#maybe the whole reason for time travel was literally just to prevent having to make shitty past!solomon dateable loool

[inhuman-obey-me]

Lesson 12 has confirmed we’re not just sent back to the past but in a different timeline from the original obey me game

Yes! Glad it's basically confirming that this is a whole other "world"/timeline, because anyway basically from the moment we landed in this time, everything would have necessarily branched, because MC obviously did not exist in this time originally! And it's not like MC's presence is a minor little thing; we are SO involved in everyone's lives from there. We were already kind of eye-rolling at Solomon's warning about time paradoxes and not telling anyone we're from the future, especially since he himself is totally fucking around in the past with stuff like that Asmo pact, so it's nice to have somewhat of a counter-confirmation that no, this is just a separate thing.

Then again, the time travel stuff was handled so messily in the first game as is and just clearly is not Solmare's strength, writing-wise! Why they decided to make it the premise of a whole new game is way beyond us. For our part, we're just going to sit here yelling "no take-backs!!" about the different world thing even if they change their minds again later on 🙄

[oh-no-its-bird]

Similar fic idea to One Step Three Steps, but instead of some random Hatake brat being zapped into modern Konoha from the very early days of the village, it was actually the at the time Hatake Clan Head.

I'm gonna go with the Hatake family tree I tossed into Chasing Shadows for fun, meaning a) the clan head is named Haruka, and b) she's Sakumo's mother (thus Kakashi's grandmother) and Tobirama's aunt

She died very shortly after Tobirama (like a week tops) and the rest of her clan was wiped out pretty soon after her.

(Sakumo was raised by the only other survivor of the clan, an old grandma with poor memory who hadn't been in any state to fight, and who later passed away when Sakumo was still pretty young— so he learned very little about their clan and their traditions, and then passed on even less to Kakashi before he died)

I have literally nothing else for her other than the above, so I guess we'll figure out her character together as we go along

With that said, this is gonna be a long one, so buckle in for

✨️ The Hatake clan head time travels from early to modern Konoha ✨️

Immediately, there's just so much potential pretty much anywhere you drop her into the timeline.

Lets take her from the very first years of Konoha, where they're still lowkey building the village and Madara is still around (bc I love the drama of the time traveler respecting Madara only for the future people to be like "oooo... ok, so bad news actually— Also, you legally aren't allowed to talk good about him for military dictatorship reasons, sorry :(" )

And then we're gonna drop her into kid Kakashi era, with Sakumo still being alive

Right off the bat -> That's Sakumo's fucking mom!!!! Holy shit you guys!!! The last time she saw him he was like a literal infant she JUST recovered from birthing AND NOW HES A WHOLE MAN!!!!

Shes grabbing him by the cheeks squishing him to death, there may be baby talk involved (he's a grown man let him go oh my god??)

If she comes before his mission gone wrong, her presence prevents him from going on it (disaster averted,,, for now) He's currently in the running for most likely to become next Hokage and she's so disgustingly proud holy shit. Her baby!!! Hokage!!!

Maybe have some talk about how that'd make either 3 or 2 Hatake's in office depending on if you count Hashirama as a Hatake (Haruka does not) and how that's kind of bad, right? Only Haruka doesn't give a SHIT about that (politicians hate her and shed hate them too if she didn't enjoy making them suffer so much)

"But Haruka, as clan head aren't you a politician too by default?"

"Haha yeah!! Isn't that awful? (For all of them)"

If she comes AFTER the dreaded mission gone wrong, Haruka is all about backing up his decision (the Hatake are a clan who emphasize loyalty like no other, which is also part of why they took to Konoha's mentality so well)

Shes telling Sakumo he did the right thing and fuck literally everyone who says otherwise. Trust your momma Sakumo, she knows best

Her being there averts Sakumo's death— either bc she manages to keep him going, or bc she interrupts him mid suicide

(I can see Sakumo trying to go through with it specifically bc he thinks at least Kakashi has Haruka now once he's gone)

Also oh my god SAKUMO YOU HAD A BABY??? SHE HAS A GRANDBABY???? AWWW CMERE LITTLE GUY LET GRANDMA GIVE YOU A SMOOCH— OHHH SAKUMO LOOK AT HOW HE STABBED ME OHH WHAT A GOOD BOY, WHAT A CUTE BABY BOY!! CMERE BABY— OHH SAKUMO LOOK HES BITING ME AWWW THATS SO CUTE!! WHOS A GOOD GRANDBABY?? WHOS A GOOD GRANDBABY?? (said like she's talking to a fucking dog)

Kakashi kind of hates her.

There's like a whole big bit about the Hatake clan bloodline limit, which is sort of general wolfy stuff, enhanced senses, some extra strength, etc. And my all-time favorite take, adaptation ✨️

Their white chakra is super flexible, able to adapt and change to fit pretty much any situation —or even other bloodline limits. (Which is why Kakashi not only survived the sharingan implant but came to arguably master it)

Anyways -> other than the white chakra (which neither Sakumo or Kakashi know the details of other than it's their family chakra and its,, white. Exciting, I know), their bloodline limit seems to have borderline dissapeared with Kakashi and Sakumo, due to basically them not knowing how to feed into it / activley supressing it to conform to polite society (unaware that certain impulses aren't actually just intrusive thoughts but actual instinct trying to get them to do things necessary to feed into and reawakened their bloodline limit)

Kakashi actually shows more hints of still having it bc of his age, while Sakumo is very well practiced in accidentally supressing it to conform with general society.

So obviously, Haruka is like "hey guys!! What the actual fuck is this!!" and immediatley (borderline desperatley) trying to get them back to her perceived normal

She's actually REALLY fucked up about all this. Her own son!! Her own grandbaby!! And they don't even eat enough MEAT!!!! This is an actual nightmare, this is like basic baby stuff all the Hatake's should know and she's getting nothing but blank looks and vuagley ashamed guilty stares from Sakumo as she asks if he even takes Kakashi on hunts (he didn't even know that was a thing he should be doing.)

Don't even get her started when she learns Sakumo isn't acting as clan head on the Konoha clan council, holy shit. The Hatake might be a clan of 2 now but they were among the first clans to come to Konoha— she doesn't give a shit how many of them are left, if the number is more than 1 then there better be a fucking representative of theirs on that goddamn council

Funny bit where Kakashi tries to bite someone and Sakumo is telling him to stop bc jesus christ child can you behave for 5 seconds oh god he's so sorry— and Haruka is like, why are you telling him to stop??? This is enrichment for him :)) if there's no blood it's fine, that's the official clan policy for dealing with kids

Haruka... isn't actually a very good choice to leave as your babysitter. If nothing is on fire and no one is dead she considers herself successful.

Sakumo will learn this. In time.

Mmmm bad ending where Sakumo goes through with the suicide. Could be very fun and fucked up n dramatic.

Kakashi doesn't find his father's body first bc Haruka does— or maybe he does but Haruka walks in right behind him and forces him to close his eyes before he can actually see the body.

Fun scene where Haruka is physically wrestling Kakashi away from his father's body, a hand over his eyes as he screams and claws at her, demanding that she let go and let him see his dad.

Can't she smell the blood!? Tou-san is hurt, he needs help! What are you doing!!? Let him go!! Tou-san, Tou-san, where are you? Why aren't you answering?!

He bites her hand in his struggles, so deep that it later scars (just another reminder of the day, oh boy !!)

Haruka getting hit by the fucking brick of reality, straight in the face. She got to meet her son, the only survivor of their clan from her era, just in time for him to die <3

The fic then takes a HARD turn from the silly fluffy fun times of Haruka goofing around telling people to suck her dick if they have a problem with her (which a lot of people definitely do)

-> Right into shinobi politics, political schemes and sabotaged missions and buried clan history galore territory. Haruka isn't ab to take this lying down and everyone's about to get their first look at a grieving Hatake mother in her prime who just lost her baby to the shinobi rumor mill

Before she was kind of keeping to herself just having fun in the clan compound, not reeeally getting involved with any politics or village shit, bc like, she's playing with her family!! This is like her vacation till the time travel is solved and she goes back home!!

But she's not doing that anymore.

Sakumo is gone and Haruka is more than willing to take the seat he chose to leave empty at the clan council. She's about to become EVERYONES problem.

In the bg, Kakashi VIOLENTLY swings between fucking hating Haruka ("You should have stopped him! You should have been there! You should have helped!") to being like, physically unable to be unatached from her (she's waking up in the middle of the night to find him suddenly burrowed into her blankets, holding on to her like he's scared she'll dissapear when he wakes up)

Small soft scene where he's sleeping on top of her and quietly whispers that he's sorry for biting her.

Haruka possibly tries to have Kakashi temporarily drop his training but it's a very hard battle to fight. Both bc Kakashi wants to fight and bc Konoha wants him to fight

Uhh first big scary Haruka politics scene when she puts her foot down and says something along the lines of, "are you telling me here and now that my word as Hatake clan head is not enough to stop Konoha from taking away my child?" And Sarutobi kind of has to back down bc that does NOT fly well with the other clans

Obito and Rin swing by and try to pry at why Kakashi can't fight and she just fucking stares at them and goes, "He's 6."

She goes home and puts her head in her fucking hands. She was promised Konoha was to keep the kids SAFE, that's the entire fucking reason the Hatake agreed to join!!! This is not safe Tobirama, you bitch!!!!! If they send out Kakashi to die, shes going to find your fucking ghost and grind your face into Kakashi's grave!!!!

Anyways, time for my favorite part: politics

Haruka is coming from the early days of Konoha, where the only reason the Hatake even joined the village was, "because my cute little nephew (Tobirama) asked us real nice"

In her mind, she and her clan are still allowed to back the fuck up out of the village whenever she so chooses. She likes it in Konoha, yeah, but they're still free reign nomads and while she'd like to stay and have her clan flourish (which they didn't exactly do and she can literally SEE the way the village destroyed them from the inside out) she and her clan retain the right to leave whenever they want. And if they do leave, other than losing the new friends, it won't exactly be hard on them to get back to the nomad life.

All of that is to say that Sarutobi isn't her Hokage and while she'll be nice and respectful bc she recognizes the position (and her position) when push comes to shove, there's literally nothing they can hold on her to make her bend or break.

Also the last time she saw Sarutobi he was one of her nephews little brat tag-alongs, and she's so fucking bad at treating people their age, doubly so if she knew them as a kid.

It's,,, kind of demeaning actually, she should stop. (She will not.)

Anyways: play into her not just being Tobirama's aunt but also Hashirama's (her sister was their mother) which becomes fun bc Kakashi is her fucking grandkid!! Meaning he's also their fucking cousin!! Politics!! Implications!!!

At least one person is making a "of fucking course the boy genius is related to one of them" joke but like in an angry way (it's probably Obito)

Anyways I started this off with basically nothing for Haruka other than her name and I think she accidentally turned into a real character along the way (inevitable tbh)

Shes a DEEPLY flawed person actually, which I kind of love. She has a habit of belittling people and not treating them their age (absoloutley calls everyone even slightly younger than her 'kid')

Her views of childcare are totally skewed and she should not be trusted with any children other than Kakashi (it's ok he's literally built different, she can provide proper enrichment for him)

Edit: I DIDNT FUCKING MEAN TO POST THIS YET IM GONNA KILL MYSELF I WAS STILL QRITING IM GONNA END IT ALL TUMBLR I HATE YOU I HATE YOU

Shes so fucking full of herself and about to make it EVERYONES problem

[dollarstoreartsupplies]

day 2: party - @lautski-week

get it.,, like a..,,.,,, dnd party.,.,.,..,,

i straight up gasped when i realized i could use this as an excuse to talk about my lautski dnd au, so, if ur interested im gonna go feral about it below the cut:

steph: half-elven fighter

solomon lauter is a deeply corrupt, incredibly magical high elven king whose maintained his rule through intense dealings with the pantheon of the lords in black

he married a human woman at some point in his rule and he does love her, at first, just not as much as his power

so when the lords in black make him promise to sacrifice her in the name of some deal, he's sort of upset but... obviously he's gonna do it, she was gonna die before him anyway, it's not like it's a huge deal to let her die a little early, his subjects will think it was a squishy human life span thing, bada bing bada boom, hands clean of the whole affair

BUT.... then his wife gets pregnant and has a Stephanie... which kinda fucks shit up because said Stephanie is still fucking there after his wife has been sacrificed

he hates her, partially because she's a half-elf and partially because of what she represents, and she hates him, which results in her having very few boundaries because he doesn't want to deal with her

she's still a princess, and she's surrounded by high elves who think she's stupid and inferior because she's only a half elf and she has very little magical prowess, so it's not exactly ideal circumstances even with her extra freedoms

so she learns to punch things

because if people are dicks she can't outwit them but she can deck them

eventually the lords in black offer another trade with her dad where he can trade her for extra magic, but mostly it's just a test to prove his loyalty and he is honestly more than happy to get rid of her

except steph gets wind of it (because she's generally close with the kind of people who fucking hate the king/don't get treated with enough respect for people to not gossip around them) and she runs the fuck away

so now she's being chased down by her father who is facing pressure from the libs for not making the sacrifice, all the while experiencing actual respect and freedom for the first time from her party members

pete: teifling warlock-wizard multiclass

so you know that post thats like it's ethically ambiguous but you can hand off any cursed object to a baby? that's pete's whole thing in this kind of

ted, his full human older brother, was a intentional patron of tinky, who hadn't really thought it through and tried to get out of it by making a stupid promise and really just ended up dooming himself and his unborn brother (he felt really bad about it before he disappeared under mysterious circumstances, tho)

pete was born with a warlock pact to tinky (which was pretty obvious when his full human parents created a bright yellow teifling baby)

he hates tinky and is very uncomfortable and upset by the whole thing, so he multi classed into wizard shit when he was, like, eleven

tinky actively attempts to prevent him from gaining levels in wizard

he lies about being only a wizard and has spent years coming up for excuses about why a lot of his 'wizard spells' are very specifically warlock ones if someone asks (literally no one has ever noticed or questioned it)

because he was born with the pact bond tinky's hold over him is way stronger, and if he really submits (when shit gets super bad) tinky can take over his body and puppet him into doing some fucked up violent shit

he is truly treated like SHIT for being a teifling in his home town and it really minimizes a lot of his academic prospects, even though he's so smart, so part of the reason why he's traveling with his party is to try and find a real wizarding academy that will take him

(and one that can maybe help break his pact with tinky)

Bonus:

Ruth: human rouge who desperately wants to be a bard, but she's too nervous to perform and ironically, tragically hiding the fuck out in the shadows comes a lot easier

Richie: firbolg artificer -- he's pretty bad with the magical aspects of anything, but he builds a lot of cool ass machinery to make up for it (even if, god, hes SO upset by how bad he is at magic)

Grace: High Elven Cleric who WILL become a fucked up little warlock to the lords in black eventually (she is from steph's kingdom and followed her when she ran away to 'protect her'. Steph has been trying to shake her this whole time)

[thorias]

So I know I've been fixated on this, but the more I think about it, the more signs are pointing to the timeline getting reset. Upon rewatch, there are just so many things about the events of ep5 that simply don't add up if this was meant to be permanent.

First, there was that weird psychic blast that hit Madelyne/Jean right before the attack. What was that about? Could it have been Cable? Possibly. But it seems awkward when it happens right before he shows up in the flesh anyway, so my guess is it had to do with someone else. But who?

It might be a stretch, but given what happened in ep6 with Xavier on his way back to Earth now, I could see it being Charles trying to warn them from the future via time travel tech. I might be way off base on that one, but we've certainly seen weirder things happen.

Also, Rogue wearing a version of her famous first-date-with-Remy dress in the comics only to dance with Magneto while Remy dies without knowing that she'd chosen him is a detail that stands out like a sore thumb. That didn't happen by accident. This was a very deliberate choice by the writers and unless the point of it was to just be intentionally cruel to Gambit AND Romy fans, (and I kind of doubt it was) this is going to come back somehow. These writers have been very reverential to the comics and they had to have known how fans would react to that. If those events aren't going to change so Rogue dances with Gambit instead, (paying off that line in ep1 about suffering her hand for a dance) then why do it this way? To heartbreakingly end one of the most iconic and popular relationships from X-MEN TAS, which was built up over 5 seasons, with no payoff at all? How is that an ending that would satisfy anybody?

Maybe I've got my tinfoil hat on a little too tight right now, but I just don't see any way that this is going to stick. I don't know if the attack will be prevented entirely, (probably not, tbh) but something about that night is going to be changed. You don't establish that the whole reason Cable's here is to stop the attack and then have him completely fail at stopping it.

Maybe Cable, Xavier and Forge put their heads together, get Cable's tech working properly and manage to warn everyone in time to make a difference.

In fact, I read a brilliant theory the other day that Xavier would use Madelyne/Jean as psychic conduits to make the X-men and everyone at the gala remember what happened before the attack starts, giving them enough of a heads up to save themselves. And ep5 was literally titled 'Remember It'; I mean, it could be more perfect.

AND since Sinister was behind the attack, how fitting would it be for Cable (the product of Sinister's machinations) to be the one who thwarts him?

What if Cable and Xavier manage to warn everyone in time, all the mutants of Genosha band together with the X-men to take the Wild Sentinel down and then afterward the gala happens, but with Rogue dancing with Remy this time?

I don't know... that's probably wrapping things up too neatly (and the teases of Remy becoming Death are piling up fast, so we can't rule that out) and I'm sure there are going to be consequences to the Sentinel attack that stick even if they do reset things, but narratively, this would make a lot of sense, not to mention finish the story in a way that doesn't leave Gambit/Romy fans utterly depressed and miserable.

[perictione00]

Oops!...I Did It Again

Ch 3: Hopeless

Pairing: Nanami Kento x reader

Warnings: MDNI, smut, unprotected sex, choking, sort of angry sex, use of curse words, manipulation.

Synopsis: When life was throwing you uncountable curveballs, an unexpected reunion with your high school friend helped you dodge every single one of them. Coping mechanisms leave you both in a complicated situationship. So what happens when one of you ends up catching feelings? The cliche or the unexpected?

Jujutsu Kaisen Masterlist

Ch 2

It was two years ago that you found out through a cancelled meeting that your dear old classmate was the general manager of the marketing department. And within the same two years, with so much hard work, he climbed up to the position of senior consultant while you kept arranging the schedule of a dickhead who made you work overtime on Fridays.

Once in a while, whenever your intrusive thoughts would take over, you would compare yourself to Nanami Kento. Both of you studied at the same school and had the same college degrees, yet he was doing what he was meant to. You, on the other hand, were not. Years of hard work, and all you're left with is a huge debt and the fear of a low credit score.

In the two years that you spent working your ass off, the only good thing that occurred was your drunken mistake with Kento. Let's just say Nanami Kento has a fat cock, and he knows damn well how to dick you down. It was all you needed. All you needed to forget how pitifully messed up you had become. You wanted to avoid your emotions and keep them at bay, and he was just the right tool to continue procrastinating for as long as possible. It was easier than facing the baggage that you carried; that's what you told yourself. So here you were, spending the weekend at his house yet again.

Another great thing about Kento is that he knows how to cook and is not just a necessity cook but a Gordan Ramsey cook. He was a 10. A proper husband material guy. With a few changes in his social skills, he'd probably have more fans at the office than he already does. You've seen the way his coworkers stare at him, especially the new interns. The way that cute coffee shop worker ogles at his hands and his chest, literally undressing him shamelessly, but you wouldn't blame her because who in their right minds wouldn't? A rich, depressed bachelor with a bomb bod was literally everyone's fantasy. It was also one of the reasons why you got yourself involved with him sexually.

"Here, try this." Kento said as he offered you a plate full of birria tacos. After spending a whole lot of time with him, you've come to know that making food for someone is his way of comforting them. You remember how he used to cook for you after your parents' deaths. He would come by your house every day and make something brilliant out of the left-overs. There were days when he would load your refrigerator with groceries using his pocket money. It was his desperate attempt at saving you, maybe because he couldn't save Haibara. He was afraid that one day he would come to your house only to find you hanging from the ceiling, like he did Haibara.

"Ooooooohh...it goes so well with the chilly oil." You said, closing your eyes, relishing the taste.

There were not many things that gave Nanami a sense of satisfaction, but when you appreciated his food truthfully, his heart would rejoice. For as long as he could remember, he wanted to be a chef. However, like every child, he grew up, and life happened. More like, adulthood exposed him to the nightmare that his daydreams prevented. It was not easy. There was so much competition, and the art itself was very expensive to learn. So it was easier for him to let go of what he once thought was his life than to dream about it. Two roads diverged in a wood, and he simply took the one more traveled by.

Dinner time was always peaceful. The two of you would discuss work or any series that piqued your interest. Sometimes there would be silence. You would clean up later. Nanami cooked, and you cleaned. And while you did the dishes, he would go through Netflix to find something to watch. Having him by your side felt good. He was always there. Just there, when you needed him. You knew his secrets, which were very much similar to yours, but there was no gain in delving deeper into them. As long as another cute coffee shop worker who happens to have a crush on him doesn't pop up, you're fine. It's not hard to keep him to yourself anyway. All it takes is a white lie to turn an interested fish away from the bait.

One moment you were watching a movie holding hands, then slowly grinding your clothed crotch against his in the very next. You were tugging on his hair while he had his head buried in your chest as his hands gripped onto the plush flesh of your hips. You were straining yourself against the urge to gain more friction than the zipper of his pants was already providing. You couldn't help but moan when he started sucking marks on your exposed chest as his hands trailed under your top to unhook your bra. Taking off your top, you pulled him into a suffocating kiss. His tongue rolled around yours as he got rid of his shirt swiftly.

Now, Nanami was the kind to take things slowly. However, the way you kept biting your lips with such desperation and the obvious dampness in his pants had him ripping your shorts apart. Unbuckling his belt quickly, he pushed his pants enough to free his cock, and before he could think, you slid down his length, causing him to groan loudly. He was dazed. Drunk on you, so much so that his mind didn't register that your hands were no longer clutching onto his shoulders but instead your nails were sinking into them. He started thrusting on instinct, each stroke turning more urgent than the last.

You had intended to ride the shit out of him, but you loved it when he took control. The way he latched onto your breasts and teased your clit all the while he continued rutting into you. The way his head dips into your neck, sucking harshly at the skin, fiddling with your nipples, pinching them, or the way he would look down to admire the sticky web he created. He looks so fulfilled when he makes love fucks you.

But the thing is, it's not fulfilling for him. Nanami knows what he signed up for. The relationship is supposed to be strictly sexual; however, his heart longs for more. He wants more of the domesticity you share with him. The simple moments where you spend time with each other, watch things, and experience things together. He wants to express his love for you through his actions, but you are just so blind to his feelings. You never let him in. It's not like he's too stupid to understand your state. He knows that you don't like sharing anymore, that you prioritize money over your health, that you are too proud for your own good, that you will never let anyone see your vulnerable self, that you will never ask for help, that living feels like a burden to you, and that after the incident, you became more like him, hopeless.

Suddenly, these thoughts infuriated him. Why was he incapable of feeling this way for someone else? Why was he peaceful only when he was with you? Why were you the only one who could ignite extreme sparks of emotion in him? Why did he easily fall into this trap—this aching relationship? Why was he looking for you in every person he came across for all these years? Why was it so damn painful to love you?

"Fuck this." His tongue slipped into your mouth as his fingers held your jaw firmly. Lifting your leg with his other hand to stroke deeper and faster, he felt your body arch out of pleasure. Your breath became shaky as a string of gibberish left your mouth. You were squeezing around his cock, grinding on him to meet his thrusts. Wrapping his hand around your neck, he pushed your head into the pillow and started shoveling his dick into you intensely. Your sinful moans, along with your clenching pussy encouraged him to go harder on you.

You felt suffocated in the best way. Writhing under him, you kept pressing your clit hard unrelentingly, demanding more pleasure. You were about to come, but you craved more. "Hah-...come inside, Kento, pl-please, please come inside."

Nanami’s eyes widened; he was close to losing it. His dick twitched at the urgency in your voice as you begged for him to breed you. He went feral, pounding relentlessly into your cunt, eliciting sweet mewls out of you. You pulled him into a kiss as you came. Nanami did not take long to follow after you, filling your pussy to the brim. You clenched around nothing as his cum slowly dripped out of your glistening folds.

"Didn't know you were into choking." You said catching your breath.

Feeling apologetic, Nanami immediately inspected the marks on your neck. "I'm sorry, I should have-"

"Should have what? Ask for my permission?", you chuckled. "I liked this Kento. I like it when you use me, you know. I like it when you fuck me like you hate me."

Ch 4

Series Masterlist

[jacksgreysays]

Dreaming of Sunshine x Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint brainstorm (2023-06-11)

I have been glutting myself on Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint fic/art (as I do whenever I jump into a new fandom) but of course (OF COURSE!!!) I have to pay the toll to my forever fandom, Dreaming of Sunshine, and figure out how I would adapt ORV into DoS (or vice versa) or at the very least… smash them together in my subconscious and see what forms… so here we go!

By dint of the way I Kirby-consumed ORV fanworks, I have been spoiled, but also because ORV is so strange I don’t know how much I’ve been spoiled so beware of 1) ORV spoilers but also 2) incorrect interpretations of ORV spoilers. I’ve only read the webtoon and hundreds of fanfic and looked at so much pretty art but not the OG webnovel so… you know… I don’t have all the pieces.

Anyway, for the DoS-ification of it. I have to admit that the most “direct” one-to-one would involve a heart rending, cosmic relationship between Shikako, Naruto, and Masashi Kishimoto himself which… no… no thank you… do not want.

But I cannot deny that this particular ORV fanart by @eileenwdj was so gripping and compelling, that it is a major inspiration for this DoSxORV fusion I’m about to word vomit into the world. In a similar vein, in order to avoid using literal Masashi Kishimoto, my brain went more for a Reacting to Sunshine by icashi vibe in that canon Naruto and DoS are parallel timelines/universes that can sort of view each other under very specific circumstances.

And those circumstances, much like eileenwdj’s art and my own preferences, is god/deity ascendancy nonsense :D

More specifically, taking a classic Naruto fic to it’s most extreme and most meta conclusion: It’s For A Good Cause, I Swear! by Sara1281 in which canon Team Seven gets access to a time travel jutsu and run around being OP and silly.

But because that fic was written/completed before the canon alien goddess/sage of the six paths reincarnation, if you push the premise to the extreme (and make it angsty) and also consider that even time looping badasses can’t compete against gods… unless… they also become gods…

All of the above bullshit combines into the real pitch of this fusion:

Canon Team Seven have looped so many times that they have become gods separate from their mortal forms. But even they are surprised when in the most recent loop they witness something new: Shikako Nara and the repercussions of her existence.

So in a way maybe it’s just a more pretentious version of Reacting to Sunshine where the people reacting to DoS are canon Team Seven who have become gods. More specifically they have become the three gods (maybe four, if we include Kakashi, but I’ll get to that at the end) that DoS includes: the Shinigami, Gelel, and Jashin.

To clarify, it’s not exactly like It’s For A Good Cause, I Swear! because more similar to ORV, the god versions of the characters can’t sync up/possess their mortal form versions. Doylian reason because if they could then it would just be three gods walking around in DoS thereby making Shikako’s influence insignificant and also preventing them from the premise of witnessing her existence making unique changes which is the whole premise of this fusion. The Watsonian reason could be something like the insane number of loops that canon Team Seven have done is so cosmically beyond mortal soul capacity that their god versions are kind of like the infinite digital cloud and their mortal forms are like the hardware devices that can only hold so much information. So at the beginning of every loop, before they’re born they can sort of imbue their mortal souls with a little bit of direction (how much that direction will hold as they grow up is iffy) but enough to make each loop different. Then, they can make more changes as gods directly when they are—as gods—summoned into the world.

Such as in the most recent loop, aka DoS, where the Shinigami does the deal with Minato faster to the point that Shikamaru’s twin sister doesn’t die from Kyuubi chakra exposure and, in fact, lives long enough and well enough to go to the Academy.

And then it’s just god versions of Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke being absolutely bewildered by this new presence in the world who is entirely mortal but somehow navigating the obstacles as if she had cosmic knowledge of her own: as in the case with Kim Dokja, the titular Omniscient Reader of ORV

Now let’s get into my silly headcanon for which god is which. From the order of the names, maybe you can tell, but it’s Naruto as the Shinigami, Sakura as Gelel, and Sasuke as Jashin. Here’s my reasoning for this:

Obviously Naruto has the most canon connection to the Shinigami, what with it being summoned on the day of his birth and also the relationship that the Uzumaki had with the Shinigami (at least via the mask that can summon it.) And at first I thought it would be ironic that the shinobi most against killing would be the Shinigami. But then I realized, technically the Shinigami also doesn’t kill anyone in canon? Because it’s the mortal summoners who do the killing, sacrificing someone to get the Shinigami’s attention. And then they ask the Shinigami to do something weird but not kill: ie, split the Kyuubi in half, or seal away Orochimaru’s arms, or raise the dead as obedient zombie soldiers (I’ll be honest, I still haven’t read Shippuden, and at this point I don’t think I ever will.) So, un-ironically, Naruto IS the most like the god of death.

Then there’s Sakura. Which, in the canon Stones of Gelel movie, she was on that mission so there is that. But in a more abstract, meta sort of way… it feels like Sakura in fanfiction is… a different iteration every time, even more so than Naruto and Sasuke whose backstories are so critical to their characters. Because she’s a blank slate background, she can be all sorts of different heritage. Because she has that Inner Sakura early on, she can have that secondary soul or mind be pushing her in different directions. Because she is so flat out intelligent, she can figure out so many different techniques that would otherwise be outside her purview (here’s looking at that Sakura should have been able to reverse engineer, if not Mokuton since that’s a bloodline/elemental chakra affinity, then Wood Release jutsu as a combination of her canonical Earth and Water affinities). Anyway, Gelel being itself a conglomeration of human ingenuity and determination combined with it’s extreme earth and death/life affinities is very in tune with what I imagine a god Sakura would become.

And finally Sasuke. Ooooh boy. While I know there’s so many Sharingan deities to choose from, I would very much like to make the DoS god trio work so this one is admittedly the biggest stretch for sure. But I have my Watsonian reasons, elaborate as they are. First we have to remember that the god version of Sasuke isn’t DoS Sasuke, but an infinite number of iterations of canon Sasuke. So no Shikako at all. And while I’d like to think that even canon Sasuke can learn from his mistakes given enough loops, he’s still kind of a disaster with no clear, consistent, internal moral compass whose modus operandi is to do violence first and then ask questions later. Also, of the three, I think Sasuke would take the time loop situation the worst? Admittedly, part of this is because his “stations of canon” are the also the worst—while Naruto’s backstory is also tragic, a lot of his original angst is from not knowing who his parents were and also not being told flat out that he was loved. But with the loops, he’s going in with the knowledge that his parents loved him, that his teammates love him, that eventually he will find precious people who will consider him precious in turn. Hooray.

For Sasuke, his loops are a constant cycle of: you have a family, you are loved, they are killed, you are only seven years old when this happened and so you are unlikely to be able to do anything even with the digital cloud of godliness trying to steer you at the beginning. Like. Even with godly knowledge, a seven year old is a seven year old, he’s not going to be able to change much. But it’s that’s possibility of change that will make it so much worse. Like, maybe this time they’ll believe me. Or maybe this time I’ll be fast enough. Or maybe this time I can divert it.

Given the whole premise of Tsukuyomi, it’s literally torture.

So, okay, understandable. God Sasuke is not a happy god. Pushed to the extreme, it’s not too hard to imagine that god Sasuke just wants to end it all. He’s being cosmically tortured for seemingly no reason and he just wants to end the loops or, at least, destroy the world because at least then he doesn’t have to put up with infinite failures compounding on each other again and again and again. Hence, Sasuke is Jashin.

So we have our three DoS gods as time looping, cosmic cloud data versions of canon Team Seven. This just so happens to be a loop in which Naruto/Shinigami enacts the deal with Minato fast enough to prevent “canon Shikako’s” death by Kyuubi chakra exposure. They’re observing the events of DoS with fascination because this is the first true Anomaly they’ve seen in hundreds/thousands of loops and whatever she’s doing is definitely new. Yes there are still certain stations of canon events that she can’t stop from her position, but there are others that they didn’t even think would have such repercussions.

Of course, as I’ve said before, this fic I’m not writing would kinda just be a hyper niche version of Reacting to Sunshine with the god versions of canon Team Seven occasionally dipping into first person POV as they respectively interact with DoS directly by being summoned as gods.

And I definitely would want to get into how Sakura/Gelel was so immediately welcoming of Shikako because they are friends, a version of them, at least, and schroedinger’s teammates, and Sakura knows what it’s like to be a smart girl overwhelmed and desperate to keep up with boys chosen by fate. And maybe also Sakura realizes that this Anomaly may very well be what can save them, so she’ll take Shikako under her wing for a bit—a few loops, just to get this burgeoning god started—and then maybe together they can figure a way out of it. (And maybe a version of this could reference The Many Gardens of Shikabane-hime in a meta sort of way) Until Shikamaru, of course, fights a god for his sister, and Sakura acquiesces. She can be patient. She has nothing but time.

Whereas, the Hot Springs Incident is Sasuke/Jashin being sick of what he considers a false hope. Because he’s watching this Anomaly make so much change in his mortal incarnation that he doesn’t trust it. Because not only is his mortal incarnation not tortured, not a traitor, not power hungry and bitter and full of vengeance… but he’s happy, maybe, fulfilled? And… that’s… Sasuke/Jashin in all the loops never felt that. Sometimes he’d be fond of his canon teammates—both Team Seven and Team Taka—sometimes he’d be grudgingly satisfied by the choices he’d make, or pleased with his growth in power. But never… happy. Never content in Konoha.

And so Sasuke/Jashin NEEDS to destroy this Anomaly, this little god, because she’s essentially proving that he’s been wasting his loops, and that so much of his suffering was his fault. But if he can kill her now and return the mortal Sasuke back to the role of avenger, then it proves that he was right the whole time.

And Naruto/Shinigami is just watching everything go down like a perfectly executed prank, waiting for when he, too, can meet the Anomaly directly.

(I had some loose idea of Kakashi sort of also being a god, but only sometimes, because he only sometimes looped. And how he is the “Thunder God” of both Sword of the Thunder God/lightsaber and The Flying Thunder God/Hiraishin fame. So since he’s weaker as a god, he can’t really be summoned physically the same way the other three can, but can lend his strength to the sword or the hiraishin kunai because it invokes his power. And obviously because he has a soft spot for Minato. And maybe he’s related to Tobirama? I don’t know. Either way, he’s more than happy to help out the Anomaly as her lightsaber)

Anyway, if you read this far, thanks! And honestly, check out ORV. It's WILD

[onwhatcaptain]

Predictions for Star Trek Strange New Worlds S2 E3 "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow"

Ahead are my predictions for the upcoming Star Trek SNW episode "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow." Possible spoilers below the line since I am making specific guesses derived from the stills and that one revolving door trailer which was initially bothering me.

I assume that La’an will be meeting Captain Kirk rather than Lieutenant Kirk in this episode. This is an easy guess, because Kirk is visibly wearing a captain’s uniform in the stills. But I also theorize that she will be on some Alternate Universe version of Kirk’s Enterprise that may not actually involve the Federation or Starfleet as we know it. This being a known time travel episode doesn’t preclude it from being an alternate universe episode as well. We see Kirk wearing a non-Starfleet delta (looks more like a pentagon). And that one revolving door trailer was initially bothering me because he says “I’m from space,” as a reason why he doesn’t know how to use a revolving door, which annoyed me. But now I think he said that because he’s from space.

Obviously, our Captain Kirk isn't from space. There's a whole famous line about it in one of the films. The writers know that. Everyone knows that. The audience knows that. So it stands to reason that they were baiting us by putting that in the trailer. Maybe this Kirk is from space. And why not? AOS Kirk is from space, technically. The only real reason he would say he’s from space is because he is. It’s possible he was born there. Maybe Starfleet or the Federation doesn’t exist in his world (or isn’t the one we know and recognize). Maybe Earth was destroyed. Maybe humans have a more militaristic relationship with other species. Maybe humanity went to the stars too early for real progress, or didn’t go into it with the intentions of explorers, but for war.

So maybe Iowa doesn't really exist either—presumably La’an and Kirk return/are forced to go back to 21st century Toronto to prevent this future from being triggered by some event. So maybe revolving doors don't exist where Kirk is from in this timeline. Why would he have seen one if he was born in space? If he'd never lived on Earth at all? If Earth wasn’t even around at all in his time? He says that because in all probability, he is from space. And maybe all humanity knows is a life in the stars. Which is how he would end up in a starship even without the Federation or Earth or whatever is the major consequence of what happens that requires reversing.

I think it would grant the writers great flexibility for a few reasons. First, if La'an falls in love with a Kirk that is similar, but doesn’t really exist, it would be very convenient for the writers. I think we tend to think of Kirk as the main character when we see him, but consider that La’an is the main character and Kirk is “the woman of the week” as TOS has often introduced and left behind.

My take on it is that this AU Kirk will be Edith Keeler’d—this Kirk will be killed off. Maybe not in a literal sense, but he may be aware that his existence will be undone by time or their actions and will go through with it nonetheless. Or even more interesting would be that La’an feels she must sacrifice him, which would be a very intriguing flip on the script, since it’s him normally playing that difficult role of sacrificing others for the greater good. I think it’s quite safe to say that the SNW writers will bank on the popularity of the very famous TOS episode “City on the Edge of Forever,” and require some kind of great sacrifice. And I’ll bet it’s that fixing things undoes him, especially since the audience has a general attachment to this character.

After all, the title of the episode is "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow." Yes, it's a typical Star Trek time travel title, but it's also taken from Shakespeare's Macbeth, just like the TOS episode titled "All Our Yesterdays" (featuring the main characters trapped in several timeframes of a planet's past). This soliloquy is about the futility of life and the onslaught of time. The idea that the chance of living is snatched from you by the absurdity of the universe, which supports the idea of loss and death.

And when she inevitably sees him again, the real one? It would also explain the brief scene we see in the trailer where La’an sees Kirk (the real one, I assume) and Una says she has a “strange energy” that’s “making her sweat.” I suppose if you met a man, fell in love with him, sacrificed him/saw him killed or undone by time, and then met him again incidentally and he doesn't know who you are, maybe you'd have a bit of strange energy about it. After all, that was a very odd line to convey the idea that La'an is simply attracted to this man she's seeing for the first time.

Second, it allows them to play with continuity a bit while keeping things neat. Suppose whatever happens to alter time is carried out by the Gorn, which we know are a key player this season and we know are actually intelligent aliens and not just xenomorph monsters. Kirk is never aware of the Gorn until the TOS episode “Arena,” but to get around this, it could be possible to make this AU version aware of the Gorn, another alien species, or even a specific person he won’t meet until TOS, because it simply isn’t the same man. Or supposing that this is somehow Khan related—this is a La’an episode, and she could be a focal point which is why it must be her character who time travels to prevent this—and if it’s important to the writers that Kirk can’t know of the name Noonien-Singh until the TOS episode “Space Seed,” it’s perfectly acceptable for him to find out about her family history here. I suspect that there will be a great deal of continuity bending.

Third, it also allows them to keep things very neat if this AU means that whatever organization Kirk represents does not work with other alien species or is outright warring against them, or his Enterprise simply has an all human crew. I don’t think we would see Spock, even briefly, in this episode. I would assume the writers would think giving us an AU Kirk and Spock before the real ones even meet would be spoiling the audience's appetite and taking away the focus from La'an. It would make sense if that organization is enemies with the Vulcans/other species or first contact went very differently.

Finally, assuming all this is right, that La’an is in some AU version where her current timeline has shifted to be Kirk’s Enterprise, I would really like to see them do the following before kicking off the time travel bit. This is not a theory but a bit of easter egg/continuity I’d have written if I were writing the show, and I hope they don’t miss the opportunity.

I don’t think they will introduce any of the other major TOS main crew this early. Ortegas was meant to be the original name of the helmsman on Kirk’s Enterprise from the early pilots Roddenberry was developing. We also know that Kirk's first navigator (Gary) and Pike's current navigator (Jenna) are both called Mitchell. So I would love to see the writers give us a scene where La’an enters the bridge—immediately sees Ortegas, but there's just some ‘random guy’ in the Captain's chair and some other random guy as the navigator, neither of whom she recognizes—is baffled, and asks Ortegas, "Where the hell is Pike, where is Mitchell?" and the navigator interrupts her and says, "I'm Mitchell—but who are you?" I would love to see this because Gary Mitchell is such an underutilized character and it would be such a waste to ignore that parallel. It would also be safe to do so since it would be a delightful little "give" to the audience and would not require the casting of a major original series character, which would be a “big deal” for the story.

Okay, that's all for now (as if that wasn't a long as hell post).

[mumms-the-word]

funny story while I wrap of a fic to post tomorrow

Dani is my Chaos Tav and when I say the girl loves a heist the girl LOVES a heist

Idk if you know but behind the Counting House in the city there are some docks patrolled by guards with loads of treasure on the docks and in ships and so on

Well such a treasure trove is a siren call to poor Dani, who can’t look at a pile of jewelry without getting the itch to go all grabby hands

So, of course, she plans a heist

And by heist I mean Gale and Karlach watch from a safe distance while Dani and Astarion cast Greater Invisibility on themselves and sneak around, picking locks or picking up whole chests and generally stealing anything that looks remotely valuable

The team collectively only ended up killing one guard, the one that was posted at the far side of the docks near a watch tower (it was kind of an accident) and after that they tried to throw the body into the water to get rid of the evidence but failed (the game prevented me for some reason) so Gale and Karlach were awkwardly in charge of babysitting a dead body for a while

But we kept everyone else alive! Because they’re good(?) people.

Anyways Dani and Astarion end up in…well, a bit of a tight bind. They each have about 2 turns left on their invisibility spells and there’s no way they’re going to make it back to safety without alerting the guards

Dani takes a chance. She goes to a spot where she thinks she’ll be safe enough to recast invisibility so she can run back to her boyfriend and Karlach. Meanwhile Astarion makes it over to a beach, because they’d heard tell of buried treasure there

Dani gets spotted?? And suddenly it’s fighty fight time but she manages to turn invisible so she just skeddadles. Pockets jingling with jewelry and coin, I imagine, so idk how she was being sneaky about it. But the combat ended so that was nice.

Astarion, meanwhile, attempts to dig, only to have the dig action break his invisibility, so (after a reload, there were several reloads lol) he casts fog cloud to hide himself so he can dig up the treasure in peace

Y’all. This game is so silly. Not a single guard was like “huh weird that there’s this random FOG CLOUD that appeared, almost like magic? And didn’t we just see a blue girl with horns a second ago? Whatever just a normal day in Baldur’s Gate” like…sir??

Anyway Astarion dug up the treasure (which wasn’t even worth the hassle tbh, like it was low low level loot) and then…oh no. I’m out of invisibility potions and Astarion can’t cast invisibility on himself again. I don’t have any scrolls. I’d have to get Dani over there! What do I do??

Well. It’s a silly silly game, so my solution? We just fast traveled to a waypoint.

This heist literally consisted of two goobers invisibly picking locks and stealing chests, getting spotted, casting fog cloud, and then teleporting away.

So it was a success basically lol

Oh yeah and they would occasionally send chests to Karlach when they got over-encumbered by, you know, literal metal chests so while Gale and Karlach are watching this circus scene play out, I just imagine there are just chests appearing nearby one at a time

and idk maybe Gale is rethinking having fallen in love with Dani or maybe he’s just impressed who knows

Thanks for reading take a Dani and Gale for the road

[crystal-the-axolotl]

So apparently i've returned to yell about the ending of Tokyo Revengers...

(Warnings: Spoilers and a sligtly less mad Axolotl below the cut)

The one thing that annoys me most about this ending, is the fact that it could have been great, should have been great, but no, wakui messed it up royaly, and here's why in my humble dumbass opinion:

Yes, i'm still happy that they got an happy ending, BUT, the one thing that bothers me most in this, is the whole errasure of trauma that happened.

I'm sorry but hOW EXACTLY DO YOU EXPECT ME TO BELIEVE THAT TWO TWELVE YEARS OLD FIXED EVERYONE'S ISSUES, DEFECTIVE FAMILLIES AND MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEM, HOW THE FUCK???

I might actually believe the whole Kazutora stuff (in the extend that if Shin didn't die, then obviously his mental health would be greatly improved or clearly did not spiral down as it had before) and so the Baji not dying stuff as well, but no i will NOT accept any fixing of broken families, that is NOT something two kids who're not even part of them can do, this DOES NOT happen in real life. And okay, sure Tokrev asks you a lot of the time to suspend credibility (or whatever it's called in english, sorry i'm a mess) like no, Chifuyu and Mitsuya technicaly shouldn't be alive in a universe where half of the Sanos can get one shot by blunt force head trauma. But fine, i'll buy it.

I won't buy the whole happy bullshit though, because a real happy ending in Tokrev should have been these kids learning how to be happy and functional again after all the hurt, not wakui errasing all wrong that ever happened (i will never forgive him for making Kokonupi basically canon, having them finally come clean to one another, ready to finally have a healthy relationship and then pull this cheap trick and they're not even toghether in the happy ending, what the fuck)

What i also won't buy, is Mikey.

Second biggest problem to me, the entire last few chapters (basically the entire final battle arc after the Mikey/Takemichi faceoff and all of Shin's fucking flashbacks, who by the way, don't make any fucking sense but that's for a whole different issue)

Mikey snapped, completely, so no, i don't give a fuck about any of this, it makes no sense to me that simply going back in time is sufficient to fix his entire FUCKING STATE OF MIND.

We honestly know nothing of time travel, but as far as i gathered, Takemichi's mind, and all his difficulties stayed the same as his adult self when he went back in time. So why doesn't Mikey kept all his issues? Why does traveling back to 1998 somehow fixes everything?

So here's how i believe the time travel should have realisticaly went:

–Takemichi goes back in time alone (if Mikey follows it would be a mess because he's just the same as he was in 2008 and i don't believe that Takemichi's death was a miracle healing (by the way Mikey went completely nuts by the end of Tokrev and i don't mean his sanity, there was literally no need for the fucking final battle execpt the fact that Draken was dead and even then fuck the whole concept of his dark impulses that is absolute bullshit)) he tries to fix things with now the insight of all that happened and maybe prevents:

•Shinichiro's death because of the obvious

•Baji's death as well (should have been prevented in the first place, unfortunately Takemichi is a moron and forgot the whole Kazutora is gonna kill Baji plot two seconds in the Bloody Halloween battle for some reason...)

•Maybe the whole Black Dragon's arc goes even more smoothly

•If he befriends Kisaki the whole killing Hinata and ruining Mikey's life thing could be avoided, and by extention most deaths and issues of the actual entire fucking story (which is why i think it feels like such a cheap ending too, like what was the point of all this suffering if it could all be fixed in less than one chapter?)

–What he can't fix though is the fire (even if he somehow could help save Akane, the fire would still happen because man doens't have godlike powers and can't control unatural dissasters) as well as evey disfunctional relationship there is

–Even if the whole smile Haruchiyo doesn't happen for some reason, the Akashis will have to deal with their mess on their own, a kid can only do so much

–Same for the Shibas and even the Sanos (i believe it would still get to be better for Izana though because if Kisaki isn't on a world domination incel-induced trip and Shin isn't dead then there is no reason for the whole Tenjiku arc to happen the way it did)

–And last but not least, fuck Takehina, in this timeline she ends up with Kisaki because he learns how to actually asks someone on a date (sorry Hankisa stans)

(a spiteful part of me almost wish the story ended at Takemichi's death, that would have made more fucking sense)

Which brings me to my third point, fuck Takehina.

This ship is so fucking toxic (yes more than Kokonupi could ever be, i'm serious) and the age difference in the past is the least of its problems, trust me

First of all, the reason Hinata kept dying most likely was because she wouldn't get over a guy who dumped her twelve years ago and was stuck on him (at least after Takemichi went back in time, for all we know the original reason of her death could not even be related to Toman, especially Kisaki) and we even see Kisaki asking her in marriage (in the Tenjiku arc i believe) but girl still wants Takemichi

And it wouldn't be an issue in itself if she wasn't so stuck on the wrong Takemichi (like everyone else, in a way, you could argue) as in, future Takemichi.

She doens't give a shit about past Takemichi (who by the way is a terrible boyfriend so i can't blame her for that part) but she saw how he could actualy become, and then proceeded to spend twelve fucking years waiting for that guy. Not. Healthy.

Hinata started as a strong character, and then became stuck on one guy, completely throwing away her growth, making her stagnate as a person and loose her independence. And i don't think that's what love should be like.

So Takemichi isn't healthy for Hinata, he's basically the reason she kept dying. What about Hinata for Takemichi you might ask.

Well i don't think Takemichi actually gives a fuck about her (at least not in a romantic way)

I don't know if it's just that wakui can't write romance or that he really meant it this way but i have a similar issue with Drakema. There is no alchemy between these two and that is a huge problem considering they were intended as a romantic pairing. And such a shame really because it could have been a cute couple, and you can tell Draken genuienely cares for Emma, but god, where are the romantic feels?

Like, you might not agree with this (and i honeslty don't give a damn cause they are my favorite ship, yes i'm aware i'm problematic don't worry) but to me there is more alchemy between Draken and Mikey than Draken and Emma! Or even Draken and Mitsuya! I find it crazy that the only two canon straight ships are so bland and tasteless or even borderline toxic (because toxic doesn't just mean physical or mental abuse, it can also mean stopping the other from evolving and being their best version instead of ecouraging them to be better and being a good influnence on them) like take any not canon ship for example, like Mitsuya and Hakkai.

There are some elements that can be toxic (mostly Hakkai's endless admiration for Mitsuya who could turn out to be a problem i think) but these elements are actually pointed out in the story, as potentialy bad for their relationship (during the church fight Mitsuya acknowledges that his expectations of Hakkai might have put unnecessary pressure on him) and they actually evolve and progress individually, become more independent of the other (at least that's the impression this gave me) and grow together as well

Drakema only shows through character dialogue like ninety percent of the time (as in characters talking about how much they love each other but they almost never have any romantic interraction) and maybe i'm being of bad faith with this one because it might be mostly due to the fact that Draken is an idiot who never confesses and Emma is cleary shown multiple times to love him (though i'm still unconvinced about Draken, a lot of this feels like JK saying Dumbledore is gay and then people trying to grasp at strands only to realize there ins't gay Dumbledore in story, thank u and fuck off JK)

So back to Takehina (sorry for the sidetracking, my mind is a fucking maze and this is me trying to practice selfcontrol) worse than Drakema who's just bland to me, the ship is also so fucking problematic to me, like people yell all the time about the Akane thing, but how about that gal who is willing to wait twelve fucking years because this isn't the right Takemichi, what about tHAT GAL HUH?

And what about the guy who agrees to a fucking weddding but actually has feelings for another dude (because as much as Maitake is also so fucking problematic at least i can see why people ship it, there is the fucking alchemy Takehina apparently ate or something)

Also, let's talk about Shinichiro for like two seconds here. What. The. Actual. Fuck?

I know we basically knew nothing of him and that made it unfortunatelly very easy for wakui to come up with this mess that is Shin being a time traveler (okay, not a super bad idea, where you going with this?) Mikey having an accident (oh, more angst, sure feed me some) and then it goes to hell.

The whole old man thing (not really in character for what we knew of Shin, damn) Mikey's dark impulses as a form of punishment (good idea terrible execution in the way it was lost among alk the chaos of the last twenty/thirty chaps) Shin not giving a fuck about Haru murdering people (honorbale mention, because ableism is despicable, but Haru plz don't slash people with ur katana okay?) and probably the biggest crap, Shin passing down his power to Takemichi (like, it makes no sense in story because Shin was never at the scen at that time, and also why would u do that Shin? Why? He's just a kid, didn't u already traumatize Haru enough with ur bullshit?)

Like now i 100% blame Shin for everything that when wrong with Haru, like how is a kid supposed to be fine with all of this (i can only see two reasons for Haru to have known about the time traveling bullshit and that's either Shin telling him everything or him actually being og timeline Haru, in either cases, his head is screwed and that's Shin's fault)

I will share a maybe unpopular opinion right here, but hear me out first. I would have almost (and i can't stress this almost enough) prefered Shin to be revealed as the bad guy, than this entire flashback debacle and this fucking ending.

In all honesty, the final battle wasn't so bad (like the Kokonui reunion was so good, maybe the only good thing about it) but Mikey has been feeling so out of character for the entire final arc, that it kinda made no sense after the whole flashback thing started anymore (which is why, again, fuck traveling back to 1998 fixing Mikey's entire life AND mental health issues, fuck this so much)

So yeah, fuck the Takehina wedding, fuck this so called happy ending and fuck no Kokonupi content (which makes no sense, even if the fire didn't happen, they should still be close, even closer since the entire Akane situation is the reason the drifted away!! Goddamnit!) and fuck Mikey and Shin not making any sense for the entire final battle!

All in all, the concept for the ending could have worked, if wakui just had made an actual effort with this. Inupi isn't Inupi without his burn. Kazutora ins't Kazutora without his tiger tattoo. Haruchiyo isn't Haruchiyo without his scars (even though i'm glad he doesn't get them because fuck Mikey for this so much). This somehow feels disrespectful for the characters to take away all the trama like this (and i mean the ones that happened before 2005, i very much love that my fanged man is alive, that is one of the only good things about this ending really (and also Kakucho, but he should have never died in the firt place))

I think the timing with this was also an issue, one chapter before the end and everything is solved felt very forced. And it's weird because i know stories with this kind of miracle ending sometimes work, but they usually make the entire situation return to what it was like in the begining, whereas here, everything is infinetly better than it was at the start of the story and less than one chapter before it was a total mess. This was a terrible deux ex machina (more importantly, where the fuck was Takeomi, and why couln't he be the deus ex machina instead, that would have been infinitely more funny if nothing else)

Once again, i believe wakui should have ended his manga after the Tenjiku arc, or at least with the Bonten one, or just generaly, fuck the final arc.

I still persist in saying that people have made better fics with a similar concept, or even entire rewritings, overall saying fuck the bonten/final arc and going wild with it, and it actually worked!! This though, didn't, and i think there was many reason why; what i ranted i mean talked about here were just some of the things that annoyed me with the ending or that i felt were problematic to the story and weren't resolved at all even in this so called good ending (like, as much as i bitched about Takehina, i would be less salty about it if their relationship had developed into something more healthy, and also not a romantic one as well!! fuck the Takehina wedding seriously)

Well, i think i'm done here, don't forget that this is only ever my own opinion, based on my own interpretation of the story (i still ptetend that the final arc never happened because the end of it messed with so much theories and interpretations, that is almost funny in itself) and you're allowed to disagree with me (like i love cheese but i won't force feed people fourme de Montbrison just because i like it) just like i might disagree with you. I find it stupid to fight about a manga when there are other topics that are much more important and significant to daily life with opposing opinions that could use actual arguing to make things better (because actions are nice but it starts with talking about it)

I went a little serious here, but that's because i'm aware that what i just did (i.e. this entire post) is a huge waste of my time (it's okay it's the night and i have nothing else to do) and i could maybe spend it talking about more serious and impactful topics than the end of bloody Tokyo Revengers. But that will be for a day when i feel like actually getting defensive about something (i won't force feed you cheese but if you asume that i'm a girl, i will scream behid my computer/phone like a madman)

Have a nice day/night/evening, and stay safe– Mika

[markjoliveros]

What’s up?

I know I haven't been able to share anything on this blog for a while now. I don't know if it's true that when you try to get your shit together, you will probably lose some motivation to keep doing the things you used to do during downtime, or maybe it's just this whole adulting that prevents us to perform things simultaneously, or neither of the reasons said?

It's crazy that I was in the Philippines for a short vacation exactly a month ago. I can't believe I'm still a little bit over it and by far, it was the best time spent this year. I enjoyed seeing the people I intentionally want to see, seeing my sister finish her degree in Nursing and having the opportunity to give back to my mom and my family in my own small way by bringing them to my second home, Cebu.

It was my first time to travel with my family at my own expense and I'd literally freak out if you were going to ask me how much total I spent for the whole trip (lol); but all I know is, time is something we can never get back.

We never know when will the time stops, or how much time remains for us to live in this world - so while we are still capable of making the people we love happy, nothing should stop us from going in that direction.

So if you ever see yourself still having a little pushback of going all out with your life, or maybe you still self-sabotage because you think you do not deserve to be enjoying life, that you feel hopeless, that you never see your worth as a person, know that these thoughts are your enemy and these thoughts do not want you to win in life.

I'm writing this to let you know that your existence matter. Imagine how much can change in a year or two - you may hate your current situation but know that it's not going to stay like that forever. We got this! <3

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super 050

This episode isn’t much, but it is packed full of Super Saiyan 2 goodness, and that’s something at least.

So last time, Goku Black’s Time Ring drew him into a temporal distortion left behind by Trunks’ time machine, allowing him to follow Trunks into the present day main timeline, where Dragon Ball Super lives.

Beerus and Whis observe these events from deck chairs, and their sole contribution to this episode is to observe the Time Ring on Goku Black’s hand, and to inform the others that only Kaioshin are authorized to use them.   They also only have the ability to take a Kai into the future, since travel to the present is forbidden, even among gods.

So Goku jumps at the chance to fight his doppelgänger.  He spends the whole fight in Super Saiyan 2, and never goes beyond that because he wants to see what Black can do.  The dialogue for this episode makes it sound like Goku’s using Super Saiyan 1, but look at the bangs.  That’s an on-model SSJ2 Goku if I ever saw one.  I kept taking screencaps of it because I just find the look very refreshing.

Wait, this one got it wrong.  Maybe Goku had some trouble for a moment and accidentally slipped down to SSJ1.  The point is I can tell.  It’s like the old sailor’s used to say.  If hairline ye view, ‘tis Super Saiyan Two. 

Mmm!  Yessir. 

That’s the stuff.

Lookit this proud dad using the transformation his son invented.  He’s great.

He probably has Gohan’s theme music in his head the whole time he uses it, too. 

I just can’t get enough.  I can’t wait for Budokai Tenkaichi 4 to come out so I can main SSJ2 Goku.

Well, the fight’s pretty decent, but not much of note really happens.  It sort of lends credence to my point that even a weak Dragon Ball anime can still be fun if you just let the characters fight.  Goku Black holds his own in base form, which seems strange.  Also he seems to enjoy getting beat up for some reason.  And then he finds himself being pulled back into the time distortion, which sends him back to where he came from.  But before he goes...

... He spots Trunks’ time machine, and destroys it. 

This outcome seems to satisfy Black, as this means Trunks is now trapped in the other timeline, with no way to return and oppose him.  But... he wanted to kill everyone on Earth, right?  I mean, doesn’t it bother him that Trunks got away?  Or that there’s a whole other Earth with people still living on it?  The priorities don’t make sense, and it’s not going to get any more sensible later on, either.

There’s a stupid bit where the Pilaf gang dress up as firefighters to put out the time machine, and Pilaf spends way too long babbling about the reward he’ll ask for this service.  Literally every time these guys are on screen, it makes no fucking sense.  They just waste time and no one really pays attention to them.

Trunks asks Beerus if he can borrow a ride home with his Time Ring, but Beerus doesn’t have one, because he’s a Hakaishin, not a Kaioshin.  And even if he had one, he wouldn’t let Trunks use it because he’s adamant that mortals shouldn’t travel through time. 

Vegeta tells Trunks not to give up, and that they’ll find another way, which Beerus also takes issue with.  As far as he’s concerned, Trunks should give up, and the destruction of the time machine is a favorable outcome, since it prevents further meddling with time.  Beerus really, really sucks in this saga.  I mean, all he does is sit around doing as little as possible while repeating his stance on time travel, a thing that kind of already happened several times.  He won’t shut up about it, and yet he’s too lazy to actually stop anyone from doing it, so why is he here?

Whis eats another fish sausage, because eating junk food is all this show is really about anymore.

Fortunately, Bulma has a solution.  She can’t rebuild the Time Machine from scratch, even with her future self’s notes to work from.  But it turns out she doesn’t need to to. 

I just want to point out that one thing this saga did get right was ditching Bulma’s Resurrection F costume in favor of this hot labcoat number.  Her hair’s all mussed up, her labcoat is soaked with fish sausage grease.  Vegeta’s a lucky man, I tell you hwat.

Check this shit out.

Bulma had a spare time machine all along.  This is the one Cell used when he came back from his alternate timeline.  Bulma’s had it in storage ever since, and while it’s in bad shape, at least it isn’t on fire like the other one.

You know, it probably still has fuel in it, now that I think about it.  When Cell stole it, the Trunks of that world was about to embark on a round-trip to the past, but Cell only took it one way.  So there must still be half a tank in there.

Meanwhile, back in the dark future timeline, Mai is still alive, even though Goku Black blew her up and Trunks cradled her in his arms and cried out that Black had killed her.  Well, forget all that.  She’s alive.  This arc sucks.  You know what, I’m gonna look at one more still of Super Saiyan 2 Goku.  As a treat. 

[tekras-iszovh]

// hey guys new writing or whatever. enjoy this mess. i took 30 minutes to do this. if there are writing errors / it feels like a ramble, you're right there are. i'm not fixing it. this is gonna be sooo disjointed because it's more about saying it and less about it being good

CLUSTERFUCK. - 1609 words. The tables turn when it comes to doomed selves. Esoteric and incomprehensible abilities come into the fray.

You weren't ever sure why your fourth self was the one you decided was so special that you were to stick with it and develop it, among hundreds of others. Maybe it's because it was the first time you truly left the trollian form behind, many sweeps ago, from your perspective, or maybe it's because it's the first time you had that kind of control. Is self-control a big deal to you, or do you simply like being able to take more risks with it? Being limited to one body, you always thought, was a recipe for ultimate destruction. Capacity for disaster.

Either way, is there symbolism to four? Is it still your fourth body if you've replaced every part of it tens of times over? Ship of Theseus, meet Body of Tekras. Internally, you keep denominators. It's probably TK-04-33a or something by now. No, it definitely is, but you don't include those later numbers in your externally-showing tech. It takes from the look of 'having your shit together' that you oh so desire. You never believed in open betas. Or tester builds. At least, you never integrate something into your wider network of selves until you're sure it works. How many split-off selves, doomed selves, have you created just to use a body you know doesn't work? Isn't finished? You've lost count.

At least you know they aren't… They aren't dead. They're erased, there's a difference. You would never let a self die, no. It's too open-ended. Dead trolls, even if they're literal purposeless clones, they show up in places. You remember dreaming among them, once. Bubbles, or something, right? It's hazy, it's been so long. Even then, you promised yourself you'd stay vigilant. You saw what happened when you let yourself - your dead selves - split up and grow powerful. There's a lot of Doom to sap from when the self is from a doomed timeline. It makes them so, so powerful, and the only way to stop them is to prevent them in the first place.

Time travel is nasty stuff, really. You never could work your head around it, but it's usefulness is understated, massively. Stopped a lot of shit.

Yes, stopped. Not moved, not transferred to an irrelevant timeline - stopped. As you wished. You can't let yourself go like that.

The next time you visit the dreambubbles, you scan, and you're glad to find that not a copy exists. You send a few bots out to do extra double-checks, triple-checks - nothing. Good.

You get back in your ship, your extra bodies get back in their transport pod, you move on. From the outside, your ship is a haze of green, and your body is a dark, hazy mess. Some kind of villain, no doubt? Maybe. Scanning for something… it's intimidating.

You never felt it, but you'd figure that maybe using Doom abilities to scan and obliterate alternate selves' canonicity would get a little intimidating… but you've no reason to use it on others. No, no way. Of course not. It's not your business, you know? You LIKE other people, which is much more than can be said about the guys you prevent.

You pass by some terrors, creatures of the void in the area between the furthest ring, dreambubbles, a wide array of incipispheres from games from various universes, and then pass through a barrier between universes itself. Space goes all hazy. With a jolt of force, you send yourself into hypervelocity, firing yourself back into reality, your own.

After a few minutes, you get the thing slowed down and approach a planet - a city - a tall building - a landing zone. A surprisingly quick process, and you're already getting out - the most tedious part of the whole process is the airlock, which takes five minutes of doing nothing.

You get out, take a brisk walk up some metallic stairs, enter a door, say hello to the people in the office building you pass through, and enter an empty head-office room. You throw yourself onto the desk, laying flat, documents and paper-weights and a very advanced-looking trollian computer flying off the desk. A crack is visible in the table.

You'll get that replaced in an hour or so. It's not the first time. In fact, every day you seem to destroy something a little more when you get here.

Every day you make this journey. Something compels you. Is it the power? The urge to progress? Is this what that act of self-sacrifice, self-destruction many sweeps back gets you - the immense power to destroy? You don't know why you keel to it.

But you continue to.

You grip the table, and it burns under your hand with a hiss, and a fizzle, then cracks as you firm your grip. It doesn't turn to ash, but seems to slowly degrade - shrink, crumble, melt? As if things are happening in a vastly sped up fast-forward of time. A life cycle. The smoke burns a deep green, and you smirk to yourself a little. Ha. You're lucky you never put fire alarms in this place, you could do this all day. Maybe you will.

You grip your hand, to try the same thing. It doesn't destroy yourself, but the smoke generates. You hold yourself firm. It doesn't do anything, but the haze grows.

It's funny how fast a room can fill up with fumes, and all it does is cloud your vision of the moons of this planet moving outside. The table has crumbled by now, the walls are deeply stained and cracked, the door is off it's hinges, the windows deeply dusty and stained, cracked but never seeming to break - the air in the room is nothing more than a deep green swirl, and your eyes barely light a foot, hell, a couple inches ahead of you, and you take some breaths.

It's a nasty scent. Receptors disabled. It doesn't smell of much, but it incites just a little something. Stand up, pace around. You glow a little. The smoke swirls around you, as if it was magnetic. Ferrofluid? Almost.

You head outside, and it follows you. Up to your ship, in the open air, and it stays attached, though seems to leave a trail of deeply aged material around it, as if leaving everything it touches to it's ultimate fate. Walls rendered mossy, or crumbled, as if they were fated some day to be perpetually in that state. Ceilings fell behind you, ground crumbled after you walked on it. The metal walkway collapsed thousands of meters into the clouds below, after your smoky footsteps touch them… but, when it touches you, it does nothing. Contact, but the ship stays intact, as if nothing, too. The colors inside the ship change in rapid succession, the naming of it seems to shift among lettering only vaguely recognisable. The computer system of the ship remains unchanged, as you intended.

You take another deep breath, and feel a burn down your fake esophagus, through your fake GI tract, in your robotic joints, and through every seam you built into this thing. Crackle. Your body's surface shimmers in place, as if everything is new, and then old. New once more. Different, and the same. Constant change. You feel yourself almost get pulled apart, and you feel yourself feel more whole than you have in sweeps. You get down on a knee, then onto all fours, then you lay flat. After an hour of hissing, sizzling, you lay wide-spread on the ground, almost exhausted - if a robot can be - looking altogether the same as you did before, and the smoke that once stuck to you seeming to have expended itself. Burnt itself out, but on what? You struggle to understand. It was… advancing fate… to it's end.

You guess, maybe it never found one? For yourself. It explored all it could. Possibilities you don't even know of yet - and passed so quickly that you can't even identify.

Your diagnostics are going crazy. All kinds of warnings. You'd think you were dying out here.

But you aren't, and it all seems to resolve. Every error checks out - every damage warning mysteriously reverted… or, well. Fixed itself, as fate intended.

Then you look to your left, and a small green hiss is emerging from your shoulder, and the seams of the craft around you, and then your chest. You furrow your brows, and then they stop.

You see a white flash, and the next thing you know, you wake up in your room at your compound.

TK-04 CHASSIS - TK-04-35c: awake.tk +recoveryprotocol

The first thing you see is a video recording of your body exploding, as well as the ship, and the building next to it crumbling. Recorded by… your ship, and then outside cameras from other buildings... and one other. You can't tell where it came from...

You check through other footage - no foul play - but… you don't remember doing this to yourself. But there is a figure in the background of a few of these shots, something deep and hazy. Glowing green. Seams in places… Same horns? It looks like… it almost looks like you - but you know that you're the only one of yourself you allow to persist. Wait. Is that where the camera came from? Did he plant this footage?

Fuck, fuck, you know. You figured you'd be your own biggest enemy. You're not the hunter anymore.

Is this how it feels to be on the wrong side of the coin? Tick, tock.

Of course the fucker would give you a taste of the ultimate power of fate before he killed you. That's EXACTLY something you'd do. Of course you would.

[crazy56u]

Happy 2023, and huge shoutout to the dummy who intended to watch this live due to having Monday off, only to then get asked to work that night anyway!

Already starting off on the right foot, he said sarcastically…

Previously on Quantum Leap: a bunch a shit happened, and Addison is in danger because of reasons.

Hard cut to paparazzi!

“Outta the shot!” Aww, that’s not nice, Ben earned a photobomb.

Okay, why is Carly giving off Janis Joplin vibes?

Also, why is Carly the tallest person in the world?

Okay, the guy Ben leapt into is 100% the guy from the State Farm commercials.

“I can’t believe you remembered I have a mom!”

In another world, this is a James Bond theme song.

“Addison, where are you, you’re missing some sick shit.”

Addison has been waiting two whole months to find out more about her death premonition.

“Fate’s Wide Wheel” walked so that this song could waltz.

There’s a world where this demo session lasted the whole episode.

“Sorry about that dramatic exit last time, it must’ve put a damper on the past few months.”

I love how Ben just sped through the exposition so that he and Addison could argue more.

“Carly died during her sound check. …wait, ain’t this-” “(Ben runs like the Flash)”

Just think, if Ben and Addison had their fight a split second longer, Carly would’ve turned into chunky salsa right then and there.

“SOMEBODY TELL ME WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED!” Dude, you have eyes.

Wow, this episode really is just “Glitter Rock”: a singer almost gets lighting rigged, and then they get murdered after the big show.

“So, what do we know?” Ernie Hudson, getting philosophical on our asses.

“You don’t just step into a quantum accelerator unless it’s to save a person’s life!” Magic, Sam stepped into the accelerator to make sure the funding didn’t get yanked. Pick a new theory.

Okay, but why would preventing Addison’s death require leaping into the future, though? Just so see what happens so they can prevent it in the past? Isn’t that overly complicating things, though?

Plot twist: Magic isn’t having headaches because of the time travel bullshit, he just has undiagnosed chronic migraines.

“How do we prevent something from happening if we don’t know what that is?” That literally describes 95% of this entire series.

Look, at this point, Janis is probably just doing all of the shit she’s done because she was bored, we don’t fucking know.

MORAL OF THE STORY: If you let your code become open source, it will fuck your in the ass.

Janis is in Belize? Didn’t know this show too place in the Breaking Bad universe…

“Is that Elton John?” “Maybe he murders Carly…” It would be a fucking funny plot twist if Elton John actually was the murderer.

I love how Ben is speaking into his wrist to cover for him talking to Addison, as if wrist microphone technology fucking existed in 1979.

“How did you see that light?” He has eyes, Carly.

Addison picked the worst time to leave…

“Look, I need to focus on my job, also I’m engaged, so, uh, yeah.”

Ma’am, it’s the tail end of the 1970s, I am certain you have had worse pity parties.

Ben has to get rid of a junkie sibling. Only in Chicago.

And of course the junkie was the murderer!

“I’ve heard such great things… (proceeds to suplex her)”

“What, you’re not gonna let me in either? You’re acting like I’m gonna murder her!

Only Ben could make a lie sound honest.

“Ben, how fucking dare you sympathize with the junkie murderer.”

What if turns out she actually is sober, and everyone is a jerk for thinking differently?

“Most killers don’t seem like killers.” Fucking mic drop.

“Look, I’ll be quick, it’s not like Janis is about to show up and eat most of my time.”

“Welcome back to Chicago,” a sentence no one says willingly.

I suspect Ian is a die hard conspiracy theorist.

“She used to write all my songs.” Ah. That explains the jealousy…

“I think her sister is clean and sane.” “Jack, I wanna yell at you, but not during the interview, come with me.”

Why do I have a sinking suspicion that those letters are forced, and the manager is the killer?

…holy shit, this really is “Glitter Rock”; every is a fucking suspect!

Meanwhile, in a place that is not Chicago…

“You happen to know the WiFi password?” Easy; “password”

“I’m not here to arrest you, Janis,” she lied effortlessly.

“Family’s complicated.” Janis, Al would have a stroke if he heard you drugged your mom, pick a new excuse.

“Why did Ben come to be when he had all of you?” … … …don’t tell me Janis was gaslighting Ben all this time…

I love how Ben and Addison have resorted to just pacing in circles.

Did Addison seriously dead ass suggest using Carly as bait?

“Yeah, that’s why you tell her about the plan-” Addison, that’s still using her as bait, what the fuck

“She trusts you! Try trusting her! No, I’m not projecting about you keeping shit from me, shut up!”

“Is this about Carly, or about us?” Yes.

I honestly hate how my “Janis gaslit Ben” theory is starting to make more sense.

“What’re you doing?” “What I always do when I’m in Chicago: almost get killed.”

And Carly decided “Fuck the lot of ya, I’m out.”

…yeah, okay, Trevor is the murderer.

“Okay, I’m angry.” No shit.

I choose to believe that wasn’t in the script; Ernie Hudson is legitimately angry over this plot development.

“Look, shit sucks, that’s why we need to talk to each other.”

And Carly has decided to get crunk.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you before.” You’re not, but go on.

“Carly, Trevor is the real bad guy.” “… … … ( runs away in anger)”

“We can’t change the past.” Ben, it’s this show. Shut up.

Okay, points to Trevor for not even bothering to try and lie. He knows he’s hosed.

Okay, Ben fucking “Bye Felicia”ed his ass, kudos.

Meanwhile, back in Not Chicago…

I like the implication several hours passed in real time, and Janis and Jenn spent all that time drinking silently.

“These are my bodyguards.” “(Uno reverse card) Try again.”

“I drank all the coffee. I can’t feel my heart.”

Hug your sister, damnit.

Thank you.

“Well, Addison… we did it.” “…Ben, there’s still 12 minutes.”

Meanwhile, Trevor is blacked out in a gutter right now.

“Look, fuck being afraid, we’re smoking this bitch out. The concert’s on.”

FUCK YEAH “RAM JAM”

…so he wasn’t faking when he was shocked about the invite?

Magic Payphone

“Look, I’m outta a job and fucking drunk, why are you fucking harassing me, Jack…”

Trevor, stop monologuing and state the name!

Did Ben get stabbed, or slashed? That was hard to tell…

Meanwhile, while Ben is bleeding out, Janis’ vacation time is over.

I choose to believe Magic is just going to lock in a broom closet until she talks.

Ben, you got stabbed, just because you are about to leap doesn’t mean you skimp on proper stitching.

“Good evening, Chicago! My back up singer tried to stab me tonight, so here’s her replacement: my sister!”

Now they sound like Fleetwood Mac.

Addison, that was mean.

And Ben’s reward for saving the day? The shittiest ER episode!

This was well worth the wait; the back half looks extremely promising.

[surely-galena]

Hey Galena!

Much much much much thoughts on your status quo post so imma drop this all in an ask and not discord because.... well, no reason.

//cn spoilers

You are so right something is shifting right now bc in current main story the nxx is drifting apart and the boys are pushing Rosa away and frankly, all around sussiness (i haven't read it, i've only read my friend freaking out about it)

For main 5 traitor route, disregarding Vyn's status as sussy, I actually see Marius and Artem as traitor more because they have more at stake here. It's just 1) so interesting to see them!! Traitors!! and 2) I want to see what would happen that Marius can't manipulate out of a situation and turn traitor for some reason or even better, what would happen to cause Artem to become a traitor.

What's more interesting than Kiki though: If Darius has some important information we don't know about.

YES. JEROME. 5TH LI ROUTE. JEROMEEEEEEE (thank you for the shoutout). Jerome 5th LI makes so much sense, man's got a whole illustration dedicated to him, a whole new outfit, lore, hotness, and he's the black hair LI we need in ToT and the only reason Marius enemies to lovers route isn't real is because they had to save it for Jerome (coping)

If Zangr was right all along though, it could be interesting for Hoyo to put a bit of horror into it. What if this point gets explored in the "mls figured out Rosa was being controlled by some unknown entity... ". For instance... Us. The player. The manipulator. The puppeteer dragging Rosa around on the string.

I once had an idea with Rosa time looping except she was consciously aware of it and sets out to change her fate. (Context: she died episode 6 with the air tank thing) I never completed it :'D but the idea is she finds herself time looping over and over again whenever she dies and slowly unites NXX and tries to prevent repeating prior mistakes

OH MY I DIDN'T READ YOUR POINT 6 WHEN I WROTE POINT 1 BUT YES YES YES YOU ARE SO RIGHT

Alternatively, what if we're not hearing all of her thoughts? We think we know Rosa pretty well because of what we read about her, but what if that's just a small peek into her psyche, enough for us to think we know her, when in reality we know nothing about her?

I love outsider POV stories. It's always so interesting to see something major - for instance, a time travel story - but everyone else's POV is shown except the time traveler's. Also I think Baldr is a joke because well, Rosa POV and we always beat her. But it'd be so interesting to see everything from a Baldr POV and show that they aren't the losers we see them as. Maybe we get a Baldr POV story and we find out they have deep ties with Heirson, NXX, and holds a lot more power than we thought. Then we head back to NXX POV and we're freaked out about what we've learned... that the team doesn't know. (I am playing a game rn where we go through the story from our team's POV, then after the chapter is completed, we unlock a shorter Hidden Story for that chapter, where we get backstory & depyh on the events of the chapter we just played, all from an outsider POV. Devs have used this to break my heart with antagonist lore several times hfjksahjkfs - did we literally just beat up the antagonist only to get smacked in the face with her backstory and find out that the place we fought her at is her home and she's never going to be able to return again? Yes. - and while I love Anomaly THIS WOULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH MORE INTERESTING. For instance, we get a look into Pedro's psyche and guilt as he sabotages Grandpa Vern, someone he once thought of - and possibly still thinks of! - as a grandparent or his acceptance of his fate after, with a "I deserve this" mindset.)

I don't know if the story will have a happy ending - it really depends on if the prologue is also the actual ending with Luke, Artem, and Marius gone and Vyn being the only one remaining. Which would make me cry so hard but at the same time... what happened?

Oh gosh Rose I'm sorry answering this took so long!

1. Is that so about the main story? That's an interesting turn because they were never that close in the first place, it was only because of MC + Nosta + other team events that they started to grow closer. So for them to grow apart again might be an interesting development. It is, however, mildly funny for them to push MC away because although it's most likely for her safety, it also sounds like they want her out of the picture because she does the team building, she brings them together -- and they don't have to function as a cooperative group if she's not around!!

2. I agree that Artem would be an interesting option because of how connected his character is to the law. To have him resort to perhaps more underhanded tactics, perhaps for Neil, would be an interesting twist.

3. Yeah, that's fair about Darius! The NXX would barely be able to make the important arrests without him, so to have Darius not entirely on their side would definitely change things up.

4. Jerome has a lot of potential for an enemies-to-lovers route, so if canon doesn't do it, I'm sure fanon will eventually come up with something XD

5. Ahh, referencing / talking to the player! That one is fun, too, although the developers would have to be careful because you don't want to attack the player or make it so abrupt that you rip the player from their immersion.

8. Exactly! It would be such a twist if we weren't hearing all of MC's thoughts. It would be the unreliable narrator all over again and it would dramatically change the way we saw MC.

9. That's a really great concept, actually. I like the Anomaly levels, too, but having Outsider POV or side stories would really flesh out the world of Stellis so that it feels more like an actual place where people live and struggle and work. I think it's great that the NPCs aren't entirely discarded (e.g. MC running into them in certain events), but it would also be very cool to hear from their perspective.

10. I like to think there would at least be a hopeful ending, because that seems to be a recurring theme in the game. I hear hyv does have a pattern for tragic stories, however, so while everything might not be completely okay in the end, I think the main cast will have to be in a relatively stable place. This sort of links back to the otome aspect -- because there aren't multiple endings, that means there's only one true ending per love interest, and as such, they would all need to be okay so they can live happily with MC in their respective routes. The prologue being the ending would be very interesting for the circular effect, though!

Thanks for discussing this with me! Again, I apologize that this took me so long to get to!

[thorias]

That's how they save Gambit. // The Watcher was in the sky. That implies that the massacre is a fixed event. Gambit unfortunately will stay dead. The writer confirmed as much when he said that the characters will have to deal with the deaths in Genosha. The deaths will stick.

It implies that a fixed event was happening, not that the massacre itself was fixed.

There are literally shots in the trailer of Magneto putting the red suit and helmet back on that we haven't seen in the show yet. And Madelyne "died" without even wrapping up the psychic affair story. Do you honestly think we're not going to see these people again? The story is about time travel for crying out loud. Bishop even said that time is constantly changing and rewriting itself; the writers didn't put that line in there for no reason.

I'm not saying all the deaths will be undone; some of them won't be, I'm sure. But you don't establish that Cable's whole purpose this season is about stopping the attack and then have him NOT change anything.

Personally, I believe that if there's a major death that sticks at the end of this, it's going to be Madelyne because, in a story where Cable plays a pivotal role, she makes the most sense AND it would resolve the Scott/Jean drama.

Think of it this way... What if it wasn't the attack that was the fixed event, but Madelyne's death? The scene with Cable indicated that he's tried and failed several times to prevent the attack, but why? Maybe because he's been focusing on saving his mother. We know he's fixated on her because she's the one he tried to warn at the gala and also he had that scene with her on the psychic plane in ep1 as well.

But if her death is the 'fixed' part, that would explain why he keeps failing. Maybe there's no way to stop the attack AND save Madelyne because the key to stopping it is something she does, but at the cost of her life. Maybe it is possible to prevent or at least change the attack, but there's no way to do it without Madelyne dying, so Cable's forced to choose between saving his mother and saving everyone else, and the reason he keeps failing is because he wasn't willing to make that choice.

Maybe this is just me in wild speculation mode, but I could see Madelyne sacrificing herself to save all the others. We'd see her again first to tie up the story with Scott/Jean, but I absolutely think Madelyne's role in this is going to be crucial. They've dropped too many hints for me to think otherwise.

Gambit and Magneto, though? They're coming back.

[theworldbrewery]

ever done a mini-campaign?

When most of us think of a ttrpg campaign, it’s fair to say that long-form campaigns are the prototype. Playing with the same group of players in the same world, following multiple plotlines for a very. long. time. The iconic examples of The Adventure Zone Balance, Critical Role, and Rusty Quill Gaming span out-of-game years in the making. And plenty of folks hold those up as the ideal way to play the game.

Have you ever considered...not doing that?

A short-form ttrpg game might be for you and your friends if your schedules are tight; playing a one-off, single-session game may work better when you never know when you’ll have the chance to play again. Some ttrpgs are also simply designed for shorter gameplay, with natural breaks built in where you can end a campaign.

But at times, you still want the character arc, the delight of building character relationships, and the sense of growing tension across multiple “episodes.” Or maybe you prefer the D&D or Pathfinder system and don’t want to learn to play games that have shorter timelines built in.

Enter: the mini-campaign. Spanning anywhere from five to twenty sessions, it can last as long as you and your GM want. Examples include Dimension 20′s games, as well as the Exandria Unlimited series by Critical Role.

To run a mini-campaign, all the GM needs is a few simple elements.

A contained setting.

A problem endemic to the setting.

An antagonist involved in making the problem worse or better.

A defined end-point that will occur in the near-ish future.

For the first, just come up with a specific setting as normal, then have a pretext to keep the party from leaving for too long.

A simple setting could be a single town, sizable enough that the PCs don’t know literally everyone, and the pretext could be the PCs lack the resources to pay for travel. Or they have homes and family ties in town that they don’t want to leave behind.

More complicated settings could be a snowy mountain range where the PCs are stranded after a zeppelin crash, a tropical island resort where they are on vacation, or a polar research station. The world is truly your oyster here, and the more wildly specific your setting, the more wild the storyline can become.

For the second element, a problem endemic to the setting simply means that this place has a problem that is unique in some way. If I leave the tropical resort, the problem likely will not follow me. For example, the tropical island could have issues with their power grid that lead to frequent blackouts, ruining countless vacations. It’s important to understand that the problem doesn’t have to be this major, systemic issue like speciesism or climate change.

The third element, an antagonist involved somehow, means that either the antagonist wants to deliberately make the problem worse for their own gain, or who thinks they’re solving the problem but it has extremely bad consequences in another way.

In a polar research station setting where the problem is that they’ve lost contact with the outside world, one researcher might be trying to kill their coworkers, having accidentally made contact with a chthonic being from the Fantasy Arctic. The researcher thinks they’re saving the world by preventing the group from drilling any deeper and freeing the being--but it’s only chthonic madness encouraging the violence. In reality, the survivors are the world’s best chance at keeping the entity from rising.

In our tropical resort setting, perhaps a scheming tourist is trying to take advantage of the outages to revenge himself upon his annoying in-laws, frame the PCs for the murders, and sue the resort for emotional damages.

The fourth element makes this into a mini-campaign. The story has a win condition and a lose condition, and the campaign ends with one of those two options. In the tropical resort, catching the murderous tourist and clearing the PCs’ names is the end of the story--or failing to do so, and being arrested or murdered themselves. In the polar research station, either the PCs stop the rise of a chthonic entity or they don’t. Win and Lose.

Essentially, the whole campaign has a ticking clock attached to it. Waiting too long to act means the bomb goes off. Failing means the bomb goes off. And you can’t drag the story out for too long, because one way or another, that bomb has to be dealt with.

Final Notes:

A mini-campaign is best run at lower levels--anywhere from 3rd to 9th, in my opinion. Any higher and the PCs have too much power. Any lower and they’re functional disasters. I encourage a loose level-up structure based on milestone leveling rather than XP, since mini-campaigns don’t have the structure for several high-XP boss battles.

You can add additional plot threads and antagonists as much as you like, but keep in mind they will make your campaign longer accordingly.

Let the campaign be silly, or break out of the usual genre of swords-and-sorcery. Having a secondary genre, like a murder mystery or cosmic horror, can really make a mini-campaign stand out to your players.

You must run a session zero. This is nonnegotiable. The reason? You will need to establish the relationships between PCs before starting, or they will spend too long in the “getting to know you” phase. It’s also just more fun for your players to have established grudges, inside jokes, and so on. Additionally, since you will not be running a sandbox campaign here, you will need to be sure your PCs are buying in to the setting’s premise.

What I mean by that is, if the party is at a tropical resort, they most likely are there because they like tropical vacations (or got dragged along by someone who does). A PC who isn’t built for a world where they take tropical vacations, or who has no vested interest in enjoying their vacation, is unlikely to care about someone else ruining their vacation. Some things need to be established pre-game to make sure everyone is on the same page. I recommend you also discuss the genre: if it’s going to be a murder mystery, the players shouldn’t act like it’s a slash-and-burn total war environment, or what’s the entire point? Good players will respect the genre they’re told they’re playing in, and avoid being too genre-savvy or too genre-stupid.