#like even assuming such a thing were possible (which canonically it’s explicitly NOT) they all saw him qi deviate!!

[ezwezz]

lost in your eyes

h.yj x f!reader

genre: fluff!! summary: you and yunjin find yourselves lost in the countryside, so you make the obvious decision to start a livestream. words: 1.1k

yunjin x yn!! my cuties omg hi where are you guys?? they look like a couple lol

the viewers instantly surged in numbers and countless comments came pouring in. most were excited greetings and some were doting on the pair on screen, a few begging for couple poses to screenshot.

"hey everyone!"

"hi guys! thank you for joining us."

you and yunjin stood side-by-side, waving at the camera, which yunjin held as you nestled your chin on her shoulder.

"just to clarify, we aren't lost...we just can't seem to find our members anywhere."

the camera flipped around to reveal the open countryside. fields upon fields of...nothingness.

help where tf are they??? plz r they stranded idk whether to laugh or phone emergency services

"as you can see...there is no sign of civilisation. this may possibly be our 'rural survival' era." you announced, the camera flipping back to you and yunjin.

"but don't worry guys, we're safe, we just need to retrace our steps."

"i could've sworn they came this way..." you glanced around one more time as if your members were hiding somewhere in the barren landscape.

"i know... but i'm starting to think they may have gone down the other path."

"it all looks the same, this feels like the backrooms."

"i know right, we're too city girl for this." you nodded in agreement before hooking an arm beneath yunjin's and starting your trek back down the path.

the woman began replying to comments as you walked comfortably together.

"they're telling us to hold hands." she stated after a moment, a goofy smile on her face.

"guys…we're literally stuck in the middle of nowhere and that's how you're feeling?" you feigned offence but happily complied, gently taking yunjin's hand and intertwining your fingers, lifting it up to show the viewers, who were going wild in the comments.

you two were often affectionate with each other, seemingly having instant chemistry, which the fans quickly picked up on. it didn't take long for you and yunjin to become the most shipped pair in the group, but you didn't mind- you thought it was quite sweet actually, and you could definitely think of worse things to be circulating. not to mention the fact that you'd had a small crush on yunjin for a while now and clearly weren't subtle about it, judging by the copious amounts of dating rumours between you two, but you could usually play it off.

yunjin's opinions on the matter were kind of a mystery to you. she'd never explicitly addressed the shipping, but seemed to entertain the idea, often initiating affection or playfully flirting with you...for the fans, you dejectedly assumed.

you felt yunjin squeeze your hand and glanced up to see a soft smile adorning her features. you reciprocated the affection by squeezing back, the wordless action lighting a welcome warmth in your chest. the sun had begun to melt, plunging you into a golden hue that captured yunjin's eyes, causing them to gleam like sparkling pools of honey. the sight almost took your breath away and you gulped, wary of sinking too deep.

the way they look at each other, i can't absbjsbfh love love love pretty yunjin x yn is canon idc the way they're lost rn....IN EACH OTHER'S EYES

the last comment made you chuckle, and you saw yunjin's face light up on the screen when she read it as well.

"we probably look like an old couple right now. all we need is a dog." she stated with a laugh, causing you to smile shyly.

"or a cat."

"but cats don't like to go on country walks."

"neither do i. we're an old couple trying to be youthful and active while our grumpy cat chills at home, in the city." yunjin giggled loudly, squeezing your hand once again.

"yes that's perfect. let's make it happen." your eyes widened and you were met with her mischievous smirk.

damn you yunjin.

are the dating rumours even rumours at this point we're witnessing y/n's gay panic, live plz yunjin is such a flirt

"we should probably find our way back to civilisation first." you stated, hoping the inevitable blush in your cheeks wasn't too noticeable.

"that's true...maybe instead of going on live we should've called chaewon...?"

"wait why didn't we think of that first? your stupidness is rubbing off on me yunjin." you reached for the phone in your coat pocket, only to find many...many missed calls from your members. yunjin nervously chuckled beside you, also witnessing the horror.

"this is definitely because of your stupidness. why was your phone on 'do not disturb'?" she exclaimed.

"i was trying to experience nature properly!"

when the cottage-core liftestyle backfires because you're literally an idol

"okay everyone, you're about to witness y/n being torn to shreds by chaewon-unnie. prepare to be entertained."

you shot yunjin a dark glare before calling chaewon, the hollow ringing sending cold waves of fear through your body.

"y/n! where the hell are you?? why weren't you answering?! are you seriously on live right now!?"

"uh hi chae..." you glanced to yunjin for help but she simply shrugged angling the camera to show your panicked face instead. "we just got a bit sidetracked..."

"sidetracked??? you went missing and decided to do a livestream! i'm literally going to start developing grey hairs because of you two."

"i'm sorry chae, we're on our way back now...i think."

"you think?! please don't tell me you need a search team to go after you..."

"a search team?? wait... omg i think i see some cars."

yunjin swivelled her head in the same direction as you then gasped, physically jumping for joy.

"yunjin and y/n have navigated the perilous journey and return unscathed." she addressed the viewers as if she were a sports commentator.

you were literally walking for 5 minutes yay! power couple these two are perfect for each other poor chaewon LMAO

"oh thank god." chaewon sighed. "we're waiting by the car. remind me to get you guys those backpack leashes next time." and with that, she hung up.

you and yunjin took one look at each other before bursting into laughter.

"alright guys, sorry this was brief but hopefully you found it entertaining." you told the viewers.

"if you don't see us shitposting on twitter later, assume that foul play is involved by the hands of chaewon-unnie." yunjin added.

"mhm... okay, goodbye everyone! pray for us!" you and yunjin gave the camera a final enthusiastic wave before ending the live.

"that was fun." she stated before rejoining your hands. the action catching you off-guard since the live had ended, but you certainly weren't complaining.

"i reckon we should get lost together more often." you replied.

"in each other's eyes." yunjin wiggled her eyebrows, referring to the earlier comment causing you both to giggle.

"i have no objections."

"hm..." yunjin squeezed your hand, leaning slightly further into you. you squeezed back and relished in the closeness. "can we call our grumpy cat chaewon?" she mused after a moment.

"oh absolutely."

your eyes met once again, this time exchanging an unspoken feeling of adoration.

[kindlespark]

sam i didnt even watch fhjy but can you tell me more of ur thoughts abt kipperlilly? any thoughts even stream of consciousness, she seems so teenager rage gone wrong im so fascinated by her

HJBFESJBFEKSFS THIS IS SO FUNNY OFC ok this is going to be a range of thoughts about the reactions i've seen from both ends of the rat grinder Discourse™

i think it's fine to be like, yeah, what kipperlilly's anger stems from is like deeply unsympathetic and comes from a very privileged status. i think being like "no that's normal for a teen girl" is silly. she is very much not normal she's a little upper-middle class brat and i love her. i love that she's so deeply distasteful and unappealing to people LOL. hate when female characters have to be smoothed down to be liked! like we don't have to downplay her negative traits when people are obsessed with male serial killers all the time etc etc

BUT i also think people forget that like... the bad kids were reading private thoughts she shared with her therapist (which is a massive invasion of privacy)! like of course it was fucked up. that's why she was going to a therapist lmao!!! it stresses me out that people are this vitriolic about a teen character who is pretty explicitly mentally ill and trying to get better about it but is being manipulated by a deity of rage and possibly her adult vice principal like. you don't have to LIKE her but calling for her to be violently murdered is wild to me. the bad kids had never even HEARD of her before this season and you can metagame about brennan not having invented her character yet all you want but in canon u gotta assume she was successfully keeping that rage down until she got got and is now being actively corrupted by a powerful rage deity lmaoooo

and like! she got her narrative punishment!! the monkey's paw curled and she lost her best friend she's got her traumatic backstory now!!! she's already suffering and at her lowest i don't need her to die (again!)

i think brennan is past the point of making teen characters irredeemable so i can only hope that the cast follows through on that bc i feel like redemption and healing from trauma is one of the strongest themes in fantasy high like i bawled my eyes out in every aelwyn and adaine scene. which is why it's really funny to me that siobhan is kipperlilly's biggest hater because i feel like she's a great mirror to adaine's spite and aelwyn's redemption..... like siobhan's characters are all very appealing to me because of their rage. god im hoping and praying they don't kill the rat grinders in the finale god bless

oh final petty thing i think saying kipperlilly's name wrong was only funny the first 200 times <3 love u all mwa

[yuurei20]

Hiii!

I was wondering how the rooms were distributed in each dorm. I know that the housewardens have their individual room but i believe that in Hearstabyul Ace and Deuce share their room with other 2 students and in Octaville Jade and Floyd share a room, so i guess it's different in every dorm and i wondered how It was in other dorms and if there was any information abt the roomates.

I rlly like your posts, it's rlly cool learning more abt TW lore and characters.

Hello hello!! Thank you so much, you are too kind! ♡ And also thank you for this ask, it was so interesting to look into!

Some room situations have been confirmed via dialogue while others have not, there are various theories based upon the cross-referencing of dialogue, graphics and the novel, and something curious might be going on with EN-server's Octavinelle:

First-year living situations are referred to at least twice as being four-man rooms. As this information comes from Ace and Deuce it seems not uncommon for people to assume that this must be Heartslabyul's particular setup, but neither character ever specifies that this situation is unique to Heartslabyul: they say it is specific to first-year students.

And the rooming situation at NRC is described explicitly in the second novel:

"In each dorm 1st-year students are four to a room with 2nd-year students two to a room and, as a 3rd-year student, you finally get a room to yourself.

Housewardens are the one exception, with their own room regardless of year."

So it is possible that roommate arrangements are the same across all seven dorms. But! Many things have been changed in the novels from the original game (Leona's introduction, the prefect going to Pomefiore alone, etc), so it might be better to not use the novels as a reference for what is or isn't game-canon. This neither proves nor disproves the possibility of the game following the same roommate system, but it does give us something to go off of :>

Ace and Deuce were hinted at having the same bedroom in a vignette, and this was confirmed during Spectral Soiree when Ace says he can hear Deuce grinding his teeth in his sleep.

Comparing their bedrooms themselves, objects from Ace's bookshelf can be seen in Deuce's room.

Unlike the overlapping objects in the Ace/Deuce shared bedroom, there is no proof of Cater, Trey or Riddle sharing a room with anyone, which may support the "third years and housewardens have private rooms" theory.

Further support comes from Cater's comment that he and Trey only shared a room for their first two years at the school.

This might point to them sharing a room with two others in their first year, having a room alone together their second year, and now they are in private rooms.

There is an interesting situation at Savanaclaw where they have empty rooms in the dorm, but students are still rooming together rather than cleaning out a room to use for themselves.

It is possible that "first-years are four-to-a-room, second-years are two-to-a-room" is a rule at the school. Only some first- or second- years getting private rooms or fewer roommates wouldn't be fair to the others, so they have to share rooms even though there is space available.

Leona has a line about Ruggie sharing a room with at least one other person during Spectral Soiree, so Ruggie having a roommate is also confirmed.

(The Japanese language doesn't really have "the" or "a," and EN chose to write this line as "a guy in his room," as though there are multiple people besides Ruggie. It could technically be interpreted either way.)

Much like Ace and Deuce, illustrations show proof of other people living in Jack and Ruggie's rooms, while there is no such proof in Leona's.

There is also no visual proof of Azul sharing a room with anyone, while there is proof in Jade and Floyd's.

Based on visuals alone it seems there might be an argument for the twins sharing rooms with other people: the positioning of the chairs and a stack of books in Floyd's room do not seem to correlate with Jade's room. A stack of objects in Ace's room can clearly be seen in Deuce's room, so it seems like such details would be carried over if that's what we're supposed to think is going on.

But, unlike most other characters, it has been confirmed in dialogue that Floyd and Jade share a room on JP!

The Japanese language doesn't really use possessive pronouns in the same way that English does, as things like that are generally communicated via context.

Since English forces you to specify such information (which Aniplex USA might not actually know), they added "Jade's room" to Floyd's dialogue in his birthday vignette, despite how Floyd did not specify Jade having a separate room at all: he just says that Jade is always keeping an unspecified room clean. While he could technically be talking about Jade's room, he could also be talking about their shared room.

This is a kind of vague example and may not be particularly convincing either way, but there have been at least two more references in-game:

In Floyd's original, in-game dialogue, he says that he doesn't want to go back his room because he wants to be alone, but Jade will be coming home soon. The word "room" was changed on EN to "dorm," not once, but twice:

In another vignette he says that Jade smells so earthy all the time that it brings his mood down just to be in the dorm room. So I think I can understand someone playing EN and thinking that the twins might be in separate rooms with different roommates, but that does not seem to be the case!

Much like Riddle, Leona and Azul, there is no proof of roommates in the bedroom illustration for Kalim, but another student's rug, bookshelf and desk can be seen to the side of Jamil's despite how he is a vice-houswarden. This may be in support of the "two students per 2nd year bedroom, housewardens are the only exception" theory.

Neither Rook nor Vil have any proof of roommates in their bedroom designs, while what may be another student's closet can be seen to the side of Epel's.

There is no proof of a human roommate in Idia's bedroom (the blue stand off to the right is heavily hinted in Book 7 as being for Ortho), and he has a voice line about being miserable sharing a dorm room until becoming Housewarden.

Despite being counted as a first-year student (while he has technically been at the school as long as Idia), post-Book-6 Ortho's room also does not seem to have any proof of being a shared space, but it was confirmed in New Years 2024 that Ortho does have multiple roommates.

There is proof of roommates in both Sebek and Silver's room illustrations, with what are presumably other students' desks seen in both of them.

There is no proof of roommates in Lilia or Malleus' bedrooms, and we learn in Spectral Soiree that their two rooms are located next to one another:

[radiohead-spiderman]

Lily and Petunia have such an interesting and complex relationship and there aren’t enough fics that delve into that.

From what we know from canon, the two were relatively close before Lily’s magic was discovered. We can assume that Petunia’s resentment ramped up when Snape and Lily started to become friends, which was partially because she just didn’t like him and thought he was a weird but if you look at it from a child’s perspective it paints it in a different light, children are easily possessive of things and people, siblings especially, sisters especially.

Her resentment was furthered with their parents treatment of the two. Petunia was the eldest sister, between the two she was the less remarkable, from what we know and can assume from canon, Lily was the golden child, when she received her Hogwarts letter and their parents reacted positively and from what we’re told in the books, ecstatically even, which furthered her resentment even more when she even wrote to Dumbledore asking if she could go to Hogwarts too, but he had told her, though kindly, that because she was a muggle she could not.

Petunia lashed out the only way she knew how to, with resentment and envy, which makes sense really.

If Petunia was already envious of her sister, and their parents put Lily on an even higher pedestal after they found out she was a witch, adding Dumbledore’s words about Petunia not be able to go because she was a “muggle”, then it’d make sense that Petunia would resent Lily, to make her a “freak” in her eyes.

Petunia’s jealousy and resentment came from many things with Lily’s odd abilities, with Lily spending time with Snape, with Lily discovering she was a witch and their parents praising her for that, with Lily’s acceptance into Hogwarts and Petunia’s rejection from it, with pureblood James Potter.

That’s not to say that Lily is at fault or that she didn’t care, we KNOW Lily loved her sister. We can safely assume that she wrote to Petunia throughout Hogwarts, her letters probably getting more scarce as they grew and Petunia had stopped responding, but Lily still sent Petunia a letter when she gave birth to Harry, she still felt that her sister was important enough to her to send a letter announcing Harry’s arrival.

Petunia’s resentment even caused her to marry Vernon because he was everything that Lily was not. He was a boring regular man with a boring regular life. (Which we learn from this part in the books below)

“Mrs Dursley pretended she didn't have a sister, because her sister and her good-for-nothing husband were as unDursleyish as it was possible to be.”

However, even with all that envy and resentment, Lily was still her sister, we see this when Vernon and Marge are laughing about Lily being a bitch and Petunia isn’t, we see this when Petunia tells Harry that he didn’t just lose a mother that night but she lost a sister(it’s in the movies explicitly so not book canon but it’s still a thing to note)

Petunia treated Harry the way she did because he was attached to the wizarding world and her sister, yeah Harry was a wizard but he was also the spitting image of James, Petunia must have resented him that much more because Harry was the embodiment of the two things that took away her sister, magic and James Potter. More over, Voldemort killed Lily to get to Harry, Lily died for Harry, it’s not an insane thing to think that that added even more to Petunia’s disdain.

Harry was the embodiment of everything that took Lily away from Petunia, magic, James Potter and the very reason her sister was dead. In Petunia’s mind at least.

To add Petunia treated Harry horrifically and no this isn’t an excuse for her inexcusable gross actions, but an unnecessary long look into the reasoning for it.

[my-current-obsession]

Something I both love AND hate about FF7 (the original game and everything after, including the Remake trilogy) is that it is just ambiguous and/or player-driven enough that no matter which side of the love triangle you fall on (assuming you do in fact ship Cloud with one of the girls), the majority of fans for that ship are 100% CONVINCED it's the correct/canon option.

Like, certain scenes are definitely up to interpretation, and people are going to thus have varying reads on those scenes and the characters/relationships the scenes are about. It doesn't help that several scenes change depending on the player's choices, which acts as a confirmation bias as you naturally get more time and romantic moments with the girl of your preference. It really seems to me that MOST people who ship Cloud and Aerith have one solid interpretation (with a plethora of supporting evidence) of the series and the romance, while most people who ship Cloud and Tifa have their own solid interpretation with plenty of evidence that is VASTLY DIFFERENT from the Clerith reading of the game.

This is not a case of "one ship is clearly, explicitly canon and fans of the opposition just like their pick better and/or think it made more sense narratively and WISH it was canon" - for an example of that, look to the Avatar the Last Airbender shipping wars. This is a case where both sides literally interpret the story just differently enough that they come to entirely different conclusions about which girl is Cloud's true love. And if either side reaches out to try and explain their viewpoint to the other, they're just met with "uh, no. You're wrong." Try and explain what Cloud might be thinking in a given scene with one of the girls, why he acts a certain way... "That's not it at all, where are you getting this? Are you delusional?"

Like, I am a Clerith shipper. I have played all the games in the compilation and watched Advent Children. I tried to be as completionist as possible, even. And I came out on the other side of really digging into the story of this game loving Cloud and Aerith's dynamic and pretty firmly convinced they were canon. Or as canon as possible in the timeline where she died.

As any Clerith fan who participates in the fandom would know, if you try and explain your interpretation of these characters and the romance to a diehard Cloti supporter... you're met with a lot of "you're misinterpreting! Cloud and Aerith were just friends! She loved Zack to the end and Cloud loved Tifa since childhood and never stopped! Also Aerith is actually BAD for Cloud because she's too pushy/abrasive. She's not helping him open up, she's just forcing him to go along with her and making him uncomfortable!"

All of this is of course infuriating, but I'd like to think I'm self-aware enough to know we are kind of guilty of the same thing. The majority of Tifa fans are SO happy about the kiss in Rebirth, while we're over here dismissing it because, one it's optional, and two Cloud is "obviously" using Tifa as a rebound or settling for her since Aerith is seemingly unavailable. But that's not how Cloti fans see it at all.

We can talk until we're blue in the face about how TIFA deserves better than Cloud because she shouldn't be the second choice - the one he settles for. But I think most people who really love Cloti genuinely don't see it that way. In their eyes, she's NOT second-best. Cloud loved her all along and this kiss is finally confirming that. And nothing we say will dissuade them, just as nothing they say will actually change OUR minds about Clerith.

It is honestly really difficult for me to try and see the story and romance the way Cloti fans do, but I know the reverse is also true. Both groups of fans interpret the characters and relationships differently. The compilation ALLOWS us to interpret them differently. And this is why the ship war for a game from 1997 is still raging on.

Because both camps are certain they're right, they defend their position viciously. Sometimes that means invading the "other side" to tell them how wrong they are. This discussion/rant was prompted by a Cloti fan on a Clerith vid who wanted to debate MY comment about how wonderful the ship was and how good they were for each other. He was "confused" and "concerned" because Clerith fans were reading the story wrong or warping it to suit our ship.

I wanted to tell him, "buddy that's what YOU'RE doing". I wanted to write a goddamn essay explaining why Clerith is canon actually. But considering in my INITIAL comment that he first responded to I'd already brought up why I thought Clerith was great, and he was IGNORING that... I knew it would be pointless. There is nothing I could possibly say that would change his mind. There is nothing he could possibly say that would change my mind.

As long as both sides of this war are fully convinced they're right, this war is going to be endless and brutal. And that's why my absolute biggest fear for part 3 is an open, ambiguous ending regarding the ships. Maybe it will canonize nothing. Maybe it will canonize BOTH by having the actual ending change depending on which girl the player favors.

Either route will offer no relief to this eternal battle. I would honestly prefer for Cloti to explicitly and unambiguously win than an ending where neither girl does. Because I can accept a loss. I can accept being told that actually I WAS interpreting the story wrong, but I'll only accept it from the text itself. If anything, a Cloti ending might encourage me to go through the entire compilation again trying to view it with that canon couple in mind. I'm sure I'd see things differently, even if I'd always have a place in my heart for Clerith. And I sincerely hope that if Clerith were to win that Cloti fans could do the same.

All I know is that I'm sick and tired of this ship war. I personally have never gone after Cloti fans or engaged in Cloti content with the intent to debate or hate on the ship. But I don't speak for all Cleriths. I'm sure at least a few fans of my ship are guilty too. I have seen many obnoxious Cloti fans invading our spaces to disparage us - mostly on YouTube and Twitch, less here on Tumblr - but I KNOW there are plenty of kind Cloti fans who just happily enjoy their ship and leave us to ours as well.

At the end of the day, regardless of how part 3 ends things, I just wish we could live in peace. Please enjoy your ship. Your interpretation of the text and romance is valid. But so is mine. If neither side can agree, then the best thing to do is leave each other alone.

[g-kat423]

If Alcina being a lesbian is so important to you why does she have an ex husband in your fic

I’m going to assume this is a genuine question without malicious intent so I will provide a real answer.

This could actually apply to 2 of my fics, but I’m guessing you’re talking about Something Sweet since it’s the one that I update more frequently.

Gonna plop this under a read more since it’s gotten long

Alright, so, the reason for her having an ex husband has been stated throughout the fic. She felt she had to be closeted and to meet certain expectations set for her both by society and by her parents. Sure, people are more accepting now, not that there isn’t still bigotry or pressure to conform, but with the fic taking place in 2022(I started it in 2022 and only a few months have passed in fic time and while I never explicitly stated the year, that’s what everything is based off of, giving Alcina a 1978 birth year and the reader 2001) that means Alcina got married in 2008. Idk if you were around during that time, but homophobia was rampant, being gay was a punchline. It’s not something you would talk about, there’s no way to know if your friends would actually stay your friends and not spread vicious rumors about you. Marriage equality in most states, not a thing. Again, bigots still exist, but it’s generally not this life ruining thing for people to find out you’re queer. Alcina would have come of age in the 90’s which would make that even worse.

That aside, I tend to explore themes of coming out later and families not being being accepting because it’s all I know. I tend to process my trauma through my writing. That and I’m sure it’s no secret that I’ve taken heavy inspiration from Carol only with a sugar baby twist. I also wanted her to have younger, biological children since I felt that would be fitting of a 44 year old divorcee rather than having adopted adult children like she does in canon. Sure, they could have been adopted or older, but there needed to be a reason for her to stay with Kurt for the amount of time that she did. I needed her connected to Karl in someway too. Heisenberg was originally supposed to have a twin brother so I went off of that and now Alcina has her annoying ex brother-in-law(who actually isn’t so bad in this universe, but Alcina won’t hear of it)

As for The Fall of the House of Dimitrescu. I’m sure no one is asking, but in that case Alcina was weak from her hereditary blood disease and didn’t have the energy to be defiant the same way she was as a child. Her father had lost his wife and he had no desire to continue caring for Alcina so he set her up with somebody who she reluctantly went along with. In that case, Alcina wasn’t even aware of her attraction to women yet, she just didn’t understand why she didn’t feel a spark with her soon to be husband. She also assumed it was normal for sex to be an unpleasant “wifely duty.” Once she finally made the connection and had an affair with a woman, turns out she liked sex quite a bit lmao.

Idk, all this aside, I know I’m not the only one who has given Alcina a husband in some context yet still fully believes shes a lesbian. I also have plenty of fics where she’s never had one. The first multichapter fic I wrote she literally left her home and privileged life behind to struggle until she made it as musician rather than marry a man. I don’t think it’s a crime to explore other possibilities. I have so many different headcanons for Alcina and all are universe dependent whether that be modern AU, the canon compliant timeline where she never marries, the canon compliant timeline where she does, and all the other in between stuff that diverges from canon. She’s one of my favorite characters of all time and I love fleshing her out.

[under-lore]

The red soul trait is not determination

One piece of fanon that has become so widespread in the community that some even forget that it isn’t canon is the idea that the red soul represents determination.

We know about the six other soul traits from the ball game in Snowdin.

The 7 possible flags in this game fit with the 7 soul colors. The first 6 can all be linked to the fallen human’s traits.

The last possible flag however, the red flag, simply restates the previous traits in a more explicit manner and associates them with their colors. Saying that a combinaison of all of them led us to victory.

Getting the red flag a second time will result in the red flag getting some different dialogue relating to Frisk’s sense of selfhood.

The red soul trait does not ever get explicitly associated with a trait unlike the other ones. Yet is often assumed to be determination due to DT’s importance in Undertale in general and some flavor text.

But the thing is... Frisk does not actually have special ties with determination other than those that naturally come with being a human.

Firstly, having high amounts of the determination substance like Frisk does is the norm for humans and is not a particularity of Frisk’s.

This is especially relevant considering that dialogues from Toriel and Asgore also imply the 6 fallen humans had the power to SAVE and LOAD too before eventually giving up when fighting the latter.

Frisk’s determination is really nothing out of the ordinary for human standards and simply wouldn’t be warrant of being Frisk’s trait, even if determination had been an actual trait. Which is already quite dubious in itself as determination in Undertale is primarly a substance to which the feeling is secondary.

if anything, there would be more basis on associating Frisk with patience than with determination. That one is actually associated with Frisk’s personality unlike the latter.

As for the flavor texts, Toby has mentioned the SAVE points to be a manifestation of one’s determination.

The 6 humans and Flowey were also able to SAVE/LOAD. Accordingly, the fallen humans and Flowey all had their own SAVE points and each of them was “filled with determination” next to the manifestation of their own determination.

These flavor texts again do not represent anything that’s associated with Frisk in particular and do not tie them to the feeling of determination more than any of the other humans.

To continue, determination is never linked to the color red in Undertale at any point. The two are never even vaguely implied to have anything to do with each other at all.

The concept of the burden of proof dictates that the one making the claim has to be the one providing evidence for said claim, otherwise it is invalid and should be assumed to be wrong by default. Red determination is incapable of providing any evidence for itself that holds ground. Because of this, it cannot even be considered as a theory, it is just a headcanon.

However, the game does actually provide plenty of evidence which goes against it.

Determination is golden

Determination might never be tied to the color red whatsoever, but it does actually get hinted on several occasions to be of a specific color. And that color is actually that of gold.

Firstly, the SAVE points have already been stated by Toby Fox to be a manifestation of pure determination. It is thus only logical that the color of the SAVE points would be the color of determination.

That color is #fff200 gold.

Whenever a SAVE file is SAVED using said SAVE points, the text of the file goes from white to gold at the exact moment the button is pressed, thus using determination to SAVE it.

Whenever Flowey SAVES a SAVE file in a neutral route, this text is gold colored as well. (LOADS remain white however)

Similarly, in the menu, the continue and reset buttons flash gold when we hover over them.

All golden flowers in Undertale always come in 3 different shades, all except one which has apparently shifted away from its natural color at some point.

The exception is non other than Flowey himself. Flowey is a slightly brighter shade of gold than any other golden flower in UT. Not only that, but the shade of gold Flowey has just so happens to actually be the exact same one as the color of the SAVE points and presumed color of determination :  #fff200.

Flowey was injected with determination after all, that color change Flowey had is very likely to have come from Alphys' experiments during which the flower took the taint of the substance it was injected with in large amounts : Determination.

Even Alphys, who has seen pure DT and who out of any character should have at least a rough memory of the color it had, writes the word "determination" in a shade close to that of the SAVE points in the true lab.

In the meantime, determination is never written in red.

It is noteworthy that not all instances of this use the exact same shade of gold. That being said, it is not arguable that determination is constantly associated with a golden color.

It goes without saying that if determination is golden colored, it doesn’t make sense for it to be the red soul trait. A color that DT is not associated with a single time in the whole game.

The SAVE power inconsistency

On top of the golden color issue, there is one huge contradiction to the idea that determination could be the red soul trait.

The six fallen humans, who did not have red souls, had the power to SAVE.

Chara, who did have a red soul, did not have the power to SAVE.

With the other six humans being determined enough to be able to reach the treshold but not Chara. We find ourselves in a situation where out of the 7 humans that came before Frisk, the only one of them who had a red soul was the one with the least determination of them all.

Needless to say that Chara’s soul trait being determination simply does not make any sense. And subsequently, it being the red soul trait would not either.

What is the red soul, then ?

The true nature of the red soul trait is unknown, that being said, there are multiple other theories about its nature which all have actual evidence backing them up in the game such as “Ipseity”, “Love”, “Hope”, or even “A combinaison of the 6 other traits”.

[mdhwrites]

The Nightmare Catch 22 of Hunter as a Clone

So first, let's just get this out of the way: The Grimmwalker twist was unnecessary. It wasn't properly introduced until S2B, with the only real foreshadowing of it being a single element in the S1 finale and the fact that Hunter didn't have magic. They could have kept him as having no magic though and been a genuine orphan that Belos took in to raise as a protege, possibly inspired to do it MORE because Hunter had a failing Bile Sac and would never be able to cast magic by himself which would have made him appear more human to Belos than the other denizens. Someone he could connect with more. This also would have made it so Hunter would have HAD to choose to leave Belos on the grounds of morality rather than being a disposable clone that Belos just straight up tries to kill before Hunter can actually rebuke Belos' way of doing things and the like, making his arc and redemption stronger. This also would have allowed for the same steps taken but less baggage that they couldn't deal with because of the shortening.

But, as always, TOH couldn't kill its darlings so let's talk about the nightmare that is how they dealt with Hunter being a clone, especially in the context of his crises of identity.

So the first thing that has to be acknowledged is that this is nothing new when it comes to clones. Clones have been a staple of sci-fi and fantasy for a LONG time and a clone reveal is ALWAYS more common than the person actually knowing what they were. This makes a lot of sense thematically though and it's a trope for a good reason. It opens up a lot of questions about what makes a person their own person, nature versus nurture, etc. like that. And the common decision by most media is to have the clone reject that who they're made from doesn't matter, they're going to be themselves, doubling down on the idea that free will is that which makes us human and ourselves rather than a machine (which also brings this up a lot in matters of androids.)

Which I will give credit that that DOES actually fit the goals of TOH. That you being you is the best thing possible in this world. There's just a couple catches to it. The first is obviously time as by the time Hollow Mind happens, there's VERY little time to deal with it and Hunter still spends some of that time just not addressing it and lying/keeping secrets instead because this show has very few ideas of what to do with things when it comes to angst. He's not the most prolific liar/secret keep in the series amongst the good guys after all as that title firmly goes to Luz.

And that time problem IS a problem. After all, this is their setup: Hunter is a clone of someone who recorded history in his world has entirely forgotten. Instead, he looks and is raised by Belos. As such, he assumes that Belos is who he is cloned after and after the attempt on his life, even more than just being a clone (I am serious when I say the Grimmwalker twist is unnecessary), by Belos, he rejects being like his perceived Uncle. And so he becomes a witch loving, Palisman befriending good guy who betrays Belos!

...Which is literally EVERYTHING we know about Caleb. Every concrete fact about him lines up with what Hunter turns into. Even worse, NO ONE wants the old Hunter. They only want what he is when he is lying, not acting like himself... Or like Caleb. Darius is actually the creepiest here as he explicitly wants Hunter to be like his dead lover and the canonical fact that EVERY Golden Guard ends up betraying Belos means that Darius effectively just wants to not guide Hunter to a better place but to just... remake his old love.

And that's fucking creepy.

Luz wants nothing to do with what Hunter was before he started becoming good though. Amity wants Hunter to become like her which is essentially just becoming Luz. Willow likes the time she spends with 'Caleb' and then is mad at Hunter when he's back to being the Golden Guard, at least until he goes against Belos by saving The Emerald Entrails, pleasing Darius and her.

But this is where the Catch 22 comes into play. From the character's perspective, Hunter IS rebelling against what he thinks he was made to be. Who he believes himself to be a clone of. He has no reason to assume he's Caleb's brother after all. Hell, he'd probably get confused about why this ancient white dude named Philip has brown hair when Belos has blonde. Not white like Eda but blonde. So we NEEDED some time for Hunter to introspect, learn the secondary twist that he is a clone of Caleb, learn about who this Caleb guy was, which is effectively impossible beyond the fairy tale they're told which tells Hunter nothing of Caleb besides the boy liking witch booty over taking care of his brother, and for him to THEN decide he was okay with being like Caleb.

And that would have been fine. It would have even been theoretically a bit novel if not kind of weird. Again: Writers have always chosen that the person goes their own way for a reason. Hunter deciding being Caleb is cool with him is one way to close that out... But it would still be him choosing to be a different person. That his individuality isn't what's most important which goes against pretty much the core theme of TOH, who believes individuality and self expression is the ultimate priority. Full stop.

So you have a character who narratively, for the sake of having the redemption arc they want him to have and who logically fits into this place by contrasting against his uncle, also cannot become that person because he's a clone and his clone appears to be the anti-thesis of his uncle, thus making each of those points of contrast not him becoming his own character but him becoming just a different, ancient white bloke. There is no winning with this. And in the end, there was no victory. Hunter turned into a copy of Caleb, his arc feels shallow in part because of it and the Grimmwalker stuff robbed time away from the rest of the series for minimal payoff and a blow to the core themes.

All for a twist that cheapened his arc in the first place and had no real reason to be here besides being kind of neat conceptually.

======+++++======

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I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

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[livlepretre]

I'm really curious (sorry if you answered this question before), but do you see canon Klaus doing the same kind of things FE Klaus does?

Yes, absolutely.

FE is my unvarnished interpretation of the characters, as they were presented in the earlier seasons of the show. The entire plot of FE is even taken from a scenario Klaus himself voices: he declares in 3x05 "what I want is to take my girl, take my hybrid, and get out of this one pony town." Obviously he wants to kidnap her in order to use her for her blood. The whole thing about wanting to make sure Elena settles down with a mortal to bear children and continue her bloodline is taken from his stated intentions in the episode "The Dinner Party," also season 3. Please keep in mind that I started working on FE when season 3 was first airing, so the characterizations are GREATLY taken from that era. So, when I was first working on this fic, Klaus had no canon romances save for what we saw of his affair with Katerina in 1492. Lines like "love is a vampire's greatest weakness" had huge influence over how I envisioned him-- and the fact that his early characterizations bear this out only added fuel to the fire. Wondering things like, why use Jenna in the sacrifice??? and speculating on his psychology all fanned the flames. I saw him as emotionally cowardly, and vengeful, but also, that there was no line he would not cross. That's the fun thing about writing Klaus. If I'm trying to figure out how he will respond to something, the worst and most dramatic possibility is OBVIOUSLY the answer. Whenever I wonder if I should dial it back, I think about that time in the season 4 Christmas special when he slaughtered all of his hybrids in a mad rage and then drowned Carol Lockwood and I go LOL NO Klaus is going to Klaus, I might as well let him go as far as he wants to go.

As for other various things-- like, I think the tv show had various constraints as a teen tv show-- a lot is implied in tvd but not explicitly stated because the show couldn't. It wasn't on HBO. So, while there is a weird amount of gore (heads falling off shoulders, hearts ripped out of chests), the sex stuff is all pretty tame. I have to assume the debauchery (and the viciousness of the gore) would all be dialed up without those censorship limits-- they're vampires. Like, Stefan is called "ripper." What does that mean? What are their habits? what are their cavalier attitudes about human life?

So, for me, when I watch tvd, I absolutely do interpret it as "oh, Stefan and Klaus were fucking in the season 2-season 3 hiatus, and Rebekah is obviously incestually invovled with Klaus and in a threesome with him and Stefan"-- the subtext is there and is just too strong a vibe to interpret it otherwise, for me. But the network wasn't going there. The spiciest sex dynamic they were willing to imply was a Rebekah x Sage x Damon threesome; which, ffm is just not that big of a deal on American tv; I doubt the show would have ever gone for a mmf threesome, let alone an incestuous one, let alone with their male romantic lead (and the woman isn't even the heroine). Like, mainstream network tv just isn't going to jump into that, even though this dynamic is basically screaming itself from the rooftops.

Uhhhh and do I think Klaus would fall in love with Elena?

I mean, to me it seems like the obvious ship, which is why I keep writing about it?

I am not one to let the fact that Elena has so many love interests stop me from adding in more or seeing the potential for more.

And one of the main goals of FE was to try to write this ship as I think it would realistically play out: this is why it is so slow, and painful, and full of so many set backs.

It's the sort of ship that sets fire to everything around it and then, MAYBE, some sapling will grow out of the scorched earth.

(Well, I say maybe. Yes. Definitely some young green shoot is going to burst out of this and turn into a majestic ship tree. Or something.)

[evercelle]

i’m a huge danganronpa fan so it’s been super fun to see you getting into v3!!! i’d love to hear what you thought of the last trial/the ending! it’s super divisive but i personally love it and think it’s really clever and creative.

ooooh yeah sure let's talk about v3!! happy sixth anniversary to the game that knocked me over and stole my attention span for the last couple months. i'm in the camp that loved the ending, and i'll cut the rest for spoilers:

i can definitely understand why the ending is divisive, but i thought the final trial and the meta-narrative of "danganronpa has always been fictional within its own canon" were cleverly executed and beautifully tied to the driving theme of the game itself. because v3's core mechanics revolve around truth and lies, the central thesis of the game (to me) is "perception affects reality." the big twist ending (and the reactionary emotions it causes for players) really highlights that theme.

when you think about the game, there were hints left and right that the killing game was a show from the very beginning (literally. from the title screen, which displays a disclaimer "characters depicted are fictional" a la tv shows), but because players (and especially long-time DR fans--as a send-off game in the franchise, it takes advantage of "standard DR tropes" to great effect) have certain expectations coming into the game as to what the story is or should be like, it's easy to overlook those clues...! because you have those preconceptions, the average player isn't looking for those clues, so when you finally get to the Big Twist you're totally staggered by that reveal, even though characters (amami, ouma, saihara) have explicitly told or speculated to the player throughout the game that things aren't what they seem.

saihara as the protag's early (and then ongoing) character arc deals with averting his eyes from the truth, because he's afraid of what must follow. it's a parallel for the player's experience in the final trial, which slowly leads you to the only possible conclusion (everything you know is a lie) and then links up to the secondary thesis of the game by setting up and then subverting standard DR/video game conventions (if we just believe in hope, we can get through this!! ...actually, that's wrong!): perception affects reality, and your own perception & agency shapes your world view. though shirogane tries to mindbreak saihara by showing the pre-game videos and asserting that everything about their present selves are all fabricated and therefore meaningless outside of the context they were created for, saihara concludes that ultimately, it doesn't matter--his experiences, his memories, his bonds, and his choices belong to him and shape his future. for the player, you get to make the same choice in interpreting the ending--whether you believe the ending is real (the classmates actually died) or fake (it was all a virtual simulation) is left up to you. your perception and your choice!!

overall, the driving theme that truth and lies are closely entangled was very well-executed, in my opinion! especially embodied in ouma as a whole and in trial 5, but that's a whole separate post lol... what you assumed was true wasn't, things that appeared to be lies perhaps weren't... infinite possibilities offered by a kind or useful lie, versus the narrow reality of a single harsh, objective truth; having the steel to pursue the truth to the very end; and finally, choosing to stand by your truth and forge onward, no matter what. that's what saihara's journey + the final trial is all about...!!

p.s. i enjoyed saihara as a character throughout the game but trial 6 made me just fall in love with him HAHA when he becomes intensehara is sooo choice. one of the reasons i love trial 6 is that it once again subverts itself in clever ways!

doing the standard video game-ish "we are in the pit of despair... wait, we just have to believe in each other and work together (game UI is literally lighting back up, coming back to life)" only to reverse into saihara realizing wait no. that's the trap!! fuck despair AND hope, actually!!! saihara rules

you get a parallel to chp 1 switching protags (akamatsu->saihara) with the switch from saihara->kiibo, but interestingly enough, you don't win against saihara. when you rebuttal showdown it's kiibo who is swayed

mechanically refusing to play the minigames in order to ruin the show was awesome and an excellent call back to ouma's FTE #5, when he implies that sometimes you win a game by simply not playing. (funny story about that actually - i DID attempt to play the nonstop debate you're supposed to not participate in during the last leg of trial 6 just because i wanted to see what would happen, and it auto game overs. LOL)

[undomielregina]

On the Endless and Their Aspects

I’ve been discussing the Endless a lot with people lately, and it’s gotten me to pull out two facts from the comics that are never explicitly stated, or are stated so fleetingly that it’s easy to miss their actual impact. I say “facts” and not “theories” or “headcanons” despite this, because I think the evidence for the validity of these is clear enough that it’s more a matter of pulling out what canon shows us but doesn’t shove under our noses screaming “LOOK AT THIS COOL THING” than it is attempting to connect the dots on a bunch of disparate canon moments in some coherent way. There will be spoilers for the Sandman comics in this.

The first fact is that each Endless is not only the personification/embodiment of their own aspect, but also the force that defines their opposite concept. We see this clearly with four of the seven, I think, and then it’s up to speculation with the other three, but with 4 being shown so clearly it’s safe to say that they all work this way.

Destiny defines free will. We see this in the branched paths of his garden, constant choices for the walker to make, and in the implication that even he may not know which path a walker will choose. We also see this near the end of The Kindly Ones, when Destiny is suddenly confronted by an untold number of alternate versions of himself, which then gradually disappear as the other characters make their choices. Not even Destiny knows which of them is the “true” version. It is, in all truth, possible to read this as suggesting that destiny itself has fractured and become unstable because of the exact nature of the events, but I think a more plausible reading is that these alternates always exist, all unaware of each other, and events merely caused them to become visible to one another temporarily. (Also I will stop to point out here that Destiny is distinct from Fate in the Sandman cosmology.)

Death defines birth. She’s the one Endless we see directly engage with the duality, because she’s present at birth as well as at death. That’s actually what tipped me off to look at them as potentially really being composed of pairs of opposed concepts rather than a single idea/state.

Dream defines reality. We actually do see this in action as well, when a critical mass of dreamers recreate the universe in the image of their dreams. This is also part of why the Vortices are such an existential threat to the world. Destroy dreams and you no longer have an anchor for reality.

Destruction defines construction. (Not creation, some things that are created cannot be destroyed.) Destruction doesn’t seem to realize this himself, but he also says it outright when he describes his realm as full of entities constantly building things to destroy. (There is possibly a joke about Derrida’s theory of deconstruction here, especially because deconstruction rests on the concept of exposing internal oppositions and contradictions, and also denies that any text can ever contain a single meaning, which is very like what I’m currently arguing is true of the Endless themselves.)

Now for the three that aren’t so explicit in the text:

Desire defines indifference, I would guess, and Despair defines hope. What’s interesting about that assumption is that the twins each closely relate to each other’s opposites. To be capable of desire or wanting presupposes the ability to hope for something, and Despair rests on the fundamental indifference of those who have lost the ability to want anything better. In that sense they define each other, which is what makes them twins.

I assume that Delirium’s opposite is Delight, but I’m not sure of that. It would be interesting if that were true, though, because it would suggest the possibility that any of the Endless might be able to change and embody their opposite the same way she did.

Part two of this is closely related to this, because it again rests on the fact that they are fundamentally indistinguishable from their aspects. When Death walks among us, death walks among us. There’s no separating them from what they are. This rests mostly on something Delirium says in Destruction’s chapter of Endless Nights, which is that the strange future artifacts are there because Delirium and Destruction are there. And of course, their presence makes no logical sense, and everything they find foretells destruction. They exist because the presence of Delirium and Destruction influences the world around them, because their names are literal. We also see it throughout Brief Lives, where throughout Dream and Delirium’s search for Destruction, not only is destruction constantly around them, but also in order to find him, Dream at last sets himself inevitably on the path to his own end, but also his own emotional devastation. He’s arguably destroyed before he dies.

Having said that, what does that seem to mean for Dream’s presence in the waking world? Because he doesn’t seem to carry dream-logic with him or anything as obvious as that. But he is also the Prince of Stories, and he could be argued to carry narrative with him, such that people around him, who would otherwise be ordinary people, become enmeshed in capital-s Stories with clear narrative roles. It is even possible that this is a major force behind the constant failure of his love affairs, because a grand passion is a very good story, but those stories are very difficult to live in for any great length of time. And to make matters worse, Dream himself says, at the very end of the series but also hundreds of years before the climax, that he “[has] no story of [his] own, nor may [he] ever.” It’s impossible to be caught up in a grand romance plot with a being who cannot also participate in that plot. It’s absolutely doomed. Arguably, the only way to co-exist with Dream for any length of time is to have a part in a narrative that makes that coexistence possible. (Arguably, for example, this is one of the things Death does with Hob: she doesn’t just make him immortal, she arranges a story that will allow him to continue to be who and what he is without Dream’s existence in his life taking it over with some other narrative.)

[spirithunts]

» — ⌜HUNGER & ITS IMPACT ON CONNECTION.⌟

ahri's need to feed on people's spiritual essence is as much a basic need as a normal human's hunger — although it does not remove her need to also get nourishment from actual food. it is canon that the vastaya are highly attuned to the magic around them, which allows them to thrive (and that its absence impacts them).

ahri does not seem highly impacted by leaving an environment with an enormous amount of spiritual magic, like ionia, to travel to a place like bilgewater, where magic may be present but wouldn't be as naturally abundant — and i deduce this might be related to her tribe having evolved differently, perhaps because of their frequent travels (some of them did establish themselves for research in the blessed isles, and i assume others may have wandered to other places), which led them to actively absorb magic instead of passively doing so as seems to be the case with other vastaya.

which is an elongated explanation to say my headcanon is the vesani evolved to actively feed on spiritual essence as a means of acquiring sustenance for the magical part of their beings, which includes their powers but also affects them physically and mentally.

in her short stories and other content, ahri is said to feed on people's essences, although it isn't always explicitly established what this essence is. most of her depictions, however, make it clear this includes people's feelings and memories. her color story suggests this is all there is to it; but given that taken to an extreme her feeding on someone doesn't simply make them numb or wipes their memory clean but actually kills them, i believe whatever comprises one's life force is also absorbed in that process — which is why even if she doesn't kill someone, anyone she feeds on will be weakened for a time.

this also means she wouldn't feed on any kind of being, as well. any undead, ghostly or spirit-like sort of creature would not be seen as prey, and while she would be able to sense their feelings, she would not be able to feed on them. as a result, they do not pose a challenge to her control, no matter how intense their feelings and memories.

personally, i would also include demons in that category, as they do not live and exist the same way as mortals do, but like spirits and wraiths and whatnot, they have (or can have) memories and emotions.

in ruined king, ahri absorbs viego's memories, but not directly from him — rather, she absorbs them from the mist around gangplank, after viego is no longer controlling him. she might be able to see memories even from the creatures she cannot really feed on, but i honestly believe the indirect way this happens suggests it's either due to the mystical nature of the mist, or the contact with a living being making it possible.

another interesting thing to note is that maokai, who as per his bio is a spirit, seems to willingly share his memories with ahri, as he shows her what the blessed isles were like and asks that she, in turn, show/tell the others about it. the fact he is not at all harmed by it and that the process is done consciously (while when feeding ahri cannot control what is or isn't taken, as she states in that same game in an interaction with sarah), with him choosing what to share, also suggests to me the way her powers interact with beings other than living mortals is different, and she neither hungers nor harms them with these abilities as she would living mortals.

for that reason, i also think being around sentient beings that are not living mortals is much easier for her — and something greatly appreciated, depending on who she's around of course. regardless of the specifics, though, the fact she does not hunger to feed on them in itself allows ahri to be far more relaxed than she usually is, because she doesn't need to fear giving in to the hunger and losing control. being around 'normal' people can be strenuous and difficult, and it's always tiresome, because she never wants to let her guard down and possibly hurt someone. in ruined king, another conversation addresses this when she speaks to illaoi, who questions how little she sleeps — to which ahri replies she prefers to stay awake around them, as to be fully in control. the constant state of alert to keep herself in check would certainly take a toll on her after extended periods of time.

and at the end of the day, while she isolates herself to avoid hurting people, ahri longs for companionship. she wants people near. she wants to be able to love and be loved without fear. and i think that's simply made a lot easier when she's not near constantly struggling against her need to feed. she tends to feel a lot more at ease, comfortable and relaxed around people who are not living mortals, as a result. i mentioned maokai, and ahri is visibly at ease with him at the same time she tries to avoid the rest of the group in ruined king (with the exception being pyke! and the two of them have some really interesting interactions about their respective natures and clearly form a kinship over it).

to my ahri specifically, i think that's also part of why she was more open to eve from the start; their similar instincts, but also the fact she could finally relax around someone and not be afraid of losing control and killing them definitely contributed to why ahri would allow her to get closer.

as a side note not necessarily related to the hunger and feeding aspect of it, her nature allows her to recognize other inhuman beings immediately a lot of the time (as i expect she would be recognized in turn). and around them her attitude tends to be somewhat different. not that her personality isn't the same, or that there are drastic changes, but a lot of the barriers she puts between herself and others are immediately down. using pyke as an example, they have this dialogue:

that in my opinion makes that very clear. she's not afraid to get straight to the point because she feels they are, in a way, similar. he is someone she can understand; not someone she has to be afraid of hurting, not someone who would scorn her for being a monster. all of this — being able to recognize other beings as inhuman, regardless of what exactly they are, as well as not being able (or feeling the urge) to feed on them makes considerably simpler for ahri to not hold herself back as much as she usually does, which results in her being often a lot more blunt and less evasive than she'd usually be.

[flockrest]

Hi! I am currently enjoying reading everything, just overall the homey vibe this blog has. I was a bit curious to learn- from your POV Do you think Tulin would grow to resent Revali- for his attitude towards Link? or would have another approach towards it- where it would benefit them all? Sorry was curious and well, I don't got many friends currently as focused and captured by the Rito's motifs in BoTW/ToTK

hello, hello! thank you so much for your lovely words, it makes me super happy to know that my blog is appreciated to this extent!! i hope you'll continue to enjoy your stay while you're here ♡ and no need to apologise! seriously, i'm always up for receiving asks like this; please feel free to drop by my inbox whenever you'd like :) as with tulin brainrot, you've come to the right place for some rito brainrot adfjsgkl

i don't think tulin would be able to resent revali, as they both are in canon, if he even tried! he's been such a huge part of his life for as long as he can remember — it's hard to untangle all the positive feelings and thoughts rooted down to your core and built up over all those years about someone like that. and when the pressure of aspiring to be like someone so revered has never felt like actual spiral-inducing pressure ( fr i could go on and on about his confidence and all the people who've nurtured it to that point 😭 ) but more like encouragement or intense faith, it gets impossibly harder to do so!

also i'm assuming you're asking this in an aoc context ( but will touch on the Potential of this concept, give me a sec slfdjkf ) given that tulin would have like. no knowledge of revali's feelings towards link and the way those were externalised unless he was explicitly told about them otherwise and honestly? the situation would confuse him more than anything, just because he's so young, in that child who doesn't understand that people can like him without liking each other way asflkfkj "the coolest people i know don't like each other which is so weird 'cause i like them and i'm pretty sure they like me WHY DON'T THEY LIKE EACH OTHER???" cue shenanigans from a kid who just wants all his Older People to get along and will forcibly have them bond if need be

that being said, please know that i'm only jesting and not being genuinely reductive with the whole "[revali and link] don't like each other" statement! it's how a very young tulin would interpret their interactions, but we all know there's something much deeper to how revali treats link sdlkdjf ( WE KNOW THIS, YES?? )

in circumstances where tulin would actually be able to grow up witnessing or knowing about this in full ( like, say, an au where revali survives or something ), i do think it could potentially lead to him developing a greater understanding of who revali is, by way of him...well, yeah, once again, meddling and attempting to "patch things over" and just generally being an annoyance with how much he'd be pestering revali with questions like "but WHY?" ( with no intention of inducing any real introspection, though possibly doing so anyway because he's a kid who really likes accidentally asking the hard-hitting questions slfkdj ) though lbr, the antagonism between revali -> link would be of a much different flavour than any shown pre-calamity at that point...but that's a post for another time!

ultimately, i can see the hero worship mellowing out naturally as he gets older, especially as he grows into his own role as a sage. the closest to any sort of real negative feeling he'd reach about revali in the process might be grief ( the kind you'd feel when you outgrow someone who was older than you but no longer is ), or an inability to understand his uhh. recorded eccentricities sklfjdfl but master revali is someone very important to him, and someone who will remain very important to him! he's not going to let that opinion be soured if he can help it :)

[canyoufucksoniccharacters]

CAN YOU FUCK BLAZE THE CAT?

From one purple cat to the other. Strap in, this is when it starts to get a bit weird.

Alright, as always, we're going to start off by going to the Wayback Machine and digging up the unlisted character ages.

Funny enough- This time, Sonic Channel is our only source, as Sonic Heroes was the last time the character ages were EVER listed- outside of a specific internal guide book thing that Sega has where they list off... The Classic characters. With Sonic being listed as 15 there. Classic Sonic. Yeah, you can tell it was made in the middle of Forces' development.

That aside, let's take a look...

... What?

Ok, so, for reference, Sonic had been listed as 15 ever since the manual for Heroes came out- even after Generations, the game where his literal birthday party happened. Before and after the anniversary game where they celebrate Sonic's birthday in-universe, he was listed as 15. Which is stupid. But what's even more stupid is the idea that Blaze could be younger than Sonic. Blaze, on multiple occasions, shows a similar, if not slightly higher level of maturity than Sonic.

Her dialogue has a MUCH more refined tone very frequently- she is shown to be highly responsible, and despite her tendency to have a one-track mind, she's shown to have a pretty large sense of responsibility. Something that would be hard to buy if she's younger than sonic.

In fact, recently we've gotten artwork of her displaying said sense of responsibility, and the fact that, y'know... She's a princess. A literal one. Or well, more like a queen all things considered, but y'know- she holds actual political responsibility, and, well-

Nothing really seems to show she can't handle said responsibilities. She seems to be a competent, active political figure! Which I guess isn't impossible for a 14 year old in a fictional universe, but Sonic, despite its absurdity, has a lorekeeping team now for a reason. Having a preteen be an important political figure is just a bit too far for Sonic, considering all the political figures we've seen, human or animal, have been on the more realistic side.

To add to all this, the idea that Blaze's level of maturity is pretty well defined and definitely not as young as Sonic Channel says it is, I'd like to bring up a segment from a design document, from Sonic 2006.

Forgive the poor image quality, I couldn't find anything better. Text is in the image ID. While this is likely not canon, funny as it may be to assume it is, due to it being from a somewhat early design document for Sonic 06. However, the fact this was ever considered at all tells us one of two things, either Sega is full of freakos that think about underage people's chest size and their feelings on it, or maybe, just maybe, she's always been meant to lean more on the mature side. The latter seems more likely, but who knows.

Although there's a possibility that she's not an adult by the time Sonic Rush and/or 06 happen, she is absolutely not 14, and since those games, there's been both an in-universe birthday party for Sonic, and a 6-month timeskip in Sonic Forces. So with an age that was unlisted that completely contradicts her actual behavior, and time clearly having explicitly passed between and during games, it's highly unlikely she's still a minor. Remember, the ages were unlisted for a reason. Most of them were either plucked from the American manual for Sonic Heroes, or seemingly made up on the spot.

I believe that's what happened here- with the Sonic Channel age for Blaze. There's no other official documentation that refers to her age, only Sonic Channel. If I had to guess, since they had already listed the ages of the Sonic Heroes characters, they felt an obligation to list the ages of the other characters from games past Heroes. But, of course, Sonic Channel is just a website. It is not a published work, it is not a game, it is not anything of large significance from a company perspective. Likely thing is, some random employee at Sega was tasked to look at these characters and assign them an age, without any real consultation, and put them up on the website. After all- why else would they get removed? If they're accurate, reliable information, why would they randomly decide to remove them?

So, TL;DR- I don't think Blaze's listed age on Sonic Channel ever held any ground, due to a very clear and consistent pattern of decently mature behavior from the character, and a character document making reference to pretty mature matters regarding her, which would be EXTREMELY weird if she was, indeed, 14. That, combined with the passage of time within and between multiple Sonic games, makes it impossible for me to believe she's still a minor, if she ever was one.

In conclusion; can you fuck Blaze The Cat? Considering the aforementioned information, the answer is, most likely...

Yes, you can fuck Blaze The Cat.

Most likely, anyways. There is a small, pretty small chance of her not being 18 or above. That will go for a lot of our candidates. But, until Sega says otherwise; You can, in fact, fuck Blaze The Cat.

[duhragonball]

Super Android 13: Expanded Universe

Okay, let’s talk about how DBZ Movie 7 is CANON?!?!? Maybe?!?!? Is that clickbaity enough or what?

We’ll be going pretty far down the rabbit hole for this, so you may want to get a nip of courage first...

All right, so I recently posted a thing laying out the four alternate timelines established in the Androids/Cell arc of DBZ.  You can read that and come back, but the short version is this:

Timeline A: The one with the Cell Games, Majin Buu, Gotenks, etc.

Timeline B: Future Trunks’ world, which he eventually saves in DBZ Episode 194

Timeline C: Never explicitly depicted, but a world where Trunks helped Goku defeat the androids, and Cell never shows up.

Timeline D: The Bad Ending version of Timeline B, where Cell kills Trunks and steals his time machine to find the androids in Timeline A.

Even though C never gets directly referenced, we need it so the Trunks of Timeline D had somewhere to go when he used his time machine. Make sense?  No?  Well, too bad, because I’m not slowing down.

All we really know about Timeline C is that the events of DBZ Episodes 1-138 happened, then somehow Dragon Team worked out a way to beat 17 and 18, and then the Future Trunks went back home to Timeline D, where he eventually got ambushed and killed by Cell. 

I think it’s widely assumed that the victory over 17 and 18 in Timeline C was accomplished using a remote control similar to the one Dr. Gero had in Episode 133.  We saw Bulma design her own in Episode 149, using schematics found in the basement of Gero’s sub-lab.  So it’s probably not much of a stretch to assume that the Bulma in Timeline C did the same thing.  

The main reason the remote gets the credit is that it’s the simplest explanation.  It’s plausible that the Piccolo of Timeline C might have fused with Kami, except that Kami only agreed to that because of the looming threat posed by Cell.  In Timeline C, there is no threat from Cell, so maybe Kami would have refused.  It’s also possible that Goku and Vegeta would have trained to get stronger than 17 and 18, but without Cell’s involvement, they might not have bothered to use the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.   By the time they were ready to fight, the remote would have been ready to use. 

Also, whenever we see flashbacks of Cell killing Trunks in Timeline D, it always looks like Trunks never stood a chance.  So if that version of Trunks had trained to defeat 17 and 18 in combat, you’d think he would have put up more of a fight.  So if he used a remote instead, a solution that would be useless against Cell, then it makes a lot of sense.

So we’re talking about a world where Trunks helped Goku beat Gero’s androids, but Cell’s not involved, and they probably didn’t spend any time in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.  Which sounds a lot like the scenario presented in Movie 7.  It’s presented as a sequel to the Androids arc, but it ignores Cell, as if he simply never existed. So maybe Movie 7 isn’t just a non-canon side story.   Maybe it’s set in Timeline C, which is an alternate timeline, but one still necessary within the canon.    Could that work? 

Well, let’s take a look.  The main premise of the movie is that Gero’s computer has taken up his cause.  It sends three more androids to kill Goku, but they’re not new androids, because they have earlier model numbers: 13, 14, and 15.

 Presumably, these three were never meant to see action.   Remember, Gero deemed 16, 17, and 18 unsuitable for use, which is why he went into action with 19 and turned himself in to No. 20.  So I think it’s safe to say 13, 14, and 15 were deemed failures, which is why they were stored in the sub basement with the computer. 

And yet, 13 does pretty well once he absorbs the components from 14 and 15.  It makes you wonder why Gero mothballed these guys.  For that matter, why didn’t he just build the components into 13 from the start? Well, maybe Gero never designed 13 to work this way.  Maybe this was something the computer came up with on its own.

So let’s talk about the computer.   The first time we see it is in DBZ Episode 143, when Cell explains his origin story to Piccolo.  Gero had the idea for Cell, but it took too long to finish, so he programmed a computer to finish the job instead and left it to its task.  Gero’s lab was destroyed by Trunks, but the computer (and the embryonic Cell) were in a sub basement that survived the blast.  The big green chamber on the left is where Cell is gestating. 

Here’s the computer as it appears in Movie 7. It looks a little different, but the dome on top is the same, and the mechanical arms are there, so I think it’s safe to say this was intended to be the same computer.  Notably, there’s no chamber for the embryonic Cell. Maybe this shot is just at a different angle, but we never see the chamber in this movie, probably because it adds nothing to the plot. 

That’s why I always doubted that this movie depicts Timeline C, because the Cell tank really needs to be there.   That’s the computer’s job in all the other timelines. But in this movie, it leads a squad of androids instead.  I was left with the impression that in this parallel world, Gero never had the idea of Cell, and maybe Super 13 was his big, unfinished idea that the computer had to finish.  

But I don’t think Gero ever intended for his computer to go into business for itself the way it did in this movie.  In the other timelines, it just patiently works on Cell for decades until the work is finished.  In this one, it’s in a hurry, but why?  Well, here’s a hint:

We see 17 and 18 at the beginning of this movie.  They kill Gero, but we never see what happens to them after that.   We know they don’t get eaten by Cell, because Cell isn’t around to do that. We know they’re not running around terrorizing the world, because all the Z-Fighters are just hanging out in the city like nothing is wrong.   We know 18 didn’t hook up with Krillin because he’s still single, and horny for pageant contestants.   So I think it’s safe to say 17 and 18 are dead in this movie.  Maybe they used a remote to do it, or maybe it was something else, but they’re gone now. 

And Gero’s computer knows this.  Throughout the movie, the computer is in constant contact with 13, 14, and 15.   Besides that, it has access to those little spy robots Gero used to collect data and tissue samples for his research.   So it’s a safe bet that the computer was able to keep tabs on all of Gero’s creations.  So it knows that Gero, 17, and 18 are all dead.   And that’s why the computer in this movie behaves differently.  In Timeline A, it gets destroyed, but in Timelines B and D, it manages to finish creating Cell before 17 and 18 are killed.  In Movie 7, no such luck.  

And that’s why there’s no Cell incubation tank in Movie 7.  The computer figured out that 17 and 18 no longer existed, which made Cell useless.   And so it turned its attention to a different plan, a plan that it must have cooked up on its own.   If it couldn’t create Cell as Gero envisioned, then the computer decided to design a new ultimate weapon, and it used the obsolete androids in storage to do it.

This might also explain why the computer itself looks different in Movie 7.  It may have modified itself to better carry out its own plan. 

So right now you might be asking “Wait, if they built a remote to defeat 17 and 18 in this world, then why didn’t they use a similar trick on 13?”  Or you might be asking “Hold on, Bulma only managed to built a remote because of the schematics they found in the sub lab, so how did the good guys not notice the supercomputer busily plotting against them?”

Okay, here’s my answer to that.   Shortly after 18 breaks Vegeta’s arm, Dragon Team starts looking for alternative solutions, and that leads them to search the wreckage of Gero’s base.  They find the sub lab, just like they did in Episode 145.   But in this world, they’re not worried about Cell, and they don’t view the computer as a threat.  It’s just sitting there, doing its thing.   They might not even realize it’s turned on.  So they take the schematics they need and leave, never giving the computer a second thought. 

And so, later, when the computer learns 17 and 18 are dead, it figures out how that happened.   “Oh, shit, they must have built a remote to shut them off!   I’d better make sure to rewire 13 to not have the same weakness.” 

Did the computer survive the events of Movie 7?  It looked to me like it shut itself down after Goku killed Super 13, but I don’t know why that would happen.   Maybe it was dependent on 13 to support its own consciousness, and so when one died, the other did as well.   Or maybe it self-destructed.   I mean, 13 was its last shot against Goku, so after that, the computer had nothing to look forward to but an eternity of contemplating its failure to kill its worst enemy.

So yeah, maybe Movie 7 is a depiction of Timeline C, even if the movie itself doesn’t spell it out for us.  And perhaps it offers a glimpse at what the computer was truly capable of, if it weren’t normally occupied with its assigned task.

[ether-gearhead]

How I interpret the core series multiverse

Something I've been thinking over since, around the BDSP/PLA release cycle, is how many timelines exist in the Pokemon multiverse? Well, I think I've come up with about six different timelines, including the timeline Masters takes place in. If you'll all indulge me for a moment or two, I'll lay out the multiverse as I see it:

Classic Timeline:

Yellow

Emerald

Crystal

Platinum

Nothing more complicated here than putting the third versions together, because, let's face it, these WERE the canon versions back in the day! I want to make particular note of Platinum, as I believe Cyrus's actions at the Spear Pillar not only created two entirely different universes, but completely rewrote their histories, given that Dialga's power over time includes future AND past.

Diamond timeline:

FireRed

Ruby

HeartGold

Diamond

Black

Black 2

X

Sun

Sword

Scarlet

So named because this universe is most heavily influenced by Dialga, the Diamond timeline consists of whatever versions the male protags are named after in Adventures. However, Scarlet will be a constant across this and the Pearl timeline, for reasons we'll get into later.

Pearl timeline:

LeafGreen

Sapphire

SoulSilver

Pearl

White

White 2

Y

Moon

Shield

Scarlet

Being the Palkia-influenced universe, you'll find several connections to Palkia's Water-typing, mainly in Kyogre, Lugia, and Lunala. Aside from that, these are mostly the opposite versions to the Diamond timeline. Once again, Scarlet is constant between the two, which of course I'll explain.

Omega timeline:

Let's Go Pikachu

Omega Ruby

Let's Go Johto

Brilliant Diamond

Black remake

Black 2 remake

X remake

Ultra Sun

Sword

Violet

These games are largely alternate universes to the Diamond timeline, some of which haven't even been announced yet, so I guess I have to explain that.

As Mega Evolution was originally stated to be recently discovered in Kalos, that flies in the face of Let's Go Pikachu and Omega Ruby, which prominently feature Mega Evolution prior to the Kalos games, so I grouped them into a timeline together. Speaking of Let's Go, we can safely assume a version of the Johto story occurs three years after that.

Brilliant Diamond is grouped here mostly for its inclusion of the Fairy-type, but I'm willing to bet that when Unova gets remade, Cynthia will reference Dialga in Black, but Palkia in White. And Kalos remakes will most likely retconning the Fairy-type as a long-known commodity.

Ultra Sun is explicitly an alternate Sun, and is the whole reason this and the Alpha timeline are a thing in the first place.

The reason I put Scarlet in both the Diamond and Pearl timelines is because of the possibility that AI Sada travelling to the ancient past causing a butterfly effect that would cause Violet's events to play out instead of Scarlet's.

Alpha timeline:

Let's Go Eevee

Alpha Sapphire

Let's Go Johto

Shining Pearl

White remake

White 2 remake

Y remake

Ultra Moon

Shield

Violet

I won't bore you all by repeating the same logic behind the Omega timeline, just swap out the opposite versions other than Scarlet.

Masters timeline:

FireRed

SoulSilver/Crystal hybrid

Omega Ruby/Emerald hybrid

Platinum

Black

Black 2

X

Ulltra Sun/Ultra Moon

Sword

Scarlet

Masters is somewhat less rigid with its timeline than the ones I've pieced together, but at least there's no need to fret over a Kanto title. Still, I'm going with FireRed just because Red picked Charmander.

I put SoulSilver AND Crystal, not because I believe they're both canon, but because Kris exists, and so I'm assigning her the Suicune sidequest. As for SoulSilver over HeartGold, Ethan seems to have caught Lugia, but not Ho-oh, so I think that settles that.

Similarly, I'm inclined to count Omega Ruby as the canon game because Steven's mindscape features the Groudon mural, and also Brendan as Norman's son has Latios, which would only be the case in Omega Ruby. However, I believe the Masters Hoenn story follows Emerald more closely, as if you look at the team admins' mindscapes, then Tabitha's is the mouth of Mt. Chimney, and Matt's is the remodeled submarine, both roles that Emerald assigned the two teams.

Platinum is explicitly canon to Masters, as Cheryl namedrops the Distortion World, with Cyrus even having both dragons before Dialga abandons him for Lucas.

Hilbert, portrayed as the canon BW1 protagonist, has his base unit's sync move as "The True Razor Shell," and N comes into the game with Zekrom as his base pair, so Black is almost certainly the canon version. Also, Nate recognizes Black Kyurem when Ghetsis tries to make Kyurem absorb Zekrom, so Black 2 almost certainly happened.

There are effectively zero indications of X or Y being the canon version. Lysandre doesn't even count since he wasn't believed to have survived Geosenge Town! That being said, most of Calem and Serena's Pokemon use the Dex entries from X, so until one version or another is confirmed, I'm rolling with X solely on that.

The Ultra games were confirmed since launch, but until Nebby makes an appearance, we won't know for sure whether it's Ultra Sun or Ultra Moon.

Gloria has Zacian, Hop has Zamazenta. Sword is canon, case closed.

Scarlet seems to be canon, based on Nemona wearing the Naranja Academy uniform, but I'd like to see the protags and Arven get added first before making a judgement call. Hoopa shenanigans, and all that.

So out of the natural infinity of multiverse theory, there are at least six timelines in the Pokemon core series multiverse. I mean, technically, there are ten bad timelines where the villains actually win, but those don't make for good worldbuilding (or, multiverse building. Building a multiverse, doesn't get nerdier than that...).