#look I know they're not so much characters as manifestations of the plot and actual characters' inner voices

[man-down-in-hatchet-town]

I can't stop thinking this every time I watch the show

[coquelicoq]

justice of toren collecting songs and one esk/breq constantly humming/singing them is such a good detail and ann leckie does so much with it. an incomplete list:

justice of toren's eager collection of songs is part and parcel of its violent destruction of cultures: these songs are cultural artifacts that it only learns because of its presence on those worlds during their conquest, and in many cases breq is the only one to remember them because their people have died out due to that violence. JoT preserves cultural artifacts for its own use at the same time it directly contributes to the need for that preservation in the first place.

the matter-of-fact way in which this is narrated to us gives us information about JoT's stance on respect and imperialism - that is, contrasted with other characters who look down on the conquered cultures, JoT does actually seem to appreciate their value. and yet it communicates to us no sense of remorse over its role in their genocide.

singing can be a communal activity. this allows us to feel the difference between one esk's multiple bodies singing together in harmony/in a round vs. breq singing alone. this has emotional weight, is an evocative image, and illustrates quite nicely some of the logistic considerations of having one vs. multiple bodies.

the constant humming/singing is extremely notable and idiosyncratic according to other characters, which is a dangerous combination for someone who's supposed to be undercover, so it adds a lil bit of fun suspense for us.

the fact that no one ever figures out breq's identity despite this giveaway tells us something about the other characters' attitudes towards artificial intelligences (though see below about seivarden).

the fact that it's so idiosyncratic also tells us something about the ability of individual AIs to have personalities that distinguish them from other AIs, and the fact that one esk sings constantly but two esk doesn't tells us something about the ability of different ancillary decades that are all part of the same AI to have distinguishing characteristics. this is very relevant to, and illustrative of, the series' thematic throughlines around identity, personality, continuity, etc.

the fact that breq personally has a bad voice also serves multiple purposes. because breq and seivarden both believe that the medic could have chosen a body with a good voice if she had wanted to, we can infer something about how ancillary bodies work, how much the AI (and, by extension, its medics) knows about the individual capabilities of those bodies while they're in suspension, and what kinds of things the AI can and can't control once it has unfrozen and taken over a body.

we can also draw conclusions about the medic that chose that body and about intracrew relations on that ship.

breq's bad voice creates moments of humor and irony in the narrative, such as when breq's constant singing - aka the most obvious clue that she is one esk - is precisely what makes seivarden so sure that breq can't be one esk, because no esk medic would use a body with a bad voice for an ancillary.

constant singing/humming imposes itself on the shared soundscape, meaning other people can't easily avoid it and it has the potential to annoy them, especially if the voice itself has annoying qualities. the reactions of other characters to the frequency and/or quality of this verbal tic tells us something about the level of affection those characters have for one esk or breq.

because singing involves words, the meaning of the lyrics being sung can be used to advance the plot, communicate things about specific characters, create irony in juxtaposition with what's happening on the page, etc.

i especially like what's done with the lyric "it all goes around". it's woven throughout the story in such a way as to manifest its own meaning (the repetition of "it all goes around" is, itself, an example of something going around). by repeating the lyric, breq is the one making it true, and i would argue that her repetition of this particular lyric about things orbiting other things contributes to, and/or is a sign of, her growing understanding of the necessity/reality of interdependence and her place in that framework/her role in constructing it, or in other words, the extent of her own agency and the rights and obligations it confers upon her.

because the singing/humming is a constant, background, automatic action, it only ceases when breq is experiencing a strong emotion. from this we are able to infer things about the emotional state of our famously-omits-details-about-her-emotional-state narrator based on other characters' comments about whether or not she is currently doing this thing.

we also aren't even aware that breq is doing it constantly until another character says so. on a narrative level, this serves the dual purpose of making sure we know about how much she hums AND of reminding us that she's not telling us everything.

the humming is not mentioned constantly even though it is happening constantly - this helps us forget in between mentions that it's going on while also simultaneously reinforcing just how constant it must be, so constant that to mention it every time it happens would be like narrating every time she breathes in or out. whenever someone brings it up, we are reminded anew that something has been happening all along that we forgot about. this means that ann leckie is able, by leaving information out, to hammer home to us how much we are not being told.

through this one character trait, ann leckie efficiently and elegantly communicates not just aspects of character but also of setting, plot, tone, theme, and narrative. there's no extraneous exposition just to tell us about the song collection or singing; everything that tells us about it is serving other functions in the narrative as well. the ways in which she manifests this one character trait in the universe and in the narrative contribute to and exemplify both the story itself and the method of its telling.

[lavenderdreams205]

spn thoughts as requested

tw & spoiler warning

they should have kept the grungy filter and aesthetics from the early seasons

bring back the southern / midwest gothic vibes

dean would've listened to and loved 90's & 2000s grunge - I know that the whole "there's no good music past '79" is a key part of his personality but pre series/early seasons dean is soo nirvana / Weezer / smashing pumpkins coded

there is too much flannel in the later seasons - I miss the carhartt and leather jackets so bad

BRING BACK DEANS JEWELRY

there's so much about cas that we don't know. there's all the episodes where he just isn't there and they never tell the viewers what he's doing or where he went

on the same note, cas's personality isn't nearly as flushed out as sam's or dean's are. who is his favorite musician? what's his favorite place to travel to? why does he like the pimpmobile so much? does he actually like the trench coat or does he wear it just because it's there?

so many people characterize cas as a little guy, and while he is cute, it's important to remember that he's also an incredibly powerful eldritch horror who leads angelic armies and brands Michaels vessel just because

dean is bisexual and in love with cas - I won't take the time to list all of the reasons here, but you can definitely find those reasons somewhere

i would've loved for them to use the handprint as a physical manifestation of their bond instead of having it be just a scar that fades with time

i'm actually really ok with the way cas dies, I think it makes sense for his character and provides closure (for him, at least, not for dean)

the parallels of cas and dean meeting in a barn and then dean dying in a barn

cassie is deans first love, cas is his last

the imagery of the empty as cas's wings in 15x18

why do the subtitles spell cas as cass, its awful

there's a few lines in the early seasons that seemingly reference dean getting roofied / sa'd and are subsequently played for laughs, Jensen Ackles confirmed that dean would've done underage sw when John didn't leave them with enough money. I believe that this trauma is a major reason that dean never accepted his sexuality

the way deans alcoholism is overlooked and joked about is actually insane

having dean be completely ok after 15x18 is also insane, especially after the widower arc where the show specifically shows it's viewers how deeply dean grieves cas when he dies

deans death is literally so stupid. I get that the show is trying to make a really meta point about the characters not having plot armor anymore because chuck is gone, but dean deserved to find peace. if the events of the show had never happened and pre series dean had never gotten pre series Sam back into hunting it would've ended the exact same way - dean dead on a hunt and Sam dying from old age

dean spends as much time on earth as he did in hell, and while he would never be the same, I like to believe that if he had been allowed by the narrative to live longer he would've gotten back a little of the twinkle in his eyes that he had before hell

in 15x20 Bobby says that cas helped rebuild heaven but if he was there he would've gone to see dean. additionally, there's no way cas should have been able to escape the empty. this is such a glaringly obvious plot hole and it drives me nuts

I would've liked to see cas's wings in the show - not just the shadow of them

the only time I tolerate serious discussion of wincest is in the context of ethel cain

i am a Sam disliker - while he does have many positive qualities, I have a really hard time getting past him not looking for dean when he was in purgatory and him joking about deans alcoholism and other traumas

i like Sam the best when he's with Eileen, I think they're adorable together and I'm mad they killed her off

I am a chronic jack defender, that boy has done nothing wrong

it would be interesting to explore cas and jacks relationships with their respective genders

there's no way being forced to murder the dean clones didn't affect cas, we only saw him kill the last one but the first few he had to kill had to have been devastating

i'm really disappointed by 14x13 Lebanon, we get the scene with John and Sam but I would argue that dean has significantly more reasons to be upset with John and it's unfortunate that the episode just glossed over this - I believe a screaming match between the two would have cleared the air a bit and been at the very least cathartic for dean

i'm fairly sure that it's canonical that John sent dean away on his 17th birthday to kill lesbian ghosts. my personal hc is that John suspected that dean was bi and sent him to teach him a lesson

i saw a post on here comparing hunting culture to biker and cowboy culture and viewing those things through a queer lens and I thought it was fascinating - there's so much spn could've done if it cared about the show more than money and losing viewers

every time cas and dean beat the shit out of each other, it serves as further proof of their relationship rather than discrediting their relationship - ie demon dean and cas fighting in the library is used to parallel Cain and Collette. it could even be assumed that their love is stronger because Cain killed Collette but dean left cas alive

The purgatory love triangle was so silly

once dean worked through all of his trauma and toxic masculinity he would've been a swiftie

all of the main characters have old / vintage cars but in like season 13/14 dean sam and cas just collectively own and use this really ugly silver truck from the 2010s. its such a small detail but it absolutely ruins my viewing experience every time I see it

dean is actually really smart but most of the fandom overlooks it because Sam is characterized as the smart one. if you know anything about cars you know it takes an insane amount of brains to build a car from scratch (he did this with baby multiple times throughout the show) also he just makes an emf meter using basically nothing. if dean had been given the same opportunities he gave Sam, he would've been an engineer or something

i will always be a John hater, if this man has 0 haters, I am dead

[misc-obeyme]

your reaper headcanons 🤲 hand them over please

but if reapers are meant to be neutral, it makes the idea of romancing thirteen as a mortal so sad, to me at least 😭 either she comes to collect your soul, and ig she keeps it close to her to remember and admire

but imagine if like this is a first time circumstance where a reaper has a bias towards a human, and because she's not technically neutral to mc since they have a connection, so they don't allow her to collect mc's soul (maybe in fear of her trying to interfere?)

I don't know what's worse, her never getting to say a proper goodbye because she wasn't allowed to do it herself (and the question of whether or not she'd have the knowledge of when mc will die (there are the life candles so maybe...)).

Or having to collect the soul of the person you love and knowing you'll never see them again. And the possible stalling but you can't change fate, you can't make an exception. And spending the last day together, and mc turning to thirteen with a soft but sad smile and just saying "I'm ready."

help I made myself sad AKDKWJF. My fave characters are always the one's who get hit with the angst beam (sorry Mammon and Solomon)

OH AND I WONDER HOW REAPERS GET LIFE CANDLES DISTRIBUTED. Because she watches over a lot and the cave is big, but there's TONS of people and we saw the demon brothers also had candles, so that adds even MORE candles. I HAVE TOO MANY IDEAS I NEED TO CHILL

ANYWAY the manga makes me very happy and barnes and noble is having a bogo 50% off sale for manga specifically, so you could pick up the first two volumes. There's a lot of Mammon ass shots. And plot. I'm totally reading for the plot...

- ✨ anon

Oh oh oh now you're making me wanna write some sweet & sad Thirteen fics...

So okay, here are my personal headcanons about reapers. This is stuff that I developed because I needed to for my OC story lol.

I think of the reapers as being neutral. They don't belong to any of the three worlds because they exist in all of them.

The fact is there are like 8 billion people living on earth. That means there has to be a lot of reapers just to cover humans alone. Not only are there a ton of them, but their lifespans are short compared to demons and angels. So necessarily, I think most reapers live in the human world.

However, death comes for all and has no affiliation to any world.

Demons obviously have candles, as evidenced by the time OG when the bros went looking for Beel's. So it makes sense to me that angels would have candles, too.

The candles manifest the moment the soul it's attached to comes into being. They simply materialize out of the air into the reaper's cave. As long as that candle is lit, that being is alive.

Human candles don't go out until the entire candle has burned down and this can certainly happy quite quickly. They vary more dramatically in size.

Angel and demon candles are all basically like big ole pillar candles that never seem to actually melt at all. They are eternally burning. However, angels and demons can die, so when this happens their flames just go out like someone snuffed the candle at which point the rest of the candle turns to ash or dust.

The Devildom and the Celestial Realm have a much smaller population than earth does. So Thirteen is the only reaper in the Devildom. All of the demon candles are in her cave. I think of it as her jurisdiction. Candles move realms if the person they're attached to does, too. MC can move between the realms by the end of the OG, but due to their strong affiliation with the Devildom, I think their candle moved to Thirteen's cave some point in the first season of OG. Basically, I think the candle manifests in whatever realm the person thinks of as "home" and certainly MC feels the brothers are like their family.

Similarly, I think there is one reaper whose jurisdiction is the Celestial Realm. They keep track of all the angel's candles.

And due to the amount of humans that exist, there are untold amounts of reapers working in the human world.

I like to think that reapers can kind of make pocket dimensions to house themselves and their candles when necessary. So there would be actual caves where reapers have made their homes (with magic to keep curious humans out), but if they have to create extra space they just create a door that acts as a portal between their cave and the human world.

There is a lot of paperwork involved with the creation of candles and the collection of souls. Because what happens with those souls once they're collected?

Personally I think you could say all kinds of things are possible. I never really bothered to figure that part out because the game doesn't specify and I'm cool with it being unknown.

I like to think that Thirteen could choose to keep MC's soul if she wanted to, she would just need to file the correct paperwork for it.

All of this is how it works in my personal au that I developed for Arrie's story, but it's kind of how I think about all of it now.

I have Azrael as the head of the reapers, but he's an angel still. However, he's become more neutral toward the realms as he's had to step into the role of reaper boss.

It's this idea that any being from any of the realms could die that makes me think they have to be neutral. Especially if the realms are at war with each other. I mean, when the Devildom and the CR were at war, reapers would have had to collect souls from both sides.

Anyway, this is all just my personal thoughts on it lol.

I like the idea that Thirteen would be the one to collect MC's soul. It would be hard, but you know she wouldn't trust anyone else to do it. Plus, MC is hers. And if they were dating, I think MC would give Thirteen permission to keep their soul for as long she wants.

Wouldn't it be a comfort to know the reaper that's collecting your soul loves you? When the last thing you see is her eyes shining with tears? The last thing you hear is your name on her lips?

In my personal au, reapers can't die. But what if they can choose to die?

What if Thirteen doesn't collect MC's soul because she gives up her own life at the same time? Maybe their souls can merge and instead of being collected at all, they simply vanish or scatter into stardust, forever entwined.

Oops now I'm sad too.

Anyway, I clearly have zero chill about any of this, so I say embrace your ideas! Let them go crazy, why not!

As for the manga, I'm probably gonna order it online. I don't have a Barnes & Noble in my town, so if I want to go there, I gotta go to a different town. And I'm just too lazy lol. But now I want to read it, only for the Mammon ass shots. I mean plot is cool too I guess.

[steeklover]

Deep Learning Season 26 Episode 4 Thoughts

**SPOILERS**

-I think the only important thing about this episode was this.

Also this (look at their faces, aren't they adorable?)

And this

Nothing else

-Okay but in all seriousness, this episode was actually really good imo. We got Creek background scenes, more Bebe, more Stan, more of Clyde (being stupid) along with Wendy and Mr. Garrison. This episode was just filled with my favorite characters.

-I don't really have any opinion on Stendy, I think they're okay and I think they're better off as friends but I was actually hoping this would be a Stendy episode, which it was.

-I'm so confused though. I know they're only in what, fourth or fifth grade, they're just dumb kids, but why are Clyde and Stan so instinct on being with Bebe and Wendy if they don't even want to talk to them. Like look at Creek and then look at Stendy and Clybe. In that last picture, Craig and Tweek are actually talking to each other while for the majority of this episode, Clyde and Stan only communicated with their girlfriends with that dumb AI bot. Like don't get me wrong, Clyde and Stan are two of my favorite characters but... like... WHY?? (Also I'm not trying to start a ship war or anything by comparing Creek with Stendy and Clybe, I'm just sharing an observation)

-Also for everyone who's ever thought that Stan and Clyde would be friends because of Wendy and Bebe, this was your episode.

-Out of this four ships that are possible with those four characters, I'd rank my preferences with Bendy first, then Clybe, then Styde, then Stendy.

- MR. GARRISON!! OMG you guys do not know how much I love him. He's literally such a bad person but I still love him. Also he's still together with Rick, aww isn't that nice?? (let's just ignore the fact that Rick was just as bad as a boyfriend as Stan was)

-That whole montage with Stan and Wendy was hilarious but my favorite scene had to be this one

He's really out here doing the bare minimum (also if I didn't love Steek so much, I would totally make this my pfp)

-Also what is with his dumb walk lol???

-Also isn't it cute how Stan included Kyle in his AI story??

-And then he did Mr Mackey-

-And Cartman-

-And just think about that last scene, how did it occur to Stan that he should use the same exact thing that caused the problem he was in the first place to solve said problem??? Like I know it worked but he really doesn't have a lot going for him up there does he?

-In conclusion, I got an episode with kids being kids, Stan and Clyde being dumb, Creek background scenes, my two favorite girls, my favorite adult and a dumb plot line. I'm actually really happy.

-But just imagine if Clyde leaves Craig's gang now after he's seen interacting with Stan. Now Craig's gang is just... Craig and Tweek lol. Losers. I guess maybe Kevin can start hanging with them.

-Anyway, I'm still waiting on that Tweek episode. We did good with the amount of background scenes Tweek had but I'm going to need more than that.

Still manifesting...

[sapphire-weapon]

Hi! I had a question, how much would you take into the consideration the statements of developers when talking about the analysis’s of video games?

For example, I was having a conversation with someone regarding whether Laura from SH2 was real or just another manifestation. The person that I was talking to agreed with all my analogy but then disregarded it because apparently one developer said she was real. I’ve also had this type of conversation within RE fandom where they constantly bring up developer points rather than reading the text and it is frustrating because there’s no way for me to sort of answer back to a developer statement. I don’t know how VG development work, but surely there’s hundreds of them all working together and many would have different interpretations/opinions, so is it worth just looking at the text than the opinion of one developer?

It depends on:

1. The publisher

2. The studio

3. The person who said it

If it's an indie game, you can pretty much take anyone's word as canon law. Like, SuperGiant Games only has 26 people total working on their games. If literally any dev says anything about Hades, it's as good as the information being in the game itself, because every dev was involved in every stage of production.

If it's something like The Evil Within, which was developed by a Japanese studio (Tango Gameworks) but published by an American publisher (Bethesda), I don't necessarily take Pete Hines's word as law (Bethesda's PR guy) because not only did he not actually work on the game, he doesn't even speak the language of the people who actually did.

If it's something like Final Fantasy VII Remake, and it's Yoshinori Kitase talking, you disregard everything he says because he fucking lies. He lies for sport. He loves lying about his projects. Nomura is honest maybe half the time. Hamaguchi is generally pretty honest.

If it's Resident Evil, the actual literal only person whose word I would take as Word of God is Shinji Mikami -- and that's only for the games up to and including OG RE4. And that's because he was the creative lead in charge of the series from the time of conception (the first RE1 was literally all his idea) through the GameCube release of OG RE4.

Anyone else working on RE? Throw out their opinion. It's garbage. Because there are hundreds and hundreds of people working on those games, and several of them are always in development concurrently, and there's no one central figure overseeing all of it anymore. Directors, producers, developers -- all of them come and go from title to title, with no sense of consistency between them.

RE is too fuckhuge and labyrinthine and does not, at any point, ask or require its player base to look outside of the games to understand what's happening. There are series that do do that. Final Fantasy is one of them. If you don't read the Ultimania or some of the novellas that get released as supplementary material for the games, sometimes huge chunks of the plot will come off as total nonsense. RE doesn't do that.

And so, when these games are being made, the only things that the current development team use to craft the game and the story are the games that came before them. None of them are combing through marketing materials and interviews and manga adaptations and what the fuck ever else. They're looking at the other games.

So, in fact, RE's plot and characters actually make more sense if you ignore literally everything the devs say.

When it comes to RE, if it's not in the games or CGI movies, it's not canon.

Period.

It has to actually be in the games. I should be able to put a game in and find the exact quote a person is talking about. Because if it was that important to know and that universally agreed upon by the bulk of the people working on the game, it would be in the game.

[marithlizard]

Thoughts on Hellaverse worldbuilding (1/2)

The Hellaverse characters live in a place that isn't much like the inferno of Western mythology and popular culture. This seems to confuse some viewers (I see the "why does Hell have jails?" question a lot here and on twitter.)

It is kind of an odd and illogical setup. But the more I think about it, the more I think it's telling us something very interesting:

Lucifer is deliberately not running Hell the way it was designed to operate.

We've got a fairly traditional structure to start with: seven rings named after major sins, each ruled by a powerful being who personifies that sin. A population of hellborn demons including Goetia, succubi, imps and hellhounds. Humans who die and are judged unworthy of heaven manifest down in Hell as sinner-demons with unique twisted forms and are trapped there for eternity. And judging by the rides and signs in Loo Loo Land, everybody knows this place is supposed to be all about tormenting condemned souls.

But is it actually about that? Six of the seven rings of Hell are reserved for the hellborn demons, who have built a modern US-style civilization using Earth tech. They've got everything from mass transit to internet to a crappy discriminatory health care system.

The sinners are all confined to the Pride ring, which they share with the royal family and other hellborn demons. Other than that they can do what they want, and on the surface it looks like Hell treats them surprisingly kindly. Newly dead sinners show up at the I.M.P office with money to spend and outfits tailored to their new physiques. Some of them are even granted powers based on crimes they committed in life. And I would have expected sinners to be at the bottom of Hell's social/power hierarchy, but they're not; they rank above imps and hellhounds.

Of course, most of the sinners we've met are spending their afterlives reveling in cruelty and violence, Overlord sinners are running amok like supervillains, and angels show up for a yearly genocide spree to "hinder overpopulation". So Hell is pretty wretched. But except for the Exterminations, the only official torment is the fact of being stuck in Hell itself. The rest of it they do to each other.

How? Why? WTF? Helluva Boss might not give us any answers; the characters aren't the kind of demons who spend time questioning why the world around them is the way it is. They've got things to do and people to kill.

But Hazbin Hotel is the Big Plot show with themes of sin and redemption and Lucifer's daughter as the main character. We'll get at least some lore there. And I have Theories.

(Breaking this into two posts because it's getting long.)

[nekosd43]

I know the number of people who give a shit about Silent Hill: Ascension, the pay-to-vote choose-the-adventure movie that konami is masquerading as a """game""", is probably small but...

i've been watching supereyepatchwolf's streams of it and its... I just need to talk about it with someone because it is SO.... SOMETHING.

Like it's bad? it's very bad? but some of the things that have happened in it are so insane im losing my mind

A non exhaustive list of things that have occurred in the first ten episodes:

multiple child disappearances

multiple instances of these children coming back as doppelgangers

a man mercy killing his wife, who mercy killed their daughter, who was a mass shooter

he then goes on to date his dead wife's twin sister, who turns out to be a serial killer???

she dies because the manifestation of their generational trauma killed her (the wiki said this)

there's a nonbinary character who has a podcast about mass shootings that they started as therapy for surviving a mass shooting

the monster designs are really sick and you can barely see them because they're on screen for like ten seconds

there is a cult but it's NOT the Cult from silent hill

nobody has said the words "silent hill" at all

everyone talks like they're written by chatgpt (and maybe they are)

if you're not watching live there are hilariously obvious moments where the live voting choices would have gone

the cult had an orgy to try and stop evil i guess

it is really unclear what the evil actually is except sometimes monsters show up but people seem to treat that as a normal thing

multiple fan-made npcs that look like hideo kojima have shown up

the two plot lines are completely separate except for one five second moment where a character from each story line saw each other in the otherworld.

IDK I'm just... wow... it's so much. I can't even begin to scratch away the surface of this shit it's SO much. It very much scans like a telephone game of explaining silent hill lore (scary town, fog, monsters, missing kids, dead wives, a cult) but then assembled by someone who did not know what any of those individual pieces mean into something else entirely that is so far removed from the starting point that I can't even believe someone was willing to sign off on it.

[starlightiing]

I want to know about the inception au! Who is more like Arthur, who is more like Eames, what is their history, what are they doing that requires them to be dressed up... spill anything you want!

Oooh very good questions! I literally just put my brain together for the Inception AU last night so maybe we can all help me develop this one! I had a plot for the Inception AU with other drivers, but not for these two specifically.

Arthur and Eames have their own sort of complicated personalities. I think Esteban is more Eames - not afraid to be silly, wicked smart but hides it behind the silly and the aloof.

Comparing Pierre to Arthur is a little more difficult, because Arthur is VERY rigid, he's very proper, he's very posh, he's very...a lot of things Pierre really isn't. But Pierre is also not really like Eames at all - so I think his personality aligns more with Arthur's. He's particular, he wants things certain ways, he likes to be in control, ect ect.

This gets so long, my apologies.

If we stick with that comparison, that would of course make Pierre the Point-Man (idk how into Inception you are, but I've done extensive deep dives and used to write one of the characters for fun (Eames actually) so I did a ton of research on it and probably know more than even Christopher Nolan himself) but the point-man is the info guy. He does all the research, makes sure not a hair is out of place. Makes sure the team knows what to expect and how to expect it. He's kind of the biggest part in terms of set up and execution.

So that would leave Esteban as the forger which, in my opinion, oddly fits. The forger of course is the 'shapeshifter' who can manifest themselves to look like anyone they so choose inside of a dream. But it goes deeper than that, of course. If they are to play an important role (like someone close to the mark, the person they are invading) it isn't enough to look the part, you have to act the part. It comes down to studying the person you're going to forge, making sure you get the finest details, the smallest mannerisms, speak like them, ect. So basically he would be an actor!!! Who can change what he looks like in dreams to manipulate marks.

Why are they dressed up? Well, that's just because everyone in the movie is always dressed to the nines LOL They're running around with guns in suits and fancy outfits. I guess that wouldn't mean EVERYONE in the business does that, but its more fun that way, don't you think? Especially if they're doing really high-risk jobs for a shit ton of money.

Coming up with their history is going to be much more interesting. Arthur and Eames in the film NEVER go over what exactly happened between them. It's just snide comments. Cobb says, "I'm going after Eames" and Arthur is just like "what? no? he's in Mombasa." and Cobb goes there any picks him up anyway. Then in a conversation with Eames..

EAMES: It's perfectly possible. Just bloody difficult. COBB: That's what I keep saying to Arthur. EAMES: Arthur? You're still working with that stick-in-the-mud? COBB: He's a good point man. EAMES: The best. But he has no imagination. If you're going to perform inception, you need imagination.

Of course, then, there's the scene where they're all in their little team meeting coming up with the idea to plant in Robert's head...

Cobb : That might work. Arthur : Might? We're gonna need to do a little better than 'might'. Eames : Oh, thank you for your contribution, Arthur. Arthur : Forgive me for wanting a little specificity, Eames. Eames: Chuckling but also looking at him like ???? Arthur : Specificity?

And this gem:

Arthur : Eames, I am impressed. Eames : Your condescension, as always, is much appreciated, Arthur, thank you.

And two parts later that are much more minor - Arthur pulling out a gun to shoot against some heavily armed security, Eames pushing him aside with this huge ass bazooka, "You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling." - the line that sailed the ship in the dwindling inception fandom ahaha.

And then later when Arthur puts them all to sleep in the hotel room so they can go down to the snow level. Eames says, "Security is going to run you down hard." and Arthur replies with, "And I will lead them on a merry chase." Eames: Be sure to be here in time for the kick. Arthur, aggravated: Go to sleep, Mr. Eames.

So that's really all the crumbs we get in terms of those two, with only the simple implication that they've PROBABLY worked together a time or two before (Probably more than that - because why does Arthur IMMEDIATELY know where Eames is when Cobb asks if they don't like each other? And why is Eames so readily able to admit that Arthur is the best at what he does, he just has no imagination?) They work VERY well together, their personalities just clash and they have some sort of disdain for each other. Though more than anything, Eames finds it very funny and Arthur kind of takes it a lot more personal/serious.

With all THAT said - we can assume, safely, that Pierre and Esteban probably used to run small jobs together back when they were younger. Dream sharing IS illegal, just in case anyone forgot, and not exactly the easiest thing to access. They probably got in around the same time, or Esteban pulled Pierre in after he'd been in it a year or two, and went from there. I'd say they probably had a few jobs go sour, sometimes because of Pierre and sometimes because of Esteban, sometimes because of someone else on the team - whatever. And these are high stakes jobs.

If you don't fulfill yours and your client's contract, they do come after you. Usually to kill. Hence why Arthur and Cobb were on the run after that first failed mission right away in the movie.

I would imagine it makes tensions build and eventually they just work together so much and get so sick of each other that it starts to cause fights, arguments, ect. I feel like something pretty major must have happened - maybe one of their team mates was killed, maybe a dream went horribly wrong and they were stuck in limbo together to the point of wanting to rip each other's throats out - I'm not really sure. Ideas and suggestions always welcome.

But whatever it may be - they CAN, at least, work together they would just rather not. So then being paired together on one of the biggest jobs of their lives, with the most at stake, the highest risk, also simultaneously the hardest thing they've ever done (because no one has achieved inception before aside from one person) - it causes a lot of tension. Some of it coming out in more...sexual and emotional ways.

Thoughts? Prayers? Let me know what you think! I feel like I've given you a fucking novel at this point, but this is LEGIT the process my brain goes through when I start formulating ideas - especially AUs based on movies and such. I have more to add I'm sure, I just have to stew on it a bit, toss some ideas around, figure out what exactly happened between the two...and then I can put it all together.

Thanks for reading (and for the ask!)

[whiskygoldwings]

hiya! may i ask about the CloneWars wingfic from the WIP game? i'm such a sucker for a wingfic lol hope your week is goin well (((((((:

Oh it's so nice to meet another wingfic sucker! *waves* I will basically read just about anything if there's a hint of wings in it lol!

I'm glad someone asked about this, I was kinda hoping it would happen!

This was actually the very first fanfic I started for my Clone Wars obsession. It's inspired by an Avengers fanfic, where the premise is that everyone has wings that reflect their soul, but only certain people could see them; in that case, Tony Stark. In my story, it's a manifestation of the Force, kinda synaethesia-esque, and Obi-Wan is one of the rare Force users who sees them.

Despite Obi-Wan being the vehicle for the plot - it was very much intended to be focused around the clones, and be an exploration into their personalities. There's was going to be a lot of focus on the nature of individuality and questioning your value in a sea of faces the same as yours.

I say "was" because I don't know if I'll ever actually write it - there's no real purpose beyond gratuitous character study with a side of wings. The basic plotline was just to re-tell the Clone Wars through this perspective, and presumably somehow make it a fix-it (totally gratuitous fic), but I don't actually have a plotline or story beyond CLONES ARE COOL AND WINGS ARE COOL YO.

I am always up for wingfic ideas/recs/pics/inspo though so if anyone has any, wing it (HEHEHEHE) my way!

Here's a little snippet:

"The majority of the wings are the feather soft forms that most humans in the glaxy hold, though he spots a couple of of webbed limbs, and even in one case, a lacey delicate pair that he has to fight with himself not to keep looking at. He wonders at the differences he sees when the clones have so obviously been created to be completely identical. Even the one with the laced wings looked exactly the same as the others. Obi-Wan glances as Lama Su just ahead of him, still talking through the training plan the troopers had been put through. He wonders just how far the Kaminoans have gone to keep them identical.

They're walking along a corridor with a viewing window into a cafeteria below them when one of the clones spots him for the first time. Tha man has a pair of mottled red feathered wings, which flare with surprise as he spots Obi-Wan. The wings slide into the ones next to him and Obi-Wan watches to see if they react. They don't, and it's only when the man discreetly pokes the one to his right and taps something on his hand that the other glances up as well. Obi-Wan looks away as Lama Su turns towards him, catching the men;s heads snapping to their food as he does so. Not Force-sensitive then, if they didn't feel their wings interact."

[theminecraftbee]

enjoying your new au. Can I please request an explanation of the terminologies so I can enjoy it more?

uhhhh i have been very deep in the weeds on smt/persona stuff in this au so far because i have been approaching it to start as "what if i made an actual persona game" but i don't know how much weird terminology i've used. however uh, let's see, i'll do what i can here, assuming you're familiar with hermitcraft but not persona! here's some terms!

persona: a manifestation of your inner self. when it comes to thing in another medium, it most resembles a stand from jjba, haha. it takes the form of a cool-looking demon and gives you magic powers. typically, your persona can only be manifested in the "magic world" setting that the protagonists fight in over the plot of the game. however, it can be made stronger by events in the "real world", due to being a manifestation of your inner self!

shadow: a creature born of the desires, fears, wants, etc of humanity. takes the form of mythological, folkloric, or literary creatures, as they come from humanity's collective consciousness. they're the monsters a persona user will largely fight. these are all SMT demons - after all, persona is an SMT spinoff! some shadows may belong to specific people, representing things like their repressed self, their distorted desires, or, in this au, the things they most fear. (we'll get back to that.) technically, a persona is a type of shadow, too - it is the shadow of the person using that persona. however, a persona user has accepted their shadow.

wild card/protagonist: our protagonist is special. unlike a usual persona user, he doesn't have a single persona that eventually evolves into an ultimate form. instead, he starts with a specific persona, but has the ability to recruit other shadows to be new personas for himself, and to switch between these personas to use different powers. this makes the protagonist very versatile (and important to having coverage for all the weaknesses you need).

the velvet room: a mysterious place that only the wild card can access. here, with the help of a strange but helpful man named igor and a mysterious attendant, the protagonist can "fuse" two personas to create new, stronger personas, as well as get back old personas he hasn't used in a while.

social link: persona is a game with both a battle aspect and a social simulator aspect. social links are how they affect each other. a social link (or "confidant" in p5) is one of many characters, representing each of the major arcana. this is a bond that the protagonist forms, and can have ten ranks. by bonding with these social links, helping them with their problems, and generally becoming friends, the protagonist can gain new abilities and create more powerful personas that are associated with the social link he is bonding with. additionally, party member social links tend to make that party member stronger. persona is a game about bonding with the people around you! by creating lasting bonds, you become a better person, and grow stronger!

i thiiiink those are the important persona terms i'm using? any other terminology (for example, 'the negative world' or 'sleeping sickness') are things i've made up on the spot. hopefully this helps!

[anulithots]

Hi! @writeblr-of-my-own here! For the ask game

What is the Land of the Fallen Faries? And extra question, who inhabits it? How do you oc(s) interact with it?

Funny story. Technically technically my character's purpose is to destroy the Land of the Fallen Fairies.

Which poses quite the narrative dichotomy, I'm a fallen fairy myself, no matter how much Kamari denies it. To the dryads, We're the villains of the dryad's story, the very filth they're supposed to rid of.

But the Land of the Fallen Fairies is meant to be a safe haven for the fallen fairies, and I'm their antagonist. Their destruction, their great doom, their evil, final-battle antagonist and they should all fear me and despise my existence.

But they don't. And I cannot figure out the reason. Some backstory analysis may be needed, but it this is a major continuity error. I'm the antagonist to the antagonists. Why would they tolerate me? And no, I refuse to accept the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" trope. That one is utter nonsense.

......

Ah plot holes and darling murders, you wanted a whole exposition dump. Not... whatever this is. Deepest apologies. You can ignore everything above.

Okie dokie, so the Land of the Fallen Fairies is a subsection of the pixie archives and the pixie archives are mycorrhizal root systems between trees and they are actually this huge, interconnected, shared-but-separated consciousness between pixies. And pixies are fungal metaphysical beings with no set identity and backstory - like the four I know used to be one character, but separated a few years ago - making them the perfect candidates to manifest in these fluid metaphysical stories. It's wonderous actually! They test out all these characters and arcs and plotlines in this connected daydream world in a continuous searching for complexities, the darkest and brightest depths of existenc-

Sorry.

I tend to do that, a side effect of, myself? It's an extremely antagonistic quality of mine. Deepest apologies.

Ehrm... Back to the question <3

The Land of the Fallen Fairies - at least according to Naegi - was supposed to be a safe haven for the fallen fairies. There isn't really one in Trinity Hollow for physical bodies, so the pixies take care of the mental ones in the root systems. It sounds like found family trope to me, and I hope it is. That one is my favorite. (There isn't any obligations or expectations, one knows that their found family cares, because they do it out of their own accord.)

So.... Trinity Hollow has some backstory and I can't figure it out. What I do know is that I have to tip toe around most other fairies, lest they find out. Sometimes I wish they would.

And... oh I'll have to explain fallen fairies.

Urhm... I'm a fallen fairy, just... well I was supposed to share their fate. I've been told we're "spacy, like we aren't fully here" and that we're "filth" etc. etc. I - the four pixies don't let me meet the other fallen fairies, so I don't know if they mischaracterized them or not. (I often go to a wispy small dream where they live, since Floa has made a lot of enemies. It's our haven within the Land of the Fallen Fairies)

But they were right about me, that I'm sure of. I should've had the same ending as the others, where Kamari would take us away, never to be seen again.

At least... not by the dryads. (wow, look, transition. I'm great at prose. For sure. /sarcasm)

Pixies and dryads are in some sort of conflict... Bloom explained it to me once... ah plot holes. I'll ask faer about it, remind me please. (I will forget the moment the next sentence is spoken)

The basic motivation - at least from my character profiling - for letting the mental/ metaphysical fallen fairies have their own haven is because of spite... I think, don't quote me on that.

The pixies may have their narrative as something like - "They got rid of the brightest fairies"

Oh <3 It's like a huge redemption arc but not really based on the shifting narrative of different societies. They were villains for the dyads, helpful side characters for the pixies....

And my purpose is to destroy both of them. I've tried to fix myself. I've tried. Everything I do only makes it worse.

What sort of character does that make me?

[bylertruther]

i hae the idea that will used his connection to vecna to manipulate the lights and all that in the ud. because it makes sense... but it borders on the 'will has to sacrifice himself bc of his connection to vecna because the characters are unable to break it off' territory, especially given the fact that they never were able to break it since s1. :DDD ?? like i dislike the idea for many reasons and bc of its implications, it's not gonna end well.

hm, that's definitely one way it could turn out!

i'm partial to the idea that the connection was never broken both for plot purposes and because vecna realized he had to change tactics to reach his end goal. he couldn't go for will directly (s1, s2) and use him to open the door (s2), so he sought el's power in season three (the bite) to then be able to do it himself in season four (four curses = four gates).

he talks a lot about wanting to rebuild the world into something new from its broken pieces, and then... we end on the big plot drop that will is still cursed and knows vecna's current status? he's the first that realized something was changing? has to be for a reason, no? especially since will himself tells us that vecna lays dormant until he needs you. he's not possessed, but that rod is still there—waiting, watching, same as he is. and same with him being vecna's perfect character foil. but that's just my interpretation and theorizing!

i had this analysis i was working on but later abandoned regarding the three day timeline before will's assumed to be dead and what could've happened to him in the UD.

at will's funeral, joyce has a flashback where will tells us that sometimes outsmarting the bad guy isn't enough and you need to fight back (fireball). at that point, will's gone from being able to hide at his house to really being on the run and being hunted for real for real without mercy. before that, we saw that the demogorgon mainly went for joyce whenever will revealed too much; but after that, they went after will, too.

given that we were shown how the kids channeled and harnessed their power with the ring light + the way that will was able to manipulate the lights in the same way in a scene that directly parallels that, i can see why people might think that his powers are an extension of vecna's, and i do think that vecna could've been teaching him, but i really don't think that they come from vecna at all.

vecna could've picked anyone when he first came through the gate, but he went for will. mike's house isn't anywhere near the lab. vecna was observing and stalking will specifically BEFORE he'd ever even left. he's in the house while they're still in the basement playing. it's when will is alone that he finally strikes and makes his presence known to him.

given vecna's motives, i don't think that he'd pick a regular human without any use to him. he chose eleven in the lab, because he saw himself in her—specifically, he saw untapped potential.

joyce first introduces us to will by saying, "look, he's not like you, hopper. he's not like me. he's not like... most." and yeah, she's talking about him being gay and gender nonconforming, but... didn't victor say the same thing about henry? and didn't henry end up manifesting his powers, because he's a sensitive kid and emotions fuel power / are the energy they draw strength from?

wouldn't it make sense then that the mind explorer had found someone just like him, just like eleven, too, and saw a new way to achieve his goals / "achieve his potential"? and doesn't that tie in with him explaining brenner's motives to eleven with the whole, "when papa finally realized he could not control me, he tried to recreate me"? and how henry is doomed to repeat the cycles he was once desperate to break? and that whole "he was just a man. an ordinary, mediocre man. that is why he sought greatness in others." which is pretty much what that entire big bad plot drop ended up being? that the big bad is actually just a power-hungry man?

but again.... those are just my thoughts! :D

[thequiver]

Tell us about your novel

So at least at the moment, the working title is "Whispered Silence". The title should hopefully apply to both the cold case murder mystery and to the slow-burn romance subplot. I made this little logo thing for it, to help set the vibes because if I am anything apparently, it is an aesthetic bitch

More under the cut because I have gone on into.... a fair amount of detail

I mentioned in the tags of the post mentioning that I have this project, it's an occult small town murder mystery. So it's set in a world that's very very similar to ours, with the exception that magic is very much real (and I've recently sort of finalized how the magic system works and am now figuring out all the little details for spells I want to be using in the novel). Magic is a force that everyone has the ability to use, but not everyone chooses to apply themselves to the study of it- so many people can do magic without even knowing it (although this magic would be simple small/weak spells). Magic is a learned skill, and no two practitioners will do the same kind of spell the same way, which allows for strong regional variations and variations in how these spells will manifest. Magic also has strong limitations based on real world occult theory that allows for the murder mystery plot to not just be as simple as "oh let's do some divination and ask the universe who the murderer is" because.... that's just boring and also the murder wouldn't be unsolved if that was possible lol. Ghosts and spirits are also very much real in this universe (much like they are in ours) and the two victims of our "villain" will be haunting the novel in several ways throughout the course of the narrative.

It takes place in the fictional small town of Pierce Point, Maine which is both a historic tourist town and a fishing town. The historic district of the town (as is the case with most historic districts) is where the more affluent of town live. Class is definitely a huge factor in the novel, and part of the novel will be exploring the ineptitude of the police when it comes to murder particularly when class (and gender) is factored into the crime. Part of why I'm so invested in sort of exploring the ways in which small town police routinely fail victims and their families in this novel is because my family has had an unsolved murder that was ignored by police despite obvious signs of foul play, so I'm unfortunately quite familiar with the reality of this kind of situation and how it effects families.

Our murderess is a rich elderly white woman named Margaret "Molly" Clarke and the goal with her is to make her nuanced and give her understandable motives that will make readers think of their moms, grandmothers, and great grandmothers…and her narrative really sort of explores themes of generational trauma and of the ways in which women have to change themselves in order to successfully navigate the patriarchy and how class intersects with this. I'm sort of drawing inspiration from a bunch of different historical women who navigated the white upper-class world while also bringing in the more small town politics energy that I'm used to to bring her character to life. And I'm hoping that despite telling you she's the murderess, that when it's read you won't really see it coming.

Much like any good fantasy/occult novel there are mentor figures- in this project our mentor figures are an elderly gay couple named Aiken and Joshua who have been together for decades. They're also upper-class and influential in the town but have a very different outlook that Margaret and a more precarious social standing. Aiken and Joshua have a very interesting role as far as the actual unraveling of the mystery goes and I don't want to spoil anything. But I'm also doing a lot of research for them, looking at queer archives and oral history projects to make sure I'm getting their voices as accurate as I can. They're some of my favorite characters in the project and definitely some of the most complex (they've also been a fan favorite since I first imagine the project 3 years ago now and everyone I talk to about them loves them).

The main four characters who actually go about solving the mystery are young professionals in their mid-twenties all of whom are bisexual disasters (affectionate).

Serfina is from a small town in West Virginia and is a recent transplant to Pierce Point when the novel begins. She becomes close friends with Hank and June (who grew up in Pierce Point and have been best friends since first grade), and Sammy who grew up in Portland, ME but met Hank in college and moved to Pierce Point for work. Sammy and June work at the same company, while Serfina and Hank work at the local museum with Molly as their boss.

Together the four of them, largely in an attempt to bring Hank some closure, start to look into the unsolved death of Hank's father some twenty years prior. Of the four of them, Serfina is the only one who's ever studied magic, but her magic is hyper-regional to Appalachia and not at all the kind that would lend itself to a murder investigation, and the other three don't understand magic and it's very much got like Scooby-gang energy with lots of red-herrings and shenanigans, and general 20-somethings stupidity.

There's obviously a lot of details I'm leaving out, and a lot of things I haven't fully fleshed out yet. But this is the gist of it.

Thanks for asking!

[dyrewrites]

While writing today, or editing really, I learned that my last reblog was not entirely accurate.

->Thoughts under cut because long <-

I figure out personalities as I write. The characters often come with something basic but I don't know them until I get them into the stressful situations the story calls for. Which is around when they start fighting against the plot, if their personalities do not mesh with what I've planned.

For Weald and Wen, I actually knew them going in. Intimately. Those were parts of me made manifest. So I thought it would be easy. They proved me wrong and I basically threw out my outline and much of my world-building and started over...twice. But I feel the story is better for it.

My short stories are about the plot, first and foremost, and I will write around a finicky character if needed while still letting them act out for the sake of keeping it "human" and "real". As it's more frightening that way.

For Pale Blood, and the two other novels planned for the Morne trilogy, I didn't plan at all. I started writing with only slim ideas in mind and both characters and world came in at the same time. Which might be why it's a trilogy now, because the world and tone seeped into the other things I was writing and connected them. The characters and setting are not as loud, or vibrant in my mind, as Weald and Wen's were but they're more grounded in reality and the characters insist on expressing that.

So there are moments where I have to write someone being embarrassed because a cute guy noticed them, or someone experiencing the awkward terror of seeing your apartment is a mess when you've invited over the man who might be your boyfriend but also might be a monster looking to eat your heart out.

These happen above the plot, and within the plot, they bubble up and sometimes spill all over the plot. But the plot is still there, still leading, still driving things forward.

The characters just want to be people too and I feel like I'm cheating the reader out of a more human experience if I don't let them.

So yes, they run the show but only because it wouldn't work as well if they didn't.

[faislittlewhiteraven]

Want a P:LA fanfic idea to play with maybe? *Puts up one for grabs*

I've loved Pokemon pretty much its entire history (Blue to Violet whoo!) and despite the issues I might have with the more recent games death glares BDSP in particular and their 'one game every year' crunch hell schedule, Legends Arceus got me all sorts of fired up with tons of fanfic ideas I couldn't wait to write down!

...Sadly my 'writing a coherent narrative' speed is something under 3000 words per fic a year so I figured I might as well share some of these ideas in the hopes that even if it takes me seven years to finish a chapter in my own time, someone else might be able to care for these little plot bunnies in the meantime.

So Fic Idea #1: Hisui gets Yeeted into the future.

Premise is simple: Canon divergence results in Akari/Rei being unable to stop Primal Dialga and Palkia from breaking reality and Arceus ends up activating Their last resort plan to protect reality which in the process of stopping a space time collapse ends up moving the entire region of Hisui to Unova's oceans in the modern age.

The Devilish Details I chose to focus on:

Most of my focus for this premise was on five key ideas.

1) Why did Volo think sending Palkia and Dialga into a frenzy would get him the power of the god llama? 2) If Arceus IS benevolent why does it not intervene personally? 3) What would a 'bad end' resulting from Dialga and Palkia's fighting look like? You know, aside from everyone being dead? 4) How do I avoid the near omnipresent 'Ingo and/or player character is torn between two worlds' angst in a story without trivializing their connections with either? 5) (Most important clearly) How do I get Adaman and Irida into those cute modern outfits I keep seeing them wear in fanart while still having them being them?!

For my own version of the fic all these are pretty simple. 1) Volo and Giratina think if they can get Arceus to physically manifest then Giratina can steal enough of Arceus's power that they can recreate reality together (Volo is the one who mainly wants that btw. Giratina just wants freedom and to help their new friend achieve his dreams). 2) Volo and Giratina are horribly wrong about what will happen if they try this and Arceus, compassionate eldritch entity that It is, would rather those two do not get 'Necrozma'd' and doom an entire reality's worth of life in the process, so It choses proxies in the form of those already pulled out of their natural space and time most by Giratina's actions to act in its stead. (Note: There are actually many realities where the PLA plotline is being carried out 'successfully' with this same Arceus watching over them but well, this story is specifically follows the world where shit went wrong and Arceus has to intervene so welp. Sorry this specific Volo and Giratina). 3) Most variable but in my imagination: Probably starts with smaller space time rips, then everything getting progressively darker and heavier, Pokemon getting more and more panicked, more panicking/aggressive Pokemon and people getting yoinked into the collapsing Hisui space/time (fallers can fall from anywhere and land on places on the way here but this would be where the 'down' destination is), absolute chaos as people and pokemon fight for their lives even as bits of environment are just glitching/breaking down into bits, then the GRAVITY hits and every creature is slammed to the ground as around them trees and buildings start straining and snapping from the weight, all light just dies maybe still an eerie red 'outline' to barely see anything?, people and pokemon blacking out probably fully convinced they're all going to be crushed to death, and then-! 4 and 5) Pretty much all the standard PLA fanfic conflicts have been thrown out the window and replaced with new ones: Hisui kinda just went through the apocalypse, some parts of Unova may have gotten hit by a title wave caused from the sudden dumping of an entire landmass right next to itself, and Ingo and Akari/Rei are gonna have give crash courses to everyone real quick and work their butts off being diplomats least Hisui gets overrun by criminal groups, poachers and companies who might want to take advantage of an entire region full of untapped natural resources, unknown pokemon, etc but hey! They can be with everyone they care about at once without having to get into shenanigans and everyone gets the delightful experience of seeing famous historical figures looking hot in modern cloths, learning the joys and horrors of modern media and going through the sheer WTF of seeing their own names and legacies up in a museum. Including the stuff they didn't get to 'live' due to, you know, being in an alternate world's future as a result of failing to avert the apocalypse without god's help and now in a position to try and avert the bad stuff like their noble Pokemon going extinct or so and so dying of something that in the modern era is easy to cure, etc. So that's the main gist. As for how I'm thinking of writing this premise (feel free to use these notes as well if you want btw): The End of the Beginning:

The canon divergence begins with Kamado overhearing Akari having a panic attack (around the Cobalt Coastlands point of the game) over potentially getting too hurt to 'work hard enough to avoid being banished' and him choosing to clarify a few days later that if she say, lost her legs to an alpha pokemon, Jubilife would still greatly value her skill with Pokemon much like they value Arezu for her haircutting skill, and that it is those who would lie or trick their way into the village without the will to aid others that get banished, not those who've shown their loyalty. (Aka Kamado's still paranoid and willing to resort to cruelty as in canon but not the 'for the evils' version I am getting slightly sick of some fics need him to be that way for their premise to work or to allude to real world colonisation stuffs etc and I get that but plz. More 'there's blood on your lies' and 'The Importances of History (class)' Kamado I beg of thee.) - Due to this 'kindness' she tries to interact with him more and ends up showing him the Arc Phone, talking about it's mission for her, how Ingo might've been from the same time period, etc, which leads to Kamado's paranoia shifting away from her and Ingo, and towards the Arc Phone and whatever it's attached to that dropped them in Hisui. -- As a result when the sky goes red Kamado doesn't try to pull the demonstration/questioning stuff he does pre-exiling in canon; instead he secretly has Akari and Ingo nabbed and locked up by Beni (he views them as patsies for 'the enemy' and decides that he can't let them roam free until this mess is resolved as they might unintentionally make things worse), claims to Adaman and Irida he'd already sent Akari off to investigate when they hold a meeting over what to do, and then as per canon charges up Mt Coronet with the Security Corps... Taking the Arc Phone with him.

Adaman and Irida of course are sus over not seeing Akari, and grow more so as they fail to find any of the lake guardians despite Volo and Cogita's help, and when they realize Ingo is also missing, but well. It's the end of the world and they don't have a clue what to actually do so they return to their settlements after promising to look out for each other's Wardens and that they'll come to each other's aid if the other calls them via Celestica Flute. (Insert 'Celestica Flutes can totally do that' headcanon reasoning so I can have weird small touching moment of 'They're alive!' during the 'climbing out of the rubble' parts)

Cylene is informed of Akari and Ingo being locked up by Kamado shortly before he heads off for Mt Coronet, and decides once he leaves to let them out of their cell, explaining both the Commander's reasoning (which Kamado might've already told them? IDK) and how without the Security Corps about Jubilife Village is extremely vulnerable should an attack come and she would request that Ingo and Akari please stay to help protect everyone. Since Akari and Ingo know bugger all about the 'mysterious pokemon sighted up on the mountain' or how to resolve the situation due to having been locked up for days and with Cogita currently too occupied trying to buy a nice scarf for herself and Enamorus to die in to inform them otherwise, they remain in Jubilife to protect it.

The various Wardens set about getting their nobles ready to protect the settlements they're closest to, ignoring the usual clan lines, with Mai, Arezu, Lian and Calaba in the Diamond Settlement (Melli gets a minor Big Damn Heroes moment arriving with Lord Electrode, escorting the Coronet Highland's Galaxy and Ginko Guild members in, right before everything starts going to hell), Gaeric and Sabi at the Pearl Settlement, and Palina and Iscan staying in the coastlands to try to help the Ginko Guild and Galaxy Team members there get to higher, safer ground.

End of the world stuff begins: Kamado's attack the dragons and promptly get stomped HARD (cue me rolling death saves for all the Security Corps members I have the names for). Enraged wild pokemon start getting beamed in from everywhere and each settlement finds themselves fighting for their lives: Pearl Settlement is doing reasonably ok due to being surrounded by ice and Lord Avalugg while Lord Bravary and Sabi's mons blast the few mons that get in away/unconscious, but both the Diamond Settlement and Jubilife Village are getting savaged, though not as much as they would've been if there hadn't been so many Wardens and nobles in the Diamond Settlement, and if Jubilife didn't have all of Akari and Ingo's many many pokemon (as well as Cogita's Enamorus and Vessa) there to fight for them. THEN the reality breaking stuff kicks in and the fighting gets exchanged for sheer environmental terror as GRAVITY kicks in: Beni is crushed in that cave Kamado ordered him to wait in (not sure about his mons since all other than his Sneasler can learn teleport and/or are ghosts, though I'd assume the Sneasler remains trapped in his pokeball), landslides are triggered up and down Mt Coronet, the ice caverns in the Bone Chill wastes collapse, buildings everywhere start creaking and breaking, any mon (or person) above water that can't breath underwater ends up drowning, pretty much everyone pokemon or human is slammed to the ground to struggle helplessly as the world grows more and more dark all as 'glitch like' implosions twist and tear apart sections of space time around them, and then as the gravity is getting to the point everyone is blacking out due to the sheer difficulty of breathing-

A light shines from the top of Mt Coronet; up on the mountain top itself most are either KOed, dead, dying or temp blinded by the sheer intensity of the light/dark up there but someone (leaning Kamado but Zisu getting some plot relevance appeals to me) sees someone somehow unaffected by the crushing gravity lunging towards the light, before passing out.

Arrival in the Modern day

First chapter of this would probably be done in a sort of media reel format showing implied captions and quotes from all sorts of media in the modern Pokemon world reacting to a new region sized landmass appearing out of nowhere: Lists of dead and missing people and pokemon with discussion on how many are due to the tsunami caused by the suddenly displaced tons of sea water, being washed out to sea (which being the pokemon world actually might be more survivable), or being telefraged into the new landmass itself. TV talk shows discussing where tf this landmass came from, how it arrived etc. Newspaper snippets, ongoing disaster reports, and all that jazz.

Will give the people of Hisui some breathing/recovery time via introducing my 'Ghost Storm' headcanon* as a thing in setting to keep anyone no from Hisui out of the place for roughly a week or so; can probably introduce the concept via a 'talk show' with guest stars Sabrina, Caitlin and Morty both to describe it in more 'metaphysical' detail and to allude to this particular one's unusual and deadly nature via Morty's ghost type psychic powers failing to get a read on the thing. *Said headcanon is basically: If enough death and powerful emotions occur in a short enough frame of time in a specific location, the local ghost population can explode and go completely feral, causing all sorts of horrifying effects depending on what sort of ghosts were formed (the storms depend on the strong emotions being felt and the local ghost population so currently Hisui is mostly being surrounded by a cyclone's worth of furious and in full 'defensively murderous' H!Zoroark...). Ghost swarms naturally fade over time anyway but in the modern age using emotion eating mons like Shuppet and tossing in lots of 'empty' Key Stones can usually be used to speed this process up though the Shuppet method has definitely been deemed NOT safe to attempt this time the Hisuian Ghost Storm has its own death toll at this point and is becoming somewhat infamous

After a bit of 'world reaction and reasoning' is established, will probably cut to Elesa and Emmet as ground view characters, talking about how nuts this is, how gyms everywhere are closed since there's tons of pressure for those in the League to be ready to fight if whatever is on the 'Mystery Island' turns out to be hostile, (though the ton of satelite pictures of the place at this point show that everything past the ghost storm looks like it's barely standing; holy shit that mountain sized Avalugg though). Talk ends, we jump to Emmet heading back home, doing 'slice of life as the world panics around you' stuff and then he texts his brother's Xtransver (grieving/coping habit) and stops wide eyed and frozen when he sees 'Message Sent' instead of the usual 'error, please try again' pop up on his screen.

Cut back to Hisui itself:

Those at the Pearl Settlement are better off than everywhere else but the Icelands are a mess: Sabi scouting with Lord Brivary spots tons of dead mons in the river, the cliff reaching up to Snowpoint temple has collapsed (the temple itself is somehow fine though?), and the ice fields -including newest the Galaxy Outpost- are completely buried by the avalanches Lord Avalugg defended them from. After making sure everyone is either well or attended to, Irida orders those of her clan not already busy to help her start digging pokemon out of the snow. There's some pushback at first but Irida refuses to leave so many pokemon to suffocate without at least trying to help and points out that any dead pokemon they dig up will provide invaluable materials and food to replace everthing that got destroyed during 'Sinnoh's Wrath'.

The Diamond Settlement is much rougher: Pretty much everyone is at least partially injured if not more so, and while the many, MANY 'dropped out of nowhere' attacking mon are currently still KOed while most of the humans are waking up, Adaman recognises that it won't be long before the fighting springs back unless he ends things now. However the thought of killing so many helpless Pokemon sickens him and doubtless there'd still be tons of frightened hostile mon elsewhere in the surrounding marshes, so pushing his discomfort over the concept behind, he asks the Galaxy and Ginko Guild types in the settlement for all the pokeballs they have before ordering his clan to start catching as many of the KOed foreign pokemon they can before they wake up. All the Wardens are taken aback but most reluctantly concede that such a drastic step might be needed; Melli being Melli doesn't and HMPHs his way back up to Mt Coronet to see how the pokemon up the mountain possibly those Galaxy idiots too are doing with Lord Electrode stablizing the terrain behind them (H!Electrode are based of japanese seedbombs so just kinda imagine seeds falling out as Lord Electrode rolls).

Jubilife is a mess. Ingo wakes to find Akari outright missing (which is odd because she was right next to him when the gravity hit), her mon somewhat directionless, and tons of Jubilife people who have no idea what to do. Deep worries and concerns aside, Ingo ends up doing mostly the same as Adaman minus the cultural angst though Jubilife as a whole doesn't really know him too well so there's a lot more push back until Cylene manages to pull herself out of the rubble of a house, tell everyone arguing against Ingo and trying to hurt the KOed pokemon that they're being idiots, and to follow the Warden's instructions before she ends up collapsing again. (Cogita and Enamorus somehow protected some of the shops from damage, and Vessa in Spiritomb form protected some of the Village children, who in turn are refusing to let her get caught and claiming her as friend much to her puzzlement)

Bit of lightheartedness I wasn't sure where to list here but: As the Settlements are repairing, Adaman decides he has to know now, grabs Mai's Celestica Flute and (very badly) plays the 'Clan Leader Meeting' call it's the only one he can play at all to see if anyone outside of the Diamond settlement made it. Cue Irida all the way over in the Pearl Settlement pausing in her digging to sigh in both exasperation and relief and (very beautifully) replying 'in a week'. Cue Adaman joyfully playing the same terrible note back, Irida replying again and then all of the Wardens -including Ingo- playing their own little 'we'll be there's to both clan leaders' weepy eyed joy/relief that everyone made it. (Akari's lack of joining in is noted, and Irida is concerned at Ingo's playing coming from Jubilife of all places but they're alive!)

Kamado wakes up on Mt Coronet to find his forces completely shattered; lots of dead or heavily injured with those awake weeping or quietly tending to each other or their pokemon... Numbly, he hears then staggers down the the temple to see Beni's pokemon 'arguing' over digging out the collapsed tunnel he told Beni to stay guarding (the Gardevoir keeps lunging for the dirt despite being too weak to move it psychically, the Galade is trying to haul her away from it and the Mismagus is wailing so yeah Kamado knows Beni's already dead and is getting a massive show into the 'humanity' of pokemon). He then just as numbly walks back into the temple, towards where the two 'Almighty Sinnoh' were to see that both have been turned to stone and that Akari, arms and legs burned gold (actual gold but also actual burns too), is by the foot of both 'statues' weeping and holding an egg that keeps shifting in colors between blue and pink/purple. ...And at this point I need to figure out how to give Kamado enough backstory parallels that when he pulls a sword and walks over to IDK murder Akari/the 'dual Sinnohs' egg and she pulls a 'defending it with her life' pose, he realizes he's become the 'village destroying Pokemon' of his nightmares and just kinda breaks, tossing his sword away 'Veilstone Myth' style and wailing as the chapter closes.

Got a few more ideas (the Clan leaders actions -especially Irida's- being why the Zoroark ghost swarm didn't kill those of Hisui as well as 'outsiders', first contact between Unova and Hisui, the Submas and 'Akari/her modern family' reunions, wtf happened to H!Volo and Giratina, what's going on with the immortal and chill Volo, and a bunch of other more miscellaneous things Wally!!!) but I'm apparently hitting the character limit so I think that's enough for now. Hope this blah was useful for you and good luck fellow PLA fanfic writers on all your endeavors <3