#not to mention like. the insane amount of original writing i have to do if i wanna have a sustainable career as a writer lol

[courtney-deserved-better]

i wanna have the time to work on this mkulia rivals to lovers tdi reboot rewrite fic so bad... y'all don't know the depths of backstory i've summoned for mk...

[vigilskeep]

I've been going through your Keir Hawke tag because the character absolutely fascinates me and I keep seeing glimpses of Varric and Anders' friendship in that world state (especially something you mentioned about the book originally going to be about Anders) and it's making me feral

What do you think Varric and Anders' relationship is like? What does Varric think about Keir refusing to kill Anders and running off with him?

the thing about varric and keir is that even if they manage to get along in their way, their relationship is basically one of necessity. keir never trusted him in act 1, and varric vastly preferred bethany’s gentleness to keir’s whole uh attitude, but after the deep roads expedition they for various reasons both feel a level of guilt and obligation that sticks them together. you might say they’re more like family than friends, in the sense that with family you don’t have a choice. whereas varric and anders are actually friends, they get along, they joke together. varric finds anders hard to deal with in the later acts but they’re still at the hanged man together, varric is still trying to reach out in his way during banters, anders is trying to leave his possessions to him, etc. and that’s not like with varric and keir where something specific and insane happened to lock them together. he genuinely just likes anders

and varric is creatively interested in anders from the beginning; he’s talking about writing “an epic poem about a hopelessly romantic apostate” in literally the first banter they have. (why did he say hopelessly romantic. why did he say that.) i don’t think it occurs to him that keir even might be material for the protagonist of anything until... maybe the arishok duel, by which time iirc he’s already publishing his serial inspired by, like, aveline and donnic of all people. before that, keir is pretty obvious rags-to-riches plot inspiration but tbh i think varric thought that part was a bit cliché and that even if he did want it, he’d swap out the actual character for someone more likeable, lmao. god knows how or if he was thinking of writing the love interest in the anders-focused version of the book

i don’t think it would have occurred to varric that keir would spare anders and run off into the sunset with him. varric has a very surface-level read on keir, he kind of just sees the red hawke front. i think it’s umm... how do i put this. i think it’s integral to the severity of varric’s reaction to anders in dai that it doesn’t make sense in his head that he himself was more angry than keir, and that he was closer to agreeing with sebastian, the guy who went on to attack kirkwall. i think a lot of people including himself act “out-of-character” in that moment from varric’s perspective, and he finds that very distressing. the rewrite of the book that suddenly centres keir is also him rewriting his memories until everything “fits”. he never liked anders that much, it was hawke, hawke was always really the protagonist and varric has always been on his side, incidentally varric also totally always hated sebastian and is nothing like him, also anders’ actions are 100% sudden and crazy and varric’s anger over them is 100% normal impersonal and justified, etc etc. (to be clear i’m not saying this affects everything we see in da2 and that anders is Maligned in it or whatever. varric’s narrative in da2 is not the same as the book. a very significant amount of the truth slips back in when he has to talk so long, and talk for his life. anders’ sympathetic qualities and their friendship, for example, i can’t imagine that comes up a lot that’s in a book that canonically doesn’t even mention what happened to anders after the explosion.)

varric does not feel particularly normal about any part of the life anders and keir are currently living and he does not like to think about it. he had to rewrite the book into a tragedy to make sense of everything, which conflicts upsettingly with the reality that those two are... honestly simply not tragic. obviously they went through hell. but the mage rebellion is achieved. anders and keir are both visibly better in body and mind for being out of kirkwall. they do get married! it was varric’s home (a city keir hated) that got destroyed (by anders). and varric’s the one left on his own. and the one audibly kind of miserable and guilty and homesick and generally Doing Bad during a lot of inquisition. i think he finds that comparison very hard to even think about. it’s easier to see and analyse tragedy in other people like an impartial observer, than reckon with the fact that it was actually you it happened to and the people you miss and blame and feel bad for in equal measure are kind of just... doing fine? (without you. better the moment they left your city behind.)

(note: i am never arguing “the book was meant to be about anders” as a general headcanon, i just know it to be true in my worldstate)

[jellyfishoreo1206]

I'm unsure if I'll consistently write for TF2 but omg has this been rotating in my mind like a rotisserie chicken from Costco

MEDIC, SNIPER, ENGINEER EATING YOU OUT

NSFW MDNI

Includes: a smidge of consensual somnophilia, fingering, tonguing, overstimulation, mention period blood/blood consumption (?), breeding if you squint

S/O is afab with fem pronouns

MEDIC

We can all agree he is a FREAKKKKKK

Now lemme say this

HE LOVES WAKING YOU UP LIKE THIS

Like seriously

He could do this forever

The soft/breathy moans you let out whenever he goes down on you

And how your body responds to his actions??

Omg he could just stay there

Doesn't care if you lock your thighs around his head, that's what the respawn machine is for

Loves it especially if you're having a wet dream about him, gives him an excuse to eat you out

Will love it even more when you're on your period/ovulating

Just the taste and smell of your blood and arousal mixing on his tongue and how much more fertile you will be when your period/ovulating finishes

It drives him INSANE

Will literally groan into your pussy from the satisfaction of your taste

Maybe whimpers/begs if he's pussy drunk

"Mein liebe! I can't get enough of jou..pleaze let me taste more of jou.."

If he's REALLY pussy drunk, he'll start speaking in his native tongue

Likes to think he's just helping you with your cramps (in which case he is :3)

He leaves bite marks on your thighs, it's canon I don't make the rules

I feel as if his tongue is more wetter than most, maybe a little slimly

And on the semi-thicker side

Would use his fingers to watch you flutter around them as he presses kisses into your skin

Then pull several orgasms from you via mouth until the only thing you are screaming is his name

"Scheiße.." Ludwig whispers to himself as he drags his hands slowly up and down the plush inner thighs of yours, observing the scarred skin as a trail of goosebumps followed right after as a breathy moan left his lips. He originally came in to wake you up as it was nearly time for breakfast as knowing the others, the food will probably be gone in just a matter of minutes. But a certain smell hit his nose when he approached the bed, one that made a unmistakable shiver of excitement go through his body.

The smell of period blood.

It wouldn't have been the first time he has gone down on you while on your menstrual cycle even you were while sleeping, but everytime it always brings him as sense of extreme arousal whenever he gets a whiff of the metallic scent. He would never tire of the smell or taste of it, not even after having tasted it 1,000 times would he never tire.

His breath comes out heavier as he drags a finger from your hole to clit, voicing his pleasure as he sees just the amount of blood and arousal that gathered on his finger from one stroke alone. Something in him went feral as he saw how your hole seemed to flutter, begging for him as the slightly quiet moan of yours left your lips. With no hesitation, he dove into your folds, hungerly lapping up your arousal as he groaned, eyes closed as he savored the flavor of you on his tongue as he thrusts it into you at a semi-fast pace. He made sure to pay attention to your clit, bringing his fingers up to gently rub at it to add to your pleasure.

A buzz went through his body as he continues his actions, his free hand anchoring itself onto your thighs as they twitched. The world seemingly disappeared around him as he made out with your pussy, blood and arousal smearing onto the lower half of his face as he angled his tongue to reach the right places inside you. A stream of whimpers were leaving your mouth, an absolute musical to his ears as he drinks you, a mixture of saliva, blood, and arousal slowly drip down his chin and onto the pristine white of his collared shirt. The other mercs might notice it, if they're observant enough, but to hell with them.

It wasn't long until your insides clamped tightly around his tongue as a long moan left your plump lips, walls pulsing as gushes of your arousal cover the entirety of the lower half of his face as well as the top part of his shirt and vest. Pulling away was a struggle, moans leaving his mouth as he humped the bed, lapping up the rest of your arousal with a hunger, merely pulling away when your twitches increased. He was somewhat surprised when he made eye contact with sleepy eyes, observing how flushed your face was and the dripping sweat begining to form around your hairline as your lidded eyes observed him, chest heaving heavily as you attempted to catch your breath.

God you are going to be the death of him.

The stinging pain of his hair being pulled snapped him out of his trance, your hand fisted in his hair guiding him back down to where he was before previously. He lets out a low groan when he sees just the absolute mess that he left. He needed no words when you pulled him closer, his breath fanning your heat as he watched your folds flutter from anticipation.

"Meine Liebe, du machst mich absolut verrückt.."

ENGINEER

All I can say is

HE IS A TEASE

AN ABSOLUTE TEASE

Like, he will basically make out with your pussy

Full on french kissing it

And when you're about to come, just sooo close to that edge, he just pulls away

And he will MAKE you beg for him to let you come

But will then make you come over and over again, chuckling whenever you try to ask for him to slow down

Dw you guys use the stop light system

He's not Engineer w/o that gentleman in him

"What's the matter, darlin'? Thought you wanted this~"

The main reason he does this? To see you squirt

No joke, he thinks you become more attractive when you're squirting

His mouth is so warm

AND HE HAS A THICK AND ROUGH TONGUE

He knows how to use that thing

And he knows very damn well

Prideful bitch (I love him)

Will more than likely use the Gunslinger when going down on you too

Inserting those metallic fingers inside you as he slightly nibbles at your clit, enjoying those small yelps you let out

His fingers are pretty thick too

Always cleans up/showers so you don't have to worry about oil or smth like that

I've seen this around whenever reading anything smut related about Engie, but he adds a vibration setting to the Gunslinger

It just makes sense

He would absolutely love to bite around your thighs, placing his hands on your love handles to keep you from squirming away from his touch as he continues his teasing

Bc he's in the workshop most of the time, he'll sometimes forget to come to bed most of the time and that ends up with you pretty needy

So to make up for it he'll eat you out with a passion, going slow and taking his time to work you up to that point, dropping some praise here and there as he kisses bits of your skin as he licks at your core in long strokes

Or just eat you out while you're sleeping, it's a 50/50 with this man

Also doesn't care if you clamp your thighs around his head, do it however much you like cause his mama didn't raise no wimp

Gives so much praise

Like so much it's sickeningly sweet

If he's still in his work clothes, he'll put his helmet on your head before going down

"Keep tha' safe f'me, yeah?"

He's a cowboy and a gentleman through and through

Will sometimes go down on you in his workshop if he's desperate enough

Which has led to some unfortunate walk ins (poor pryo will never see you guys the same anymore)

"Fuck! Dell slow down!"

Despite your pleads, the engineer between your legs didn't bother to stop, seemingly just going faster, his tongue lapping at your pussy like a dog. The only indication you had that he heard you was the slight chuckle vibrating against your core, moans slipping past your lips as you felt yourself nearly tipping over the edge, the temperature of the room seemed to rapidly heat up the more that thick tongue of his teases itself inside of you.

God he's been going at it for so long. The insides of your thighs are literally dripping with your previous orgasms, thighs shaking as you attempted to keep them from clamping them around his head as he drinks up your arousal.

But right when you were just about to come, just right at the very very edge, he stops all movement. Whines and gasps left your mouth as you begged him to keep going, to not stop, all attempts futile as he was pulling away from your core with a sly smirk on his face, using his tongue to lick up the extra fluids that collected around his mouth.

"What's the matter? Isn't that what you wanted, Honeybee?" Oh you could just slap that smirk off his face if that throbbing desperation of yours wasn't bothering you so much.

"Fuck please don't stop! Please!" Desperate pleas fell from your lips as you begged for him to continue what he was doing, begging him to just keep going despite your earlier complaints. Though what you weren't expecting was the sudden intrusion of his thick finger, a pleasured yelp leaving your mouth. The mechanic pumps his finger at a deliciously fast pace, the semi-rough texture of it providing a sensation that has your eyes rolling back as it scrapes against all those good spots within you, fingers gripping at the bedsheets when it hits a particular spot within you.

"That's it, let yourself go for me, Honey." His words effortlessly drip off his tongue, his eyes watching as his finger gets covered in your juices in seconds, adding a second one with ease to the first, watching how you squirm underneath him. Though he noticed how a little bundle of nerves was being neglected, and being the man he is, decided to fix it as he leaned down and gently takes it into his mouth, sucking it in a soft manner.

That seemed to have been enough to pull another orgasm from you, strings of moans leaving your lips as the mechanic listens in satisfaction as he drinks. You. Up.

Your mind was completely fogged with pleasure, small twitches here and there as you attempted to get your breathing under control. In the midst of that, Dell pulled away being careful to not overstimulate you any more as he pulled his fingers out, peppering your thighs with kisses as he waits for you to come back to earth, a smile on his face.

"You alright, darlin'?"

It took you a few seconds to process the question, only mustering up a nod, that was enough for him though as he leaned up to place a careful kiss on your cheek. "Okay, Hun. How does a nice warm bath sound?"

God I love chubby strong men

SNIPER

He has fangs

He will use them (gently) whenever he can

Nibbles at your clit/folds or your thighs whenever he goes down on you

I feel like he has a smell kink

Oh who am I kidding he DEFINITELY has a smell kink

Like, look at him

He's obsessed with the smell of you

To the point he kinda steals a few pairs of your underwear from your dirty laundry to keep for himself

Okay moving on

Has wandering hands, he cannot keep them in place

Very shy when it comes to it, and awkward for the first few times

But after a few encouraging words and teases he gets right to it

His tongue is a little longer than the other two

It's not as thick but omg can he reach allll those good spots in you

Maybe a smidge less wetter than Medic's

A little submissive, considering he's very touch-starved

Fastest to become pussy drunk too

So many whimpers and moans are falling out of his mouth and into your pussy

"Ohh bloody hell, Roo.. I can't stop.."

Denies that he even got pussy drunk (liar)

A little cautious whenever your thighs are slightly squeezing his head

Cause my man is HELLA skinny

A stick if you will

Head would easily collapse compared to the other two

One time you squeezed your thighs a bit too hard, and he ended up with a cranium broken into several pieces

That was fun explaining to the Medic

When the others found out they never would let him live it down

Poor guy :[

His fingers are longgggg and have a good amount of thickness to them

Like he spends more time watching his fingers stretching out your cunt

If he feels adventurous enough (or brave) he'll want you to sit on his face while he eats you out

You swear he gets more vocal when you sit on his face

So. Much. PRAISE.

He accidentally edges you without knowing it sometimes, but he always makes up for it <3

"Fuuuck, Roo.. You look so pretty spread out on my fingers.." The temperature in Mick's camper seemed to increase rapidly despite it being chilly in the early morning of New Mexico. The sun was barely peaking from behind the mountainous region, the interior of the van being dark due to the lack of light as you watched the outline of the sniper's frame above you with breathy moans leaving your lips as those deliciously thick fingers of his pump themselves into your heat.

His sunglasses were still on the small bedside he had in his camper, giving you a clear view of his eyes as they were intensely watching how his fingers disappeared into your heat with a erotically wet 'squelch' filling the space of the camper.

"Mick! Je–sus don't stop!" The knot in your stomach seemed to be getting tighter, steadily building up in pressure the more time that passed as his fingers dragged deliciously against the ridges of your walls, shocks of pleasuring shooting out through your nerves.

Though it seemed like his fingers inside you weren't enough, as he lowered his head to be leveled with your sopping wet, hot core.

Removing his fingers, whines left your mouth, about to ask him why he stopped before keening at the feeling of his fingers rubbing at your clit and the feeling of his warm tongue pushing itself into your hole.

"Fucking shiT–!"

His normally cool and calm facade quickly broke down the moment he had a taste of you on his tongue, whines and gasps leaving his mouth and into your core, making it more pleasurable for you as your back arched up from the bed, your hand shooting out to grip at his hair as an anchor.

The action alone pulled a loud groan from him, his tongue seemingly going at a faster pace, messily lapping at your flowing juices as it covers every inch of his lower face and the inside of your thighs.

His hands soon began to wonder, various places of your body did he squeeze gently, what was once steady hands were shaky and unsteady as they continued to roam your body feeling every bump, scar, and crevice underneath his fingers tips.

Everything started to become fuzzy from the constant pleasure and sensations, to add to it Mick hasn't stopped those beautiful moans of his as your cunt muffled them, you could faintly hear some words, most likely words of praise. You could see the top half of his face through teary eyes, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration as sweat dotted here and there on his face, hair messy and pointing in nearly every direction, god he was just so handsome.

The knot in your stomach finally broke, waves of euphoria washing over your body in rapid paces, nerves sparking and lighting on fire as the sensation surges and crashes throughout. Unconsciously, you accidentally wrapped your thighs around the sniper's head, squeezing a bit too tightly for his comfort. That's if his mind was clear, he would've cared, though his top priority as of now was to clean you up off all those delicious juices spilling out of your core and onto his tongue.

It took him some time to pull away once your ecstasy has passed, removing himself from in-between your thighs, placing delicate kisses along the way as he pulled himself up to lay down beside you.

Silence for a few moments, before you began to giggle exhausted, wrapping your arms around him to huddle yourself within his warmth.

"Wha's so funny, Doll?"

"Do I really have that effect on you?"

"Wha'?"

"To make all those cute little noises of yours."

"... don't know whatcha talkin' bout."

"Liar."

AHHHHHH I WISHED TO HAVE FOUND A BETTER ENDING FOR SNIPER USUJJJJWHWIWHJEIE 😭😭😭😭 (probably will update it to fix that later tho)

[ghysry]

Character pairing: Five/Reader, Five Hargreeves/reader, Five Hargreeves & Reader, Five & reader

Tags: Mentions of death, slight fourth wall breaking, Reader has the power to change the narrative, the first part is boring, the second part is under construction, basically an introduction to what the reader can do! Honestly you don't have to read this but I needed to get started on something, wow that is one long tag, Red text is when reader changes the narrative/fourth wall breaks!

Parts: Part one (you are here!), part two

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

"The narrative"

There are plenty of things you regret in life. Whether it be telling someone about your feelings or the death of a family member you just wish you could turn back time to stop from happening - the regret is there, or maybe it isn't, but the clear wish to change the narrative is strong enough that you can't ignore it. Which is why you're a particularly lucky one. Being one of the children born from one of the 43 mothers around the world who either had their kids stolen or bought from them, died or killed. Some, you're sure, probably killed their own mother in the time of their birth. A stomach not welded for a child after all isn't a stomach that will survive.

Fortunately enough, your power wasn't anything that would physically change your appearance either. Actually, your power would've helped you change your appearance at any time, it was honestly convenient had you not gone insane decades ago because of it. The power to change the narrative, or in other words, control, was gifted to you simply because you were born on a specific day at a specific time. You were allowed to play god...kind of. You had to write out the original god for every universe and made sure to rewrite in the narrative that you are truly the one and only. Doesn't seem very hard to change the narrative does it? Well, until they started introducing scripts.

Which is what led you to here, on your pastel painted bicycle paddling around someone's version of heaven, waiting for Klaus to die and end up here so you both could talk. Being someone who had control over everything was extremely overwhelming, and of course sometimes you can't just use your power for everything, so, you have to do things the normal human way. Aka, posing as a god to one of Five's brothers so you could pass on a message. You and Five have met before a considerable amount of times, in the first script while he was in the apocalypse, you erased the part where The Handler came and got him, instead, you did.

Long story short, he kind of likes you, but you're a really big fan of those niche slow burns so you decided it would be best to change the narrative to fit that type. Blinking in and out of his life was easy enough, finding the right time to do so was harder than you thought it would be. First, you initiated first contact - aka appearing beside him while he was travelling through the apocalyptic world at the physical and mental age of 17, yet to time travel nor join the commission. Then, you slowly gave him doses of affection over the years, even going as far as to change your appearance to make him believe you were growing up with him. And after he trusted you enough, you pulled him into the commission. It was a cannon event, as they say, so you didn't want to interfere that much, because like it or not, you started falling for him too.

It's raining, the patter of water droplets hitting his clothing was enough to alert him of your presence. It always rained when you got here, that much was certain. It was only where you'd end up in that he had to figure out for himself. Once, it even rained for a week straight before he found you, in some abandoned old house with a TV that was still working. He was shivering by the time he got inside, and you laughed, telling him he looked like a wet dog before handing him a coat jacket. This time around though, you appeared right behind him, his senses alerting the nerves circulating his body that the love of his life was here. Well, the love of his life..as he knew it. It was common knowledge to him that you didn't like him like that, which is why it's only in his head that you two are happily married.

He swivelled to look at you in the face, the similar smile you held every time you appeared was something he didn't want to erase from his mind, never in a million years. "Marigold, you're back." He gulped, pulling at his collar and looking around nervously like a high school boy who was partnered with his crush for a dance. You nodded along, stepping forward and being wary of the rubble surrounding the two of you, this was your big time to shine, you couldn't afford to trip on a little rock now. Well, you could, to be fair, but rewriting the script again would make you lose more marbles than you already lost. "Five, I have to show you something." You, Marigold, well, that's not your actual name but you thought it would be really funny if he called you a nickname by the flower that doomed him and his family from the day they were born.

Eventually you got him to join the commission.

And now you're here, getting annoyed that the person you were supposed to meet is almost late. Well, everything is always on time but you pride yourself on being early, which is why you expected everyone else to be early too - could this guy really take any longer to get here? All he has to do is die for godsake. With the sudden sound of a flutter, grass being pushed aside by a body that just appeared, you stopped peddling your bike and waited for Klaus to gain his lucidity back and notice you there. "Klaus." You called out, hearing him groan before getting up to stare at you, he wasn't exactly standing but he wasn't sitting either, he was kind of on his side with his arm propping him up and a slurred look on his face.

"Oh hey god thing..person..ma'am," Klaus hummed, smiling cheekily. It wasn't the first time you two met and it definitely won't be the last. "I need you to tell Five that Marigold said he looks good in the outfit with the hat." You whispered, still however being on your bike, making it a little hard for you to say what you needed to say. "Your name is marigold?" , "Shush, druggie. Go back to the land of the living now." You tapped him on the shoulder with your shoe, hearing his protests disappear into thin air, and so did he.

"Brrrhhh," Klaus shook, feeling his body return to him, it felt like he just dreamt of a place called the void, but then again in the void it also felt like he was dreaming his entire life up. He coughed and stuttered, Diego's hand on his back bringing him closer to real life faster than usual. "God you really have to stop scaring us like that Klaus." Allison, to his other side, dipped down to discipline him like a child, which is in tune with her character, seeing as she is a mother. "Wait wait wait uhm, uh, where's Five?" Klaus snapped back in - or dare you say, locked in, before aggressively getting up and almost dragging Diego down to trip and fall flat on his ass while using him as a support.

"Five? Well-" Allison stepped backwards, a look of confusion on her face before she was cut off with Five blinking in front of Klaus, apple juice in a fancy glass on his right hand and the will of America - aka a gun - in his left. "Right here," he sipped his pretend margarita, staring Klaus up and down judgementally like a blonde middle aged soccer mom towards the college drop out cashier in a random Walmart. Klaus snapped his fingers, trying to remember whatever it was he had to say to Give that was so important. "Err, uhh, okay here it is, Marigold told me to tell you that she really liked your outfit with the hat," Klaus looked at Five's face for any kind of reaction, violent or not.

...

"You know Marigold?!"

[overthinkinglotr]

People keep insulting the Amazon Lord of the Rings show by comparing it to fanfiction when really it's the EXACT opposite of fanfiction! It's so interesting/awful because it's like the ultimate ANTI-fanfiction! I was talking to someone the other day and wasn't aware that lots of people don't know about the insane complicated rights issues happening behind the scenes of the Amazon Show but it's wild. To give a quick summary of the Battle of the Five Rights Issues, as I currently understand it: 1. Amazon only has the rights to make a show about the pre-LOTR era as described in the Lord of the Rings books-- primarily in the appendices of Return the King, where a handful of pages give a brief timeline of some events that happened before the stories. In practice this means they are unable to use nearly all of the characters, places, and events people are familiar with when they think about Middle Earth. They have to make up everything out of whole cloth-- from characters to events to settings. This is either because of timeline reasons or for legal reasons or for both. Whenever they do manage to scrounge up the rights to something you might even vaguely remember (like Mithril) they announce it with enormous fanfare like they're a marvel movie introducing an avenger.

(Parenthetical: Another weird thing I noticed is that the series features practically zero quotes from Tolkien. I only counted about like 4 lines that were edited versions of lines from the books? While this is just a wild tinfoil hat theory, It does feel to me like there might've been some kind of limitation on the amount of Tolkien's words they were allowed to use, as well as the obvious limitations on characters and plot points and etc. The show has the rights to so few things and always REALLY wants you to know when it has the rights to something. It's desperate to remind you of the original books. You would think that, when it's unable to rely on familiar characters or places or events or plot points or music or etc, they would rely instead on Tolkien's really recognizable prose/poetry/language to form an emotional connection to the original stories. After all, language is the heart of Middle Earth, the author's love of language is the reason the world was created, and the unique prose of the story is kinda the soul of why it's memorable. And again, they theoretically have the rights to everything mentioned in the original trilogy right? Theoretically? So it's really odd that they don't use almost any of the language, unlike basically every other adaptation. It might just be a weird writing decision, but it's so strange that it really makes me feel like they were limited or at least dissuaded from including lines from the books.)

2. Amazon is legally Not Allowed to feature things that were mentioned in the Unfinished Tales or the Silmarillion, despite the fact that those are the books that contain most of the stuff about the era they're theoretically adapting. This leads to a bunch of really weird stuff where they introduce things you'd only care about if you read the Silmarillion, but can't include any of the things that would actually make you care about it. Like people who Aren't deep into the lore have literally zero emotional investment in Celebrimbor, but people who ARE deep into the lore know that you can't reference any of the reasons they care about it. 3. Amazon's series is NOT part of the same canon as the Peter Jackson/New Line Cinema films. They're not. However they obviously want to trick people into thinking they are because those movies are popular and a prequel to them would make money even if it sucked (see the Hobbit films.) But again, New Line Cinema still wants to make its own LOTR content based on the slivers of rights they've managed to grab onto, and don't want Amazon to step on their toes. So IIRC Amazon actually made a deal with New Line Cinema that they were allowed to imitate their movie franchise's aesthetic (to keep the brand popular and in the public eye)........ BUT if New Line Cinema ever felt like Amazon was infringing too much on their territory, they could step in and stop it. So the show just sorta looks and sounds like a bland knockoff of the New Line films, because that's all they're legally allowed to be XD. Like they're supposed to look/sound just enough like them to trick you, but they're not legally allowed to include the specific things from the PJ films that would actually make you feel nostalgic for them (like the famous musical leitmotifs.) 4. Part of the deal was that the Tolkien Estate could step in and change anything in the show if they felt it wasn't true to the lore-- which is ridiculous because again, Amazon basically doesn't own the rights to any of the lore so they're just making stuff up anyway. From what I can tell it seems like this basically means the Tolkien Estate can arbitrarily veto any creative decisions based on whatever they've decided “Tolkien would've wanted,” which obviously limits what Amazon is able to do (and likely prevents them from actually criticizing the awful problematic elements of Tolkien's worldbuilding)

5. Ok I don't have a fifth one. SO BASICALLY: Yes, the Amazon series is about a bunch of original characters in almost completely original settings featuring original events and original plot points that (for the most part) doesn't even include any of Tolkien's actual words, and also isn't affiliated with and doesn't include the recognizable things like musical motifs from the New Line Cinema films. But that doesn't make it fanfic. Because fanfiction is when you take another's person's characters and stories and write your own weird personal take on them, even if you don't legally own it. Who legally owns the copyright is irrelevant in fanfiction. Fanfic it's about writing a story with the characters and world you love, about transforming a story you're passionate about even if you don't legally own the rights. Amazon Rings of Power is what happens when an entire show is completely written around what you legally own the rights to. Every aspect of it only exists as an elaborate tap dance around copyright infringement. Again, I think the Amazon series is more interesting as "a study of how corporations/megafranchises can do massive harm and also weaken our ability to create good art" than it is as a tv show, alskdjfsdlf.

If fanfiction is "writing something you love regardless of whether you own the rights" then Rings of Power is "writing whatever fits within the extremely narrow box of the rights you happen to own." And that makes it....a very strange thing to exist! It’s kinda a shining example of how giant media monopolies and copyright laws designed to benefit them end up hamstringing everyone’s ability to create meaningful art, even the corporations themselves.

[werewolf-girlfriend]

ive been enabled so let me share some of my thoughts on how to get ur art noticed online

if u want Engagement on ur posts then i believe that its critical to make people care about ur art. the easiest way to do this is to appeal to something they already care about, like fandom, aesthetics/subculture, current events, having fun (people love humor!). a harder but perhaps more fulfilling route is to talk about ur own ocs and projects enough until people start caring about them too

theres an infinite amount of topics people care about out there so id suggest picking something u already care about urself and channel ur art energy there. trying to make art for the most popular things out there regardless own interests is an exercise in misery, id advise against it..! if im allowed to get superstitious for a moment, i do believe that even untrained eyes can tell whether a piece of art was fun to work on or a chore. and besides! if ur having fun then its easier to create more, and the more u create the more chances ull have at getting lucky and having a post seen :)

on a very related note, art is a way to communicate ideas so the quality of the idea being presented in a piece of art is paramount to how popular a post will be. what i mean by this is that technical skill isnt the primary determinant of a posts popularity. if all your posts are portraits of original characters then people will have a hard time connecting with your posts and theyll keep scrolling, even if those portraits are masterpieces! the major exception to this is probably other artists, who ive found usually have a greater appreciation for the technical side of art (we can only speculate as to why..!)

lemme finish by saying that making popular posts and being good at art are two entirely different skillsets, ive seen many incredibly skilled artists with jack shit for notes because they dont give people a reason to care about their stuff NOT TO MENTION its a huge game of luck whether a post will get seen. so dont go insane in pursuit of recognition!

(i dont want to make this post too long so ive included examples from my own art and their note counts with my analysis after the break)

hello and welcome to the extracurricular segment to this post :) i bring yall two pieces from my art blog @werewolf-artfriend:

here we have a portrait of my fursona that im still proud of and a sketch suggesting "what if sniffers (from minecraft) were the size of mountains?" (let it be noted that the sniffer sketch was posted right during the minecraft mob vote = peak interest in the subject of sniffers).

the portrait at the time of writing has a crisp 30 notes, whilst the sniffer sketch has over 2000 notes. from the same artist, on the same blog, posted only a few months apart. i believe this is a good example both of the power of a piece of art having an interesting idea at its core AND of a piece appealing to the interests of the masses

this is of course just two convenient example posts, but i have experienced fan art of popular topics getting thousands of notes a couple of times now, amidst my other furry shit that these days get around 200-300 notes in comparison

this may sound like a really long winded way of saying "fan art make the world go round" but i just want to point out the nuances that

1) it matters what u make fan art of: if a fandom is small or dormant (waiting on new canon content for example) then clearly less people will be excited about the fan art you make. dont expect 10k notes on ur post if the average recent post in the fandom gets around 200 etc etc

2) it doesnt have to be fan art! ive also had some of my bird art get thousands of notes because people simply like birds :) and this applies to ANY topic people care about! the world rly is your oyster on this one

anyway i think ive started rambling dhgdjhgd thanks if u read this far! i hope i got my point across! and if ur feeling down about ur art not being seen then just keep at it okay! keep creating and keep having fun! keep sharing ur ideas and perspectives with the world and ur audience will eventually find u! i love you!

[zestingbloodorange]

Iraq and Egypt aren't your aesthetic to use everytime you want "fantasy" flavor for your project and entertainment but refuse people from those countries to work on it because of your biases or because you genuinely hate us or whatever. This situation with people fancasting for iwtv and I also don't have any hope in the show runners to do the SWANA region justice in writing and in casting because when it comes to us it's ok to use us with no respect and never gives us opportunities or completely ignoring the origins of the character because people refuse to learn about the place and culture they're from. that's just the normal for the world and especially the west so it's not just about iwtv.

It is very disgusting to see the amount of characters anne rice wrote to be from the SWANA region and went on to white wash them and how she wrote them to be as characters. and now people are picking anybody from the west but people from said countries because well at least they're not exactly like how she described their looks... like I could bet that the entire production doesn't have more than like three people from any country in the SWANA region on it and this is me being generous and you don't even want people to play characters from their own countries ?? as if we get those opportunities in first place...lol. the amount of people I've seen demanding for them to not be played by people from those countries mentioned in a very disrespectful manner because they want certain actors in mind. I'm not even in fandom spaces and I keep clicking not interested when it shows up I shouldn't have liked some edits because this happens in every fandom people are weirdddd and louddd about it.

and this insane amount of new people who have come into the conversation and people gaining so much followers from this show talking so loud without taking a moment to learn about any of the cultures and places mentioned.

also how are book readers not know Akasha is from Uruk Iraq like ? It's also available info on google. of course Akasha is for everybody but iraqis is like we don't even exist and no iraqi ever have acted before.

It's worrying if the show did us right so much of the fandom from what I've seen so far will not like that.

at the end of the day it's their entertainment and the money that matters to the west not the cultures and heritages that are being taken for aesthetics and fetishiziton to profit from for every single genre. everybody cashing checks from us every two seconds there's a project with our cultures and heritages while never respecting us and never giving us our flowers not even the bare minimum of calling us by country name no it's just "middle east" the fav colonial term even if it's one or two countries you just cannot let it go ❤️ this is of course if not the cultures are mixed in a blender used as a mush for as a "fantasy world".

If you're going to use us but you are not willing to do the work and don't want us on the project then leave our cultures and heritages alone !!!

( of course I hope I'm proven wrong by the show runners and I'm getting the wrong fans on my tiktok fyp but it's not looking good )

[remimibanana]

A bit about Shattered!

I wrote a story about Robin and Sunday!

It's about what may have happened during their past, their present and what the reality during and after the never ending dream held for them.

You can find it here!

I wanted to write a bit about my thought process behind writing this, since I have a lot to say and it might interest some people! I also didn’t want to make my notes section way too long and make it hard to leave a comment or kudos.

All under the cut!

Conception

I started writing this story after 2.2 released, but I didn’t finish it until now. It took me so long but it’s finally here! 30k wasn't the amount I expecting but I am all for it.

It originally was meant to be a love letter to 2.2, but it soon became a love letter to Penacony as a whole since there’s spoilers for everything. I had to rewatch the quests often to make sure I didn’t mess up the lore.

I remember I spent a whole day on the 2.2 quest, a Thursday where I sat down on my phone reading through the dialogue and playing the game while wondering when it was going to actually end at one point.

It was way longer than I expected, but I cried by the end of it all while pacing around the kitchen like a crazy person. Seeing Robin jump for Sunday as he fell, I couldn’t help but tear up. It made me love Robin and Sunday way more than I did before!

It was an incredible quest. It was worth all the hours I poured into it, thanking everything that no one was home when I let out noises and screams like a maniac in the kitchen out of all places. I'm a very expressive person.

I also jumped like a maniac when Acheron said Mei, or Yayi since I play with the CN dub! I love Honkai Impact 3rd a lot, if you didn’t know. I mean, everyone knew beforehand but it felt super validating for it to be explicitly said.

I knew immediately that I had to write something for this wonderful story. I’m always inspired to write after a quest, especially one like this. Shaoji cooked with Penacony and he needs to come back and write more for Star Rail.

I had to write Robin and Sunday, because there was so much I could write regarding these two doomed siblings. I did alternating point of views with both of them, as I wanted to tell both their stories.

I also knew that I wanted angst to the max, especially after hearing what the heck Robin went through and the fact that the game barely touched on anything in her point of view. This is the same case with Sunday.

I’m sorry for the pain I have inflicted on you all! I will write a happy story at some point, I promise you. Then again, I've said this before and I still manage to write angst…

There wasn’t much planning for this, aside from a few things from the quest that I wanted to write into it and use…and yet it looks like I’ve meticulously planned it all out doesn’t it?

I amaze myself sometimes. I quite literally surprised myself actually at times, I made stuff connect and I didn’t mean to really. Is this what they call being a genius?

Let’s take it from the top!

The Past

The first thing I knew I wanted to write was how Robin was shot in the neck.

That sounds terrible, damn. I don’t know how else to word it, I’m sorry!

It was mentioned by Sunday so briefly, and then never brought up again by anyone which is insane to me like what do you mean that Robin was shot in the neck in a war she went into?!

We got to see how he was informed by the Dreammaster about it after showing Robin’s letter and how he was going to pack his bags immediately for Kasbelina-VIII but that was honestly it. This gave me the perfect base to write my rendition of how it all happened.

I structured this part by writing out two letters, the one that Robin sent to Sunday and one that Sunday would have written back if he received it first. I then wrote the actual happenings underneath each paragraph that contradict the letters.

My goal was to make this as interesting as I could since it’s the first thing you read in my story. I needed to hook you all in, and keep you wanting to read on until the end.

There is a lot of story building here, describing the conditions of Kasbelina-VIII and some of the messed up stuff that is happening there. It’s rather realistic, because I wanted it to be. If I was going to talk about a war, I would do so properly without downplaying anything.

I first found it strange that Sunday didn’t know about the war at all. I figured, wouldn’t a war be at least broadcasted by the largest government body, the IPC themselves?

That’s when the idea that the IPC was intentionally covering it all up came to me. It seemed like the most logical explanation, and a very interesting one that I could build upon.

Despite Robin’s letter being in her point of view, we see another being shown. The soldiers who she was staying with this whole time, their thoughts regarding the war and Robin herself.

I had to make a reason as to why she would be shot, because she had to be right in the middle of the battlefield for that to happen. If the IPC was covering everything up, they would also stop supporting the poor planet.

These poor soldiers she’s staying with had no new supplies delivered to for weeks, and yet they still gave what they had left to her, showing that there is still kindness in such a horrific situation.

Based of what I could see, Robin wouldn’t let them suffer like this when she learnt about the supply issue by what I assume was on accident generally. I wanted to give the soldiers some character, so I made them lie to her for her sake about how long they didn’t have supplies for.

We have a lot of lying mentioned in this story, since it’s the main premise for both Sunday and Robin. They both lied to each other for the other’s sake, thinking that it was the right thing to do. Lies after lies pile up, and we see what happened when they all came falling down.

I've never been shot before (god forbid) but I tried to imagine how it might have felt for Robin, the way it would make her feel. It did hurt to write this part, the way she still tried to deliver those supplies...the way she belittled herself for lying...

I wanted to make you all suffer, pretty much. That also sounds terrible.

Now, we go into Xipe and THEIR role. The Dreammaster mentioned how Harmony had blessed her by missing her vital arteries, so I made THEM interfere despite the fact THEY usually only observe and watch everything unfold.

THEY said that the bullet was not meant to hit her, but it still did for some reason that eluded them. This was such a major foreshadowing point that doesn't make much sense until later on, I am such a genius for this!

The same case when it is mentioned that someone could try to calculate their reasonings by forsaking their humanity, I was intentionally foreshadowing what Sunday does later on when he tried to.

You seriously would think I planned all this but it sort of came out this way.

Sunday's letter on the other hand, is much more of a character study of himself if anything. I wanted to explore how he would feel about all this, the way he would handle such a situation of his beloved sister being shot.

We know that Sunday uses puppets, but it's never stated why or how he had them in the first place. We can also see how he can manipulate them, making them act out scenes and characters during the time when we are stuck running through those Memory Zones before his boss fight, which I took and built upon the idea.

Sunday is a very complex character, so I made him a little mentally unstable when concerning his sister. The way he lashed out at his puppets, destroying them all over and over while making up scenarios of her shooting in order to cope. He even thinks that a puppet is Robin for a second.

If this is out of character or not, I don’t know. I wanted to give him more character than we see in the actual story, and naturally my thoughts went to this. It is mentioned how much he loves Robin (as a sister obviously), and so I wanted to see how far he would go for his only family left.

I took the concept of Harmony and expanded on it. We can see that Harmony can alter the mind's state, so why not make it so they can control others by altering their thoughts? I often like adding additional powers for the plot that still make sense in the realm of the game.

For Robin, it was mostly subconsciously done. For Sunday, he does it intentionally for his own reasons. Both use Harmony to alter minds without asking if the intended victim wanted it, making them both in the wrong.

We have these whispers present, the choir above that Sunday can hear because of how attuned he is to Harmony, alongside Robin that he rejects often. I don't think this is a thing in game, but I thought it would make everything so much more intriguing!

His distrust in Harmony grows and the rejection started from the first seed of doubt planted by Mr Gopher Wood. I imagine that his manipulation started young, slowly introducing the disharmony into Sunday's ideals.

This whole section quite literally foreshadows the rest of the story, it's great.

The Present

The major part of this story is when Robin is in Sunday's consciousness.

We have no idea what happened to her there, only that they were “put” to sleep. In Ena’s Dream, apparently it is called Tuning that she went through alongside Welt Yang by Sunday, who mentioned that nothing too bad happened to him there.

Then again, apparently it was Jing Yuan who saved Welt from Sunday’s subconscious???? I don’t really know how that works but point is, I had a lot of playing ground for what happens to Robin in there.

Here, we are introduced to the idea of Memory Zones (every time I read this, I think of Mystery Zones from Pokémon Diamond/Pearl/Platinum), areas of Sunday’s subconscious that he made to house his manifestations.

The first zone that Robin enters is incomplete. I imagine that Sunday never prepared for the possibility that Robin would ever enter his mind, so she was thrown into a zone that was quickly conjured up to keep her.

Since Robin too is attuned to Harmony, she can affect the Memory Zone to an extent. The colours you see on the ground is from her own power, as you can tell by the fact it originally came from her every single time it is mentioned.

As to why this is happening, I think it’s more of a subconscious thing once again. Robin doesn’t truly mean to use Harmony here while stuck in a random zone.

She can also hear the whispers, although they are trying to help her unlike Sunday’s ones. This is clearly a major foreshadowing point that you realise later on that these aren’t the same whispers.

We see the Charmony Dove from their childhood flying around and giving Robin a bit of trouble. This was definitely Sunday’s doing, who finally decided what he would do with her.

I wanted Robin to sing here because I thought that it was the best way to calm down the little bird, and symbolize how important her singing is to her and the world around her.

As she keeps saying, it’s the only thing she is good for at the end.

It was Sunday who made the bird fly away like a puppet with feathers, and Robin ran after it. I feel like she’s very selfless, to the point that she would run into a trap knowingly.

A zone just for her.

I knew I wanted to use that story with the Charmony Dove since it’s pretty prominent in 2.2. The Memory Zone she runs into is a replica of the bedroom the siblings stayed in, with the Charmony Dove now in the cage they kept it in.

This bird isn’t the same one as before as you can tell, since this whole zone is Sunday’s memory of how he released the small bird to its death. Robin helps it to fly, but it only shattered its wings when it fell as Sunday explained.

That’s when she learnt that this was all her fault, and we learn why that bullet that wasn’t meant to hit her did back then.

It was karma. They do say that karma’s a bitch, and for Robin, it took form with that bullet. It sounds like I’m quoting Jojo Siwa but I’m not, I swear ;;

Point is, I AM A GENIUS FOR THIS.

I didn’t intent for it but I wrote down that sentence “Perhaps, Robin was shot in the neck because of what she did” and my brain connected the dots immediately with what I wrote with Xipe earlier.

Sunday finally makes an appearance in person. This whole sequence is interesting because we have him hurting Robin, as if she was one of his puppets. I intentionally made it this strange, with Sunday mentioning after that the zone fell out of his control later on.

I described how his arms were out like an overseer, that’s a very obvious reference to Otto Apocalypse from Honkai Impact 3rd.

The lullaby part is from 2.3, where Robin mentioned how Sunday used to sing a lullaby to her when she was restless at night. I thought it would the perfect final blow.

It isn’t Robin in that zone. But it is at the same time. It’s interesting, isn’t it? Would it be too farfetched to say that it was Robin's consciousness who transferred into that puppet? Who knows.

Robin “wakes up” from that Memory Zone, completely nauseous and disoriented from the sheer amount of Harmony, or Order she was subjected to. We saw this with that doctor earlier with only a small amount of it used.

It was too much for her to handle. It was only when Sunday appears again to cut through it all, does she snap out of it out of his sheer grace. What a kind person he is.

We learn that Robin is in a cage. This is the same cage we see in her splash art! I like to try to integrate them into my stories, like I did for one of my previous stories with Black Swan’s one!

The two siblings share a conversation that doesn’t end well, with him leaving her. It was the only logical outcome for our doomed siblings here. I feel bad for them.

The cage breaking and Robin singing is also based on her splash art, as I needed a way for her to escape the cage that made sense to her and the story. I think it signifies how important her singing is to her and how Harmony interacts when she does.

We see Robin running around all the various Memory Zones Sunday has, noting how there are many puppets in them. I was alluding to when we go through those Memory Zones in the Grand Theater where Sunday tells us some stories using his puppets.

In one of them…we find her companion that was forced to sleep alongside her.

WELT YANG IS HERE.

I just wanted to write him since he is one of my favourite characters and I had my chance to finally in a story!

You can probably tell how much I enjoyed writing him based on how long his part is. If you have played Honkai Impact 3rd, or know Welt’s backstory, this is my little treat for you. If Hoyo won't make him do things, I WILL.

I made Welt finally use his powers. He’s the Herrscher of Reason, he has the freaking Star of Eden (the 9th Divine Key itself), AND HE BARELY DOES ANYTHING PLEASE DO SOMETHING I WANT TO SEE—

Ahem.

Making a bench is child’s play for Welt. I thought it would be kind of funny if he did.

Welt is more childish here since he wanted to cheer Robin up, who looked clearly sad. I think he probably used to do something similar with his adoptive son Joey when he was upset. He couldn't help but do so for his companion.

The idea for him making himself have wings like hers is from this one comic I saw on Twitter that lives rent free in my mind. I thought it would be a great way to cheer her up while also using his power more!

(It took me so long to find this, it wasn't funny how much I scrolled)

His wings smack right onto his face rather comedically and I took that from the official emojis where you can see Robin hiding her face. I imagine that younger Halovians struggle with their wings moving around and his wings are practically akin to newborn ones.

The power of Reason.

This is where I had to make things painful. Welt talks about his experience, the memory that Sunday chose to use against him. I was thinking about what would be the best memory, and of course I went for the jugular for that pain factor.

This is where Welt Joyce, the former Herrscher of Reason died in the city he was protecting. This was where Joachim Nokianvirtanen, who we now know as Welt Yang received the Core of Reason, the name Welt and a mission from Welt Joyce, before passing away.

It’s a very important memory to Welt, and one I would see Sunday exploiting. Only those who know of Welt Yang’s story would know that the man he mentioned was Welt Joyce since I intentionally didn't mention his name.

For Welt recreating half of the town, I was spitballing about the energy part. I don’t know if Memoria would be a good substitute for Honkai energy but I’m just rolling with it. Don't quote me on that.

The main role of Welt here is to reassure Robin, give her the will and inspiration to keep going despite everything. She even tells him all about her experiences, a connection between the two already facilitated by simple communication.

I feel like Welt is such a father figure. If only we all had him in our lives.

Reality

Sunday has now merged with Dominicus and has fallen to those whispers above, as the never ending dream is taking form.

The Dreammaster, Mr Gopher Wood himself makes an appearance as his former form. In 2.2, all his ravens die and he is never seen again, making it pretty clear that he's dead. However, I assume that he joined the Dreamscape and is now an entity that can oversee everything.

Dead only physically, as you will.

The Embryo of Philosophy is named by the Dreammaster here, since I was wondering how Sunday was named that during his boss fight, although it could have been from the whispers THEMSELVES. I also made Mr Gopher Wood show his true colours, to show that manipulative side.

There was a reason for this. He didn't want his son to start rebelling or second guessing his choice, so he used Robin as a way to keep him ensnared in his deception. Evil, isn't he?

I honestly think that Sunday knew that he would ascend to Aeonhood, as smart as he is. At least, he would have had an inkling of Gopher Wood’s true intentions.

Those whispers were Ena this whole time inside of Xipe as we learn. If Xipe absorbed Ena, wouldn’t Ena still be there? I think Mr Gopher Wood and Ena were in cahoots, scheming together. Perhaps even more than that (gets hit).

How…how dare he? 

How dare he glimpse Heaven’s will? How dare he change people’s fate?

How dare he decide the life and death of other beings? 

How dare he represent the will of all beings? How dare he control the greatest secrets and riches of the world itself?

How dare he…hold the fate of the entire world in his hands?

These lines are from HI3, particularly from Chapter 3 of Part 2 but slightly edited. This is what Baiji thinks of his actions to save everyone, and I feel like it also applies to Sunday.

We have many HI3 references here. I couldn’t help myself.

We now go back to Robin's point of view. This is after she awakens from Ena’s dream.

I don’t know if any other people woke up aside from the Astral Express + Acheron, Boothill and Black Swan, but for plots sake, there was. Just some random people we don’t care about.

We have Acheron! I wanted to write her since she played a huge part in Penacony and it would be a shame not to after I read this:

The bloody sacrifice becomes the sweet dreamland. The real world will lose meaning for them, while the eternal dream will become their only reality. They will no longer think with time. Their dreams will be connected, which will create a true miracle that transcends finality.

This is also a treat for the HI3 players. The words here are the words that Raven tells Mei before Project Stigma takes place. I was playing through that chapter at one point and thought that the words fit perfectly for this story.

I rewrote Acheron’s part because I disliked what I had initially. I was writing about Finality and how it was the same as transcending Order but it didn’t fit well so I changed it. I wanted to say how Finality governs time and how it can change reality if you had the authority...but perhaps another time.

As we know, Acheron was the only survivor who defeated End, referring to Kevin Kaslana all by herself without her companions unlike in HI3. I had to mention this and highlight the difference between their cases.

She doesn't show up again in the story, but she also impacts Robin in a way.

Miss Firefly takes the stage!

We have a bit of Robifly because I do ship them and I couldn’t help myself when I had a chance to write an interaction between Robin and Firefly. I wanted something a bit more lighthearted to break between all the angst and pain.

I saw how Firefly mentioned that she can't dream, and so I just wanted Robin to tell her otherwise to cheer her up. She’s following Welt’s lead, being that kind and inspirational person!

I’m sorry for making you the third wheel…

Speaking of him, we have Welt again appear! I couldn’t help myself, I just wanted to write more of him and I felt like Robin would try to seek him out first.

Did you know that it was called a Dream Pool, that bed in the Reverie? I had to rewatch 2.0’s quest because I didn’t remember the name for the life of me.

This time, we have Welt suffering yet again…I'm sorry that I only write you like this. He mentions in 2.3 that he dreamt about returning to his homeland and seeing all his old friends. This poor man, imagine waking up to find that it was all a lie.

The yelling mention was obviously a nod to Tesla who I would imagine yell at him for taking this long to return without a single word.

I hope Welt does get to connect with his homeland eventually, I want to see them or hear them!

We then go into the battle against Sunday! I purposely chose Sunday's point of view here, since we never receive it in the game.

I was rewatching the fight, and noted how sudden the switch from the question Sunday asked to mentioning how it was their final talk felt like it wasn’t him talking anymore, which I made the case here since we have my wonderful whispers.

We learn more about how Sunday felt during this, and what may have happened after their fall. Robin mentioned how she woke up by herself, which could only mean that Sunday left her there.

I think he genuinely was upset by the failure, but most of all…failing Robin. The feather falling down is a reference from how there were feathers flying around when Robin appeared and how the Trailblazer took it into their hands.

It clearly has the power of Harmony, and that’s what Sunday can feel when he holds it tightly. I imagine that he would keep that feather with him, as a reminder of what he lost.

The ending is based off 2.3, where we learn that Sunday is captured and will face trial. I didn’t go into much detail since we really don’t know much about how he was caught.

It won’t be the end.

It will be the end of all the suffering. 

I will realise my dreams.

I will make my dreams come true. 

I won’t fail again.

I will never fail.

The poison to Penacony still lingers.

I am a traitor. 

These are Robin and Sunday's thoughts respectfully. As you can see, they are both the same fundamentally. That goes to show how they are both traitors in a way, aren't they?

We have a little ending about the siblings, alongside a story with a snake.

The snake is Miss Jade herself, where Robin went to her to make her greatest desire come true...to let Sunday go free. I wanted to reference the end of 2.3 where we see Jade talking to Sunday, how he was free but he refused her.

I repeated the words Acheron spoke for the very end to tie it all together. The perfect words to end a story filled with so much!

End

Thank you for reading all this! I’ve spent way too long on this story and I’m glad it’s finally out there for everyone to read!

I feel like in terms of storytelling, this is my best story so far! I'm proud of all the elements I was able to merge into this!

- Miku

[amethystfairy1]

hiya it’s been a hot minute since I sent an ask but I want you to know that I’ve been reading all your stuff for months now, refreshing multiple times a day bc I can’t get enough and I adore everything you write <3<3<3 I think your more recent writing with the darker themes is well done, it adds the perfect amount of angst and stakes to the story, more than vague threats of getting hurt, esp in the under city, but it’s not too much at the same time. Also your newest TT treebark is probs my favorite fic thus far, and treebark isn’t even my favorite ship lmao. It’s so arghhh yesss with Rens acting but Martyn can’t tell nooooo 😭 I REALLY want to know what Ren was thinking that whole time negotiating with the bandits, esp when he finally looked at Martyn bc he could probably hear his cries the whole time and UGH it breaks my heart in a good way. AND MARTYN ACCEPTING THAT REN WOULD DO THIS, AND FORGIVING HIM????? The angst, the FEELS. Stunning. A masterpiece. I start my days checking to see if you’ve posted I’m so obsessed XD. Might have to draw the scene… anyhow. I see you get a lot of requests to write certain ships now bc all the stories r so captivating we just HAVE to know more. But. I hope you don’t feel pressured or stressed about it, make sure to prioritize your own wants first. The quality is worth the wait <3 that said, I’m going insane over Martyn. oH also!!! Ren grabbing the wolf pendant!!!!!! He knows how much it means to Martyn my HEART they’re so AAAaAAaAaaaaA!! And he waited until he was between Martyn and the bandits to attack! To protect him! 🥺🥺🥺 the little details are so sweet I’m dying to know rens thoughts. He probably has the rage of a thousand suns in him after seeing Martyn tied up, hurt, crying, bc they would DARE lay a finger on the only one who protected him, who was nice to him. Just. Tomorrow can’t come fast enough. I’m def gonna draw this. Also side note love the new pfp

Hello!!!! Good to see you!!!!

I'm so glad you're still reading and enjoying my works!

Also very happy to hear you're enjoying the darker themes that have been coming up recently in both TTSBC and TT! You're exactly right, that's exactly the sort of thing I was trying to nail...oh yeah ANGST with Treebark right now!

I mean. If you feel inspired. I would LOVE if you drew this scene. Because like, I have that art you did of Ren asleep on Martyn's shoulder as the cover image to my Treebark fanfic doc 🥹

Thank youuuu I appreciate the thought about not feeling pressured or stressed, I promise I'm not! I know everyone is just excited for their favorite/most compelling storyline to continue! And like I've said elsewhere, I plan to stick to my mantra...when I try to write something I'm not in the mood to write, I burn out and don't feel like writing at all. That's what happened to me the last time I stopped writing, and I didn't post at all for nearly a year. I HATED THAT. So TTSBC and TT is the perfect situation for me! Lots of ships, lots of characters, lots of dynamics, and between the two I can write BASICALLY anything I feel like at any point in time! So yeah! I'll write what I feel like writing in the moment, because that's always when I come up with my best stuff!

THE WOLFS PENDANT YUP GOOD CATCH. Ren's a good guy, he pays attention to that sort of thing 💖

I'm glad you like my new pfp!!! I love it! It's by my same friend who drew my old pfp, but THIS one is of an original character of mine everyone who reads TTSBC is very familiar with and people very scared of, but I assure you, any resemblance to characters previously mentioned is purely coincidental, hypotheticals should be, should be, should be dismissed, and there is no need to be concerned. 😉

Thank you for coming by again!!!

[mightymizora]

just saw your dao mention in another ask and i'm wondering if you have a ted talk about why you love it?

i also REALLY loved dao but i recently replayed it and i'm wondering how much of my affection was just nostalgia. some of that is just an aging game of course, but if dao came out today i'd be even crankier about some of the design choices than I am about bg3 (and I have a lot of cranky bg3 thoughts that I don't post haha)

I think I last played in 2021 probably, and that was my 9th playthrough lol.

Is it perfect? No, but to me it stands up really well still. I like CRPGs but with older ones I sometimes struggled with how much you needed to use your imagination and/or how unintuitive the UI was. I will say I first played DAO on console and switching to PC was a revelation, it was so definitely built for hotkeys and mod support! But I loved the voiced companions, the 3D graphics.

I think there have been other less graphically ambitious CRPGs that have also done things I love. The Pillars of Eternity games, for sure. Some of the Owlcat games. But there's something about the character design of the companions, the way the dwarven origins weave into the main narrative, the way the story unfolds in exactly the amount of time it needs to take that I love in Origins. (side note I think people that didn't like it so much really should play as dwarves, and if they don't like it for aesthetic reasons they need to. Grow up. That's my TED talk lmao)

Some of it is nostalgia, for sure. We've come a long way in a lot of areas from 2009. But I think the balance of exploration and linear storytelling is a sweet spot for me, I find endless open world really tiring unless there's excellent environmental storytelling happening (Skyrim and Fallout New Vegas do it very well, a lot of other games including Inquisition don't do it as well for me.) I love the writing on the whole, especially the two dwarf paths which are the highlight of the whole series IMO. You have a lot of narrative freedom with your warden in a way you don't with Hawke or the Inquisitor, and that's got a lot to do with not having a voiced protag. I'm not a voiced protag fan at all, unless you are telling a very tight story. I feel like if you're trying to allow for a really customisable main character it always hinders things. Shepard is that sweet spot for many, but is extremely hard to get right; it basically works because they are set in a very particular position at the start of the game, but their past is very broad brushstrokes, and the v/o is kept very neutral.

I actually am in the minority of loving BG3, lol. It's again not perfect and I do mourn the game we might have had from early access, but they struck a balance between appeal to audience, graphic level, scale and sheer amount of options that I think is insanely impressive technically. I just wish they'd kept a little more of what they wanted to do instead of responding quite so much to fan desires, but then again the game would have appealed to a much smaller audience had they done that.

But to me, BG3 combines gameplay I actually enjoy, characters I actually love, environments I like playing in, and choices that feel really juicy, and that's what I want in a game. And that feels like origins to me.

Origins certainly isn't perfect and there's BIG things I would change (why do the villainous men all have big noses? Why are the skin tones so poor? Why would a human society based on a church led by women with a woman as prophet still be patriarchal and sexist?) but I think it still has some of the more interesting writing of the series balanced with the narrative freedom I like in an RPG like that.

[fallershipping]

My Pokemon world "main game" story timeline starts with Porygon being created in 1995, though I don't know when the events of FRLG/RSE happen... An official writer said that Kanto/Hoenn stories have happened around the same time. I know for certain that the original RGBY Gameboy games were 1996... And hilariously, SM Red wears a 1996 shirt, which always made me think he's possibly less than or equal to age 31.

But Gameboy Kanto/Johto being 1996 and 1999 (The games mimic real life release dates) ... Makes me curious as to whether the Advanced Games follow that notion? Otherwise, Advanced-Kanto's timeline means that Red began his journey in 2002, perhaps?

This is why I always have the floating 15-20 years between Kanto/Hoenn Stories to Alola. Though with Red's 1996 T-Shirt and Porygon's dex entry, it feels too intentional to be throwaways for 20th Anniversary jokes...

When Anabel was mentioned to have wound up in Alola 10 years prior to the events of SunMoon, people incorrectly assumed that this was the start of the timeline and that there's exactly ten years between Kanto-Alola when it's certainly not the case. Even then, she's completely off the table for timeline writing because she was canonically in Ultra Space for an implied long amount of time (enough to gather an INSANE amount of wormhole energy, apparently)

Even then, Junichi Masuda said that they don't focus TOO MUCH on a timeline because it overcomplicates things... But I feel like they do have some kind of linear timeline going on with what they've written and hinted.

[sofiasjornal]

My (many) questions after HOFAS

While writing my HOFAS review, I was thinking about the different perspectives and POVs the new book could have, since we are finally leaving Bryce and Hunt's story. Selfishly, I would love the focus to shift to Lidia and Ruhn. Not only because they became my top two favorite characters but because the possibilities for crossovers and connections with the other series are endless. I don't think there's a need, but let me just clarify that this is all speculation! And because I might remember something more in a few days, or weeks, or months, I’ll update this as I go along!

1) Lidia has some kind of connection with Aelin and Mala’s bloodline (she named her son after Brannon, after all!!) and since KoA and ACOSF share the same timeline, and HOFAS is set after ACOSF, Aelin is still very much alive and could somehow connect with Lidia! She seems to have an incredible amount of firepower, the likes of which we only saw with Aelin, so there’s definitely a connection there. And they are both trained assassins, for god's sake! And with the stags! She’s a Terrasen girl, through and through!

But again, how did the fae shifters come to Midgard if Erilea (I don’t think the name of the planet was ever revealed, so let’s stay with Erilea) was never conquered?! Another rift that opened and then closed? Is there any mention on ToG of that? I don’t remember… I might have to read it all again! 

There's also the very interesting context in which Lidia's children were conceived, in a very similar ritual to Calanmai, from the Spring Court (ACOTAR). So how come two of SJM's series come together in Lidia's character?

2) Also, Ruhn and Rhysand would also be an interesting crossover. The similarities between the two go beyond those of Fae, it would be really interesting to explore that. Bryce didn't really explore these similarities when she met Rhysand, I wish she had. We know that Prythian is the home planet of the Fae, but definitely something linking Rhysand and Ruhn together.

Also think about the possibility, if Ruhn is connected or a descendant of Rhys's bloodline and Lidia of Aelin’s, then the two bloodlines are now united! AGAIN, SO MANY POSSIBILITIES, IM GETTING DIZZY!

So in a book where Lidia and Ruhn take center stage, imagine the power of that story!! I’m speechless just thinking about it! 

3) The link between Wyrd and Urd got me thinking! Somewhere in HOSAB, when Bryce went to the under-king and he talked about Urd, when she was not a goddess but a force, “When she was a vat of life, a mother to all, a secret language of the universe?” (Yes I went looking for the quote, my mind is driving me insane). This secret language of the universe, could it be the wyrdmarks?! And if so, remember when Bryce killed Micah in the first CC and Micah said “The language is beyond that of this world. It is the language of universes.” Could Bryce’s tattoo be in wyrdmarks and if so that would mean that the Book of Breathing is also in wyrdmarks! Amren can read those! HOW?! HOW?? And what are wyrdmarks doing in acotar and crescent city?! There’s definitely a connection with ToG! It’s right here!

4) The Valg, the Asteri, the Daglan, the Princes of Hel, and... one hell of a mess, pun intended! By the end of HOFAS, we know that the Asteri and the Daglan are the same thing. I’ve been, however, wondering about the Valg. I don’t believe the Asteri are Valg. They don’t fit the same characteristics. Besides, in ToG is said that the Valg’s home planet was ruled by three kings, a planet made by pain, wind, and darkness, and the Asteri were originally seven and come from a forgotten planet in the cosmos. Besides, the Asteri feed on firstlight and the Valg don’t have that need. So I don’t think there’s a connection there.

However, in ACOMAF, when Bryce is fighting the Stryga and throws a brick in her face, the line reads  “Bone crunched and she roared, black blood spraying.” This always stayed with me because it kept calling the Valg to my memory. The Valg have black blood as well. Also, the death gods feed on life just like the Valg, if I’m not mistaken! So could the death-gods be Valg? Do you know who else has black blood? The Reapers! In HOSAB, when Bryce strikes with the starlight sword it is said “And nothing had ever felt so right, so easy, as plunging the blade into the bony chest of the wounded Reaper. It arced, bellowing, black blood spurting from its withered lips.” So either it is a coincidence that all these creatures have black blood or there’s a connection! And considering the reapers originate from Hel, is there possibly a connection? However, it doesn’t quite make sense, because their home planet was ruled by three kings Erawan, Orcus, and Mantyx (let’s not forget that bitch Maeve). And in Hel, each layer is governed by a different prince, seven in total. So this is where I raise my hands and say I don’t know 🤷🏻‍♀️ where to go from here! 

5) The whole issue of the Viper Queen! When Tharion went to the Viper Queen something’s raised “concern”. First, the blood oath! I only remember something like that being mentioned and talked about in ToG! Tharion was only able to escape because Ithan killed Sigrid and broke the bond! Remember at the end of HOSAB, after Tharion defected and VP ordered him to come back after Cormac’s death? He felt a pull of the bond that he couldn’t resist! Remember how the cadre were all Maeve’s prisoners with that same bond? It’s the same thing! And remember Tharion mentioning that her blood was darker than normal?! 

Feel free to join this mess and give me more theories and your thoughts on all of it! I’m just going to figure all this out! And like I said, as I think of new things I’ll just update this!

[sadiecoocoo]

Anyone else forget that show ended cuz it’s been so long since it ended and you think, “wonder when the next season is gonna be announced,” and then you look it up in case you missed it and then you get a crushing realization that it ended almost a decade ago now and you haven’t rewatched it in so long that you don’t even remember the ending?

So guess who’s abt to rewatch Star Wars rebels (spoilers) and scream from joy at Ashoka’s reveal again and cry at her death and cry at Kanan’s death and scream at Ashoka’s revival and cry at Ezra’s sort of death and then spiral into watching the Ashoka show because some how I’ve yet to watch it and then decide to rewatch all of clone wars and then the bad batch! Yes I am a hardcore Star Wars fan it has been bred into me and yes I do think the sequels suck, but it is due to the lazy writing and endless amount of plot holes and how they nerfed every original character and how they scrapped the original story that was supposed to be abt Leia and how she became a Jedi and also slayed as a literal queen and GOD DAMNIT I WANNA SEE THAT EVEN IF ITS AN EXTRA MOVIE OR (I would love to this actually) IF ITS ANIMATED BECSUSE GID DAMNIT THE ANIMATED STAR WARS SHOWS ARE INCREDIBLE AND I HAVE FOUND NO FAULT IN ANY OF THEM AND YES I DO THINK ASHOKA CARRIED A BIG PART OF SAID ANIMATED SHOWS AND SHE IS MY FAVORITE CHARACTER IN ALL THE FRANCHISE AND THE ONLY ONES THAT COME CLOSE TO TOPPING HER ARE REX, OBIWAN, SABINE (I named my cat after her), WRECKER, FIVES, ALL OF THE CLONES, AND MAYBE EZRA AND PROBABLY R2-D2 AND POSSIBLY PADME ABD MAYBE HAN SOLO AND CHEWY AND LUKE AND LEIA AND ANIKAN AND REX AND HUNTER AND ECHO AND ALL I am dead serious I mean ALL the clones (except for that one that sided with that racist [clonist?] Jedi) I especially love the chaotic ones *cough cough* wrecker *cough cough*

Did I mention that I like Ashoka?

Also if any of you have no idea who half of these characters are, I highly recommend you watch the clone wars and Rebels! A lot of ppl think they’re more children’s shows, but they do explore a few dark themes (there is shameless murder in a lot of the episodes and multiple war crimes committed)… also seeing the development of animation from s1 of clone wars all the way to s7 (it’s been 4 years since clone wars officially ended holy shit) is insane and so satisfying! Seriously, please go watch it you won’t regret it! Also the bad batch is a sequel to the clone wars that takes place right after order 66 and it’s rlly interesting too :)

[korallion]

Loose threads and various trivia from the Poppy War series that I can't stop thinking about

I'm writing this because I have very little time to write at the moment so I won't be able to fit all these elements into the Poppy War fic I'm writing but I still have to get it out of the system because the amount of detail is insane.

DrUgS!

Ancient Chinese medicine in general is full of hallucinogenic and poisonous plants that were dosed very carefully, but shamans used them to talk to the gods, and the most common ones were:

The fly agaric mushroom: the mushroom that Chaghan and Qara gave to Kitay and Rin for the anchor ritual.

The ephedra plant: it was generally drunk in the form of tea and I think it's the liquid from the flask Jiang gives Rin in the first book when he sends her to meditate in the forest since Rin describes its effects not as a high but more as the beneficial effects of the plant in question.

The datura plant: it's extremely poisonous and was used in small amounts for its powerful hallucinogenic effects and sometimes its flowers are a blue-violet so I think it's the famous blue powder that Chaghan carries around in a small bottle although I couldn't find anything claiming it was used in that form. On that note, one of the candidates for Chaghan's drug is also cannabis, which was also used by Taoist monks and nomadic peoples from which I assume Hinterlands are inspired and, although they are modern hybrids, there are blue variants of this plant so it could be an artistic license from Kuang.

Betel nut tree: as Shiro experiments on Altan and Rin rants that the introduction of the Speerly to opium was an idea of the Red Emperor to make them addicted to Nikan and that previously their people used the bark of a tree without specifying which one. I think this is the tree in question although in reality, it is the nuts that are consumed because in addition to being the fourth most commonly used psychoactive substance after tobacco, alcohol, and caffeinated drinks, according to the World Health Organization, it energizing effects prevent fatigue and thirst so the famous fame of the Speerly warriors, at least those in Tearza's time, perhaps also stemmed from this as well as the brutal training regime and the legend of its origin is also very much linked to the Speerly eyes.

2.The Different Peoples of Nikan

I will only talk about Speerly and Hinterlanders otherwise I will never stop writing.

Speerly: As I mentioned above, the Tiwanese legend of the birth of the Betel Tree is linked to the inspiration for the red eyes of our phoenix warriors. According to the legend of the Paiwan tribe, one day a child with red eyes was born in a village, who killed any living thing with a glance. In the end Pali, this is the child's name, after finally integrating himself into the village and using the power of his eyes in wars between the other tribes, will be put to death after accidentally killing children but a friend of his notices that a betel nut tree was born on Pali's grave, the fruits of which are as wide and red as the boy's eyes that will protect the people of the village from then on. Now, what do you do with an intriguing legend about a red-eyed boy whose death essentially gave rise to a light drug tree? Apparently Kuang's answer was an entire red-eyed people reaching out to their murderous goddess via a drug of the colour of their eyes. I love this woman.

Hinterlanders: Rather than being one of a single people they are a sort of confederation of clans inspired by the Huns and the Mongols but I find it fascinating that many have light eyes and hair isn't an artistic license by the author to make them more 'shamanic' like most fantasy writers do because apparently a lot of ancient nomadic Asian ethnic groups had light eyes and hair. I used to think it was incredibly rare and more a thing of the descendants of peoples who lived near the Silk Road or the European border.

3.The Dragon

The Dragon is a Yao not a God.

I know Chaghan has already explained this, but many seem to forget about it, while I who had read Poppy War because I was in abstinence of Wuxia like MoDaoZuShi started shouting IS A FUKING Yao! and suddenly Nezha's whole speech about how it's not like Rin suddenly makes sense. Because Yao are often confused with Magical Beasts or Gods but Yao is a broad term for any animal, plant or even inanimate object that has gained spiritual awareness and magical powers. In this case, as Chaghan explained, an animal has absorbed the power of the Caves (if we want to speak in terms of theology or even Wuxia it would be Qi or even Mana if you prefer) which are one of those places where the veil between the two worlds thins and supposedly filled with the power of the real Rain Dragon and has become the 'Dragon'. But he is not a god because, as has already been said in the trilogy, true gods do not have material bodies. This can be confirmed in the story Vaisra tells Nezha about the shaman Yu who suggests that he has turned into the Dragon when in fact he may have been eaten and absorbed into the 'collection' of the Yao because in The Nine Curves River, a story by Kuang in the collection The Books of Dragons, she suggests the Yao existed before Yu's time because she makes no mention of Yu's legend but instead it is a fisherman who becomes the dragon in one of the versions.

The Dragon (Yao) is a Yinglong

The story of the Cave Dragon that Vaisra tells Nezha is inspired by the story of the legendary King Yu, founder of the Xia Dynasty who, according to the story, controlled the flooding of the Yellow River thanks to a Yinglong a very powerful water dragon that had lost its wings to kill a drought demon. This dragon is also related to the eels, through a connection that I honestly didn't understand, at least as Wikipedia explained it, and it relates back to how Rin sees him when he attacks the cave, because at least to me he reminds me of a giant eel.

Maybe the Yin sacrifice their children to the Yao

Okay I know, it sounds absurd, now I'll explain. Also in The Nine Curves River it is understood that it is set before the reign of the Red Emperor (the monks still operate) and the people of Arlong sacrifice the most beautiful people they can find in times of severe drought. Now there is no reference to anything like this in the era in which Poppy War is set but something may have changed when Yu was the one bound to the Yao in Dragon form, because in the story it is referred to that Yu would not allow anyone else to suffer, and in The Nine Curves River the Yao can cause an abnormal and prolonged drought until the sacrifice has been made but not in the times we are shown. So Yu did something that kept the Yao at bay for over a thousand years after his death or the Yin family sacrifice their children in secret. I have this theory that the Yin took it upon themselves to nurture what they thought was a God for the sake of their people after all forms of worship had been banned and, since in The Nine Curves River it is specified that the sacrificed people must go there voluntarily (perhaps a limitation imposed by the fact that even real gods cannot invade the minds of shamans unless the latter want them to and so a Yao who feeds on their power cannot go out and eat whoever they want whenever they want) the Yin Lords of the past would have piqued the curiosity of the sacrificable children to make them go to the Grotto voluntarily and the Yao would accept them as offerings and prevent the drought. So Vaisra knew that one of his sons would be eaten? Hell yes. Or at least he hoped that Yu's legend had some truth to it (knowing Riga) and that he would end up with at least one son turned into a Dragon to use for his revolution. As they say, be careful what you wish for.

Mingzha was not devoured by accident

Of course the whole theory above is dismantled when Nezha tells Yao that he was so hungry that he hadn't even thought of keeping Mingzha for himself and had devoured him straight away and that Nezha would go with him, presumably to do what Yu did (perhaps he had intuited something that is not told) to keep him at bay for so long. But hunger may not have been Yao's only reason for choosing to eat the child. Mingzha is presented to us with gold bracelets and anklets that are good luck charms for children, and so far nothing strange apart from the potential to be a heartbreak parallel for Nezha's handcuffs. But in The Nine Curves River the author implies that all Dragon sacrifices are marked with gold bracelets and anklets, so when the Yao chose Mingzha it was because he thought he was a sacrifice to be devoured.

The Red Emperor and Yu were like Nezha and Yin.

Me with a really crazy theory? More likely than you think.

So from what I understand even though it's not specified, the Yao doesn't eat all his sacrifices otherwise people like Yu and Nezha and the Fisherman wouldn't exist, even in legend. Maybe he plays with his food or maybe he has to give a fraction of his power in return, unfortunately we don't have enough elements to determine this but in Yu's legend there is a reference to the fact that the Dragon Province had become unlivable due to the currents and climate towards the end of the Red Emperor's reign, giving us a very specific time window in which to place the tale, which is strange in itself, but also makes a heavy implication (at least to me) that it was the Emperor's presence that made Arlong prosperous and, towards the end of his life, the work of his 'sacrifice' tapered off until Yu took his place.

Now, why do I think the Red Emperor was a Yin? Because Kuang loves to make us suffer and since Rin is Tearza's descendant it would make sense for Nezha to be a descendant of the Red Emperor but also for a few other reasons: Kitay says that the aunts and cousins of the Yin Clan were chosen as concubines of the Emperors and if the intrigue of the Harem didn't go out of fashion it wasn't just because of their beauty, women related to Kings and Emperors were a useful chess piece in political machinations. The coat of arms of House Yin is a dragon and speaking of historical reality the only ones who could wear the dragon on their robes or as a family crest were the Emperors and his family. Reference is made to the fact that there were no survivors of his lineage almost too insistently, just as there is no reference to Tearza's lineage until she calls Rin my blood. The Yin have the Imperial Seal that was thought to be lost. I'm pretty sure the Red Emperor is historically the equivalent of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, whose birth name was Ying Zheng and well . . . I know the Ying character and the Yin character are different but they sound similar and from a plot point of view the Red Emperor's remaining descendants could have hidden themselves by changing surnames but still one that had a resemblance to the one of origin or a side branch of the family, the possibilities are many. Lastly, he might be right about the Yin feeding their children to the Yao in Dragon form.

As for Yu, I think he was another yin descendant because, at least in the Italian version, Nezha seems to know that Yu is his ancestor.

That's all for now, at least until I find the rest of my notes. If any of this inspires you to write something I would love to have a little credit, even a small one, and oh. . .I definitely want to read it, or if you want to go in the rabbit hole with me don't be shy

[wanderersrest]

Wanderer's Rest Presents: An Abbreviated History of Mecha

So... I decided today that I'm going to start writing a series of posts based on the history of mecha. Not just mecha anime, but mecha as a concept in fiction. See, it should come as no surprise to anyone who reads this blog that I love mecha. I am also aware that there are a lot of misinformed takes fueled by halfwits like Gigguk that the genre is "dead," and while I am aware that mecha as a genre is not the biggest genre in 2024 as it was in the 80's or the 90's, I do know that the idea that the genre is "dead" is, like Gigguk's podcast and Gigguk himself, trash.

What I aim to do with this series is highlight the rather long history of the genre, as mecha is about as old as modern manga. This is inspired by the fact that the mecha genre is both really old and really massive. And in case you're wondering, this is inspired by Professor Otaku's complete history of mecha series. There are just a couple of differences:

Unlike Professor Otaku, I like G Gundam. That means that I'm a cool person and definitely not petty.

Also unlike Professor Otaku, I want to give the series that I mention in these posts a fair shake, even if I don't like them. I'm not going to watch every series mention here (as even watching every series I plan on listing would be insanity), but I do want people to be aware that they exist.

As hinted at above, I don't plan on covering every single series out there. The sheer amount of just mecha anime is already too much for one person to watch through.

Okay That's Cool, Wanderer. But What's a Mecha?

Good question, actually. Pop culture often defines mecha as being giant robots that are usually piloted by someone. And while that is correct, it is still a narrow definition. It cuts out a lot of influential works that don't quite fit the mold. Things like Astro Boy, Space Battleship Yamato, and Magic Knight Rayearth are series that are worth talking about when it comes to mecha even if they don't quite fit right in with the rest of the canon (and from here on out, I will be saying canon as opposed to genre due to the fact that canon can mean "a collection or list of sacred books accepted as genuine"). And to me, those series are just as worth mentioning as things like Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, and Mobile Suit Gundam. And in case you're wondering, yes, I will venture a little bit into video games and tabletop games. So sit tight Battletech fans, I'll eventually get to you.

Some Transparency Required

I do think, before I start working on this series proper, I should be transparent about things. After all, I am human. I have my own preferences and biases, and I feel it would be disingenuous of me to not disclose this before I started running through all of these shows. For transparency's sake, I will disclose the biases I know that I have. I don't know if I will cover every single one, but I will certainly try to.

My favorite mecha series are Mobile Fighter G Gundam, Patlabor, The King of Braves GaoGaiGar, Magic Knight Rayearth, and Gun x Sword among others.

My least favorite mecha series are New Mobile Report Gundam Wing (both the TV series and Endless Waltz), 86: Eighty Six (no 86 fans, your series isn't special because it's gritty. Iron-Blooded Orphans did everything you were doing but better IMO), and Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion (Mostly thanks to the second season).

Due to how fans often use the series as a means of talking down Japanese-styled mecha, I may have a tendency to be a bit more dismissive towards Battletech.

I actually prefer Prince of Darkness over the original Martian Successor Nadesico. As for GaoGaiGar, I prefer the original series over GaoGaiGar FINAL. I do like regular Nadesico and GGG FINAL as well though, just not as much. This shouldn't be surprising if people remember that this is similar to my tastes relating to Patlabor.

I have not watched Gundam SEED. So if you're expecting me to dunk on it, I probably won't. Likewise, if you're expecting me to say that it's underrated... I also won't say that.

Likewise, I haven't watched a single Ryousuke Takahashi mecha series, nor have I watched either Macross or Giant Robo. I'll get to it one day though, I promise.

I love the idea that Attack on Titan and Ratatouille are mecha shows.

Due to my past of being a contrarian teenager as well as dipshits on Reddit constantly overhyping everything, I tend to be averse to the more popular shows.

I'm also more skeptical of the "Not Like the Other Girl" shows like Evangelion, Code Geass, Gurren Lagann, and 86.

There is a non-zero chance that I will sneak Gintama into this somehow.

But those should be most of my biases out of the way. I hope you'll join me on this long journey. If you're worried about my Gintama post, don't be. I'm still working on it, but I do think it's going to be a bit different from the rest of my posts.

[captain-ozone]

MY VERY SPOILERY THOUGHTS ON THE LITTLE MERMAID

I’m going absolutely feral after seeing The Little Mermaid. My inner child has been FED, and I HAVE NO ONE TO TALK TO ABOUT IT YET so here I am to spew my thoughts. Spoilers below:

1. Halle was perfect. I will accept no criticism on this point. The only thing I cared about when this live-action movie was announced was that our new Ariel would have a voice to match Jodi Benson’s, and Halle did more than deliver. She epitomized the spirit of Ariel in every way. She was playful, she was inquisitive, she was joyful and bright and fun, she was so good at tugging the heartstrings (even without dialogue!!!) and appealing to our innate wanderlust and desire to discover and experience,  and she was so so EARNEST in her portrayal I can’t even. 

2. THE DEPTH THEY ADDED TO PRINCE ERIC’S CHARACTER OKAY!?!?! LIKE?!?!?! Okay, I will NOT GET OVER THIS. It was SO CLEVER of them to mirror Ariel’s journey with his desire to break free of his position’s restrictions. It worked incredibly well and did not once detract from our heroine’s spotlight. Rather, it ENHANCED their connection and sold me on their three-day love story in a deeper and more meaningful way than the original did (more on that below). ALSO ALSO ALSO SO COOL of them not to kill off his ADOPTIVE mother. ADOPTIVE. Marvelous choice! Truly. His mother’s fear of the sea gods offered a parallel to Triton’s fear of the surface world, and *CHEFS KISS*

3. Melissa McCarthy’s Pour Unfortunate Souls was a FUN TIME. 

4. Awkwafina as Scuttle? Inspired. 

5. MAX WAS ADORABLE AND THE STAR OF THE SHOW EVERY TIME HE WAS ON SCREEN. BEST BOY.

6. Wherever they filmed? The castle? Fucking gorgeous.

7. JODI BENSON CAMEOOOOOOO 

8. Grimsby is the GOAT. Enough said.

9. NEW SONGS

I may get some hate for this, but I’m not the biggest fan of Lin-Manuel Miranda.  Idk how to put this. He has an insane amount of talent, but for...untraditional musicals. I wouldn’t say he’d be my first choice to write new songs that fit the more traditional Broadway-like musical vibes that characterized so much of the Disney Renaissance. 

That being said, The Scuttlebutt was the strongest of the bunch, I think. It was very much a Miranda song, and in most instances, I’d be a little irritated by how they included a song that has a style so different from the rest of the lyrical music we know and love from the original animated movie. But it worked here, likely because it was delivered by Awkwafina’s Scuttle and FIT the character.

Honorable mention to Wild Uncharted Waters, only because WOW Jonah Hauer-King went OFF on that performance. This boy said “I get one musical number and I’m going to KILL IT” and he did.

Also very much liked the Part of Your World (Reprise II)! It tied everything together really nicely.

10. THE OTHER NOTABLE CHANGES I NEED TO SCREAM ABOUT

I LOVE THAT ARIEL HESITATED BEFORE CHOOSING TO GO THROUGH WITH THE SPELL.

I LOVE THAT ARIEL WAS FORCED TO FORGET SHE NEEDED A KISS FROM ERIC. --> THIS. THIS IS FREAKING AMAZING. I can’t even express how much more I felt for Ariel and Eric’s love story. How much more real it felt. How much more believable and true. I don’t buy in to one-day (or few-day) love stories very easily, especially when physical intimacy/attraction is a driving force. My little aroace ass dug the fact that kissing Eric literally was the last thing on Ariel’s mind. She got to be herself, explore this new world, AND do it with someone who appreciated her curiosity and found joy in how much joy she was experiencing, who could have just as much fun as she could. God. Goals. 

I LOVE THAT ERIC KNEW SOMETHING WASN’T RIGHT WITH VANESSA, EVEN IF HE COULDN’T PUT HIS FINGER ON IT. Very reminiscent of Prince of Song and Sea by Linsey Miller (a YA AU retelling told from Prince Eric’s POV. It’s a fun, easy read, if you’re curious).

I LOVE THAT ARIEL ACTIVELY TACKLED VANESSA AND BROKE THE SHELL NECKLACE HERSELF.

I LOVE THAT ARIEL WAS THE ONE TO STAB URSULA. I LOVE THAT SO MUCH. WE LOVE A BADASS HEROINE WHO DON’T NEED NO MAN TO SAVE HER.

All of these changes were important and mean a lot to me. I think it challenges a lot of the issues people have with the original animated movie, in that, here in the 2023 version, no one can argue that Ariel made her choices because she was lusting after a man. Or that she’s a damsel in distress. Very good stuff there.

11. My critiques

Some of the cinematography was weird. The transition between acting scenes and singing scenes didn’t always flow right. They felt abrupt and awkward. I definitely worried a bit about the CGI too, and it wasn’t too terrible imo. 

And my biggest complaint: idk what it was about the ending, but it didn’t *quite* hit right. In the original animated movie, one of the last bits of dialogue comes from Triton, when he says, “...how much I’m going to miss her.” The finale of the animated movie is then a spectacle of swelling music and a heartfelt case of “show” rather than “tell.” The hug between Ariel and Triton on the wedding barge is perfect. The way in which the mer-people come to witness the wedding and send off Eric and Ariel is perfect. 

The live-action ending felt...a little too somber. It became too much about Triton letting go and not enough about Ariel and Eric setting off on adventure together or about their worlds colliding in peace. I wouldn’t say that the last conversation between Triton and Ariel in the 2023 movie cheapens the line “...how much I’m going to miss her” and the bittersweetness with which he gifts her back her human legs, but it came close. I would have MUCH rather had a little more from Eric and Ariel than from Triton. LIKE HELLO??? WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT RING GRIMSBY KICKED AWAY!??? THERE WAS SOMETHING THEY COULD HAVE USED RIGHT THERE. Or better yet: if they wanted to do something super touching, they could have had Eric’s mother and Triton do a short aside by themselves, or perhaps even have a sort of moment where they acknowledge each other with respect/compassion/understanding before we all refocused on Ariel and Eric for the grand finale. But nah, they did what they did, and I’ll be a bit salty about it forever.

But anyway. Overall, I was very pleased. My disappointment with the lack of emotional impact from the ending does not supersede my enjoyment of everything else.

If you made it this far, please share your thoughts! I’m eager to talk to people, because all my friends aren’t like me and didn’t go see it opening night, lol.