how she knows james is involved #then i can tentatively conclude that mary and kate were sisters #that's kind of the angle i'm working from here

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sylvanas-girlkisser · 2 years

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Arcane Background Lore/Easter Eggs (Episode 2)

I have spent an unreasonable amount of time learning League of Legends lore, for those who are smarter than that, here’s some random details I picked up rewatching Arcane episode 2. These will range from “fun fact” to stuff that could potentially be useful for fanfics etc.

The mage in Jayce’s flashback is almost certainly meant to be the character Ryze. He is one of the most powerful mages in the setting and is at least as old as Heimerdinger. Like Heimerdinger he was traumatized by the magical cataclysm and is travelling the world hunting for the magical artifacts that caused it. Realm warp, which we see him casting here is his signature spell, and afaik he is the only mage who still capable of casting it.

The place Jayce and his mom nearly died is a region called “The Freljord” halfway across the globe from Piltover. The mountains of the region are known to be especially dangerous (and cold), and I’m having a hard time figuring out what in the world they would be doing all the way up there.

Heimerdinger’s hesitance towards magic makes sense given his life experiences – but it’s also kinda rich coming from a Yordle, a literal creature of magic.

This pistol, as well as the shooting gallery that Powder repairs use iconography from the pirate city of Bilgewater, which often attack Piltover ships.

This target is a drawing of Gangplank, the Reaver King of Bilgewater. Also a very minor continuity error, he appears to be wielding the pistol “Shock” which he commissioned from, then used to kill the legendary gunsmith/gunslinger Abigail Fortune. In current lore he broke both Shock and it’s sister Awe after killing Abigail, however in older lore he kept Shock as a trophy until it was taken from him by Abigail’s daughter Sarah.

One last detail then I’ll move past the arcade scene: the games Vi and Powder each play call back to their archetypes in League, Vi is a bruiser, Powder/Jinx is a marksman.

I don’t expect house Ferros will make an appearance in Arcane but they are the house who first discovered Hex Crystals/the Brackern, and it’s about to make them very rich, which will lead to a whole lot of family drama. If you like sad and lonely middle aged women who have lost faith in humanity, and could kill you with ease; I recommend looking up Camille Ferros.

Mel Medarda is not a playable character in League however: there were supposed to be two more characters added to the roster this year that had to be delayed until early next year because of covid and stuff. These were an electricity themed marksman from Zaun, and a support themed around wealth and charisma heavily implied to be from Piltover. We don’t know that the support is going to be Mel, but the hints we have been given seem to fit.

This portrait is the first time we see Caitlyn’s parents, and its also the first piece of definitive proof we have that Caitlyn is biracial.

In this flashback Heimerdinger is (probably) referencing an event called the Rune Wars, where a bunch of mages used these McGuffins called “World Runes” to well, destroy everything. Knowing that it happened within Heimer’s lifetime actually forces the fandom to reconsider the timeline as fanon tended to put the Rune Wars approximately 1000 years ago.

Outside of Bilgewater and the Buhru, most cultures in League don’t pay a lot of attention to the sea monsters that lurk in Runeterra’s oceans. The majority of them are just funky looking overgrown fish, but some, like the kind Silco met are old, magical, and have a tendency to alter the people who meet them. Nobody know what the sea monsters are up to, but they are definitely up to something.

This clapping monkey toy featured heavily in Jinx introductory video (Get Jinxed). Back in 2013 when Jinx’s motivation was daddy issues, it was mostly just a visual shorthand to show how cuuuuuh-razy she was, so it’s fun seeing how Arcane managed to retroactively tie it into both Powder’s trauma and her destructive urges in a not horrendously ableist manner.

In the Get Jinxed video, Jinx/Powder spray paints a rhinoceros with the exact same pattern seen on this plushie in the basement of The Last Drop.

seeing as we have been talking a lot about Bilgewater, i’d like to end by introducing:

Miss Sarah Fortune, bounty hunter, captain of the Syren, bane of the Reaver King, ruler of Bilgewater, lover of women, and heavily implied to have had a threesome with Vi and Caitlyn.

If there’s anything I missed please let me know, I’m planning to do a breakdown like this for each episode.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

#Arcane #league of legends #arcane spoilers

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whump-town · 2 years

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The Principle of Universal Causation

No warnings

No Pairings

Just a new chapter, no catches

Chapter Five: Doctors & Nurses

One of the few things about being enrolled in a university is that Jack has all kinds of research papers from their database just one search away. He reads about heart failure in the years following diagnosis and tries to conceptualize a timeline he can control. Wishes he was better at math as he looks at percentiles and p-values and averages that mean nearly nothing to him. They are such low numbers, .045 and .023 and he wishes that his D+ in statistics had taught him something, anything. So that those numbers could mean something other than terror and anger. He keeps digging, searching further until he gets around to percentiles for survival each year after diagnosis. One year lends a 80-90% chance of survival, pretty good odds. Making it to five years… 50-60%, his father has beaten worse odds. Come on, he survived being a living pin cushion. What’s a funky little heart rhythm really got to be compared to that?

A decade…

Jack could graduate within two or three years. He will still be within his emerging adulthood, not yet an adult but getting there pretty quick. Someplace around 21-23, paying bills, possibly holding a steady job, and living in an apartment. He might have a partner by then, someone he’d want to introduce to his crazy ass family. Someone he’d want to meet his father because yes it’s going to be embarrassing and complicated but the idea of that being taken away has driven him to want it wildly. He might just live here, bothering the shit out of his father every day, and that’d be completely fine too.

Jack has no idea how to measure what comes next, what to expect out of the next ten years of his life but he knows he’d like his father to be there to see it.

The odds of his father living to see the next ten years is a whopping 30%.

But they don’t have all the facts for this case so they can take their 30% and shove it.

The facts about this case aren’t as good as those odds. This has been a long time coming. It’s a damn miracle Hotch didn’t get himself killed long before this even became a problem. When the doctors told Emily about it, she hadn’t even allowed it to be a concern. She’d taken one look at the tears on his face and Haley and Jack walking away with the Marshalls and just prayed he lived to see the end of this case. No one, no one, though they’d get this far.

He’s been living on borrowed time.

Jack just doesn’t know how to cope with that, so he doesn’t.

“Alright!” A seven-thirty wake-up call is not his ideal way to spend the day but he volunteered to help and someone’s finally calling in his favor so he’s got to be up for the challenge. Jack is amped on trust, thrilled to be doing something. He comes to a stumbling halt, a smile spread wide across his face.

Hotch gets hit with deja vu – thrown into over a dozen moments like this one when Jack was much smaller. Still in his little footy pajamas and barreling down the hall towards him the second he got up, eager to start the day with cereal and cartoons.

Probably won’t be any cartoons today.

“You look very…” Jack stands before his father, eyeing him up and down. They had once stood so differently, Jack craning his neck all the way up to see his father and Hotch looking down but he’s a little taller now, he’s learned to carry himself sturdier and Hotch leans down into his pain, braces his arm against his chest. Now Jack is larger, sturdier but the way Jack looks at him isn’t gone. There’s still a glint of it in the humor of his eyes.

Jack can tell by the slight squint he’s receiving that he’s walking a very fine line here on his father’s patience. On a good day, he can take only so much hassling but right now he’s not in the mood to be made fun of. Which is fine, Jack isn’t trying to make fun of him – maybe insinuate a thing or two about his age but not make fun of him. “Professory,” Jack decides with a final nod. “You look very professory.”

Hotch looks down at himself. He’s wearing thick corduroy slacks in a cruel attempt to withstand the doctor’s office chill – they keep it a mild seventy-three but as he struggles to moderate his weight and bring up his blood pressure, he’s finding he’s constantly cold. Which is also why he’s wearing a thick undershirt beneath his cable knit sweater. Altogether, he supposes, he likely does fit a very specific look right now with the scraggly facial hair only adding to the look. Hee can’t get to the damn thing without hacking at his skin too, his hands aren’t steady enough to handle such a task.

He refuses to ask for help on this matter.

“Alright,” Jack claps his hands together, eyes searching around them to make sure he hasn’t forgotten anything. He’s being trusted with this very delicate task and he fears letting them down just as much as failing. “I’ll grab your thermos, you get the keys, and I’ll meet you outside.” He’s got his eyes on the goal, moving on instinct as he pats his father’s shoulder as he moves around him.

Hotch grunts, grumpily frowning as Jack hops and bobs around. Too high energy for a morning like this. “I can’t have caffeine,” he reminds Jack. He’s already got the keys, scooped them up from the plate he keeps by the door, and waiting patiently for his over-acted son to come bubbling back up.

He can withstand the forfeit of a lot of things but he is going to childishly stand his rights to autonomy where he can. Even if he has to lean for support against the doorframe while he waits for Jack to get back to the door just so that he can ignore Jack trying to tell him to go sit in the car.

“It’s not caffeinated,” Jack smirks.

Hotch takes the thermos in exchange for handing over the keys. “Blasphemous,” he decides, raising the lid to his lips and smelling the tea inside.

“Well, it was already in your cabinet.” Jack reaches into the coat rack, knocking things around until he pulls out the sleek black cane he watched his father hide there last night – the second Emily and Dave weren’t watching. “Here,” Jack hands it back, smiling triumphantly at how intensely his father scowls at the thing. “I know you wouldn’t want to forget this.” Jack really thought the bright red one would have been cooler. It would have really stood out against the dark colors his father tends to wear. A pop of color. A statement piece.

Hotch takes it with a sigh, rolling his eyes and motioning for Jack to go – he’s not sure if he prefers taking attitude from his son or Emily less. “Be easy on the breaks,” he asks, climbing into the passenger seat and watching Jack move and shift things around. For a moment, he forgets everything they’re doing. About the ache in his chest. The chill in his bones. He looks at the boy he raised: the twenty-something-year-old with his own dusting of fine hair across his chin and the wind-swept tangle of hair on top of his head. He’s no longer the boy Hotch left the bathroom light on for every night. The one tapping on his bedroom door so very softly before shyly asking if he could sleep in Hotch’s bed tonight, just tonight, please?

Though Hotch had noticed last night when he got up for the hundredth time unable to fall asleep and stay asleep, that Jack had left the bathroom light on. He wasn’t sure at that moment who Jack left it on for.

The doctor’s appointment is more for routine than anything else, they repeat a few of the same tests as the ones the hospital ran through. He’s hesitant to undress with Jack so close but Jack just rolls his eyes and faces the wall, swearing not to turn around until Hotch has the gown on. Dramatically raising his hands in defeat. “Ridiculous old man,” he mumbles as he does so, getting a slight smirk from the young nurse leaving them the gown and the instructions for what comes next. Their flirting doesn't bother Hotch but he does sigh at it anyway, shaking his head as they go through taking his blood pressure and listening to him breathe.

The second the door shuts behind the nurse, Jack smirks. He turns to Hotch, “you could have helped, you know. You suck as a wingman.”

Hotch can feel himself getting sick, either side-effects from one of a hundred medications he takes or his blood pressure rapidly dropping, so he lays down on the bed. He does it slowly, trying not to make it look too obvious as he covers his eyes with the back of his arm. “Sorry,” he mumbles. “Next time he comes in I’ll be sure to tell him you were potty-trained by one.” He rubs at his temples, tries to stop himself from shivering but the room is freezing. The cold is not helping his discomfort but instead spreading it out, making his arms ache. “I’m sure he’ll love to hear the story about when you threw up in my hair on your third birthday.”

Jack sits with a little puff in the visitor’s chair, no doubt rolling his eyes. As hard as it was for him to believe, his father had been the lenient parent and couldn’t stand to tell him no. Obviously, he changed somewhere along the lines but even those memories contradict themselves because if he thinks about it he can remember his father’s cherry red nose and wet hair running in from the cold with the stray kitten they just had to help and the Darth Vader costume his father searched everywhere for. He’s always been a good dad, Jack just never really learned how to tell him that. Hotch taught him how to praise others’ actions, to assure your friends you love them and how to tell when someone needs a tighter and longer hug. But he didn’t teach Jack how to do those things for him.

But Hotch figured all that stuff out later. Little three-year-old Jack did not know his father’s stern “no”. He got pumped full of sugar, birthday cake and popsicles, and candy, and then eagerly begged to play his favorite game. In which Hotch would throw him up as high as he could until Haley put a stop to it. But Haley didn’t stop them before Jack’s face flushed and, before any warning could come, vomited. “That was your fault,” Jack reminds his father.

“He doesn't need to know that.”

Jack watches his father tremble, stifle a shiver as best as he can before getting it under control. He’s seen his dad sick before – he’s not as young as he once was and putting his body through hell comes with repercussions. Jack isn’t as young either. He’s come out of his bedroom in the middle of the night to see his father curled around a heating pad, stoic even in this vulnerability. Heard him get sick after rough nightmares. Never like this though. Never to the point, he can’t at least fake a cover, pretend to be better than he really is. Jack’s silence, like his father’s, says a lot.

Hotch turns his head, looks out from the little pocket of light near his elbow to smirk at Jack. He isn’t expecting Jack to be standing with his sweater in his hands. There’s a strange, out of palace look on Jack’s face but he can’t ask about it before Jack steps closer. He closes his eyes, lets Jack lay the sweater over his chest gently. Toss the material around until his other arm is beneath the heavy material. He opens his mouth to thank Jack but he meets Jack’s gaze when he does and it dies on his lips. The flash of fear in his son’s eyes too much. He clears his throat instead, turns his head so he’s looking up, away. “I’ll tell him you’re good with children.”

Jack nods, glares down at the floor.

They’re saved by the hot nurse.

“Agent Hotchner?”

Hotch hums, “not much of an agent anymore.”

The nurse blushes and glances at Jack.

Jack shoots his father some side-eye and offers, “you can just call him Aaron.”

The nurse nods, “okay. I need to draw some blood, are you okay with that, Aaron?”

Jack keeps his eyes averted as the needle goes in, picks at his nails until the vial comes away. The sight of his father’s deep red blood makes his stomach ache, intense pain like a fist curled inside. Maybe he’s not actually all that good at this job. He’d come in pretty hot and cocky, certain that whatever Emily and Dave were doing couldn’t be that hard. But that’s not true, is it? He turned his head when he watched his father struggle to lay down. He averted his eyes to the sight of his father shivering, just barely stomaching the idea of covering his arms with his sweater. And when he’d done that Jack still had gone out of his way to make sure he didn’t touch him.

The nurse says something about the test coming back within a day or so and they’ll have to call to make another appointment to follow up. Jack tries to smile and nod, to play dutiful son but it just moves too quickly.

And then they’re alone again.

“Will you hand me my shirt?” Hotch keeps one hand over where they’ve drawn blood, afraid without pressure it’ll just keep bleeding and then he’ll have to convince an ass load of overbearing, but well-meaning, people that it’s just his low iron. Because at this point in his life, he does have to worry about a pinprick of blood. He points with the other hand until Jack snaps from his trance and nods. Numbly, he gets up and goes over to where Hotch left his shirt and sweater. He tries not to watch Hotch struggle to get out of the gown but at a certain point, he does realize he has to do something.

“Dad–” Jack jerks the back of his sweater down over his head. The same treatment Hotch used to give him but back then Jack was more like a squirming octopus, arms pinned above his head as he fumbled around trying to get his shirt on. Fortunately, he’s had a lot of experience ignoring the glare he gets the second the sweater comes down around his neck and reveals his father’s tight frown. “Keep mean-mugging me, old man, and I’ll leave you here.”

He wouldn’t… probably.

Hotch stands up off the bed slowly, afraid his knees will buckle. He can’t stop himself from shivering now, he can either remain upright or not visibly shake, but those are the only options. Jack hands him the cane and he tries not to be moody about it – not to be pissy because he has to use it to keep himself balanced.

“Come on,” Jack holds the examination door open.

When he broke his arm playing soccer, a tricky slide in the mud and one greenstick fracture wrapped in the ugliest green cast later, they went out to get milkshakes. In Hotch’s memory, his absence taints the entire thing. He was at the office and Jessica was set to pick Jack up after practice. He wasn’t there when Jack broke his arm. He wasn’t even at the hospital when Jack picked out the color. Jack doesn’t remember any of that. He remembers sleeping off the adrenaline and waking up held tightly to his father’s chest. The familiar feeling of a dress shirt against his cheek and a suit jacket draped over him like a blanket. He remembers being safe and warm tucked underneath that big old jacket, taking it with him to the couch at home unwilling to part with it.

Milkshakes felt like the natural resolution, Jack hadn’t even heard his father’s shaky breathing. Hadn’t seen him cry or break during that entire day. Honestly, by the time they had the cast on Jack was fine and he was thrilled by the amount of undivided attention on him. Jessica and his father both caving to his every request? So they went and got milkshakes. For all three of them, that seemed to work some sort of magic. Jack can’t think of a single thing a milkshake didn’t at least attempt to fix.

Jack wraps his arm around Hotch’s shoulder, “what’d you say I drop my number off with the cute nurse and you treat us to milkshakes?”

Hotch smirks, despite how bitter and upset he wants to be. All at himself, this has nothing to do with anyone but him and his inadequacies.

Jack nudges him a little more and Hotch lets out a short sigh, shaking his head. “We can stop for lunch,” he relents.

Jack shouts, throwing his arms around his father’s shoulders and kissing his cheek. “See! I knew there was a reason you were my favorite parent.”

Hotch winces, Jack’s sense of humor is a little out of his zone of comfort but there’s so little he can do to stop that now. Besides fuss about it and Jack is already jumping and skipping off on his new adventure to give his number to the hot nurse. How that child turned out so rowdy, he has no idea. If they didn’t at least look-alike, he’d contemplate his paternity. How that loud bouncing kid came from him… Jack gets out about a hundred words per minute and Hotch might get out a hundred words in a week.

Hotch doesn’t wait for him but he doesn’t really get that far, he’s halfway across the parking lot when he hears Jack shout for him and before he can look over his shoulder there’s a bouncy kid standing in his way.

“Mission–” Jack holds up a piece of paper for his father to see, “–successful.”

Hotch grunts, accepting the piece of paper from him. He looks down at the scribbled numbers on the papers and hands it back. “More than successful,” he smirks. “You got his number.”

Jack dances on the spot, slowing his pace down to match his father’s.

“If he sees how bad you are at dancing he might not answer your text later.”

Jack just keeps dancing,

----------

Grocery shopping is hell.

Jack goes through the motions of it because he’s seen his father do it enough times. He knows which brands his dad likes for which things but as he’s standing in the chip aisle and in the bread aisle and in the freezer section he realizes he has no idea what to eat. He won’t call Hotch to ask. After his doctor’s appointment and lunch, he’d been exhausted. Tired enough not to hide the way he was using the counters and the couch to guide his way through the house. Jack reassured him that he could handle this task on his own. It’s just grocery shopping.

But grocery shopping is literally hell.

It puts him in a cranky mood – he feels a new empathy form for the state in which his father always returns from the grocery store. He wants to go lay down in his room and not talk to anyone for a timid four hours, maybe longer. The intense frustration he feels pulling into the driveway to see three other cars might be childish or over the top but dear God he still smacks his fist against the side of the steering wheel.

He stops the car and sits there for a moment. Breathes in the silence of the cooling engine and muffles nature just outside. He has only a few minutes, someone will have seen him pull up and if he doesn’t get out of the car they will come looking for him.

“You need any help?”

Jack is trying to figure out how to carry in all the bags when Derek comes out of the house. There’s something about how he carries himself, the way that he walks, that Jack doesn’t like but he doesn’t comment. He just grunts and jerks his head – holy shit, he is becoming his father.

He doesn’t ask but Derek still tells him.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with the damn kid but Hank just broke down today. He wouldn’t talk to me and I called Savannah but he wouldn’t talk to her either.” Derek takes more than half the groceries in one go, leaving Jack lighter things to carry. He doesn’t care enough to comment on this. “So I brought him here, must have been right after you left. Hotch has had him since. Took him back to his office and they’ve been in there for an hour.”

Hotch had answered the door in sweatpants, standing upright and tall and deflating quickly once he saw who was on the other side of the door. Threw out a trembling hand out to use the doorframe to keep himself upright and let them in. He looked like he could barely keep himself upright but he’d still taken Hank from Derek’s arms. Offered a short, make yourself at home, before disappearing. Hank did stop crying but Derek has no idea what’s going on in there.

“Suprised he answered the door,” Jack mumbles, more to himself than Derek. Honestly, he assumed he wouldn’t be seeing his father again until this afternoon. Well after dinner. Emily warned him about that. Hotch’s energy is gone, there is no reserve. He’s running on fumes no matter how much he sleeps. They’re working on that, of course. Trying to figure out what to put him on to try and ease the strain on his body. They have been very unsuccessful thus far.

When they step in the front door Hotch and Hank are in the living room, the lazyboy tipped back and Jack looks back at Derek to point them out. Hank is curled on Hotch’s chest pulling in those quick, stuttering breathes children get on those occasions when they really work themselves up. Upon seeing Jack and his father, Hank whines and hides his face from them. Tucking himself in closer to Hotch, his grip on his t-shirt tightening. Hotch just keeps rubbing his back, looking over his shoulder to look back at Derek and Jack.

“Is he okay?” Derek asks, stepping to the side of the lazyboy and cupping the back of Hank’s head.

Hotch nods, solemn and pale, “we’ll talk about it later.”

They all know, well enough what that means.

Jack knows if he were smaller, if he could get away with it, he’d be throwing himself around right now. Falling to the ground and throwing a fucking tantrum. Scream and hit things until the pain and the fear stifled to a less threatening feeling. Until he could handle it. He imagines they’d all like to do that. To be Hank right now, held close and promised a storybook ending without the ability to see the twist at the end.

Emily and Dave are in the kitchen, talking very softly around mugs of coffee.

Jack’s stomach drops at the pity in their eyes.

“How was today?” Emily asks, stepping around him and beginning to put away groceries.

Her tone inflects she might already know a little bit but Jack just shrugs. He shakes his head like he has nothing to report, nothing to notice. It burns the back of his throat to think too much about the appointment. The color drained from Hotch’s face as he leaned back on the table, shaking and face pinched in discomfort. The way he shivered for a moment, trembled until he could get a hold of it. His muscles tense with the strain.

“Blood work,” Jack offers with a shrug, places his back to them as he puts the oatmeal on the right shelf. “He gave the nurse a little bit of shit but that’s probably good, annoying, but good.” He moves around them, keeps putting things away without looking. He’s trying to play it off as calm and mysterious, act entirely unbothered. He still sees them look at each other, the concern they share with a blank stare.

“Jack,” Dave holds his shoulder, forces him to stop. “We want to make sure you’re not taking on too much here.”

Jack isn’t in the mood to be able to handle all this right now. Not Derek and Hank and Dave and Emily. Not his father. Not all this. Not right now. “I’m fine,” he moves out of Dave’s hold. “It was fine. I took him and then I went to get groceries. Now I’m here.” He looks over his shoulder, between the both of them, “and if you let me put them away I have homework to do.”

It’s icy.

It’s mean.

He manages to say everything he needs to.

“Jack–”

He turns and finds himself in Emily’s arms.

The least physically affectionate of all his aunts and uncles but he’s fairly certain he’s always felt the safest with her. Even now. When he wants to be angry, to push her away from him, he can’t. She cups the back of his head holds him tight. “Thank you,” she whispers and he laughs wetly into her shoulder. “I mean it. You’re such a good kid.” She shakes her head, “but you’re going to have to call it, okay? Let us handle it. Focus on school. Be a kid. Your dad needs Jack, not a nurse.”

Jack scoffs, they will need a nurse eventually.

Hospice. His fingers get cold. Hospice…

“I don’t know what else to do.” The admission comes freely, surprises him at how easy it is.

Emily pulls back just a little, holds the side of his face in her hand. “Be his son.”

Right, Jack thinks bitterly. The same son who threw fits every day for a month after his mother died? The one who snuck out? Started pointless fights? Who hated him for making them go in WITSEC? Who threw it in his face every chance he got that it was his fault his mother died?

Jack’s eyes wander to the sink, to the chipped World’s Okayest Dad mug sitting on the counter.

Right.

---------

Hank is very gently removed from Hotch’s side, it’s a delicate maneuver Derek manages just barely. It’s not really late just yet, four, but Hotch is struggling to stay awake and Derek gets home to feed his little gremlin before he wakes up grumpy and hungry. He lets Derek lift Hank off of him, weakly reaching up to touch Hank’s limply dangly leg as Derek wishes them all a general, soft goodbye.

Without Hank’s warmth across him, Hotch has to stifle a shiver. He grits his teeth, sets his jaw as he uses his arm to brace his chest, and sits up.

“Where you going?” Jack’s arms are full of his books. He’s got his laptop balanced on three textbooks, a dangerously full coffee mug in his other hand. He eases his laptop onto the couch, lets his textbooks come tumbling after.

It feels like a flipped image of how this typical conversation would go. Wherein Hotch drags all of his casework to the kitchen/living room to be close to Jack and Jack packs up all of his schoolwork to go to his room.

“I was gonna watch a movie,” Jack offers, lamely. Hotch looks to the TV and back at his son. Someone needs to start thinking about dinner and loads of unwashed clothes. Jack already handled grocery shopping, Hotch isn’t going to hand down dinner too. Even if the point of Jack going to do the groceries was to let Hotch rest. “Dave’s making dinner.”

Hotch nods, “okay. I’m going to get a sweater–”

Jack sets his mug down, “no. No, I forgot something in my room. I’ll grab you one.”

Hotch isn’t given the chance to argue. It should annoy him but Jack bobs and darts around furniture and he can’t really manage it. Call it a soft spot maybe but he eases himself down on the sofa. He thumbs the cover of them gets lost for a moment thinking about college. How drastically his own experiences will vary from Jack’s and for the better because he’d never wish those lessons on his son. But Jack has support systems he didn’t. Even if the worst happens, even if he makes his son an orphan, Jack will have aunts and uncles who will not abandon him. Who will make sure he has dinner every night.

“Here!”

The sweater hits him right in the head, a concentrated ball of fabric.

Hotch isn’t amused but he takes one look at his son – he’d looked like a man out here on the sofa the other night but standing here beaming at him Hotch sees the epitome of that little toothless boy he once knew, such a bright, pleased smile – and he can’t be angry.

Once Jack see the immediate anger leave his father’s face he smirks and comes the rest of the way into the room. “So,” he asks, flopping down – another thing his father hates – “what’d ya’ wanna watch?”

Jack turns on Die Hard, flicks around channels for only a few seconds before tossing the remote between them on the sofa and kicking his feet up on the coffee table. His decision made.

Hotch watches Jack instead of the TV. His fingers fly over the keys, his notebook on the arm of the couch, and a pen in his mouth. He’s zeroed in and Hotch just… watches.

He falls asleep.

“Oh, you asshole...” Jack says it so softly but Hotch is just awake enough to catch it. He looks around the room, to the muted TV, and then down. Jack’s head is in his lap, his long body curled up and his laptop turned over on his side as Jack scrolls through a long article. Unaware that his father has woken up, Jack keeps on scrolling. Lazily scanning over the 30 paged article he’s supposed to have read and written a brief summary about before midnight tonight. “Give me a fucking break…”

Hotch lays his head back down. He briefly wonders about dinner, knows he slept through it, but hopes Emily or Dave reasoned with Jack enough to make him eat. Jack shifts a little, tugs at one of the three blankets they’re currently wrapped in, and settles again.

Hotch is asleep before Jack mumbles another comment about where his professor can shove his opinions on the reading.

#the principle of universal causation #criminal minds #aaron hotchner #emily prentiss #derek morgan #criminal minds fanfiction #jack hotchner

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birb-tangleblog · 3 years

Text

Rise of Flynn Rider - THOUGHTS

THE PROMISED LONGER POST ON THE RISE OF FLYNN RIDER- spoiler warning!

Ok so first off, a very brief summary: the book centers on Eugene and Arnie (Lance), childhood best friends. The orphanage they've grown up in is financially struggling, under threat by a crooked tax collector, and they're both aging out of the system; the only clue Eugene has to his parents is a letter from the woman who left him there, which is signed with a ~mysterious symbol~. When a traveling circus run by the Baron (yes, that Baron) passes through town and Eugene learns of a possible lead on his past, the two boys reinvent themselves, join up, and eventually end up entangled in a scheme to steal from the King and Queen of Corona.

I won't lie, I enjoyed this one a lot- it was a fun read, very cozy to curl up with, and even with some contradictions, it felt like a novel that was derivative of the series and set in that world. There are a lot of cameos and references, enough that I think most TTS fans will find something they like to nibble on.

Like I said in my earlier post abt the prologue and first few chapters, I'm so happy that Lance got a role alongside Eugene- he's definitely a secondary character to Eugene’s main, and he does get sidelined somewhat, but it's charming to see his friendship with Eugene and his growing passion for cooking.

'I didn't expect anything, so I'm more delighted and pleasantly surprised than genuinely unhappy with the execution' is a running theme with this book for me and basically the tl;dr of this write-up.

There are soo many cameos and little treats- I get the impression Calonita didn't have the most complete knowledge of the series, but her chats with Chris and interest in the series’ writing definitely show. King Edmund, the Stabbingtons, all of the pub thugs, Weasel, Stalyan, and the Baron all make appearances, and we get cameos from Cap, Maximus, Pascal's mother, and even Cass gets a name drop. Several series-exclusive locations are also mentioned by name- Vardaros, the Spire, and the Forest of No Return.

I'm not immune to the fannish hit of 'hey! I understand that reference!' and I really enjoyed hunting for easter eggs, so even if the presence of the pub thugs in the Baron's crew, or the boys stumbling on Rapunzel's tower in one scene and making nothing of it (yea that happened) is a lil questionable, it made me smile and I can't be mad.

I would just describe this book as 'comfy'.

(That said, I'm a little unsure who all those references are for- I feel like if you hadn't seen the series, you'd lack context and some details would be meaningless, but if you had, I think you might long for more depth and exploration...)

Structure & Progression

Here's the part where I start criticizing the book aimed at middle and elementary schoolers lmao

It's a v short book, but the plot progression still feels a little scattered- it didn’t feel quite like a heist OR a mystery. The subplot that takes up a lot of focus is actually interpersonal conflict between Lance and Eugene- and they reconcile, but not after spending much of the book in a standoff due to a misunderstanding/'liar revealed' trope.

One of Eugene's motivations for joining the circus is spotting a man with a mark on his arm that matches the one from his letter working there, and believing he'll be able to learn more abt his parents from him. He doesn't disclose this to Lance right away, and when it comes out later on, he's upset that Eugene didn't tell him- he feels tricked, and like Eugene's prioritizing his biological family over their bond. I had a hard time with this, b/c I honestly think Eugene could've literally said to Lance, 'hey, joining this circus is a great opportunity to travel, make money, send some back to the orphanage, AND I found something about my parents, will you come with me?' and Lance still would've jumped on it. Later on, there's also another similar miscommunication that deepens the rift.

It feels like manufactured drama, and I would've loved a book of the two of them just being buds, bouncing off each other, and trying to unravel the mysteries of the DK symbol and the Baron's ulterior motives together. Lance's fears of being left behind by his friend absolutely could've surfaced without the misunderstandings, especially the closer they got to the truth. (And I don't think that'd have been dissimilar to the unused 'Trial' episode concept and flashback.)

The pacing itself... meanders. After the boys complete an initiation mission to get a hold of a special key for the Baron, time passes (two weeks in-story) and there's some slice of life as they learn the ropes, get inducted into a lifestyle of thieving (it’s revealed the circus is a front for a crime ring), and get to know the Baron's crew.

I liked these parts and would've kept them in a longer book! But maybe there could've been some fine-tuning here so big events (Eugene stealing for the first time, the heist, the meeting with the mysterious Man with the Mark) weren’t so one-and-done. There are several points where nothing's really happening because the characters can't quite connect with each other, or they're waiting around for an opportunity passively, and that makes for a frustrating exp for me as a reader.

There were also lot of elements I thought were getting set up to come into play later, but not a lot of follow through? The folk hero Lance Archer is mentioned several times and has wanted posters, but we never meet him in the flesh. The Man with the Mark is revealed to be a former member of the Brotherhood(!) named Vedis(!!), but he isn't seen again after Eugene speaks with him... once. (More on this later this post is getting so long omg)

The Baron’s plan is revealed to be stealing a reward offered for the lost princess when it’s on display to the public during a festival. Eugene and Lance balk b/c stealing doesn’t sit well with them, especially when it’s from what are ultimately a family trying to find their lost child- they decide to do the right thing by foiling the scheme/stealing it back and returning it to the royals. It goes a bit pear-shaped and they’re caught, but are forgiven and face no consequences after explaining, other than being ousted from the circus/crime ring and making enemies of the Baron. Eugene hasn’t given up on finding the DK, but he realizes he already has a family in Lance, and that’s the most important thing; the two resolve to travel the world and have adventures together.

I want to make another post on it, but at the least it feels like a foregone conclusion given we know ‘Flynn Rider’ goes on to become a renown thief who steals the crown of the lost princess- that’s literally the plot of the movie, and being a dashing rogue is Flynn’s defining trait- so even aside from questionable ideas about wealth, class, and morality, the novel’s ending doesn’t fit what’s firmly established about his character, and I think big fans of Eugene might have an even harder time with that then me.

(I’m very suspicious that there might’ve been some executive meddling in an attempt to soften young Eugene’s character, and send a more palatable/upstanding message to children- it feels like Disney editing the old SW films to show Han didn’t shoot first.)

It’s def one of those novels where you can take some elements you like and leave others, but overall I’d still rly rec it for series fans! I’ve been buzzing and what-iffing about it for a few days, and I got some tasty tidbits on the characters and nods to the series, which is exactly what I wanted out of it.

And maybe it’s a funky take, but honestly I want to think of this book as the beginning of an alternate timeline where Lance and Eugene got out of crime earlier, Eugene got a clue abt his heritage by chance, and it changed his course. I think embracing the retcons and contradictions to canon makes for an interesting angle, and you’ll enjoy it more if you don’t take it too seriously.

#OKAY PHEW GOD took me way too long to post this #I'd consider this a general reaction/impression and overview #and I have more written that I want to sort out into posts abt Eugene's char AND my thoughts on Vedis as a Brotherhood Stan™#if I included it here it'd have been like... another 1k words lmfao #hopefully I can post those in the next day or so!#I have no idea how to structure proper reviews man I just want to yammer #I'm honestly just having fun reacting to smth new again C:#the rise of flynn rider #text post #my post #eugene #lance

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