#need to reset somehow but don't have the means

[dcxdpdabbles]

Cave boy Danny AU where he's half asleep and rambling as he mentions some people back home like his exes (especially Valerie), his English teacher, this stalker of his who he likes messing with, and the annoying fruitloop who's the bane of his existence! They're concerned. Only once he's fully awake when they ask for names.

Lancer is Alfred, Talia is Val, maybe Paulina is Julie Madison but idk, Wes is Edward/The riddler (I'm pretty sure there was a time he had a reddish orange hair. Either way, he was the same model as Danny so maybe Wes dyed his hair to not be confused with the Fentons in this AU), and Vlad is Ra's!

Hello! This actually falls out of my planned plotline for Cave Boy, but I will write something for you that is close to the prompt to make up for it! Hope that's okay and that you like it

Flash sends them a message sometime in the early afternoon before any of the Bats are ready to go out. In fact, Damian, Duke, Steph, and Jason are in class when his message arrives.

Bruce, Dick, Tim, Cass, and Barbara are at work. As the Flash is one of the few who knows what the Batfamily is doing during these hours, it is rare for him to bother at this hour. He would have usually waited until after five as that was when a majority of them became available.

They all quickly check their phones when they vibrate to ensure it's not a world-ending threat, just in case.

Since the messages would be sent to their civilian phones- anyone in the know of the Bat's real identity chooses to text in a very specific code. This way, no one would know what they were saying, and the Bats would realize they were speaking to who they thought they were.

Barry Allen chose Disney theme GIFs as his code.

A gif of Mulan singing Reflections lets them all know that somehow, the speedster has again opened a portal into a different dimension and/or mess with time.

"Why is my reflection someone I don't know?" meant "A double of one of you has crossed over from a different dimension and/or timeline"

This causes a brief ripple of anxiety. The last time someone had a double, it was Tim, and his future version of himself was crazy, evil, and surprisingly capable. It took Tim almost ending his life to beat the guy.

Thankfully, the second GIF comes through seconds later. This one is Mulan's Honor To Us All.

"Please bring honor to us all" meant "The double is friendly."

The last Gif was from Lion King, Timon cheerfully singing Hakuna Matata. "It means no worries for the rest of your days" meant "Sorry for the trouble."

Those in class return to their various lessons, but Tim quickly responds, "I love that movie! We should watch Mulan again the next time I see you, Uncle Barry!"

This means, "We will meet the double tonight."

The rest of the day drags on as they all slowly start to make bets on who the double would be for. They all agree that Cass is long overdue to face herself again. Still, Dick makes the complying argument that Duke needed to have his first "My counterpart from another dimensional/ Timal plane" moment.

They all actively hope Duke can clear another block on his Bat-bingo card. He gets two more and a complimentary tray of any of his favorite Alfred's desserts.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

That night, they all meet up in the watch tower, each clutching their bingo card just in case. (The game resets every month, and so far, Jason has written down the most accurate predictions. He needed two more squares for a cooking lesson of his favorite meal, and he was out for blood)

They all silently go to the conference room, where Barry entertains the guests. Apparently, they were trying to find discrepancies in their world's history and the double's life to help find which world they came from and send them back.

They were being shown the main rouges to test the timeframe.

"Is that Wes!?" A young male teenager yells. Sadly, Steph swears, staring at her "A new Batgirl from a different world" box.

"We call him Edward when he's not in his costume. Otherwise, his name is the Riddler." Barry answers, amusement clear in his voice.

"Riddler? How is Riddler menacing? What does he tell you, riddles of death or something?"

"You be surprised......."

Bruce gets to the door, pushing it open with a quick flick of the wrist, and inside is Barry sitting at the conference table next to a boy with dark hair and blue eyes. In front of them is a hologram showcasing the Gotham Rouge files.

There are papers and pencils scattered on the table. Likely, they have been writing down notes of the differences they have spotted.

Barry's eyes flicker to them, but the boy is too distracted to count on his fingers.

"Okay, so Wes is Riddler, Val is Talia, Fruitloop is Ra's, Sckuller is Bane, and ugh....for some reason, Spectra is Harley Quinn." The boy finishes checking his notes.

"For some reason? I thought you said Spectra studied psychology too."

"yeah, but Harley Quinn actually got a Ph.D. What did Spectra do? Land a school counselor position? Please." The boy rolls his eyes dismissively, and Barry frowns.

He's never taken kindly to people disregarding another person's profession, especially if it was connected to the educational system in some way.

"Hey now, that's an important job, and you need years of study before you can be a school counselor-"

"I bet Spectra peaked in high school. That's why she's like that." The boy cut him off, nodding as though he had found the universe's answer.

Well.....this was either a version of Jason, Tim, or maybe early Dick, that was a little too sassy but not angry? It's not sad either; it's more like, fed up? Or teenage tired.

"Oh, who are they?" The boy asks, and Barry zips right next to Batman.

"Danny, meet Batman...the you of this world. And his kids."

Danny squints. "Who is your mom, and how easy am I? Because there is a lot of you that I fathered for me to not be easy."

Jason burst out laughing, checking a box. "Yes, someone calling Bruce easy in costume. That's on bingo for me!"

[yuri-is-online]

And Your Name Is? (Deuce, Azul, and Floyd)

After successfully resolving whatever was causing NRC to be trapped in an endless time loop of overblotting and disaster, one last reset should give him a chance to experience a normal school year with you. But instead you find yourself trapped in the here and there, appearing as a vague shadow around the school that vanishes as soon as he catches up to you. The kind thing to do would be to allow you to be forgotten in the chance it lets you return to your world.

But this is Twisted Wonderland where the kind thing is seldom done, and he wants you back as much as you want to find him again.

notes: they/them used for Yuu, we are back in business bby, these three are by request, next up are Lilia, Jamil, and Grim! Angst with the intent of comfort, if you like this please consider checking out my masterlist for the previous three parts.

Deuce

"Don't go where I can't follow."

Deuce has said that many times before.  He wonders if you thought he didn't mean it or had taken it as a joke, and truly he cannot decide which is worse. He had foolishly thought when he first woke up and saw the school year begin anew that he could relax knowing he wouldn't need to chase you across an ocean into the depths of S.T.Y.X. He should have known it wouldn't be that easy, his memories of you might have been scattered across time and space but he knew with certainty this set back did not surprise him.

"Are you alright?" Trey's concern does not go unappreciated, but Deuce can't really bring himself to respond out loud. "You seem a bit distracted." There are countless wishing stars hung above him in the trees, he wishes he remembered if any of the wishes he heard had been the same. He knows his no longer is.

"Let him be." Idia surprisingly in the flesh, but still draped like a wet cat over the drums. "We can afford to take a break anyway." His seniors move away as Deuce remains staring up at the wishing stars. Yuu is sort of the same color as them now, and just as ephemeral.

"Do you remember this?" The starsender robes don't feel as special anymore, he wants to be proud that he was really meant for this task seeing how time itself has seen fit to make him repeat it. "I only remembered to ask you what your wish was after... I think you passed it off as me being dumb but I don't think that's what happened now. Somehow I knew if I asked you to make a wish what you would say." A gentle breeze sways the little lights above his head as Deuce tries to spot the star Trey had helped him make. "I meant what I said, I want you to see just how cool I'll look in my officer's uniform. I want to make my mom and grandma proud, and I want you to come home and be proud of me with them." Sometimes he swears he can feel your head leaning on his shoulder, your arms embracing him from behind, your voice carried by the breeze drowning out shouts for him to come back to reality and pay attention to his surroundings. There's a legend in Twisted Wonderland about a man that dives into the Underworld to rescue his beloved, you had told him your world has the same story but it has a different ending. Deuce doesn't want to think about that as his hands curl around where yours should be, just over his rapidly beating heart. "I wish," he already has but he swears the star twinkles with magic in response all the same "for Yuu to come home." He squeezes your hand and jumps when he finds purchase, your weight forcing him to stumble forward and crash as he rapidly tries to turn and see your face.

Idia and Trey make noises of surprise, he thinks that they're talking but he can't seem to hear them above the sound of your heavy breaths. "I'm back Deucey." You whisper softly into the evening air.

"Welcome back Yuu." He hopes you never make him let you go again.

Azul

There is a mournful song flowing through this strange cold place you have found yourself. It's familiar, but you swear you have never heard it before, perhaps it is the voice you find yourself stumbling towards and not the music itself.

"There you are." It's pleased with itself this voice. "Come to spend some time with me again?" You don't know, you can't even really tell where you are. It looks like an office, but it is bereft of papers or any light. You feel more than see the desk at the center, the smooth grain of the wood chills your fingertips as you run along looking for something. A sigh rattles the room as you are dragged away, back to the mirror chamber by frighteningly cold darkness and you grope wildly around for the person you thought had been there with you. "Goodnight Yuu. I will see you tomorrow."

"Why can't you see me today?" You swear you speak but you hear no noise. And in the solid space you've left behind Azul leans back against his chair and studies the ceiling above him. He should be pleased. He had a theory and the tattered scraps of paper in his hand would seem to have proved it. Azul should be angry that your state demands such a sacrifice of him, he should be weighing the potential cost of this decision. Of saving you.

But instead he laughs.

"Yuu. Yuu, Yuu, Yuu. I wonder if I ever stood a chance." He knows the answer of course, but he wonders if it is as ingrained in your soul as it is his. ~~~~ "Do you believe in other worlds Yuu?" The voice is asking you a silly question, and you chase after it determined to tease. "And I don't mean like yours, I mean completely other realities where things even mages would find unbelievable exist." You manage to push yourself through the waters and begin to wander the purple and grey hued halls, desperately searching for someone you swear is here, his name on the tip of your tongue. "I admit it's not something I ever thought too much about, but after we got together the first time I would lie awake thinking about it. You and I meeting was never a guarantee, so why did it feel so much like fate? I think I asked you once."

"Don't underestimate me." You can hear yourself now, and the walls around you are coming into more solid focus. There is only one door between you and the person you have been searching for now. "I will find you in every lifetime." Delighted laughter moves towards you now, as the door opens to reveal the outline of a man, shimmering just like you.

"Yes that's exactly what you said." His hand is cold, you reach to catch it worried it will fall through you and almost sob as you both find the familiar sensation of the other's touch. "And I think I said, 'Well that's not threatening at all!' Because in my mind there was no other way for us to meet than as adversaries, but that didn't need to be true did it?" Azul's coat and scarf is slung over the back of his chair, your breath catches in your throat at the unusual sight of Azul in just his tuxedo. He preens under your attention, guiding you carefully towards the couch, hands trembling in equal relief, excitement, and still small fear that this was all a painful dream. The shredded remnants of carefully counted contracts can remain scattered across the desk behind you, yet he finds himself surprisingly unconcerned. He curls himself around you, sighing in content at the return of the warmth of your solid form. "I found you this time." You return his embrace with a half sob, the memory of the here and there cementing itself within your fears alongside the sheer relief of Azul's presence. "If other worlds do exist, if time gets re-set again, even if you are forced to return to where you came from, please don't underestimate me either. We found each other once, and we will in every timeline we exist." He kisses your hand and dares reality to prove him wrong.

Floyd

"Man every day's a party when I'm with you. I can't get enough!" He had really meant it, but he could see the doubts still flickering behind that smile.

"Glad you had fun Floyd."

Had. You were glad he "had" fun not "was having." It was an odd thing to get caught up on, Floyd didn't fully understand why it soured his mood so much himself. There was always this carefully crafted barrier between the two of you, carefully built up by you that he never noticed until it was too late. Until little shrimpy was just Yuu and the nickname became a facade to deny the depth of his emotions.

It was silly to think that he was the only one lying to himself.

"Y'know you can't stay all ghostie like that forever." He tries to poke you, disappointed in how you shimmery form neither disappears nor wavers. "It's not good for your health." Floyd has never had the smoothest of emotions, they tumble around his chest like waves, but he knows them to be consistent. He hates standing in place and doing the same thing over and over, he loves it when people make stupid mistakes and he gets to watch them blow up (sometimes literally) in their face, and he hates how predictable he has been. The jumbled memory of countless looping timelines and never once did he do anything more than maybe chase you around a little and come up with excuses to monopolize your attention. Floyd wants to squeeze himself, that's what this entire situation already feels like anyway. "Say do you know what humans used to say about merfolk?" His mood twitches back to something like happiness as he rolls his head up from lying on the library table up onto his hands. "They thought that when we died we turned into sea foam cause we didn't have souls. Isn't that silly! Say Yuu, which one of us looks like foam now huh?" Floyd hasn't cried since he was a fry, but these past few days he feels like he has done little but cry and sleep. In his dreams he gets to re-write his impossible memories to be a little lighter, he gets to drop the nickname and call out to you and have you cry out to him in return. In his dreams everyday is still a party and not a waking nightmare. Your hand, or maybe he is delusional and has begun to dream yet again, reaches towards him, fighting its foamy nature to try and touch his head.

"I like you." He had said it into your neck while you died that time, still lying to save himself some face in case that was the last thing you wanted to hear. "C'mon dance with me Yuu!" He had tried hyping himself up in his head, all words dying in his throat when he finally spun you away from Crabby and Mackerel calling you shrimpy once again.

"I love you." Why is he only brave enough to say it now when he swears it won't actually matter? "I think I've loved you since the first time ya tricked Azul and then immediately every time I saw you after. So come back yeah? I thought I had all the time in the world but I don't, and I ain't ever gonna be board of having you around..." The foam flickers, and for a brief delusional moment Floyd thinks he sees your proper face. "You know that, right?"

"I love you too." It's watery, he feels the answer somewhere in his soul rather than hears it as you crash under your own weight back into reality and onto the hard wood of the NRC library. His laughter cackles up and out across the whole school as he leaps across and over to catch you up and soothe your bruises with soft kisses, not at all the activity Jade expects to find him engaged in when he follows rather than flees at the noise.

"Mine." He kisses your pulse point and you wonder, not for the first time but with much more joy than sorrow, why it was his hand you were searching for. "My Yuu." Floyd purrs, a dangerous tittering laugh of genuine relief convincing you of his genuineness more than anything else.

If he was going to get bored of you, he would have done it timelines ago.

[carlyraejepsans]

Oh! What are your headcanons for frisk? I know we don't know much about them in canon so it's hard to extrapolate but I'm still curious

oh sure! mind, these are all personal headcanon, as there isn't all that much canon info i can go off of, HAHAHA

obviously I don't think frisk had a happy home life, just like chara. but while chara's abuse was more active, i think frisk's abuse came from neglect rather than outright hostility or violence from the people around them. maybe they were a single, unwanted child. maybe they were among the last of many, many siblings. too many to be notable... or missed. so they left.

by the time the game starts, they've already been living on the streets (of the city that became of the village of the humans that chara was born in) for a few years. they get by with their wits. i think they're VERY clever, unnaturally so for their age, and judging from their ability to talk/charm themself into and out of anything in the game, they probably refined that skill for survival (you make yourself liked enough, people are quicker to show you kindness. leftover food, a dry shop window to sleep in at night, some used clothes).

undertale itself raises the question of why frisk climbed Mt Ebott. i like the idea that it was a force outside of themself. like a sudden, SOUL deep tension that would only release if they followed the call. an intrinsic certainty that, somewhere, somehow, someone really needed them. maybe it was fate. maybe it wasn't. maybe they were tied to chara's spirit long before they ever fell (by blood, as a long descendant? by magic? both?) and they were reacting to flowey calling out for them. point is, they felt the instinct, and they followed it.

because here's the thing: in my take on this, frisk desperately wants to be needed. that's what ties them so closely to chara. going with the more literal interpretation of them as a ghost, chara still has unfinished business in the underground. they haunt their former home, much like flowey did, and they NEED to see more of it, they just can't let it go. and they can't do it without frisk. they need them. so frisk goes along, because FINALLY, they're needed. that's why they reset at the end and try again, that's why they keep returning to the underground. but of course, chara isn't the only undertale character who needs frisk. the entirety of monsterkind does, and the entirety of monsterkind gets better thanks to their intervention. flowey, too. asriel, too. that's what resolves chara's unfinished business and allows them to finally let go (i mean... as long as YOU do, too, of course :])

and this is precisely the reason I'm not a fan of making frisk traumatized by their experiences in the underground. having leftover baggage from before they came? love that. but the whole point of their journey, to me, is that they were the single most powerful being in the entire story. the amount of liberties they could take, with their actions, with their words, with their own person, due to the sheer scale of power they had on everything else.. sure there was violence, and fear, and adventures and misadventures and betrayals, but when you can literally control time, i think that was almost euphoric for them.

after the life they used to lead, i like to think frisk saw their experiences in the underground as positive. no more powerlessness. no more loneliness. finally in (shared) control of their life. was it maladaptive as hell? yeah! but it was better than nothing! and if you've been following me for more than a month, you'll know by now that i am obsessed with the idea of a post pacifist, reset-heavy frisk freaking out AFTER their happy ever after, when chara doesn't follow them out of mt ebott and takes the SAVE power along with them (which is... kinda what happens in the game). being back to square one would mess them Up. fortunately, they now have a whole support system of family and friends who love them to make them feel needed and safe. it's gonna take some work, but man. it's gonna be worth it.

[lucy90712]

Young parents- Marc Guiu

Finding out you are pregnant at 17 and then giving birth at 18 is not exactly the normal life course and it's definitely not how I expected my life to go but that's exactly what happened. My boyfriend Marc and I were always careful and used protection but we were unlucky and somehow I still got pregnant. We had to have a hard discussion on whether we wanted to keep the baby or not as we are still young but in the end we decided to keep the baby as Marc could still play football and I could do school online. Navigating my pregnancy was difficult as we didn't want to tell too many people as I didn't want the judgement from any more people than necessary. Pretty much everything that could be kept secret we kept hidden, we didn't tell people the gender and we didn't tell anyone my due date so that we had a bit more privacy which is what I wanted the most. 

Our beautiful baby boy Benji was born only 3 weeks ago but already Marc went back to training in fact he only got a few days with me before he had to go back leaving me alone with Benji from very early on. To say it's been difficult is an understatement of course newborns need constant attention so I never get chance to sleep as he keeps me up all night and during the day I have work to get on with. For the first few days I was ok and I found a bit of a routine but the last week has been testing, Benji hasn't been sleeping as well and he's been feeding almost constantly which has been really hard. 

I know it's the hormones but since Marc left us this morning at 7am I've been bawling my eyes out. Benji barely slept all night and now I just can't get him to settle even after feeding him, changing him rocking him he's still crying. I'm going insane listening to the sound I hate hearing him cry I feel like I'm failing as a mother because I can't calm him down. After trying pretty much everything I decided that I just need to get out the house even if it's only for about 20 minutes I need some fresh air to reset and hopefully clear my mind and maybe if I'm lucky it will make Benji stop crying. 

Getting him in the stroller was difficult as he didn't stop crying and wriggling but we eventually got out the door and started our slow walk around town. By some miracle Benji stopped crying and started falling asleep in the stroller which made me feel so much better until I noticed that pretty much everyone on the street was staring at me. There was so many eyes on me that I felt the need to put the cover down over Benji so he didn't have so many eyes in him because a 3 week old baby doesn't need that. When the stares didn't stop it was quite clear that people were looking at me and judging me which I already experienced when pregnant but it feels a lot worse right now. 

All I can imagine is that all these people think I'm way too young to be a mum because I am young but I know I look a few years younger than I am. They probably think I'm incapable of taking care of Benji and honestly part of me is inclined to agree I mean all morning he's been crying and I've been crying as I don't know what I'm doing. The longer I kept walking the more I felt judged I even saw people whispering to each other after looking at me and I've never felt so self conscious than I did in that moment. It got to a point that I was feeling worse outside of the house than I was inside so I decided to make my way back home so I can cry in the comfort of my own space. At a crossing I felt this older woman burning holes into the back of my head until she came and stood next to me and I could feel the judgement before she even managed to express her opinion. 

"Aren't you too young to be a parent kids these days are so irresponsible all having babies before they are ready and they can't even look after them properly there is just no hope for the future if kids like you keep having babies" she ranted at me 

"I imagine your so called boyfriend left you to take care of the baby too god you are all the same" she continued 

That was the last straw for me I wasn't about to fight back because I don't have the energy and I'm simply not that type of person instead I just walked away to find a new way home. I've never walked so fast in my life as I just wanted to get home because as soon as I did the tears were back and I just sat on the floor. Looking at the stroller I couldn't help but think that maybe I'm setting my son up for failure I'm not prepared enough to be the best parent for him and Marc can't be around all the time so maybe he would be better off with someone else looking after him. 

While sitting on the floor the front door opened and Marc came in, with everything that's happened today I lost track of time so I didn't realise Marc would be home so soon. I scrambled to wipe the tears from my face and get Benji out of his stroller so Marc didn't think I was neglecting our child. Before I could do that Marc grabbed Benji and held him in one arm before brining me to his chest with the other. He somehow managed to soothe both of us he helped calm me down and got Benji back to sleep. If I didn't feel like a bad mother before I definitely did after that it's been 3 weeks and my son already hates me. 

Marc put the baby in his little crib that we have for him in the living room before coming to sit on the sofa where he instructed me to sit so he could go back to cuddling me. His hand ran through my hair getting all of the knots out before putting it up with the hairband I keep on my wrist at all times. For a little while I felt we were back to how we were before the baby but then I heard Benji make some of the little sniffling noises he makes when asleep and I was brought back to reality. 

"Whats wrong love what's happened to make you so upset?" Marc asked 

"I've just had a bad day Benji didn't sleep last night as you know and he was crying all morning and I just couldn't get him to settle so I decided to get out for a walk to see if some fresh air would help us both but everyone stared at me and someone berated me at a crossing for being too young and not being able to raise him properly" I rambled 

"Oh cariño you should've text me I could've come home earlier to help out you don't have to do this alone I'm here to help you and for the record that person was wrong we might be young but you are the best mum if you weren't you wouldn't be so upset right now" Marc said 

"I just can't deal with the judgement I want to go outside and not have to deal with everyone looking at me assuming things I already feel like a bad mum I don't need strangers telling me that too" I chocked out 

"It's horrible I know but you need to ignore them which I realise is hard but those people don't know you like I do and they don't see how hard you are trying to be the best mum possible because if they did they wouldn't judge you" he comforted 

"How about you come to my training sessions with me it means you get out the house I can help you out a bit more and no one there will judge you what do you think?" He asked 

"I actually like that idea it will be nice to leave the house and see all the guys" I said 

~~~~~~~~~~

Marc woke me up gently this morning so that I could get up and join him at training he even got Benji out of his crib and got him ready for the day so I could shower alone which is a luxury these days. Having a few minutes to myself was so nice but it really was just a few minutes because once I was dressed and had brushed my hair I went downstairs and had to feed Benji because Marc can't do that. While I sat with Benji Marc made breakfast us both and he made sure I had a balanced breakfast which I definitely haven't had since Benji arrived as I usually just grab whatever I can if I even have breakfast. I even got to take my vitamins which have been neglected recently but if I can actually take them I might feel a little less dead each day. 

So far this new routine is so much better I'm not as stressed and there hasn't been any tears from me or the baby which is a significant improvement. Marc even put the baby in the car and still managed to open the passenger door for me like the gentleman he always is. He drove the back way to the training ground so that we could avoid the streets where fans would be stood wanting signatures or pictures. We decided that we didn't want to show Benji on social media more than just his little hand to announce his birth so avoiding fans who could take pictures of him is what we want. Luckily we completely avoided all that and arrived at the training centre with no issues and even a bit earlier than Marc would usually arrive as he didn't have to stop for ages.

We slowly made our way into the training centre because I'm still recovering so can't walk as quickly as I did before. Walking slower also meant we had more time to talk about what it will be like when the whole team meet Benji, Marc told me that he's talked about Benji non stop and the boys are excited to meet him but they know they have to be careful as he's still small which made me feel a lot better. On our way to the locker room we saw lots of staff who all congratulated us and others asked how we were doing. That's something I love about this club everyone gets along and cares about each other every time I came to training with Marc while pregnant someone checked on me and asked if I needed anything plus all the boys were so lovely. 

Marc left me with the baby as he went into the locker room to make sure everyone was decent before opening the door to allow me inside. It was so quiet when I walked in which is very unusual but it was because they were all so excited to meet Benji but didn't want to wake him up. I put the car seat down and gently took Benji out and gave him to Marc who went straight to Hector because he's the person who Marc has confided in the most throughout everything. Watching how Hector and all the others interacted with Benji nearly made me cry, no one else has met Benji until now and I was worried about how it would go but clearly everyone loves him.  With my permission Marc let the guys hold him and when he did he came back to my side and wrapped an arm around my waist and pressed a kiss on my temple. 

"Isn't this so much better" he said 

"It really is everyone here is so nice and supportive and I get to see something other than the four walls of our house" I said 

"I'm glad you are happier you can come with me everyday if you want or just a few times a week it's up to you but everyone here will be happy to see you and they won't judge at all" he said 

[spacedustmantis]

Post-Credits AU intro post!

the genloss au me and my good friend bee @wings-of-flying have been working on for a bit. here's all the basic information

what if charlie hadn't listened when ranboo told him to leave the axe? what if charlie had been able to break through the boarded up door? what if they made it out?

well it would result in a shitload of trauma

after they make it out of the mall and hijack a car charlie tries to get the mask off of ranboo and is half successful. he can't get the wires out of them though and also ranboo passes out before charlie could even get that far. a stranger calls them an ambulance and they end up in hospital. the doctors get the wires out of ranboo's mouth, neck and back and also find a chip in his upper back. when checking up charlie, who has a bad panic attack (he doesn't quite know why yet but he knows he hates hospitals) and needs to be sedated, they find a chip in his back too (spoilers it's trackers). they get the chips out and patch them up. after a bit of talking their nurse (sasha my beloved!) tells them she'd pay for their bills and also recommends they seek professional psychological help.

charlie and ranboo break out of the hospital bc they can't risk showfall finding them and after that they just kinda. live. heal a bit. figure out who they are and what they want, all that stuff. they stay moving. they don't settle down anywhere for too long, staying in motels and homeless shelters. charlie takes up jobs to get them some money, ranboo discovers drawing as a coping mechanism and later hobby and eventually starts selling some of their less personal works for extra money.

eventually, after a few weeks/months of this, charlie starts toying with the idea of going against showfall, motivated by guilt for leaving their friends and a deep seething anger at showfall. ranboo is a bit hesitant since they are mostly just tired and want to leave all that behind, but he does work with charlie on trying to take down showfall.

also, no spoilers but sneeg will show up in this. bc i felt bad not including him somehow.

a few noteworthy extra bits:

ranboo has psychosis in this

charlie goes on daily jogs. he likes the idea of being in shape in case they ever need to fight/run

a big part of this story is them regaining memories from their time with showfall and their life before that

also before breaking out they have gone through the same show and been reset many times. which means ranboo will be regaining memories of dying in the trap, and charlie will be regaining memories of being torn apart by the security

ranboo has scars all over his face bc of the mask

ranboo is a bit suicidal

they do not own anything with cameras or screens

when they need to access the internet, they go to the nearest library

they put up anti-showfall posters, trying to raise awareness

charlie gets a gun. he deserves it

also for convenience, have the playlist we made here too

[dairy-farmer]

Still~ thinking about Time Travel~☆

Bruce would... wait... ACTUALLY??? EVERYONE would fuckin give a LIMB to "go back and Do It Right"(tm)?

Oh :Dc Oh No~ that's a FANTASTIC thought~☆

Some big Everything's Fucked Event. Like when Superboy Prime PUNCHED REALITY and broke it, bringing Jason back. Maybe some shit head reality warper collecting the seven sacred McGuffins or what have you. But they? Can't stop him.

Some of them last longer then others. But the idiot BROKE reality. And eventually? It resets itself.

But!

Tim died BEFORE the Break. Everyone else died AFTER. It was Heroic, of course, tried to destroy the last object before the reality warper could get it. But the bastard already had 6. He got Tim first.

And... they had all been drifting apart. Strained relationships, traumas upon traumas. Never knowing what to SAY. Wanting to fix things. Always somehow making things worse. Trying to do better. And then?

Tim is just... just GONE.

Then they die, Reality in fragments. Like some fucked up Alice in Wonderland fever dream. And? Wake up at different points in their own history.

Bruce blinks. And there is Tim. Tiny and determined to save him from himself. He's so small.

Bruce is collapsing to his knees and dragging him into a hug before he can think of anything else. His son. His boy. Tim. Warm and perfect, uncertain as he awkwardly hugs him back.

And this time he's a better mentor. Past mistakes always haunting him. Better food, better teaching, better gear. Better body management. Stretching and massages. Bruce is... obsessive, unsurprisingly, over Taking Care of Tim. He can't fail again. HAS to be better.

It's inevitable, that it gets weird. Started OUT invasive, after all. Since sexual wellness IS important to mental and emotional regulation, that has to be scheduled too. What do you mean "you don't"? Robin, it's stress relief.

Of course Bruce will show you. Yes of COURSE he's going to get you toys, show you how to use them. No, no, you're doing it wrong. Not like THAT, like THIS. See how he's doing it?

All so very educational.

But! Oh no! What if Robin wants to DATE? It was a disaster for him last time. Bruce better show him. And obviously if he's already doing THAT, he should show him how to put the moves on someone. And since we're doing THAT, it's only reasonable to follow through. Robin can't patrol distracted! That's not safe!

So he HAS to fuck him.

And really, if he's done it ONCE, he might as well teach him what he knows. Who better, then someone Robin can trust?

Which is what Dick stumbles into. Somehow in the past. With an even MORE neurotic Bruce who's-! Who's-! He'll KILL YO-! Heeeey there Timmy! Just need to talk to Bruce real quick, so... huh?

And that's when it hits Dick like a gut punch? That THIS Tim? No ugliness between them. Is excited to see him. Greets him with a hug. Warm and cute and bouncy. Wants... wants help... practicing...

Dicks eyes shoot to Bruce. Back to Tim. He keeps his Nightwing mask, firmly in place as the part of what he WANTS fight like dogs inside him. He shouldn't. Needs to stop this NOW. It's already WAY out of hand...

Y-Yeah, Timmers, of course he'll help.

What're big Brothers for?

And Tim is terrible at riding him. Gets too overwhelmed and freezes up, again and again. Is so SENSITIVE. It's so cute Dick can barely stand it, as he lifts and sinks him down. Watches him pant and squirm. Let's him cling like Dick is the only thing holding him together.

He's never been harder.

Jason, of course, could really only blink awake in one place. Because his luck is SHIT. Titans Tower. He thinks it's hell. Purgatory maybe. A punishment for what he did here. Goes to face it. Only...

Where's Timbers?

In his room. Having "Me Time". Face down, ass in the air, vibrator set to "Destroy Me". He didn't notice SHIT when the power cut. The world could end but until he's gotten off? Robin's not here right now, leave a message.

Jason decides this is a very fucked up wet dream to have while Dying, but? Screw it.

So he invites himself to the party. Pants open, cock out. Vibrator removed. World rocked.

He fucks Tim's hot little puss just the way he's always wanted too. Deep and with intent to fill it. Then he has his perky little ass, just cause. Fills that too. Eventually realizes this is NOT the afterlife or a dream, but is too busy pounding the best fuck of his life to care.

Cares a LOT more when an Out For Blood Half Kryptonian RIPS the door from the wall, along with the frame and some of the wall itself. While he is balls deep in Robin. Whoooo he may have fucked sopping wet and sloppy. While being a notorious Crime Lord.

Oh, Right.

He should ru-Shit! *sounds of Wrath And Kryptonian Violence*

It DOES bring the family back together. Even if Kon vows to NEVER forgive or forget. Hisses like an outraged cat at the mere mention of Red Hood. But things are great! Then Talia does what she do. Fucks up Bruce's mental health. THIS time however, he was aware it was coming.

And Damian, last Survivor of the Bat Clan, blinks into awareness to Tim offering him his hand. Excited to have a little brother.

Ah. Timothy looks... young. He no longer feels threatened by him, as he once did. Damian grew up. He shakes his hand. Is WELCOMED. Doted on.

Finds himself... Timothy's? Favorite? The baby of the family. None can touch him. One look and Timothy will come snarling to his defense. He need only pout and all will be delivered to his feet. Hilarious, how different it could have been.

But.

He is not blind. He is not the only one back in time. And the changes...

He can not argue that the family is not CLOSER, but must they act like animals? Panting after Timothy? Yet on the other hand... being so doted upon? Has brought up... feelings.

So... awkwardly... he, like a child who's had a bad dream, shuffles into Tim's room in the night. Is welcomed with open arms. Cuddled, fingers running through his hair, as he with fumbling hands explores. Guided in and pulled into Tim's arms, so he can rutt desperately into Tim's body, while Tim sleepily holds him close.

Random sparks of pleasure shooting through Tim's body as Damian manages to thrust just right, every so often. Praising him regardless. Because he's doing so good, is Tim's precious younger brother.

Letting Damian cum himself exhausted before getting himself off. Damian dazed and worshipful, clinging as dozes off. Dick finding them in the morning and pouting because this means no Morning Fuckies. Damian's totally gonna hog Tim's attention.

Being right.

Bat Clan Wars over Timmy Time. Tim playing the mediator. That leading to sharing.

Better More Tim Fucking Time Line!

What say you?

-🐼🐼🐼

all of them using time travel to act on deeply repressed feelings for tim they never acted on before 😍😍😍!!

[vivi-the-goblin]

Campaign idea I've LONG had but would require a fair bit of setup: time loop adventure. The party is having dinner at the tavern, when a rumbling rocks the foundations of the earth. Everything explodes in a wave color, sound, and immense pressure, but it parts around them the crest of a wave to a ship's bow. That bow being a small imp-like creature, screeching with the effort to maintain whatever shield is keeping the wave at bay. As quickly as it began, it ends, the world outside the bubble going greyscale. "Noble heroes," the creature pants, slowly turning. "The world hangs a second from death, I'm afraid I have to break my oath and call upon you once...Who the fuck are you!?" It collapses to its knees as it sees its intended targets, one table over. Epic heroes with legendary kit. Despite trying to maintain a low profile the party might even recognize them, or at least the gear spilling out of their robes. Most seem to be shrinking into their armor, though the gnome's just turning green. The whole bar is doing the same, come to think of it. "HOW. HOW DID I MISS. I- ok, ok. I can work with this. That's fine. they used to be chumps too, we just had more time to work back then. Hi. Welcome to the end of the world. If you want to roll it back, we can talk." The paladin's all for it. The rest of the party is conflicted, but they eventually decide they've got nothing else to do. First thing though, who is this? "Got a lot of names, been around for a while. Maintain time, maybe you've seen my work? Yeah, not gonna have it undone by a punk with a wish. One that wished for more wish granting items, and again with with all of those, until eventually they had enough for thier whole tribe of hundreds. and the tribe had one wish, a wish with enough power to bind even the gods." "They wished for 'Goblin'. And with neither the world or the goblins themselves having any idea what that's supposed to mean, creation answered with 'Yes.' There's not a thing under the sun that's not becoming goblin. Or over the sun. The sun's not outta the question eith- look, it's everything, ok? I don't know the reach, I don't want to either, I just know we can't stop that blast." The party grumbles. how do they save things if the gods themselves are bound? "I can chuck you back in time. Only about a day, I had to snap most of myself off when the corruption started. We can do this for a while, but we have to do this. Find out where they are. Figure out how to get to them. and somehow stop them. Can't be that hard, right? they're just goblins, right?" One way to find out. Basically this would start out consequence free. The world is set up, and full of FAR stronger creatures...at first. If they die they lose thier gear, but NOT thier info, the day just resets. Milestone experience, the players will slowly level up as they discover things. Discover how to get what they need more efficiently, skip parts, etc. I said 'at first.' Once they've gotten far enough, gotten their bearings, etc...they notice something's slightly different. Someone's slightly greener and nobody notices. A butterfly is a little goblin with goblin-patterned wings. something slightly changes in thier loop. next loop the little time gremlin's got a green ear. maybe they notice the bubble's slightly smaller. You've learned how things work, now execute. Whether you progress toward a failstate by amount of deaths/loops, or just give the illusion by going off progress, the pressure ramps up. The dragon they have to convince? goblin dragon. The city? slowly becoming goblins. Wild magic starts effecting party members, as even the concepts of reality start becoming goblin, under a sun that's starting to tint green. The bright side is you could do a bunch of the prep right at the start, and have far less to do as things progress. That's also the downside however, and the reason I haven't done it yet.

[fallen-mario-bros-au]

Aight just a warning I'm pretty new to Tumblr and I'm DEFINITELY new to making AUs so I'm pretty nervous to post anything here but I figured I'd just rip the band-aid off.

FIRST POST HYPE!! :D

Anyways I love Mario and I love Undertale and I NEEDED TO COMBINE THEM LEGALLY so I decided to make an au about it! Dunno if I'm actually going to do anything serious with this, I mostly just want to imagine cute shenanigans with my favorite characters and whatnot, but who knows? Maybe I'll actually try to give this a proper plot

So here's the basic info:

- Mario and Luigi, in the midst of trying to chase down Bowser, who has just kidnapped the princess again, somehow wind up far away from the Mushroom Kingdom and on Mt. Ebott. Where, of course, they fall into the underground.

- All the monsters are pretty much their canon counterparts (at least, my best interpretation of them 💀)

- Mario ends up discovering he has the power to reset/load/save/etc, but Luigi does not. This is because Mario has the most determination to get out of here and save the princess

- Toriel isn't quite as overprotective of them as she would be if they were a literal child like Frisk, but she is still very motherly towards them because it's just kinda who she is. She would probably be concerned about them potentially attacking the monsters so she might make them promise not to hurt anyone. I still don't think she would want them to leave because Asgore would take their souls

- Honestly mostly this is just an excuse for the Mario Bros and the Skelebros to hang out XD

- the thing that is really interesting is that Mario and Luigi are not 1, but 2 humans, which means only one of their souls would be needed to break the barrier. This ends up becoming a real issue but I could see it being resolved in a few ways.

1. one of the bros self sacrifices so the underground goes free (much to the dismay of the other, and also my heart would break haha)

2. They decide to just stay in the underground instead of going home (but they would be pretty sad about it because oh no their kingdom is still in danger

3. ??? IDK tbh

- Since Mario can load saves, he's just constantly in this angsty cycle of trying to keep his bro from getting killed off ;;

- Not sure if Mario could keep the resets secret for long since Flowey would taunt them about it, but he definitely would be pretty closed off about it, especially to Luigi. He does NOT want Luigi to know about the horrible things he's seen

-ofc cut to Luigi being confused as heck as to why Mario seems to already know what's going to happen.

- they have cute sweaters because I said so

- not sure how omega fight would work, but either way Mario would have to fight to save both of them (probably all by himself :c)

- I want them to eventually do true pacifist but IDK how it would work so I'm not gonna think about it too hard rn

- Mario and Undyne having a friendly rivalry about who's the most heroic

- sans trying to convince them they could just stay in the underground and they're like "no we have to save the tiny mushroom people" and he's like "ur just like my bro fr"

- monster speculation about the purpose of mustaches

- It would be kinda funny if they had the firebrand and thunderhand since... Like... Humans aren't supposed to be able to do magic

- "are you sure you're humans? You're so small"

- *confused Italian noises*

Also here's some assorted doodles (I know the quality sucks 😭)

[thefirstknife]

The Vex and the Wish

It's been a while since the finale of the Starcrossed mission and I've not stopped thinking about it. I want to talk about some of the stuff that's been on my mind, mostly about all the little hints about what we might be delving into after The Final Shape.

So, the whole premise of Starcrossed is really interesting and has been since we first heard about it. Some sort of a mission in the Black Garden? During an Ahamkara season? It immediately meant that we'll be dealing with some Ahamkara shenanigans in the Black Garden, two things that have previously not been combined. And the Ahamkara element was really good and nice and heartbreaking!

But the bigger thing that got me thinking and overthinking was all the Vex elements this season. They're kinda flying under the radar because we have bigger issues to deal with, but everything we got about them this season has been super weird and concerning. Especially the Black Garden stuff!

The Sol Divisive have been very active doing... things we don't truly understand. They've made their attempts to somehow interact with Ahamkara magic and they've been messing with Darkness as well. I'll do my best to recap all the stuff we've gotten about the Vex this season and how it relates to Starcrossed. Long post under!

The first thing that got us all thinking was of course the premise for the season in the first place; we knew that we would be dealing with Ahamkara, the Dreaming City and the Awoken, but we did not know about the Vex. That was peculiar in general because they simply haven't been mixed together with Ahamkara before. This was also really intriguing because of the reason we needed an Ahamkara in the first place: to get through the portal in the Traveler and follow the Witness. So why are the Vex (Sol Divisive) interfering?

As soon as the season started and we could look at the items, the first very interesting lore tab was Scatter Signal. In it, we have Osiris tracking some sort of a signal, locking onto it and getting a transmission in the form of hexadecimal code. When decoded, it revealed a strange message from a still unknown source, discussing the Vex:

“A churning singularity of shadow and mimicry beats again within cultivated chaos. Minds orbit its gravity, to bridge communion with a Voice, to move from parallel to entanglement. They dream of a dark core, contained within a timeless structure. A suspended return to the primordial. If not for this truth, why kneel? If not for this truth, why does it elude definition? Though not all agree on all, all agree on this. Sol is Salvation.”

We still don't really know what this message means or who sent it, but I've speculated before that it could have something to do with the Ishtar scientists, most likely Chioma or maybe even Maya and the others. I wrote about this speculation before Starcrossed was out, so now that we know how Starcrossed ended, I believe more strongly that the Ishtar team (at least their simulated copies) is somehow still out there and capable of communicating and that they're the ones who sent this message.

As for the message, now that the season is over, I believe it talks about the Black Heart (churning singularity of shadow and mimicry beats again within cultivated chaos) and the Sol Divisive's obsession with it and their belief that it could grant them some sort of knowledge or ability (possibly paracausality) or a way to return the universe to the way it was before paracausality existed (return to the primordial): this is possibly also talking about the speculative time when the Traveler and the Veil were one, a time that the Vex perhaps remember. It also warns us that while the Sol Divisive are unique in their worship of the Darkness, the Vex as a whole agree on the simple truth that whatever they want to finally achieve will be achieved in Sol, our system, because this is where they have all the necessary ingredients to do so. Whether this is understanding paracausality, resetting the universe or Convergence, we don't know.

When I wrote that speculation initially, since Starcrossed wasn't out yet, a lot of my questions were about what possible connection could there be between the Black Garden and the Ahamkara. That was the only thing we knew before the mission dropped after all. Now in retrospect, we can at least put some of the theories to rest; originally there was speculation that Riven or the Vex or both are doing something that would end up tricking us somehow. This has since been disproven; the Ahamkara in the Black Garden was Taranis who made his lair there to stay hidden and to hide his and Riven's children.

However, a very important question remains. Did the Vex know about this and did they use Taranis' residence in the Black Garden to study paracausality and Ahamkara magic? I believe they must've known about him and that they must've dedicated at least some observational resources to monitor him and his shenanigans in their space. This obviously isn't good. The Vex have been trying to understand paracausality for a very long time and we've been practically giving this information to them for almost equally as long. Taranis living within reach of the Sol Divisive probably offered them some insight into it as well and possibly also insight into Ahamkara abilities.

Sol Divisive has spent a considerable amount of time and resources trying to understand the Darkness, the Witness and the Veil. This season we've gotten confirmation that they're actively merging with Darkness and even trying to somehow fuse with the Witness. We've seen them being able to simulate techeuns, we've seen oracles appearing outside of the Vault of Glass and shaping themselves with Darkness energy, as well as tapping into Darkness in general, into memory, to enhance their predictive abilities. They spent this whole season messing with Ahamkara eggs and Riven's Lair and the Coil as Vex artifacting became more and more prominent as the weeks went on. Osiris has also noted, on several occasions, just how similar wishing magic and Vex simulations are. The second one is particularly interesting:

What is a simulation if not a machine's wish? A projection of what might be, were certain parameters to be altered.

One big problem is that while a lot of this is linked purely to the Sol Divisive and their obsession with the Darkness and the Witness, a lot of it is not. First, one very interesting thing that happened this year is that after nearly 10 years, we finally got an explanation about the Black Heart; it was the Sol Divisive's failed attempt to recreate the Veil, very likely an idea given to them directly by the Witness, to create a makeshift Veil after the original had been lost in the Collapse. A lot of the stuff in the background of this year has been about the Vex, simulations, augmented reality and the Vex attempts at understanding the Veil and paracausality at large; discussed at length in Veil Logs, most notably this one where Chioma speculates about how the Vex could potentially gain access to paracausal simulations if they gained access to the Veil.

This thing, the Veil. It’s… it’s some kind of web of consciousness. Just like the Vex network, but organic instead of artificial. It makes sense why the Vex want it. Paracausal simulations? There’d be no stopping them.

As I said, a lot of this is about the Sol Divisive, but a lot of it is not. The Vex we see on Neomuna are not Sol Divisive, for example. Scatter Signal also implies that despite the Vex at large being in disagreement with the Sol Divisive, all Vex do seem to share some basic ideas which the speaker in Scatter Signal summarises as: "Sol is Salvation." Apparently, all Vex agree on this.

To make things even stranger, here comes Starcrossed. As soon as we first saw it, it was strange because it showed us a big Vex structure in the Black Garden!

This is the centerpiece of the whole mission and as we proceed through it, we get closer and closer to it. This is called a Citadel and it has appeared in the game before; notably, in Destiny 1, but you can now see it in Destiny 2 as well, in the first encounter of Vault of Glass. This structure is distinctly not Sol Divisive and it never has been.

The origin and purpose of the Citadel are not entirely understood, outside of ties to the Vault of Glass. It's been on Venus since the Golden Age where it was investigated by the simulated copies of the Ishtar team:

No human being in the Ishtar Academy has ever crossed the safety cordon and walked the ancient stone under the Citadel, the Vex construct that stabs up out of the world to injure space and time.

And:

"I wonder where it came from," Duane-Mcniadh says. Of course he's the one to break the reverent silence. "The Citadel. I wonder if it was here before the Traveler changed Venus." "It could have been latent," Chioma Esi suggests. She's the leader. She kept them together when it seemed like they faced actual, eternal torture. She pulled them through. "Seeded in the crust. Waiting for a period of geological quiescence, so it could grow." Dr. Shim shrugs. "I think the Traveler did something paracausal to Venus. Something that cut across space and time. The Citadel seems to come from the past of a different Venus than our own. It doesn't have to make any sense by our logic, any more than the Moon's new gravity." Maya Sundaresh walks at the center of the group. She's been too quiet lately. What happened to them wasn't her fault and maybe she'll believe that soon. "What could you do with it?" she murmurs, staring up. "If you understood it?" Chioma puts an arm around her. "That's what we're going to find out. Where the Citadel can send us. Whether we can come back."

This is interesting to us now because a very similar construct appeared out of nowhere in the Black Garden and when we reached the end of the Starcrossed mission, we gained access to the inside of the structure. And inside, we found a single room decorated with the symbol of the Ishtar Collective made out of Vex materials.

As I've noted before in the post where I speculated about the names of the seasonal missions and the meaning of Scatter Signal and what this mission in the Black Garden could be, this whole situation brought me back to thinking about the lore book from Season of the Undying: Aspect. In it, we follow Praedyth who is eternally stuck in the Vault of Glass (incidentally, this happened to him because he wished to an Ahamkara) and who discovers the simulated Ishtar scientists and establishes communication with them.

He realises that something has changed and that he's no longer in a loop, but able to change things by talking to the Ishtar team. He and the Ishtar team develop a strategy in which the simulations are able to theorycraft and instruct Praedyth (who is physical and in a physical space) to create a way for all of them to escape their associated prisons. The team figures out together that a way out could be achieved through the Black Garden and that they would need a specific event to jumpstart their escape; this event would be the Undying Mind and its awakening which opened the gate to the Garden again, this time on the Moon. They start with Praedyth sending messages through in hope that someone, somewhen, will hear them. Soon, as the disturbances in the Black Garden get more prominent, they get the chance to not just send messages of code out, but to actually try to escape physically.

The lore book never tells us if they succeeded.

A hundred and sixty Mayas reach for the Chiomas by their side. A hundred and fifty-eight Chiomas reach back. One Praedyth, waiting for the conductor's baton to drop. Uncountable Vex in the Garden, waiting for the same event, a synchrony none of them notice. Somewhere, a veil is always lifting. Somewhere, Kabr is always dooming himself. Somewhere, a door is always opening. Somewhere, they are always stepping through.

The name of the final chapter is "irrealis;" a grammatical mood for situations or actions that are not known to have happened at the moment of speaking. All Aspect chapters are named in this way, one of the reasons I started thinking about this lore book in the first place, the moment I noticed the names of missions this season (this theme is also extended to the weapons reprised from Undying: Imperative, Adhortative, Subjunctive and Optative). As an addition, the final mission's name is also very interesting and it is possible that maybe there will be another (one more radio message and triumph haven't been unlocked yet).

The point is that we don't know if the Ishtar Collective simulations and Praedyth managed to escape because at the time of speaking (when this lore book was released) this was an irrealis mood; unknown if the action has occured. But their plan, to use the situation with the Undying Mind in the Black Garden and the Black Garden itself to escape (the Vault of Glass and a simulation) seems to be connected to the massive Vex Citadel usually connected to the Vault of Glass that suddenly appeared in the Black Garden and has tangible proof of the Ishtar Collective inside.

As in, I believe they did manage to escape, in what for us is right now (or at least in a way that we could detect right now; time shenanigans with the Vex could mean anything honestly). I think that the appearance of the Citadel in the Black Garden correlates with their escape and that the Scatter Signal message is also something that came from the Ishtar team trying to give us information about the Vex. I also believe that this is a massive setup for the future content about the Vex and most likely the return of Venus in some form.

This whole year spent quite a lot of time reacquainting us with the Ishtar Collective: from Neomuna and their adventures in founding this secret city and their investigations into the Veil. Chioma Esi, a character that has existed in Destiny since the first game's release was finally given a voice and she and Maya Sundaresh were developed further and given some extra details to their backstory, most notably all the stuff we were told about Maya specifically and how much the Veil drove her mad. Not only that, but we were also given additional information about the Black Garden and the Black Heart, another point from the original game's first story that was brought back almost a decade later. Like a loop to the beginning.

The fact that it all ended with more stuff about the Black Garden and the Ishtar Collective is not a coincidence, I think. Most importantly, it's not the story that will be resolved this season and very likely won't be something we will be dealing with in the Final Shape. So this is setup for something after; about the Vex and their search for paracausality (and possible success?), about their connection to Venus and about the Ishtar Collective, perhaps even more about the Black Garden and maybe even Praedyth and the Vault of Glass.

As a quick summary:

The appearance of the Vex Citadel in the Black Garden - the original Citadel is linked to the Vault of Glass and is located on Venus. Somewhat related to this, this season Oracles appeared outside of Vault of Glass and were shaping themselves into Pyramid energy.

The Citadel architecture is not Sol Divisive Vex. This is important because otherwise we would be able to just chalk up the appearance of this structure to the Sol Divisive shaping the Black Garden, but the Citadel is not their work.

Ishtar Collective symbol inside; not only linking to Aspect, but also to Venus itself (we got a lot of Ishtar content this year in general, starting even before Lightfall, with Spire of the Watcher dungeon in Season of the Seraph, just before Lightfall, as an intro to the story of Ishtar and founding of Neomuna)

Several mentions of Venus, indirectly (the Citadel, Ishtar Collective) or directly (mentioned in one voice line linked to the history of the Ahamkara in the system, and also in the mysterious mention of an incredibly niche character of Albios, also in context of the Ahamkara history in the system)

All of this points to some Vex heavy content coming post-TFS with a strong connection to Venus and the story of the Ishtar Collective (perhaps their simulations) and some possibility of Praedyth and more about the Vault of Glass. Pretty much everything discussed here and everything the Vex have been doing for years is likely not getting resolved in TFS as the primary problem for us in TFS will be the Witness.

But once the Witness is gone? I'm pretty sure we will be finally moving on to the Vex and possibly their grasp of paracausality. We might be forced to go back to Venus and dig up more information about them, perhaps even reach out to the Ishtar simulations, if they've escaped (which I believe they did, given what we've seen at the end of Starcrossed).

Obviously this will likely be happening in Episodes, probably the first one, given what we've seen about it so far; it is called Echoes and has something vaguely Vex-shaped as a placeholder image. Not only that, but it's covered with plants that have reminded me of Venus ever since it was first shown. Note that none of this is still final and this placeholder image was shown to us before all the troubles with layoffs and delays. But it seems like the general idea will have to remain the same because of all the hints and setup about Vex content we've gotten so far, especially with these open questions at the end of Starcrossed mission.

We don't know yet how big Episodes will be which obviously makes it impossible to make any kind of prediction on what the stories in them might be able to cover and how extensive the content will be. Especially how likely it is to get a whole location like Venus back, not to mention that there are still questions about other Vex-focused locations; for example, are there plans to expand on Nessus and are there plans to also deal with Mercury?

Obviously I would love to deal with Mercury first and foremost (we know Bel), but I think most of everything we've seen through this story and through the hints and setup points to Venus and the return to some of the original unanswered questions in the lore. I'm really excited for the possibility that we'll get more information about the Ishtar team and about what truly happened to their simulations. I'm also excited for the possibility that there might be more information about the Vault of Glass and the Black Garden and the Black Heart (for which I think that the Vex have been trying to rebuild or fix in some way). It would be a neat way to create a circle back to the start of the story, especially since it's dealing with the Vex and time travel shenanigans. I'd really love if the story of the Vex forced us to metaphorically go back to the start of the story and look at everything we've seen so far with a new perspective.

I've gone to a lot of different points in this post, but I hope it makes sense. There have been some really interesting background infodumps and discussions in the lore and character interactions about the Vex and their impact on the world, overshadowed by the fact that we have much bigger imminent problems to deal with. This incidentally also gave Vex enough time and space to do their thing unsupervised. They've had enough time to observe us and other paracausal entities (such as the Ahamkara and the Witness and the Traveler), we've given them plenty of information about Guardians (the fact that we deposit our "paracausal sparks" into Vex receptacles in the Black Garden during Starcrossed is quite concerning) and they've evolved enough to begin shaping themselves with Darkness resonance, and they've never had more information about simulations and prediction.

The Vex have taken their time to catch up with us and they've been especially prolific during Season of the Wish while our attention is directed elsewhere, even with them being directly involved. I'm super excited for whatever they have planned for Vex stuff after TFS and they've given us plenty of content to speculate about it until it releases!

[crychaoss]

Remember how Cellbit mentioned that the password to the door which let Felps and him out of the Federation lab was (PROJECT) A0?

The dungeon started from A1 and went until A9 but if there's a correlation between Project A0 which was like a month ago and the floors in the dungeon, which were built there, idk, years ago, why would something so recent be named A0 which comes before A1. At least I assume it would come before?

Only the A9 floor in the dungeon had ice and was fully built by quartz, and the lab Cellbit and Felps were locked in were the same. Felps was frozen in a test tube just like the 8 chambers in A9, and the whole place was made out of quartz. Meaning the lab had to be built after the A9 floor was made. So the question is, why was Felps' experiment called Project A0? Or maybe the password had nothing to do with Felps or Cellbit. Maybe there in fact was a Project A0 BEFORE A1 was built in the dungeon. Maybe Project A0 was before the Federation even existed. But then why was THAT the password for the door..?

I feel like either Project A0, which has nothing to do with Felps' experiment is really important and that's why it was foreshadowed during Cellbit's breakout, or somehow, whatever the Federation did to Felps is in fact Project A0.

If Felps's experiment IS Project A0, we have two options. Either the dungeon floors and the password have nothing to do with each other, or they in fact do, and for some reason they named it a number before A1. Which would mean it happened before the firts dungeon floor was built. But that wouldn't make sense since the way the Federation worked during A1's time was completely different, they didn't use quartz at all, they weren't developed enough, and no ice was used either.

If Cellbit had any theories about this from yesterday, feel free to tell me because i don't speak portuguese so i probably missed it during the stream.

Edit: Some people pointed out that Felps' experiment might have been named A0 because it was a fresh start, or a reset of some sort. Maybe A9 was the last experiment they did, but something went wrong and that's why the dungeon was abandoned. But because new people arrived on the island and the Federation got new information, they tried to do the same experiment but with new equipment and knowledge. So Project A0 and A9 is basically the same, but more modern and maybe even succesful? Since Felps survived?

I mean.. wasn't it weird that Felps was out of his chamber when Cellbit woke up from his "sleepwalking" stage? And why did Cellbit even had to feed him if he was supposed to be frozen all the time? Unless that't not true and Felps' chamber was unfrozen multiple times and that's why he needed food. Either way, I feel like it's unlikely that Felps broke out on his own, it almost feels impossible since the tube was broken (it was missing blocks) and if Felps was frozen in there, he was sleeping so someone from the outside must've broken it.

[spotsupstuff]

How does the Hivemind you keep mentioning work/what does it do/what’s it’s purpose? 👁 (eating all of your headcannons up yummystyle

SO!

an Iterator is made up of the shell/environment/the structure and multiple creatures (therefore also of multiple spirits) of varying sentience and consciousness that group together by focusing in on a singular point (traditionally the puppet) to Kind Of pretend but also to genuinely become an individual. aka the funny guys we recognize as Moon, Pebbles, Euros, whichever other Iterator

the creatures individually Can have certain personalities n sapience to them, like Inspectors. some Inspectors in Euros are very cuddly with Sparrows, some just yoink her by the back of the hoodie to ferry her wherever it wants to and some just leave her alone. some creatures, again, like for example neurons, don't have any personalities and are like dubiously alive electric radioactive boxes carrying information. the little spiders in Memory Conflux are like actual spiders

none of them are Quite sapient/sentient enough to qualify for a person, but they are still pieces of one. it's like a jigsaw

the "we" kush happens when they all come a Lil bit loose to the point where logical higher thinking takes a backseat and most of all responses are based around instincts and emotions, that the half formed individual presence of the Iterator can recognize as coming from a certain part of themself. for Iterators that have troubles with emotion-capability like Suns, they become basically completely unresponsive

the Iterators were made like this because with being made out of multiple spirits they are incapable of truly dying and reincarnating (boom, sucky immortality). if one piece (or 375 000 pieces and more) die, the rest is still here and carrying the conjunct individuality

the ideal state of a Hivemind is set as this presence as an Individual, so each time it can, it tries to assert itself as this person they make together. a single neuron is enough to carry this whole idea of individuality and it's torture cuz it desires to Expand and Reach Out to form this person that it has coded into its genome, but it just cannot. it's like mentally choking on something, stuck in a circle of it constantly happening

which is why Moon is still kicking as herself despite losing most of herself and needing to be reset and what that "reformatting" neurons thing she does essentially is. she wipes the neuron's goal to be a Five Pebbles Component and inserts her own "I am Me" indviduality in to expand a little

the Individualities then can have different relationships with their idenity as a Hivemind, from being super attached to all of their components (almost Euros when healthy), to being kinda "eh, whatever, a single neuron means nothin to me" (pre-collapse Moon), "whatever i can always regrow all of these things. it is only tools." (Boreas), to absolutely ignoring it (victims of the cabin fever like Nish n Euros later on)

some Iterators somehow manage to disregard their supposedly encoded goal of being an Individual in favor of being in the "we" mode almost all the time. one of those was actually Spore here <3

some accept being a Hivemind (combined with a lot of machinary) without.. like giving much of a shit about it at all n therefore still refering to themselves with "I" instead of "we". that's the case for Notos

i Think that's all 🤔

[amphiptere-art]

So we can all agree that the Sun and Moon fandom is dying right?

There is a quiz at the end of the post.

Me myself and many others have left. Whether it is due to the rising toxicity of the show or the fans. At this point it is simply a creative backdrop. Something you take ideas off of instead of something that you enjoy and turn into a AU. And at this point if you have it as an AU. You feel as if you need to somehow say it's separated or is only based off of the good old days.

The fact that there is a difference between the good old days and what has happened is sad. I will admit I haven't been here forever. I wasn't here since the beginning. I wasn't watching the episodes upload as I watched. But I did do my best to watch every single lore post I can find. Anything that wasn't a standard gaming episode. So I can at least say that I tried to follow the story.

And to put it slightly the story has gone sour. Characters have stopped feeling right in their actions. Underlying messages have started to get toxic. Many bad guys have gotten so characterized that them being bad guys doesn't feel right. Are good characters no matter how developed they get either regress due to plot convenience. Or have died and basically reset the storyline.

The story seems stuck. There's some gems here and there but it seems like they can't figure out the next story action. And even if they do, it gets so much hate from the fandom that it struggles to continue. It feels like they continuously reset and reset to try and find a story that the fans will enjoy. It's not working unfortunately. There have been many retcons due to this. And there has also been many splits.

And this is not even mentioning the toxicity of the fandom itself at this point. That's basically split itself in two and the other will hate the other. This happened most obviously with the Moon X Solar argument. Where you either enjoy it or you don't enjoy it. It has caused a multiple splits because of differences in morals. It's just created a hostile environment between fans.

And I'm not making this post a point fingers at the whole argument. I've researched it and I know why some people believe it's okay. Whether it's because they believe solar never really wanted to be a part of the family. Or the simple understanding that by most laws, incest between adopted family members is okay. I understand that people have reasons to like it. It doesn't mean that these reasons are shared though. It doesn't mean that the moral implications of that relationship don't affect some people. And neither side is willing to come to a mutual agreement.

This is also not bringing up the fact that the whole villain versus hero argument is starting to become even more split. Sun, Moon, Lunar, Earth, Solar are both currently on the good side. While Eclipse, Blood Moon, and a couple others are still obviously on the bad guy side. But Eclipse and Blood moon have started to become more and more relatable. People can no longer look at those characters and just imagine the villainy part. Especially when the heroes decide to mock the suffering that they did to the villains in the first place.

That is my personal scare between the fandom right now. I can't look at eclipse and not deny that Moon's actions were the reason of it. I can't look at moon and justify years of abuse. Whether it was old moon or new moon at this point. I can't stand and justify treating blood moon as a villain has tested its limit. I can't deny that blood moons actions are more so based on need than actual want. And the creators forcing that idea backfired enough that they barely have him as a character anymore.

There is a split between people who want to support moon and sun with all their actions. There is a split between people who think solar should be considered a part of the family or not. There is a lack of storylines that don't have half of the community hating upon it. There is a lack of feeling an actual tug of conflict in the stories due to the villains being so understandable. There is a hostility between the fan base because of all of these.

I put out a poll a long time ago. Asking people why they basically watched the show anymore. The general consensus was they were just watching the show because they needed to. Because they felt obligated to follow the plot wherever it went. I feel like the fan base that is following the show for their own enjoyment is slowly disappearing. And this is not talking about the amount of people that have straight out left due to all the reasons above.

Whether it is the show's fault for not being able to supply the engaging store anymore that people can enjoy. Or it is the fandom for it's toxic split between the morals of adoption incest, or the feeling that the villain shouldn't be getting as much hate as they do. The show was currently dying on both sides honestly. And the only reason many are continuing to watch the show, is the hope that it will get better, and the need to supply their AUs off of it.

How many of your friends have left because of these reasons? How many of them have had the conundrum of feeling like they need to stay because leaving feels like a betrayal to others or themselves.

How many of us are only holding because of nostalgia?

It feels like nowadays people either choose to blindly follow due to an overall support or question constantly if they should. It feels as if artists that give the show their thumbnails now, are the only people that do stuff happily with it. A conspiracy part of my brain wants to say that's only because not supporting it would mean they wouldn't have there art publicly endorsed. But that's only conspiracy and no fact.

The show has lost its splendor. As of now it's really only a character backdrop to some. A list of events and ideas that you could pull and twist to fit something kinder or better. It's like as if we're using the Sun and Moon like Robin Hood. Stripping it down to the basics just so we can share our twist of the same tale. I have heard many times from people that AUs are more enjoyable right now than actual Canon. I myself have said for multiple stories that they do not follow past backup eclipses death. Which in my opinion is when the show really started to go downhill.

I'm going to ask this question again. Because I feel as if it is important for people who read this post to see it under a newer light.

I will note. If you reblog this post just to argue that it's not dying, That solar X moon isn't incest, that characters like eclipse and blood moon should be treated as the absolute villains they are, and seeking Sun and Moon are evil is dumb. I will not respond. To be honest I will not respond to many reblogs of this. I'm simply putting this information out earnestly as my opinion. I am not here to hate on the artists. I am not here to hate on your difference in opinion. I am not here to say that the show writers are dumb or money monsters. This is my opinion. And if you wish to fight it, then you are not willing to accept differencing opinion.

[moongothic]

You know, S-Crocodile has the potential to be an interesting addendum for Crocodad bc Crocodile just learned that his son is alive, and then two years after that, boom: clone Lunarian baby (who's also technically kinda sorta Luffy's half-brother?). The thing is, even if Crocodile bridges the gap between him and Luffy, Luffy's not the baby boy that Crocodile lost so long ago. He can take care of himself, has an entire crew to lead, and they may not see each other except for rare occasions. Crocodile didn't get to raise Luffy and will never get that time back. But S-Crocodile is a still a child who will likely have zero clue what to do without the programming and, since baby crocodiles are famous for loudly calling out for their mothers, may be desperate for a parental figure.

S-Crocodile is not a replacement for Luffy by any means, but more like a second kid had later in life who Crocodile was never expecting but who gives him the chance to parent in a way that he couldn't before.

See this is a much sweeter idea than me being like "what if Crocodile dies without getting to really experience being loved by his family/a community and have people care about him and so instead Luffy/other people end up projecting those feelings onto S-Croc and make sure he gets the love and community Crocodile never got to have"

Everytime I think about the lost time Crocodad implies I just die a little inside. Like Dragon might not have gotten to be with his son either, but at least he got to spy on Luffy on occassion, at least he got to check on him from afar and see him, know how he was doing, at least he knew Luffy's name. Crocodile didn't get any of that, and never will. Like you said, that time has been lost, and this hourglass can't be turned back and reset.

What is interesting though is that the Seraphim are supposed to have the personality traits of the OGs. Crocodile is quite independent, so I feel like S-Croc should be (or at least want to be, so he can appear strong etc) independent too, right? So S-Croc might want to be kind of a lone wolf, even if deep down he was sad due to his loneliness?

What's more though is that indeed, we don't know if S-Croc is pre-T or male (since he was made from post-T Croc DNA, and we don't know if Iva-chan's HRT affects DNA/those changes applied to the Seraphim). 'Cause if S-Croc is pre-T, Crocodile should know and understand how dysphoria is gonna hit S-Croc as he gets older (which is gonna be soon, since the Seraphim age faster). And like. I could see Crocodile just feeling bad for his Mini-Me because of that. I could imagine Crocodile just dragging S-Croc to Iva-chan (if there's an opportunity for it) and get that clone some T, spare him from going through the wrong puberty etc.

Point is, I feel like if Crocodile did somehow end up taking care of his Mini-Me, it might not be because S-Croc expressed a need for it. But it might be because Crocodile would be forced to reflect on his own feelings, knowing and understanding full-well how S-Croc would feel (be it about gender or loneliness), and just. Let the Dad Instincts take over, regardless of if the Seraphim likes it or not?

[mischief-lies-and-stories]

Loki spin-off ideas

I'm going to preface this by saying, I do not think we will ever get a Loki spin-off. But that doesn't mean I can't think about all the great possibilities there could be. And also I am quickly running out of ideas again.

Spoilers for Loki.

TVA workplace comedy, featuring B-15 Verity, Casey, OB, on occasion Sylvie and Mobius, and introducing new (queer) characters. Casey and OB stumble their way into a relationship, Verity once and for all establishes that she can detect lies, Mobius is sad until in the season finale (with special guest star Tom Hiddleston!) someone figures out how to get him to Loki. And we get Lokius in the last ten seconds, because they pull a Will Shatner and purposely ruin every other take that isn't them making the fuck out.

TVA training shorts, featuring Miss Minutes (ugh), reminiscent of those high school PSAs they made Cap do ("So you got detention," etc.), but animated in the style of the introductory video Loki watched in the first episode. You could also have a second season of them as an updated version following the dissolution of the Sacred Timeline and how the branches are seen as good things now. Maybe the new ones are narrated by members of the Time Revengers, since Miss Minutes is still being rehabilitated. (I'm still deciding if the idea of listening to Mobius tell the story of how the multiversal tree was created would be heartbreaking even if he managed to remain professional and not break down in tears, or if it would be really sweet that he gets assigned that video.)

Lokis in the void, following mainly Kid Loki and (if we retcon it, set this before the show, or he somehow survived) Classic Loki, but also ridiculous schemes of President Loki (yuck, no thank you) that constantly get thwarted. The B-plot is Alligator Loki sneaking off and getting up to some shit in an anti-Perry the Platypus running gag. (Wait, maybe I just want a Phineas and Ferb parody where every character is a Loki and it takes place in the void. That could be so stupid it's hilarious.)

Classic Loki in Valhalla please I need it. Like we start similarly to the events of my fic After, where Classic Loki arrives in Valhalla and reunites at long last with Thor (don't ask me how, I know technically his timeline was reset). Then the show continues with Classic Loki and Thor getting up to hijinks in Valhalla, maybe scheming to break out of Valhalla (a storyline for Loki in various contexts I've played around with a few times). We could have different characters from the Thor movies and comics in Valhalla, but since they're all dead, they're all played by older actors. You could make some easy, low-hanging old jokes (back pain every time they use their weapon, etc.), but they're gods and they're dead, so technically they should be fine. They're just old and dead. (But like, Tony Stark is for sure in Valhalla, too. You could have some frostiron going on. Or Fandral. He's there, too, Ewing.)

Mobius's adventures in the multiverse, just episodes of him traveling through time and experiencing it (I'm realizing now that this is basically just the premise for Doctor Who...). Also going on in this series is obviously Mobius missing Loki and looking for a way to get to him. Of course (because this is my show and I say so), the series would end with them reuniting and confessing and staying together, either in the tree if need be or in the wider multiverse if Loki is able to leave the tree. And there would certainly be episodes throughout the show featuring the other members of our Time Revengers. Maybe the workplace comedy and this show are occurring simultaneously. (Like one episode of TVA someone's like "Where's Verity?" "Oh she's on a mission." And you're like oh the actor has a break or is filming something else, and then later that week the episode of Mobius airs and THERE'S VERITY!)

Sylvie in Broxton. That's it, that's the show. Just Sylvie living her best life in the small town, working at McDonald's, hanging out at Lyle's record store, ignoring 90% of the calls on her TemPad (unless it's Mobius, because in spite of herself, she's a little worried about him).

[pupstim]

NGL I kinda wanna explore the thought of BBH dying and coming back different.

I don't want him to do it in canon because although it'd be interesting I feel like it might mess with his Grim Reaper lore, but it depends on how he wants to play it out.

But what I want to explore is him coming back, basically reset. It's Badboy from the beginning of the QSMP but that means no more Dapper or Pomme or anyone. He doesn't remember anyone, not the French, not the Brazilians, not any of the eggs. No one but maybe Foolish and of course Skeppy.

It completely disregards their history on the island but I wanna explore that. I am the biggest fan of coming back wrong. Except this really isn't him coming back wrong but just... the badboyhalo they knew is not coming back, he is dead and this new badboyhalo is him but also not because he doesn't have and of the history their Bad did. This Badboyhalo is starting back at day 1 while everyone else is on day 210 but he's wearing the face of their dead friend. He both simultaneously their friend but not.

Sometimes they'll look at him and see the Badboy and then they'll say or do something and for a split second they forget, because he's physically right there but then he doesn't respond how they expect and it's the grief all over again. They can't look at him. How many of them would get upset with Bad? How would they respond? Grief makes you behave different so I can see a lot of different characters acting differently. Maybe most of them just brush it off, thinking Bad just needs to remember, that their Badboy is in there somewhere and they just need to keep spending time with him and pushing him to remember.

And then how would Bad take it? He's a part time grim reaper, he's intimately familiar with death, with moving on and how this is suppose to go. I think he somehow knows that the Bad they knew is gone gone. He's not coming back but what does that mean for him? Is he a real badboyhalo? Was that other Badboy real? Does he get close to them? Or does he try to distance himself from them because technically these are not his friends or family. Does he try to pretend that he knows them? Does he try and pretend that he is the Badboyhalo they knew?

Just coming back wrong but not, instead just coming back different, coming back new when everyone else around you is worn down, when you yourself were worn down but now that's been erased. Erased and gone, not a trace to be found and how unfair that would be. All of that wear gone from you not a single evidence of it having happened, but everyone around you wear the marks and connection. How unfair would that be, how hard it would be to deal with Badboy. HRGH I really wanna write a story like this just because the concept is so interesting. He's coming back wrong and different but not. He's just not coming back as their badboyhalo but maybe thats worse than not coming back at all.

[ageless-soul-au]

HIHIHI OKAY. i absolutely love flicker. do you accept fanart (might be a silly question but im 16 and want to make sure before i actually draw/send in anything. im here for my boy /lighthearted)

but besides that. ive never seen anyone else actually hc that downfall hero of time DIED AS A KID and i am SO GLAD other people feel the same. like dont get me wrong everyone has their own opinions and none are wrong but. I LOVE FLICKER. i love that the gods didnt quite catch him in time to put him to sleep and he took the sword to ganon and held his own until beast ganon. it makes me do a little happy wiggle.

he was not a "valiant, noble man, tragically lost to evil" he was a misguided child told the world rested on his shoulders and because of that, he was killed. and i LOVE that kind of tragedy

so. flicker supremacy, thank you very much.

Hi hello!!!! Omg you had so many great points, thank you for the enthusiasm!!

Mostly for the 18+ warning, we're trying to keep minors away from the main fics bc there are heavy, potentially triggering topics and NSFW-ish things there. As long as you have your community labels set up right on the blog tho, it should be safe to browse/interact with (though main blogs are different, Kio's is strictly 18+). I'm not your dad etc etc, practice caution online, we really only ask that minors don't read the fic or view the NSFW. We'll still probably be writing ASAU by the time you turn 18 tho so maybe see u on ao3 then?? XD

TLDR, it's up to you if you wanna make art of the lil guy. We appreciate everything that comes our way!

The decision to keep Flicker 9 years old came from a discussion on why the hero failed in the downfall timeline. Bc if things progressed like they had in OoT, then Link would have still won! So what needed to change in order for him not to win? It wasn't bc the player just went out to play basketball instead of beating the game /ref

The sages put Link to sleep bc he wasn't ready to wield the sword. But nothing changed except his size. He was in a 17 year old's body, but his mind hadn't matured any. Somehow he was able to pull it off tho, and everything turned out fine (or... It depends on your definition of fine).

So the sword didn't put Flicker to sleep. He didn't get stronger. And he's a tough kid, but that only goes so far. He also rushed to get to the final boss, which Time didn't do, so Flicker got there underprepared in his haste. He died, then the goddesses went "oh shit, that shouldn't have happened!!" and reset the timeline. And as we know, a reset doesn't mean that the original timeline goes away, now there's just two versions of the story.

Poor lil guy... His Zelda (Aria) and the sages managed to pull it together, but the timeline was still pretty fucked. I can't wait for when we get to what happened to it in the fics, but that won't be for a while. Flicker is still out there tho... In the forest... Doing his little guy things....

Thank u for ur interest! Maybe we'll have gotten to Flicker's point in the story by the time you're 18 hchdhdj

-Kio & Mizu