#personally i think those two would connect with those specific kids. for their own reasons and resemblance to their own childhood

[cursezoroark]

reguri and their nonchalant way of picking up kids into their weird family. specifically nemona and Moon. walk with me.

[regular-gnome]

I adore your Archivists and the lore you make for them and their personalities and relationships between each other and Collector! You don't paint them as Good but misunderstood or cartoonishly evil.

They are god-like entities and their morality system and values are way to different for mortals to easily relate and understand. And good luck for them to not grow up with an issue or two and then proceed to raise a young collector with no problems =3

Also a question if you don't mind👉👈(sorry if you already answered it, my memory is bad TT) So all five of them are collectors(and they are the only ones of their kind), the siblings have a different name for their group why? And our Collector's name is the same as species or will he have something his own later like others when he is older?

The empty, uncaring void filled with extinction and destruction is not a place where kids grow happily without any lasting issues and from a mortal point of view - a weird perception of good but they are trying

I don't think anyone has asked about this one yet! Their names are related to their identity and that connects to their history; they don't really use individual ones, but rather what describes who they are.

I've put the reasoning and my stab at the lore under the cut since I thought it might be a bit long and not everyone into it (and I just figured out how to add the read more cut so im gonna use it)

They are not the only ones in existence; they are just in this part of the galaxy we see. In the beginning, when the universe wasn't as expanded, the Children of the Stars were closer to each other, exploring the young galaxy together and living among other living creatures - mortals.

After the extinction event that left the children alone on the barren world, they decided not to let it ever happen again. They began collecting life from the surroundings and spread it to uninhabited systems, later establishing the first archive to help with it. Thats when they started call each others collectors, and after creating archive those collectors connected to it that cared for and used it were archivists. It didn't go fantastic, they were young figuring things out on the way, the lessons they learned got contained in the Guidebook everyone took. At this point, they also realized that everything they were doing was not enough. The galaxy was too vast, with too many worlds facing their ends too far apart. They separated making own archives, now too far away to ever really meet and find each other.

On how it realates to names. Collie is a kid, they are a collector so The Collector, they live around the archive but it's not their responsibility at this point -it's The Archivists. As Collector grows up and becomes an Archivist they can take a specific set of tasks and be associated with them taking on a title. However, this also means that titles can change.

The first sibling in the story, after establishing their archive, was just named The Archivist. When another collector grew up to help, they divided roles, with Curator handling organization inside the archive and Naturalist handling "ground work". Later, the tasks of the Naturalists were divided, now becoming Anatomist and dealing with the living environment and Architects handling the unliving aspects . Following Archivist became The Wayfarer, responsible for keeping track of every collected place and noting any changes they undergo. They scout out planets that are to be added to the archive.

I'm not certain what Collie would want to do in the future. I think they might be inclined towards tasks related to being around mortals as they are pretty social, so they could probably take on some responsibilities from Anatomist and Wayfarer. But, I can't say for sure what title they might take

And here's a fun little aspect: the universe didn't stop expanding. The places their archive reaches keep getting further away and more advanced systems, so planets that are more than basic fauna and flora are more prone to collapsing. At some point, probably when Collie is an Archivist, the archive might have to split, and the names will shift again

[amansabastris]

avatar headcannons:

how many kids does he want?

neteyam x reader, lo'ak x reader, ao'nung x reader (gn!)

neteyam:

the most out of any other on this list, coming in with wanting five.

in the words of quaritch- "a whole litter."

just like his sa'nu and sempu, neteyam wants a big family, full of little ones.

lo'ak:

loves every single second of fatherhood.

whittles toys for his little ones, especially ones he remembers he or his siblings playing with growing up.

little wooden ikran, toruk, 'angtsìk- and ilu and tulkun, too.

can hold at least four of his kids at a time. one on each hip, baby in the sling on his front, and a toddler in the wrap on his back. worried he'll drop one if he tries all five.

five kids can be overwhelming, of course, but he'll never raise his voice at them- if he really needs to yell, he leaves the kelku for a minute to let out his frustration.

insists on braiding their hair himself. he loves to do it.

makes him feel more connected to his little one, twisting and braiding their hair as gently and carefully as he can.

most parents hate their kids crawling into bed with them. with all the limbs kicking and pressing into you all night, who can blame them?

but neteyam can barely sleep without an uncomfortable leg pressing into his back, anymore. it's how he knows all his little ones are here, all safe.

contrary to the some of the other headcannons i've seen on this site, i believe lo'ak would only like two children.

ao'nung:

he just wants a small, loving little family.

he decided on two for a reason, too.

lo'ak would have been perfectly fine with just one, but then he thought about it more.

lo'ak grew up with four others- his siblings, his best friends.

he wanted that for his little, too.

becomes so calm, so easy-going and soft around his children.

lo'ak can obviously be reckless- but when he's with his babies, he's calm. his focus is only on them.

his favorite part of fatherhood is play time. any game his kids want to play, he wants to play with them.

they want to pretend they're riding an ikran? climb on! they want to play in the water? look out, daddy's splashing!

always makes sure both of them are included in the game, too.

no one will be outcast in this family.

he honestly doesn't think about things like that. he would take a moment to think about it, deciding on three at the most.

it seems like a good number to him.

it's the number of kids his parents had, too, so that might be why he's so comfortable with it.

he definitely thinks four would be too many, but three? it just sounds perfect.

he's one of those dads that pretends to be all tough around others, but behind closed doors- he's absolutely melted.

bonus!

this man spoils them. and i mean that.

ao'nung is a fierce leader- strong and proud.

but if his little one were to tug on his clothes and ask for something? it's over. he's crumbled, gone, off to spoil his baby and give them anything they want.

i'm talking dessert before dinner, letting them stay up late playing, anything their little hearts desire.

also... he'd have all girls. he never specifically wanted a boy or girl, and obviously its not something you choose, but something about his genes, man. i'm telling you: three little daddy's girls.

spider:

one.

spider doesn't think he'd be a good father.

but there's still this want pushed to the back of his head- to one day have a baby of his own.

spider thinks he'd be a horrible father.

in reality, if spider ever ended up with a little one...

they'd be the most loved baby on that moon.

probably wouldn't put them down their whole infancy, preferring to have them curled up against his chest at all times.

he wouldn't spoil them- he's raise his little one to be independent, strong, their own person.

but he would also show them that they were loved unconditionally.

that no matter what- their father would always love them. always.

©️ copyright yourlavenderlover, 2023

all rights reserved

do not copy/paste, claim as your own, post on different sites, or translate without prior consent from me

[deramin2]

Essek constantly gushing about his partner but pointedly not giving his name hits me so hard in the feels.

Two formative childhood experiences for me:

ONE

I was severely, mercilessly bullied as a child at every school I went to even if they're was no overlap of kids, and authority figures either ignored me or directly told me it was my fault. I was socially toxic. Any other kid who publicly associated with me was also targeted for harassment. I was best friends with a girl around the corner but because I was a couple years younger (in itself an invitation for bullying) and a parish, we could never let anyone know we were friends.

I've been told I should be upset at her for this, but it wasn't her fault. It was the other children who made it a fact that she would be harmed by publicly being my friend. She didn't make those rules, we were both just honest that it existed and there was nothing we could do to change that. The best we could do to survive was at least protect her. And that benefited me by actually having a friend.

So if we talked about each other it was"my friend." No names. No acknowledging we knew each other in public. No introductions to other friends. Keeping that divide up was necessary to survival. I had a couple friends on the same freak level as we and we were in fact targeted with additional harassment to get to the other person. It was a legitimate threat to live with. At some point I just stopped thinking it was ever necessary to reveal who my friends or family are unless it's both explicitly relevant and necessary.

TWO

I learned to use the internet in the late 1990s when anonymity was considered a best practice. Don't give out your age, sex, location, or other identifying information. You don't know who is on the other side of that screen or what they will do to you if they know. Sperate your online and offline worlds to protect yourself.

This helped reinforce experience one because clearly adults also acted like those kids and this just normal human behavior no one will ever put a stop to that you need to be on guard for at all times. Build in air gaps so if one of you is compromised it's harder for the perpetrator to get to other people you care about. Defending them through anonymity is a way of showing you love them.

Also since some family are searchable through have state government jobs that right-wing nut jobs chips target them for, I wanted to make sure they couldn't be connected to me as a queer trans disabled person active online. In case something I said led to them being targeted.

(This is correct advice, even though it flies in the face of modern online conventions. There are tons of malicious people on three internet who will target you and anyone you love if they decide to hurt you.)

RESULT

By default, I refer to people by their relationship to me, not their name. My friend, my partner, my parent, my family, someone I know, etc. Often I avoid gendering them to make it even harder to identify them. I have to consciously consider if the person I'm talking to has any reason to know my associate's name. Blacklist everyone, then whitelist exceptions.

I do this even if both people know each other because the specific association feels dangerous. Better to be viewed as acquaintances than a meaningful relationship that changes how either of us could be viewed. It's not even really a judgement on thinking the person is untrustworthy, I just don't want to spend any extra energy thinking about it. It doesn't even feel relevant because my relationship to this person fellas like it conveys more information that actually matters.

ESSEK

Essek knows both he and Caleb are being targeted by powerful people who have shown they will target loved ones to get to them. Additionally, tensions between the Empire and Dynasty are still high and it could very easily compromise how their own sides view them if it's known that they're romantically entangled with someone from the other side. It could also blow each other's cover and make their meeting places more vulnerable to attack. Especially if their enemies know they could hit both of them at once.

It's genuinely dangerous for their connection to be known, so they don't name names. It's not even a matter of whether Bell's Hells would intentionally misuse that information, but what they also could just let slip to the wrong person. It's not really worth the risk when "my partner" is all the information they actually need to understand him.

My guess is that Essek said "Bren" is hiss partner because they already know a Bren sent them to Astrid. And since Caleb no longer uses the name Bren it would be much harder to connect them. It would have caused more questions, more prying, and more risk to give no name for his partner when directly pressed. So he gives a truthful but less dangerous answer. The anonymity is an act of love.

[celaenaeiln]

lol hi its me 12 am anon so uh tldr is that i hung out with my friend and we got drunk and we made out or smth but more importantly they made w fuckin list of dick grayson things i started talking abt while drunk

- “bad idea right?” but its dick grayson and his exes

- bruce technically gave dick a family but dick’s the one who like truly made it feel like a family when it comes down to it he’ll fuck up bruce for his siblings

- that one “5 man band” trope and how he can fit as the leader and the heart

- into a specific (blank) to lovers? dick grayson’s got you covered

- the “barney from how i met your mother basketball hoop scene” and “eleanor from the good place mom she never had” but make it dick and bruce (teenage or adult idc i’d love both)

- nightwing could 100% be the figurehead of the dceu (like im talking spiderman level) if dc would do something [this was timed . i talked abt this for like 30 minutes all on its own]

i am . so embarrassed. also i dont know if we made out before or after the rant and i dont know which is more embarrassing .

what. what. "more importan-" NO! NO ARE YOU KIDDING ME THAT IS NOT MORE IMPORTANTLY OH MY GOD!!!

MY MIND IS LITERALLY BREAKING RIGHT NOW!

WHAT HAPPENED AFTER THAT? Do you like her? Did she say anything?! I-

WAIT DOES THAT MEAN DICK GRAYSON LITERALLY GOT YOU TWO TOGETHER?!

NO WAIT!! SHE KISSED BACK. SHE KISSED BACK!

oh my god i'm reeling.

Have you guys talked about it yet?

I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS

I LITERALLY CAN'T THINK OF DICK GRAYSON RIGHT NOW AFTER THAT BOMB YOU DROPPED ON ME BUT FINE

"Bad idea right" was literally written for Dick Grayson!

Nightwing (1996) Issue #133

"Bad idea right?"

Actually every single Olivia Rodrigo's songs feels like Dick wrote it.

Like the sour album? Every time I listen to it I imagine that Dick just wrote the album because he was so mad at bruce after being fired from Robin lol.

"bruce technically gave dick a family but dick’s the one who like truly made it feel like a family when it comes down to it he’ll fuck up bruce for his siblings"

That's true too!

Batman (2011) Issue #11

"The truth is, I didn't save you from some dark fate, those years ago. You saved me from one."

Batman (2011) Issue #11

"And you still are saving me, every day."

Bruce gave Dick security but Dick gave Bruce a life. He gave Bruce the ability to become human, to be happy.

Take Gotham War for example,

Batman (2016) Issue #138

Bruce tells Jason he's saving Jason from himself and Jason in turn asks Bruce who's going to save Bruce from himself.

Cut immediately to -

Batman (2016) Issue #138

Dick.

Dick has always been there to pull Bruce out of his darkest days when he tries or is willing but Bruce giving up on Dick's ability to do so is symbolic of him giving up on himself. It's the height of Bruce's irredeemability.

Even after Jason died, Bruce indirectly called Dick to come join him but at this point his back up personality is too far gone for him to recover.

Batman: The Return

Dick literally is the reason Bruce stays connects to the batfamily. In a good way.

He has no reservations about keeping Bruce in check.

"that one “5 man band” trope and how he can fit as the leader and the heart"

5 man band trope: one leads, one contrasts, one thinks, one fights, and one keeps all of the above from killing one another

DAMN RIGHT

He's the leader.

Batman: Gotham Nights (2020) Issue #12

And the one that keeps them all together

Batman: Gotham Nights (2020) Issue #12

Dick is the defacto leader when Bruce is gone or lost it.

Batman (2016) Issue #137

Batman (2016) Issue #704

Batman (2016) Issue #704

"Selina doesn't run Gotham. You do. While I'm away."

And the family's protector.

Batman (2016) Issue #137

"into a specific (blank) to lovers? dick grayson’s got you covered"

Yup!

Canonical:

Childhood partner to lovers - Raya Vestri

Friends to lovers - Barbara Gordon

Enemies to lovers - Shawn Tsang

Psuedo-family to lovers - Helena Wayne (they actually married in Earth 2)

Crime fighting partner to lovers - Helena Bertenelli

Kiss at first sight to lovers - Koriand'r

Pseudo-therapist to lover - Bea Bennet

Landlord to lovers - Bridget Clancy

Teammates to lovers - Zatanna

X to lovers - literally him and everyone

He's just so shippable that way. Not gonna lie, literally all of his relationships Dick and his lover have been great together.

the “barney from how i met your mother basketball hoop scene” and “eleanor from the good place mom she never had” but make it dick and bruce (teenage or adult idc i’d love both)

The New Teen Titans Issue #50

Man this hits hard. I've never seen how I met your mother but the parallels in the basketball hoop scene and Dick's talk with Bruce are uncanny.

The thing I think is weird about Dick and Bruce's relationship is that it's steeped in insecurities for each other. Dick feels hurt and betrayed and lost as to why Bruce would take in a new robin so suddenly and Bruce's tenure as Dick's robin is riddled with insecurities about him not being a good enough partner.

Batman and Robin Eternal Issue #6

However it's because of these insecurities that I believe they are close.

The difference between Barney and his dad, from what I gather from the clip, is that his dad never acted like one to Barney.

But with Dick and Bruce? Bruce was a good dad to Dick. But he was a terrible partner. Bruce treated Dick like an equal while still fielding reservations about his age and dealing with his own insecurities. Bruce knows that what he's doing is not right but at the same time Dick is far too competent. His intelligence, his athletic skills, his compassion, and his fearlessness were light years beyond anyone Bruce had ever met and Bruce acklnowledges this.

Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder Issue #2

"The GAS was supposed to knock his OUT. His brain out to be sailing past the MOON, right now. What's this brat MADE out of?"

Batman: The Widening Gyre Issue #1

Bruce's biggest problem with Dick is literally that he talks to much.

Dick is equal in every way to Batman and even exceeds him in some ways when he was Robin itself. So Bruce pushes the responsibilities of Batman's partner on to Dick while treating his as his son, mother, therapist, and partner. And Dick steps up to that. Soon they fall into a rhythm where Dick is Bruce's one for all human interaction. So imagine when you have a constant thing with someone that you're comfortable with and they suddenly start holding back from you. They begin talking about how you're too young to handle adult responsibilities. How you shouldn't be facing that burden. Now you're confused. Those responsibilities they are criticizing you for are the very ones that depended on you for. So now you start doubting yourself and trying harder and harder to make them see that you can handle the job. While you're struggling with confusion, they're struggling with guilt.

That is Bruce and Dick's relationship. Bruce grew a conscious after 10 years and Dick can't understand it. So there comes the self-blame and strife.

What Dick doesn't understand his Bruce feels guilty of his over reliance on Dick. Dick's self-blame has come to such a point that now even when Bruce in full honesty rants about how proud he is of Dick, Dick holds reservations because if Bruce was really proud then he would dump all the responsibilities on him right?

It's really messed up.

"nightwing could 100% be the figurehead of the dceu (like im talking spiderman level) if dc would do something [this was timed . i talked abt this for like 30 minutes all on its own]"

LOL

I think the Dawn of DC does have Dick be the figurehead or at least he will be in the future. We're just getting the beginning now.

Nightwing (2016) Issue #100

Nightwing (2016) Issue #100

Nightwing (2016) Issue #100

Nightwing (2016) Issue #100

"We want you to lead."

Justice League (2011) Issue #51

It comes full circle.

[gallusrostromegalus]

For An Elephant is Warm and Mushy, what's the deal with Ichigo and Isshin? Cause I hate Isshin, but I want to know what your take is on it. (Sorry if you've already addressed this.)

I think my thoughts on Isshin in AEIWAM are best summed up as such:

To elaborate: I think that, if he had been a father under normal circumstances, Isshin would have been a perfectly competent and even a good father.

...But he's not parenting under Normal Circumstances.

He's parenting as widower (alone) with three psychic (no how-to guides on this!) and traumatized (Especially Ichigo) children, while processing his own trauma (Again, Widower), while in a HIGHLY demanding and stressful career (Emergency care specialist/Surgeon), while technically on the run from the law (he's still wanted for being a deserter), while also in Apex Predator Central (Karkura is CHOCK A FUCKING BLOCK fulla hollows).

And BY GOD, the man is trying! AEIWAM! Isshin does his best to keep his children informed of the dangers of their world while not also risking them breaking his witness protection scheme. He works extremely hard and his best to keep them fed, housed, safe, educated and loved, and he LOVES them SO MUCH. Isshin is NEVER shy always genuine with affection towards his children! Hell, he even reaches out to who he can (Urahara, Ryukken, his neighbors, the kid's teachers) for help because he knows he's in over his head and needs help and that's a hard damn thing for a parent to do, but...

...It's not enough.

He still lies to his children. For perfectly sane and understandable reasons, but he still lies to them. He still doesn't understand his children- He gives them all the love he can, as best he knows how, but Ichigo especially speaks an entirely different love language. He's still not there for his children. Balancing three kids is ROUGH when you're a single parent and I'm afraid Isshin has some old-fashioned notions about gender that cause him to prioritize the twins over Ichigo. And worse, he's not there when Ichigo, and later the twins, start being in mortal danger from the fallout of his connection to Soul Society.

He grit his teeth and moved heaven and earth to rise to the occasion and still managed to fall well short of it.

A+ for Effort

D- for The Actual Results

So. Why DOES Isshin keep failing at healthy communication? Why DOES he make bizarre choices? Why DOES he suck at being a father?

As I was writing I realized the answer is that he was in the right time and place to accidentally learn some VERY bad habits from his friends and colleagues during his heavy involvement in the Soi Fon-Yoruichi Debacle.

This is already a very long post, so the explanation is under the cut:

To be clear: It's not their fault.

It's one of those awful "Its nobody's fault specifically, but the way human minds work means that this sort of conflict and bad behavior was inevitable" situations. The tragedy of being discrete beings.

The crux of Soi Fon and Yoruichi's relationship was that two people who had previously only moderate issues met another person whose own issues massively exacerbated their own in a continuously escalating cycle.

AEIWAM! Soi Fon is the SOLE surviving child of the Fon Clan. He five older brothers were all killed in service to the second division and the Shihon clan. Possibly under Yoruichi's direction, if I understand the timelines right. She was also raised from a very young age to ignore her own needs as a person, use violence as a Solution to her problems, largely starved of affection, and to hero-worship Yoruichi. Girl was already messed up when she walked into the Second division.

AEIWAM! Yoruichi is ALSO a sole surviving clan heir (Yushiro is conceived as a direct result to her vanishing in TBTP) and ALSO taught to use violence as a first solution, but instead of a self-sacrificing mindset, Yoruichi was raised to believe that other people sacrificing themselves for her was normal, good and even virtuous on their part. She was also sort of doted on by her parents, who were thrilled that their last-chance heir was shaping up so well (So far as they knew).

You can see how this was always going to go badly.

Soi fon is desperate to please. Yoruichi thinks this is perfectly normal and desirable behavior, and so she rewards it with copious affection, because Soi Fon responds to that well. Soi fon, receiving her first hit of positive reinforcement in her whole life, promptly falls head over heels for Yoruichi, and works even harder for her. Yoruichi, thrilled to have someone so capable, continues to reward this behavior. The cycle continues, and escalates.

Eventually, the two of them are operating in completely different worlds. So far as Soi Fon can tell, She and Yoruichi are in a Grand Romance, like a knight and her princess in the fairytale stories she used to comfort herself with as a little girl. She assumes this is a normal relationship between lieutenant and captain. So far as Yoruichi can tell, She and Soi Fon are in a Perfectly Normal And Platonic Working Relationship, because this is how every 2nd Division Lieutenant has fawned over their Shihon captain since the division's inception, and she assumes this is perfectly normal.

At some point, Soi Fon realizes that their relationship is really one-sided and she's giving 110% for maybe 4% on Yoruichi's behalf, but she's invested so much and every authority figure in her life is telling her that this is Right and Correct, that she actively chooses the fantasy over reality to cope with her circumstances. At some point, Yoruichi realizes that she's wildly taking advantage of Soi Fon's romantic feelings that she... well. She likes the girl well enough, but not romantically. But She relies so much on Soi Fon to run the 2nd Division and every authority figure in her life is telling her that this is Right and Correct that she actively chooses to play into Soi Fon's fantasy to preserve this very beneficial (for her) status Quo.

...Enter Kisuke Urahara.

Urahara has no horse in this particular race- in fact, he doesn't even know there's a race going on. He's deeply enamored of this ABSOLUTE BABE that's into his schlubby little ass, who's cool and funny and involved in the same insane workplace he is, and when Yoruichi sometimes complains to him about how crazy her lieutenant is, his only frame of reference is... Mayuri. He thinks this is normal, and the romantic relationship between him and Yoruichi continues to grow. She's his unexpected 11 out of 10, he's her fun dirty little secret. It's kinda tawdry, but it is honest.

Then TBTP happens. Kisuke and Yoruichi sorta accidentally frame themselves for treason, then someone (Aizen) very on purpose frames them for treason.

And so far as Soi Fon knows, the woman she loved, the woman she devoted her life to, the woman who (allegedly) loved her back- has lied to and discarded her.

It hurts. It hurts A Lot.

...Enter Isshin Shiba.

In AEIWAM, Isshin becomes a captain the same week TBTP happens, though he's on the other side of the rukongai when that shit goes down, so he shows up to his first captain's meeting with more than half the captains being brand new to their jobs, not totally sure what he or anyone else is doing-

-And there's Soi Fon. Alone and Miserable.

Isshin is an older brother to a younger sister (who never gets a name in canon) and an uncle to her three children, but they all live way out in the middle of nowhere so he hardly ever sees them and seeing Soi Fon at the meeting, exhausted and distraught (And maybe a little bit hungover) activates every single Big Brother And Uncle instinct he's been looking to inflict on someone.

It's VERY easy for him to hear Soi Fon's side of the story, conveniently ignore the part where she actively chose to believe in a romantic relationship she knew didn't actually exist, and cast Yoruichi as The Bad Guy Who Took Advantage Of My Poor Substitute Little Sister.

Soi Fon, who had *almost* been on the verge of being realistic about the breakup, leans into his version of the story, because, again, she's massively starved for affection and Isshin is giving her the type of love her now-dead brothers used to. So Isshin learns Bad Gender Habits here, and Bad Listening Habits, and Bad "Casting People Into Roles Instead Of Treating Them Like People" Habits, and gets rewarded for them with Soi Fon's attention and sisterly affection.

This is also probably where his decision-making skills start to decline- Soi Fon is a Trusted Colleague of his, and he goes to her for advice on Tricky Political Things, because that's what 2nd division DOES. Unfortunately, Soi Fon lives in Information Opsec Paranoia Spy Shit Hell, and gives her advice out accordingly. He starts favoring not giving out details unless he thinks it's REALLY necessary, and using bad-faith decision making. Even More unfortunately, the Gotei-13 is a hot mess of an organization and these habits serve him well.

...Enter Masaki Ishida, and shortly thereafter, Exit Isshin Shiba until he appears in the Human world as Dr. Isshin Kurosaki, and his wife, Masaki Kurosaki.

It's during the "I met a woman who is *technically* an enemy of the state, but she was so cool I fell so hard in love I decided to do a desertion and light treason" mess, Isshin becomes properly acquainted with Urahara and Yoruichi, and eventually, he hears Yoruichi's side of the story. He reverses course, now Soi Fon is the Crazy Ex, and Yoruichi was just doing what was necessary to survive in their demented military-industrial-spy-governement workplace.

Yoruichi doubles down on his "Shut the FUCK up or Yamamoto or worse is gonna come and kill us, and everyone we love" paranoia, because she's also on the run, and when he comes to her for advice on "So apparently the hollows are WAY stronger than I thought, they KILLED MY WIFE, how am I supposed to keep my kids safe?" She advocates teaching them how to recognize and hide from hollows rather than proper self-defense or the truth, because her first fear still is retribution from Soul Society. It's not insane of her- Yamamoto has a very literally fiery temper and can hold grudges for millennia.

So Isshin Tries. But he's also very burdened by paranoid neurotic behavior he doesn't even know he has, and dodgy-if-not-totally-insane advice from his friends.

And that's what I think of Isshin Kurosaki :)

[lionheartedmusings]

finally got around to putting this into words so here is my submission to the q!bad newsletter titled "q!bad is a good person but a bad human".

arcs like the one q!bad is on are naturally polarising and bring out a lot of strong emotions from views which is amazing, but i think a lot of people are missing the forest for the trees here -- more specifically, who we saw q!bad be for almost six months every day (who we still see him be now).

q!bad is a fundamentally good person by all accounts -- yes, he's a mischievous gremlin, but he's insurmountably generous, selfless in the way he gives without ever expecting anything in return, is dependable at every single turn. even in his lowest moments, he didn't turn his back on that dependability to his own detriment -- he prioritised everyone above himself, not just the eggs but also the other islanders.

q!bad is also... kind. not nice, i actually wouldn't call him nice per se, but he's kind, and loving, and gentle if you know how to read his actions -- just because his lovingness is at times odd to read, it doesn't mean it isn't there.

now, everything i've pointed out so far is not only factually true but also just a spot on indication of what makes a good person, right? well... yes, and no.

by human standards he's not a good person. he lies, cheats, is deceitful and cunning at every turn, is a gaslighter and a manipulator, and his moral compass ends when his emotional attachment does -- he won't hesitate to put his friends through tests and trials that he knows hurt them just to reach a goal, even if it's an ultimate "greater good" type goal.

luckily for q!bad, the man isn't fucking human and so the lense through which we see his character need to be adjusted not only to accommodate his life experience (as we would any character) but also the fact that he's just... not human, he can play pretend and he certainly has spent enough time around humans, but nature vs nurture only goes so far and he was a grown ass adult when he sunk atlantis.

it's honestly just painfully obvious that for better or for worse, q!bad doesn't function like humans do, and i think the best indicator of that is how he views interpersonal relationships, connections, love and trust.

for us, love and trust are intrinsically connected and ultimately need to be present for us to form attachments -- if we don't trust someone, we might get along with them at a superficial level but we won't engage further, right? q!bad sees those two as fundamentally separate parts of relationships -- you cannot argue he doesn't love his friends, or all the eggs, but does he trust everyone? no. because q!bad is very much capable of loving you without trusting you, because his default is distrust. while most of us start a connection with existing trust that can then be broken, he starts them with no trust that needs to be earned.

he doesn't see what's wrong about his friendship with q!foolish, he doesn't see the issue with having been sightseeing at the salem witch trials, pompeii is "the reason he doesn't do beach vacations" and not... yeno, a massive historical tragedy. for q!bad, all of these things are normal because he's a millennia old demon who fundamentally lacks the grasp on some pretty basic human concepts despite his time here (i.e. his whole conversation with q!baghera about lines and mortality).

my point being, q!bad is not a good human, he never claimed to be (on the contrary) and his recent actions show that very well...

... but he *is* a fundamentally good person, without question.

as long as you view the cubito through the lense of our own morality, you'll be depriving yourself of some pretty awesome insights into his character and also just not giving him a fair shake!

he's a terror! he's wiped out civilizations! he's eaten people! he is terrifying and bloody and dark! he's also just a little guy who makes care packages and watches kids and won't turn away anyone in need! all of this is him and for a fair analysis you need to consider the entirety of him for better and for worse!

[idsfantasy]

I'm sorry if you've gotten this kind of info already, but one of the points you used in that video about Burntrap/Glitchtrap being Afton was him saying "I always come back," which you claim is something the Mimic wouldn't know, but it did know that. Fnaf 6 is shown to be a game in universe just like the rest of them.

Glitchtrap is likely a different branch of the Mimic1 code specifically designated for copying William long term.

There's also a line in Special Delivery. Luis says that Vanessa searched up "How to induce compliance in human subjects" which not only implies that what's possessing her isn't human in any way, but it's something that William would never need to do given that he's a master manipulator.

As for the memory plushies, those likely either come from the Mimic giving you the data it got about them from the VR game, or it's Glitchtrap giving you your own memories that you lost to place you in a vulnerable position given that those memories are likely traumatic ones.

We saw how Afton died anyway, his Agony and Remnant was cleansed by the Puppet in Fazbear's Fright's. There would be nothing left to bring him back. The Princess is going after the monster copying the murderer, not the murderer himself.

Also I'm like 90% sure that the devs of Security Breach thought that Burntrap was supposed to be Afton. I recall Baz saying once when he met Scott at the fnaf movie set that there was a miscommunication involving one of the games endings.

Sorry if this is a mess. Just thought all this was worth pointing out. Have a good one.

The video for those interested:

I don't think that Mimic was plugged into Pizzeria Simulator like it theoretically would have been into Help Wanted. It's possible I guess, but I still think it doesn't make sense for it to latch onto that line, or know what William heard in UCN.

When would that designation have been made and by whom? It wouldn't have been for Help Wanted based on Tape Girl's descriptions nor Mr. Burrows's.

Technically there are other things you can try to induce compliance in. A dog or other pet for example. "Human subjects" just specifies the search. Not to mention, it wouldn't necessarily be literally Glitchtrap doing the searching. Vanessa was talking to computers in AR, and we hear her talking to Glitchtrap in the og HW. He manipulated her mind to make her listen to him, but I think that was more Vanessa looking something up in order to do what Glitchtrap asked her to.

The unused lines specifically refer to the memories as belonging to "it", not the player, so I doubt that would be the case, and where in the VR game would it have specifically gotten the data for all 5 MCI kids and Charlie? Why would they be called its memories if they weren't actually Glitchtrap's memories. Who's code remains if the "his code" isn't William's?

If you're referring to William getting dumped in the lake at the end of the Frights epilogues, there are quite a few reasons I think Frights and Stitchline are a separate continuity from the game timeline. Why would the Princess be around to find out about a copycat and care? He's not the one who she's mad at in that case.

I personally recall a misquote/misattribution of some sort that spread around on that topic. I'll need the timestamped video to confirm that preferably, but in any case, I highly doubt Scott didn't even glance at Burntrap's design before release to notice that something was wrong, and as I mentioned in my video, if Steel Wool was trying to correct things and connect the Mimic to Burntrap, they would have at least made the two have more visual connection than a hand that isn't even actually identical and was already reused from a nightmare animatronic.

While I see where you're coming from, I don't think any of those points negate the evidence I have in the video that you didn't address, though the video was long so I understand why you wouldn't bring it all up. Either way though, I personally think it makes a lot more sense from both an evidence, narrative, and storytelling perspective for Burntrap to be William. Totally cool if you believe differently though! I hope you have a good day as well :D

[science-lings]

I've been thinking a lot about Phoenix's family, and I got carried away so I'm going to put the whole essay below the cut, I'm so normal about him

I'm sorry there's just no way that Phoenix has any sort of normal family situation, not just because they're never mentioned even in passing as he goes through extremely major life events, but also because of how he is as a person. You cannot convince me that the guy who fell head over heels for Dahlia two seconds after meeting her had any sort of reliable support system in his life. When she got arrested the only person he could think about was a guy he hadn't seen since they were both nine instead of any current person who would likely care that he almost got poisoned and arrested for murder.

While I think it would be nice if he had lesbian moms who loved him, it just doesn't quite fit in with what we know about Phoenix. I mean, even in the WAA/WTA the only photograph on display is Zak's, and if there isn't a better person to put on the wall than the biological father of his daughter who abandoned her, that's pretty sad. (though I personally like to think that his portrait was there specifically as a target for things like darts and throwing knives). Plus, we already know from the thing with Dahlia that Phoenix's primary way of dealing with trauma and abusive people is just to pretend nothing happened and force himself to forget about them.

That's not even mentioning this guy's abandonment issues and complete willingness to adopt anyone he finds into his found family with zero hesitation. He meets Ema once for a few days, someone he has no personal connection to, but because she reminded him of Maya he stays in contact with her at some capacity to the point that he keeps her investigative tools with him and can have his name be used to gain her favor. Also, there's that new years art where she gets drunk with the Wright's and Apollo. And there are several more young adults/teenagers like that, he's got that foster kid to foster dad energy.

What I think makes the most sense is either that he was given up for adoption/ was an orphan in the foster care system who was passed around a lot, never getting too attached to one family, which led to his abandonment issues, or that he had a normal family life until something happened that estranged them from him. As a staunch believer in Transmasc Phoenix my thoughts are that he had transphobic parents so when he left for university he cut them off and changed his full name which explains why he is so desperate for emotional connection at that time. He suddenly has no one but a dream to find Miles and a girlfriend whose red flags he's completely blind to.

But honestly, there are so many reasons that people could come up with that would also make sense for his character. Maybe they were emotionally abusive and since everyone around him has dead or horrifically bad parents he's just not going to ever bring it up because who is he to complain when his besties are Maya Fey and Miles Edgeworth. Maybe they were just absent a lot and he had to take care of himself (and perhaps younger siblings) until he just couldn't take it anymore. Maybe they just tried to get him a girlfriend to settle down with one too many times and he just refuses to visit them, not even on holidays like Christmas or new years. It's just fascinating to me that there's absolutely nothing about them, I think there was even one of those little (official?) comics that poked fun at the fact that he doesn't really have parents, he may not even know who they are.

I also stand behind all of the ideas from my Phoenix Family HCs Poll because all of them would be so fun to explore even if some of them are total crack HCs. Tigre is only 16 years older than Phoenix but you can't say it's not possible that he messed around in high school and his girlfriend just gave up the kid for adoption and it would be so funny if Phoenix had to put his own father into prison after he pretended to be him.

In my Fem!Phoenix AU where I'm planning on expounding upon her relationship with the Feys and her own spiritual power (Phoenix does canonically talk to ghosts sometimes), the spirit of Ryunosuke found her and kind of became her imaginary friend who appears sometimes because I love him.

Even the idea of the goddess of law making him as an indestructible little terror on the legal system would be fascinating to expand upon. I would love to read about the whole concept of law being turned into a kind of religion, is she a single omniscient god (is she single?) or is she part of a larger pantheon? What would that mean for Phoenix?

I just can't even fathom that there's something normal going on with Phoenix and his family, I think he should pull an Apollo and secretly have the most batshit family backstory. Just looking at this guy and you know he has some kinds of issues, he was an art/theater major, he's got to be a little bit of that flavor of fucked up.

[toruq]

im sending u these ones specifically bc i know ur less connected to ur mc than to anne muhahaha >:333

12. What does your character look like? Which hairstyle and make up do you prefer on them?

13. What is your character's name? Do you wish to change it, if the function ever makes its way into the game?

14. How do you dress your character? Do you coordinate the outfits between Rider and Horse?

and if u feel like it im curious about these:

23. Which Druid Circle do you prefer? Is there a reason for your preference? Is it tied to the Soul Rider of the Circle?

20. What part of the Main Story is your favorite?

11. How many horses do you own in total? Did it use to be more, or are you still missing a few?

04. Which Horse was your first purchase? Do you still own that horse, and what did you name it?

05. Which Horse is your favorite? Do you own said horse, or are you simply dreaming of buying it?

juni you must hate me or something

under the cut because there's so much to answer (mostly about my mc that i neglect so hard)

12. What does your character look like? Which hairstyle and make up do you prefer on them?

ok, here is ida. i draw her based on the old player model but in the new player model she looks a bit different. I use this chunky highlight hair because it somewhat hides the fact that her ears stick out now when wearing a hat/helmet (this pisses me off the most about the new characters). but she used to have this black hair, and of course dark eye makeup. it's a lot like what i do irl

13. What is your character's name? Do you wish to change it, if the function ever makes its way into the game?

Ida Riverwood! I don't ever want to change it. I actually really like it and I'm surprised my kid self was smart enough to choose that

14. How do you dress your character? Do you coordinate the outfits between Rider and Horse?

you can kinda see how i dress her in those pics of her, usually a dark color scheme and yes I coordinate it with the horse. I actually dress her in a lot of sweaters and typically with proper breeches and tall boots and helmet as if it were a regular english outfit irl. I occasionally dress her and her horse in western gear, or use streetwear if she's off the horse

23. Which Druid Circle do you prefer? Is there a reason for your preference? Is it tied to the Soul Rider of the Circle?

you may be surprised, but I like the moon circle just a smidgen more than the sun circle, though they are in close competition. I just love the aspects of both of them, visions & teleportation. I find it so interesting and quite applicable to real life, at least personally, because of how I experience life with PTSD. it is easy to convey my mind through comics about the powers of these circles.

20. What part of the Main Story is your favorite?

oh my, if you can count the storyline in SSL as a predecessor to SSO, i would say Anne's first trip to Pandoria to save Concorde. in SSO, it's surprising but seeing Anne without saving her must have been my favorite. I was disappointed with the actual saving Anne quest, but seeing Pandoria for the first time in SSO was an experience I won't forget, even though I prefer the atmosphere of Pandoria in SSL

11. How many horses do you own in total? Did it use to be more, or are you still missing a few?

oh my. 64. I once sold the green whinfell because i found it so ugly. But I felt so bad and rebought it a year or two ago.

04. Which Horse was your first purchase? Do you still own that horse, and what did you name it?

this little POS, Carrotwinner. I still have him. pic taken just now

05. Which Horse is your favorite? Do you own said horse, or are you simply dreaming of buying it?

can you logically ask me this question Juni?

just kidding, my favorite (purchasable) horse is this little guy, and I'm so lucky to have him. I think he was either the second or third old fjord I bought, and I have three. the white one, and orange thing I also have.

[clowneryandshenanegans]

TADC theory #3

it’s that time again bois, let’s get it

So I’ve seen a lot of theories about npcs in the circus, mainly the theory that Jax is an npc. The main reasons I’ve seen are:

• He states he’s hungry, even though the players don’t have to eat, but npcs do

• when they talk about the funeral for Kaufmo he looks upset, possibly because npcs don’t have funerals while players do

• he’s got a much different personality/reaction to the circus, seems to take pleasure in the suffering of others

• he’s not worried about abstraction (from what we can tell)

while I like this theory and think it would be interesting, I would like to present my own, starting with some counterpoints:

• Not really sure for this one, but could just be saying that as a figure of speech, maybe linked to routine of eating several times through the day when human, or possibly it’s a placebo effect where he ate those specific times during the first period in the circus and his system is now convinced that it needs to eat at that time otherwise it’ll do what a human does, starve

• I got nothin for this one, but it could just be that he’s upset about the events of the candy kingdom; like when a kid tries to keep being sad about something after you make them laugh about it, he could just be trying to be continuously upset about not doing what he wanted to in the candy kingdom <- we’ll come back to this one

• It’s implied they’ve all been here a pretty long time, so this could just be another reaction, or he could have fully excepted “I’m not getting out of here”, and could use the suffering of others to distract himself from the fact he’s trapped in an everlasting circle of a plastic colored hell, plus it seems like he only causes real harm to npc’s, not the rest of the cast with only some pranks so far

• He could just be keeping himself from going insane and thinking about what could happen if he abstracts, which could lead to him going insane faster

So, I propose this: Jax did what Pmni did, bringing an NPC to the circus himself, who was then deleted.

This brings us back to the second counterpoint. Maybe he’s not mad because he wouldn’t have a funeral held for him, maybe he’s mad because the NPC he brought over didn’t have a funeral held for them.

It seems like the circus cast have two characters who are connected somehow, like kinger with Ragatha and (I hope and pray daily) gangle and zooble. So the cast have some kind of friendship between them. This excludes two characters: Jax and Pomni.

We know the reason Pomni brought GummiGoo to the circus is because she wanted a friend, and they both had the same kind of dread/horror

So, what if Jax brought over his own NPC as a friend?

If my earlier theory applies, Caine would have immediately deleted the NPC in order to prevent what i theorized happened. Which could have led to the same feeling from Pomni towards GummiGoo as Jax towards this NPC.

No one on the cast would have really cared about the NPC, so they wouldn’t have held a funeral. Which could have led to Jax holding some kind of grudge against them for not holding a funeral for his friend the same way they do abstracted characters.

His pranks could just be a way of keeping himself from being bored, and he could have taken the feeling of being hungry or starving from this NPC, as NPC’s are shown to need to eat.

These phrases could have just simply registered to him as “I want to eat” instead of “I need to eat”.

So, summed up? Jax brought an NPC to the circus after an adventure, which was deleted almost immediately by Caine. The cast didn’t hold a funeral, which Jax could have taken as the cast not caring in the slightest about NPCs. He took phrases from them and uses ir through the show, replicating them and using “NPC grammar”.

There you have it!

[fateheartblog]

“You’re well-read, Ezra,” Mirabel remarks, sliding down from her perch.

“I’m well-mythed,” Zachary corrects. “When I was a kid I thought Hecate and Isis and all the orishas were friends of my mom’s, like, actual people. I suppose in a way they were. Still are. Whatever.”

-The Starless Sea, Erin Morgenstern, Book III: The Ballad of Simon and Eleanor, 4th Zachary section

I think this quote is the single most important piece of characterisation for Zachary Ezra Rawlins in the whole of The Starless Sea. Or at least it is for me (though I appreciate that there is a distinction between what you might value as a reader-for-pleasure and a reader-with-hellbent-ulterior-intentions-to-write-this-man-into-a-corner-watch-me-gooo). I kept coming back to this line as I wrote Fateheart (my fan-sequel to The Starless Sea - you can read it here on Ao3), and it has become the lynchpin for a lot of my thoughts about who Zachary is - especially as the story of Fateheart unfolded in front of me and I was trying to keep up with what was happening and grapple with why it felt inevitable.

Here are some of those thoughts, for any of you who are interested in thinking this much about Zachary Ezra Rawlins (and his relationship with Dorian, which is ever central to who he is), about myth, and about The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern.

One of the reasons I ended up writing my fan-sequel to The Starless Sea was a desire to continue following the story of what had already begun in Morgenstern's book, which is Zachary's descent into myth - and I don't mean his passage through the wonderlands beneath the world - I mean becoming one himself.

This quote captures what I love most about Zachary and what I find most powerful about him, which is something I came to think of whilst writing as his "belief in the real and the unreal". He is deeply post-modern, and has an acute grasp of myth (gonna define 'myth' in a truncated but convenient way here as a type of story which offers a moral or identity truth, alternative to a history, which gives you facts and assumes the 'truth' is implicit through them).  The combination of these two things is very potent, and has allowed Zachary's sense of what is true to develop separately from and at times directly in opposition to what is factual or historically, empirically verifiable. Simply put, when it comes to making sense of his reality, historical truth does not interest him. Stories interest him ("He believes in books, he knows that much" - Book I: Sweet Sorrows, 3rd Zachary section). Not only does a rationalist presentation of value or truth not have any of the significance that it would in a modernist worldview, it is almost irrelevant to Zachary. He does not navigate the world according to its empirical qualities but according to its stories, and he is very adept at reading them, because these are the paradigms by which he got to know the world in the first place.

The blurring of reality into unreality which happens in the quote - he thought that the goddesses were friends of his mother's - "actual people" - tells us possibly more about Zachary's mother than about him. Or perhaps tells us so much about him by telling us about her first: Madame Love Rawlins raised her son in an environment which valued stories, and specifically myths, above all else. Zachary does not gain his sense of identity or context of self whilst growing up from integration into a historical narrative or a sociological connection to his own time or place - even his sense of a wider family context and adult society was defined by a profound connection to a global pantheon of myths. You can imagine how Madame Love Rawlins must have spoken about Hecate and Isis and the orishas - how effortlessly, personally, and often - to create an environment where they seemed this real. And you can conjecture that she herself was not in the business of drawing a distinction between her regular old human friends and the more divine voices of influence over her life. So why should Zachary?

But that blurring of reality with unreality is not nearly as telling as the other blur that happens in the quote above, which is, "I suppose in a way they were. Still are. Whatever."

This is three things happening in quick succession, and I think they are all equally fascinating, and they all delight me equally.

The last and least of them is in the word "whatever": it implies that Zachary is not interested in firmly deciding whether or not he thinks they are 'real' people. "Whatever" is applying to the question of past or present tense, but in its dismissiveness it waives any of the gravity of his placing his blurring of reality in the past. Yes, he's identifying that perception as a younger, past version of himself, but then he brings it forwards, catching himself: "I suppose in a way they were" reasserts the belief; "Still are" updates it, identifies it in himself now; "Whatever" carries it beyond what he feels the need to define.

The second thing that's happening is the "Still are." There is some ambiguity, but not much, in the quote - is Zachary supposing that these mythical figures may actually have been real? That's how I'm primarily reading it because that's the most obvious reading. But one could argue that he's equally supposing that they may well have truly been his mother's friends, and possibly still are - that he's not questioning their actuality so much as the familiarity of their role in one's personal world. They still are friends of his mom's. Or they still are real in some way. Either one is compounded by the "whatever", and "Still are. Whatever" is a telling rhythm of Zachary's thought process here: he is comfortable with indistinction. The factuality is not relevant.

But the most important and the first thing in "I suppose in a way they were. Still are. Whatever." is the supposing itself. That these myths are people who have had an impact on his life relationally, emotionally, interpersonally, and truly. Voices he has known and names he has called and referenced in conversation on the same level as any other. His almost throwaway acknowledgement that this blurring of the line between real and unreal is very much still part of his internal system says a great deal about how deeply foundational this sense of myth and truth is to him: the indistinction is not a problem with the thing, but the thing itself.

And never, in all his academic travels and independent adult life away from his mother (his independence of identity and situation is well established) has Zachary found reason enough to redraw the lines - to reassess this post-modern prioritisation of myth over history - to anchor himself according to what is real, regardless of the value of its truth, as opposed to what is unreal but true. And his wider characterisation as an academic at a good school and a devotee of stories in all forms tells us it is not for lack of self-awareness or intelligence. Assuming he has interrogated his own beliefs before, he clearly has not seen reason to dismantle his worldview. In fact, we possibly see the first thing in his life which really does force him to consolidate his beliefs, and it is not the real challenging the unreal, as must have happened to him and has not left a mark, but the unreal suddenly encroaching upon the real. The moment he assesses this internal balance of the real and the unreal is in the same chapter I quoted above (Book I: Sweet Sorrows, 3rd Zachary section), as he reflects upon seeing his childhood encounter with his door written in Sweet Sorrows and thinks upon what the book is telling him about what lay beyond it:

"He wonders why he believes it because someone wrote it down in a book. Why he believes anything at all and where to draw mental lines, where to stop suspending his disbelief."

Zachary is aware that he primarily operates in a territory where all disbelief is permanently suspended: this is not him asking whether he should start believing that this door did in fact lead to a Harbour - this is him wondering if he ought to believe this much that it does - and what it means for anything real if he carries that belief forwards as he intends to. Questioning whether the space he holds within him for the powerful truth of myth is now starting to truly consume the concrete, factual world in a way which is leading him into new territory. And it is. The mythical does in fact start to consume the real world for him. That is what happens to him in the rest of The Starless Sea. And this is the moment we see that crossover: he chooses to remain faithful to the unreal, and to pursue a story. He asserts what he was raised believing, which is that the unreal is more true and more valuable than the real, and therefore ultimately must be more real. Only someone who is intimately familiar already - from their earliest childhood - with the blurring of these lines - would react the way Zachary has to finding himself in a book - running with it, and allowing it to envelop him completely, as he is ultimately enveloped by the door, the Harbour, and the Starless Sea itself.

And what I love most about this passage is that we see it happen - we see him interrogate himself, we see him follow his internal logic, and we see his belief in the unreal win:

"Does he believe that the boy in the book is him? Well, yes. Does he believe painted doors on walls can open as though they were real and lead to other places entirely? He sighs and sinks below the surface."

To be fair he is in the bath in this scene, but also: "he sinks below the surface": he submits to the authority of myth over fact. And - crucially - to him, myths are real not as accounts of an abject moral value or a history, which is still quite abstract - what's real to him is myths as people.

Writing Fateheart was an exercise in loyalty to characters I fully believed in deeply, and for different reasons. I could write this much again about Madame Love Rawlins (and might/probably will) and Kat (might/probably won't) and don't get me started on Dorian (will/definitely will), but Zachary led the way for me here. I was fascinated - absolutely, devotedly transfixed by the process we get to see the start of in The Starless Sea, which is Zachary becoming part of a myth. He is the close of one story and then the beginning of the next, stepping from the periphery of one myth to the heart of the next.

So that became the paradigm for Fateheart: how do I take these characters, all of whom start as human, and draw from them a new myth? A story which is at once human and deeply personal and realistic in the sense of being true to human experiences of feeling and danger and cost and wonder and love, but is also more than itself - is broad and vast and contains profound, elemental gestures towards values and archetypes and fundamentals of what we are and choose and love as people?

And Zachary made it so easy. Because the myths are already people to him - real, breathing, blooded people. So his passage into that role was intuitive.

I find it wonderful that in the title quote here Zachary is correcting "well-read" to "well-mythed" - the difference is not one I was immediately tuned into, but one which turned out to be vital. He is able to navigate stories so cogently not because he knows them as books, but because he knows them as people. There is a reason he understands Mirabel the way he does - and loves her. He is used to relating to mythical, archetypal powers as close personal friends: he's been doing it since he was a child. Maybe meeting Mirabel forces that mental pathway out into the open - and cements it for him - but it was already there.

It is also the reason he is able to love Dorian the way he does - deeply, intuitively, and uncompromisingly. This relationship was a joy to explore for a number of reasons (most of which are bleedingly obvious hello i am a fanfic writer) but the most captivating dynamic (for me) is their respective positions with stories. Dorian tells them, carries them, gives them - Zachary receives them, loves them, and keeps them.

There's a language that developed organically for this as I was writing Fateheart, and actually grew from Morgenstern's own imagery: the deep night sky within Zachary - which in terms of vernacular I extrapolated from the details of Allegra's painting ("Zachary’s chest is cracked open, his heart exposed, the star-filled sky visible behind it"), developing into a way of referring to that space of pure and certain belief in the unreal - a vast constellation of myths, points of truth which connect across empty space to make sense of the world - which is Zachary's internal landscape.

When Dorian sits in the Gryphon bar and watches Zachary he cannot read him - though it is made clear that he can read just about everyone and everything else, and has been able to do so most of his life. What, then, is Dorian seeing? Most people are reducible to stories, but myths do not reduce to stories - they reduce to truths. Stories, at their best, might extrapolate to myths, which in turn reveal true things, but people are not usually myths - or if they are, they are myths first, masquerading as people (there are plenty of those in The Starless Sea.) And in Fateheart, I try to push this the other way by having three people slowly begin to masquerade as myths. And Dorian sees it first - long before there is language for it - or need for language for it, because, admittedly, there isn't need until you get deeper into the narrative of Fateheart. But Zachary is not a series of facts that build a narrative: he is a constellation of personal relationships with myths. He is a system of beliefs which merrily crosses the boundaries between the real and the unreal in a superb tangle of truths.

Dorian cannot read him because he is not a story. Nor is he, at that point, a myth - but he is a man whose grasp of the world hovers over the edges of what is real, prepared when push comes to shove to fall straight down the rabbit hole. Dorian cannot reduce him because he is already more than himself, hovering in the doorway of the unreal, beginning to follow his age-old belief into territory Dorian has been living in for a long time: the borderlands. Walking the face of the real world but allegiant to the unreal one.

How must Zachary have looked to him? An academic, operating within the structures and annals, the very factual, papery, process-laden architecture of the strictly real - yet relating to it as if it is one myth amongst many. Post-modernity in action: the historical, the rational, the empirical is just one more story. No more or less real than all the others he met at his mother's knee.

And how must Dorian have looked to Zachary? A man who clothes himself entirely in stories - who weaves between the language and the embroidered details of fables and legends and books - moving too quickly to be framed as either fact or fiction. Comfortable presenting the truth in a myriad of ways - with any name he chooses, in any shape he wills.

Dorian presents himself as a story - not just to Zachary, but to the world. Because it is an extraordinary position of power and an acutely slick one: in a world where most people think stories are not real and value them accordingly lowly, being a story allows him to control how he is perceived. From his name to every farthest extrapolation of his position and occupation he presents as fictional. Which is a very guarded way to walk the world. But Zachary draws absolutely no distinction between the people in his life who are stories and the stories in his life who are people. So Zachary is able to simultaneously accept that Dorian is a story and that he is a real person - able to hold the real alongside the unreal, and able to love it entirely as a self-contradictory package deal. Which must have been deeply disarming for a man who has mostly found that his ability to tell a story makes for a good way to present a false identity. Dorian is very good at being a story, but stories at their best extrapolate to myths, and Zachary knows how to love myths as people. He's been doing it all his life.

And this is where I watched them go in Fateheart. Zachary is more equipped to understand Dorian than Dorian is. He readily opens to him the space he holds within himself for stories - the well-populated night sky of the mythical, the unreal, the wondrous, the true. Zachary is a very, very good reader - which I am asserting by my own metrics, but I'll define it as this: if you can hold in perfect conjunction that a story is not true yet contains truth and is therefore more true, then you are a good reader. You can get more out of a truth if it's told in a good story than you can if it's presented as clean fact: a clean, dry bone of a fundamental is very clear and easy to handle, but you can see best how it moves when it is part of the dancing flesh of a living body - even though on one level you cannot see the bone anymore at all.

Zachary sees all the dressing and falls in love with the truth of who Dorian is - not in spite of the stories he hides within but because of them. He offers Dorian a way to make sense of himself - a way to make sense of his entire life, which has seen him caught over that boundary between the real and the unreal - serving a Harbour he never sees, hunting those who cannot be killed. Hiding in plain sight, operating beyond the limits of the real world without ever being free to cross into the unreal. And that grey area is very familiar to Zachary - he is unbothered by it and comfortable there.

And in return Dorian is the consolidation of Zachary's belief in the real and the unreal: he is at once a person and a story of himself. He is blisteringly close to being only the stories he tells and is told, and existing primarily as a way of delivering and performing those stories - and Zachary perceives him as an entire constellation: taking the stories he has become and focusing upon the truth in them. Seeing the bones in him even as they dance. Loving him as myth and human at once without drawing a distinction - and without needing to.

Writing Fateheart was an opportunity (or really a shameless excuse) to explore Zachary and Dorian's relationship with each other. They are just on the cusp of their lives colliding at the end of The Starless Sea, and there is enough substance there, enough tantalisingly unconsummated (ahem) chemistry, that it is a legitimately fun exercise to carry it forwards and see what happens. And I was delighted over and over again in writing them to discover the myriad ways in which they work together - ways they understand each other and overlap and seem stronger for it than they did on their own - all of which is full credit to their original characterisation. I had a distinct impression of following events that had already been set in motion - and rather than developing what an active, steady relationship looks like from scratch, revealing the outworking of what it promised to be from the off.

The blurring of these boundaries between the real and the unreal is literalised in their passage through the caverns of the Starless Sea: the two of them cross into fairytales, into stories and the settings of fables Dorian has told and memorised and had tattooed into his skin. But I do not think that their respective motions are in mirror image - for all Dorian is already living in the unreal, I think it is Zachary who carries the two of them into the territory of myth. In The Starless Sea they each traverse a wilderness of literary and mythical realities in an effort to find each other, but it is Zachary's trajectory that shapes the language surrounding him and his increasingly mythical identity in the book:

"And so the son of the fortune-teller does not find his way to the Starless Sea. Not yet." - Book I: Sweet Sorrows, chapter three - To Deceive the Eye

Zachary's process of heading down the path of fully embracing the unreal is his journey to the Starless Sea. The story hits its climax - and the old Harbour finds its breaking - when he finds it - but his actual passage into it is through the death of his physical, actual self.

Which, of course, comes at Dorian's hand. But the action of killing Zachary is two-fold: he frees him from the last traces of whatever he was clinging to of real, rational, folllowing-the-rules-of-a-normal-world life by pushing him entirely out of the world and into the place where the bees dwell - where the old gods are larger than life - where real, rational, following-the-rules-of-a-normal-world business is a vague, dollhouse style, boxy, undetailed approximation - a secondary feature, one worldview amongst a bigger context - and where he eventually drowns in the essence of the story itself, despite his final efforts to escape this. And then the completion of the process is to bring him back to the world - to take his body and replace the heart of what he is with something that is itself a story - a myth.

Dorian and Zachary are falling increasingly in sync with each other throughout The Starless Sea, but it is Zachary who leads the two of them to the shore of the thing itself - the very edge. Dorian is looking for a way to get home, which turns out to be Zachary, and Zachary is looking for a way to the Starless Sea, which turns out to be Dorian.

Dorian giving Zachary the heart - which is the heart of a story - 'of' in the sense of its position at the centre, but also in the sense of 'a heart produced by, having its origins in a story' - is the resolution of Zachary's passage into myth. He has travelled all the way to the Starless Sea - he has submitted to the dismantling of any last vestiges of scepticism in the face of the magic or absurd to such an extent that he has died for it - and then he is brought back.

And for what? To drift on a ship in the belly of the world, out of time, out of the story? Or is the absolution of his identity in that death and resurrection enough that wherever he goes he will bring with him the central, burning core of belief that makes stories like these possible?

At the beginning of The Starless Sea Zachary is in the process of returning to his old favourite books:

He has been reading (or rereading) a great many children’s books as well, because the stories seem more story-like, though he is mildly concerned this might be a symptom of an impending quarter-life crisis. - Book I: Sweet Sorrows, chapter 4, first Zachary section

The eclipse of the mythical over the real, the reconnection with the powerful, foundational truth that what is fictional is just as real as what is physical, is already hinted at here: his instinct to draw closer to what seems like a purer form of story - worlds where the lines are blurred more perfectly, where the distinctions are already eliminated. This is the first sign of his overall character arc in this book - and it ends with he himself becoming a story.

And I love that he's concerned this might be a symptom of an impending quarter-life crisis. And I love even more that he's only "mildly" concerned. Because that's so Zachary: an intuitive sense that something's coming, and possibly something huge - and his response is to turn back to stories. The "mildly" here has the same feeling as, "I suppose in a way they were. Still are. Whatever." He is easy with a sense of deep upheaval. Because you can't shock someone with the unreal when they've known it all their lives.

He didn't open the door because he wanted to keep on believing that there was something behind it. He has resisted re-wiring his sense of how real all the orishas are not because he wants to keep on believing and knows he won't if he looks too hard, but because he absolutely believes it but is fearful of what this will mean for his grasp on the rest of reality and his place in it. Because really embracing this postmodernity means accepting that everything ultimately reduces to myth. That to walk truly in the deep places of what it means to be alive does not mean banishing a sense of madness but embracing it - following through to the point of total undoing - death of the real self - and further than that, into a new kind of life.

To sail the Starless Sea is to become the story of oneself. The air is haunted by the death and reformation of what is real. Only the bones of the real things ever return - dancing as part of the flesh they have been clothed in. Truth that is clothed in stories: myth.

Zachary Ezra Rawlins has known since he was a child that stories are true. And maybe his hesitancy to embrace this has been because he knows that if he embarks on this hero's journey he will have to leave behind anything that might resemble his own sanity by the world's standards. He knows that to embrace those relationships with the mythical as closely and as truly as he did when he was a child learning to relate to his mother's circle of friends will be to become himself a story. To relinquish his grip on the rational and to give up, ultimately, his heart.

To go mad, and to return more deeply yourself than you could ever have anticipated.

And you know who gets this? Dorian.

“How are you feeling?” Zachary asks. “Like I’m losing my mind, but in a slow, achingly beautiful sort of way.” “Yeah, I get that. So better, then.” - Book IV, Written in the Stars, 3rd Zachary chapter

That's the second most important line for Zachary's characterisation - in my opinion (and let's face it when it comes to Zachary Ezra Rawlins I have an absolutely absurd amount of opinion). That once he chooses to cross the threshold of the world and walk the halls of a myth he's always suspected he had a part in, he knows that by some standards he is losing his mind - the rational part of his 'self' - his life, by the standards of what the world thinks a life is.

But he's only mildly worried about it. He's never really held much with the sense that rabbit holes ought not to be for falling into. That he should be beyond it. That it shouldn't be real.

The point of departure for Fateheart was a Zachary who has finally, with the aid of Dorian, become himself. A Zachary who has left behind the world and the life that went with it. A Zachary who is so at one with the mythical that he himself is a myth. Zachary at the final, gasping, awakening stage of losing his mind - but in a slow, achingly beautiful sort of way.

"So better, then."

A myth. A story told by someone who loves him well enough to bring him back as exactly what he always was: a heart alive and alight with the unreal, carrying it in the vast night sky within him, bright enough to illuminate the world and reveal all the things in it that have always been true:

[an] enormous, spinning truth, turning like a star in the sky, close enough to be a sun, burning with enough light to illuminate the world. - Fateheart, part two, chapter 16

And Dorian follows him there - is the agent of the final stages of this transformation. Is the hand by which the story is told: one who tells the story, one who carries it.

It felt like the most obvious thing in the world that on the strength of such a pairing one could dream a whole new story - felt, to me, like it was clear that having transcended into myth, the new Harbour could and would form around them - could have at its centre a love story that is at once about real people and about something mythical.

The old myths are completed, and the new myths find their footing at the end of the story. And I wanted to know - was absolutely desperate to see - what the next story would look like, with these two people at the heart of it.

So that's what I wrote.

--BoogleBoot

[concerningwolves]

Hi! I don't know if you do fandom related things or not, so idk how much you know about a series called The Owl House (if not, then I'm terribly sorry for wasting your time sending you this ask)

I'm writing a TOH oc who is a half-witch that's supposed to be autistic, have underdeveloped magic, as well as being able to perform two types of magic (one related to illusions and another based off of controlling anything related to animals)

Also, just to clarify, by "underdeveloped magic", I'm mainly thinking about that because my character is supposed to be half witch and half grimwalker, so I was thinking of possibly making her have an organ that witches have in the show where they produce magic from, but maybe having it produce weaker magic in comparison to other kids her grade (she's about 12 years old), but idk if all of this could relate to any real disabilities that exist

Are there things that I should look into to better understand what I can do to have this make more sense? If so, what exactly do you think would best fit for this character?

Hi! No need to apologise; it's always worth asking :]

All I know about TOH has been gleaned through Tumblr osmosis, so I can't really comment on anything specifically related to the series' storyworld/lore. Regarding the autistic representation, it sounds like you've got a plausible in-world reason for your character's magic to be weaker that isn't related to her being autistic, which is good.

In the case of a fantasy disability like this (and I think it's absolutely fair to call it a disability, even if there's no real-world parallel), it's always good to ask yourself questions like:

How does this affect my character's day to day life? – i.e., are there activities which require magic that she can't do as easily?

What sort of accommodations would those effects require? – in what ways can other people make things easier or more accessible for your character?

What kind of social awareness is there of the disability (and of disability in general)? – disabilities and disabled people don't exist in a vacuum, and there has always been awareness and varying levels of acceptance of disabilities within societies. Thinking about this will inform how your character is treated, and how they feel about their own disability.

(and on a similar note: Do institutional and systemic ableism exist? If not, why? How has your society gotten around that, and how do they embrace and support disabled existence?)

Is this character the only person with the disability? Are there other disabled characters at all? – There's a lot of solidarity between disabled communities and I always like to encourage authors to consider this in their worldbuilding. Where quick and global communication exists (like the internet or some fantasy/sci-fi equivalent, or some other magical means of communication), people like to connect with people like them. Even if someone irl has a rare condition which makes it difficult for them to find or access their community, there will still be value in more general support groups (either online or in person), because of the way some disabled experiences intersect and overlap.

How does your character feel about their disability? – it's important to think about this in relation to all the other factors above, instead of assuming that internalised ableism is the norm. How a person feels about their disability if often complex, and can fluctuate based on different situations – e.g., a character might feel proud of the things they've learned from having to work with their disability, but still struggle with feeling alienated because of their disability. (This is doubly true when you're multiply disabled, or have something like autism which can have positive, negative and neutral aspects).

Hopefully this will give you something to work with, even if I couldn't help with TOH-specific stuff.

[ut-scatteredextension]

I think it's been long overdue for me to talk about what happened to Sans after I promised I would, so, here we are!

When I said I threw him in the Void, I was not lying dgshshf.

Sans had been somewhat involved with the efforts to revive Papyrus after he died. Chara came to him with the idea, and he was the one who provided them with Papyrus' scarf/cape, which was what a lot of his dust had settled in.

Sans wasn't totally on board with the plan and was skeptical that it would work (since, y'know, people who die aren't supposed to come back from that). But a tiny part of him still wanted to have hope that maybe he would get to see his brother again. Ultimately though, Chara's safety was more of a priority to him. Tori'd kill him if he let her kid get hurt on his watch, after all. So, I'd say that he did make some half-hearted attempt to discourage Chara from trying to revive Papyrus, but also didn't actually do anything to stop them when they insisted on going through with it.

As I've said before, Chara had less Determination available to work with compared to Alphys when she did her experiments. Alphys had extracted all of her samples from the human SOULs that had been collected (as mentioned in canon in the True Lab). Those SOULs disappeared after Frisk's battle against Omega Flowey, though, so Chara wasn't able to do the same. They found and used the leftover Determination that Alphys had previously collected, but it wasn't enough. So, from there they had two options to get more:

They extract some from the Amalgamates (not actually an option; the process could be painful, they refuse to harm a monster, absolutely not, no way are they doing this)

They extract some from their own SOUL.

In Chara's mind, there was only one choice.

So, with Sans' hesitant supervision, they hooked themself up to the DT Extraction machine.

However, as I'll get into some other time, Chara's SOUL is massively Fucked Up. Their Determination is pretty much the only thing holding it together.

Y'know, the very same Determination being extracted from them?

So, because the extraction process is basically killing them, they try to RESET on reflex. However, their ability to RESET also depends on the amount of Determination they have. Which they are currently in the process of losing.

This put the timeline in a weird, unnatural state of an incomplete RESET, causing time, space, and reality as a whole to begin tearing itself apart.

Sans intervened at that point, terminating the extraction process early and saving Chara's life as a result. However, his interference forced him to get very close to the source of the space-time disruptions (and thus where the destruction of reality was at its worst). He, unfortunately, got sucked into that whole mess, causing him to get sent to the Void and erasing him from the minds and memory of every living person in the process.

So! Sans got Gaster-ed lmao rip. Though actually, his erasure wasn't as complete as Gaster's was. Gaster got erased from all of existence entirely, whereas Sans has only been erased from his specific timeline (and all the other timeline iterations that branched off after his erasure). He exists outside of time now, watching over the world that he can no longer interact with. If anyone here happens to be familiar with Chrono Trigger, I'd say Sans' situation is somewhere in between Gaster's and Gaspar's. ...Funny how their names are. Fairly similar actually dgssgf

As for the out-of-universe reason why I threw Sans in the Void, it's the best way to make his role as the "game's" narrator work. Being a monster instead of a human, it doesn't make sense for him to have some sort of "soul connection" or something with Trace that Chara had with Frisk and/or the player.

So, he doesn't! But by existing outside of time, space, and the game itself to some extent, he, similarly to Gaster in Deltarune, is aware of and interacts directly with the player. Trace themself doesn't actually know about Sans' presence for most of their adventure. All of the narration and UI stuff is Sans talking to and interacting directly with the player specifically.

[bylertruther]

the more that i think about it the more that i feel comfortable in my assessment that the point of including eleven's memory loss being her body's trauma response is to further suggest that will's memory loss is mostly henry's doing.

i mean, we already saw henry do it in season two and how difficult it was for will to fight back against that.

in season three, we saw that will doesn't go anywhere near that box of horrors in his mind even when it's right there in front of him. he explains it away to himself as nothing and doesn't want to believe it. he actively avoids it.

then, in season four, we learn that henry can toy with minds and memories, and that's how he personalizes his attacks. he knew that eleven was coming and didn't care, because he knew he would win regardless, and he did. "the silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west" suggests that henry knew he had to strike now while mike and will specifically were away. the older teens then learned that the upside down is frozen in time on the day that will went missing and they found a new kind of particle. however, the way that they used the particles to communicate compared to how will did, along with us knowing now that will manipulated them the same way that the lab kids did, suggests that there is something else to be discovered there. and of course, the fact that will is still and has always been cursed means that henry is coming for him.

eleven isn't strong enough to defeat henry, even with coordinated strikes enacted by the entire team on him and the hivemind. henry needed mike out of hawkins so that he could open the gates, and he needed to open the gates so that he could have an undeniable and undefeatable upper hand, both by unleashing his army of monsters but also because the more they spread the stronger his connection gets with will. will is the last piece of this puzzle and he's the only one outside of henry that holds the answers for literally Everything and is able to see what the whole picture even is.

eleven goes on her journey to project nina, because she needs to find out who she is. she needed to learn that she was not the monster that started this all--that it was brenner and she was just his pawn forced to do his bidding. she needs that in order to be stronger and finally move on and heal from her crushing guilt. she also needs that closure so that she can stop falling into the same dynamic with other people.

like... the thing about project nina is that it isn't what it actually is. the characters think it's their shot at defeating henry, but it isn't. project nina is all about eleven leaving the train station and finding herself. project nina ~ project niña ~ project girl. eleven even tells brenner that: that she came to figure out who she was and now she's leaving.

but she also needs to go on that journey for other plot reasons so that when the teens bring up what they found in the upside down and inevitably ask will if he remembers anything, eleven can draw on her own experiences to help will remember. she's learned the power and truth that memories can hold, how your body can block those out to protect you, how henry started out by toying with people's minds and memories, how powers are like muscles that you need to learn how to use like any muscle, and that you yourself have to find you way out.

like... it just... feels pretty clear to me when i think about everything as a whole. eleven can't do this on her own, because it isn't just her fight. it's will's, too. but she can't ask for his help if she doesn't know what she doesn't know, and so she goes on her journey to figure it out. and he can't know or remember what he doesn't know he doesn't remember, so that's where eleven and everyone else comes in. there's something missing there that could help them defeat henry and they need to figure it out if they want to stand any chance of winning. aaaand they need to do it before henry comes to collect will.

dustin rolling an eleven and losing, a pair of siblings saving the day, and will telling eleven "we'll fix it together", erica rolling a 20 and mike and will’s (aka the blue and yellow that the silver cat needed out of the equation) skates adding to 20 aren't just silly little coincidences. we saw this first being hinted at in season two and now we're picking up where we left off and seeing it through.

[eggplant-crusader]

Hi hi! I apologize for the bother, but I was wondering if you might be able to provide some Wednesday insight for me, if that's not too much to ask.

I'm trying to fit a lot of pieces together in my head when it comes to writing a potential PJO au for the show and I've been struggling on which students belong where. This is specifically asking about Wednesday Addams, since she's very elusive for me and I can never really pin down a voice for her that fits in a way that I think is true to character.

I didn't want to place her in Hades cabin--mainly because it feels too expected, and would diminish the full impact of Wednesday's intimidating nature. Like "Of course Wednesday is intimidating, she's Hades' child." Much too easy for my liking

I think she would work better as an oracle; she wouldn't be a demigod, but she'd be a central part of their society either way. Morticia having been the previous oracle, passing that title on to Wednesday, highlighting her mother issues a bit more.

But I also felt that making her an oracle would have followed a little too closely to the show's canon, which I haven't really loved a whole lot.

Those are the two options I'm contemplating at the moment, but as someone who has only watched Wednesday through your and Barb's fics, I feel I could be greatly mischaraterizing aspects of Wednesday in a way I haven't considered. So, any insight or you feel you are in the space to provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you 🫶🏼

My first thought when my brain connected "Wednesday Addams" and "PJO" was Hecate.

That said, I think the Hades and oracle iptions make a lot of sense. The oracle one has the benefit that she gets to keep both her parents, who are great characters in their own right.

Another option is making Morticia a minor greco-roman deity. I Mean, she has the name for it. And it makes her relationship with her husband even better imo, I also love the idea of Wednesday being literally the only demigod ever with a functional family.

Finally, there's Apollo. Apollo is the god of prophecy, which goes well with Wednesday's premonitions without making her Oracle, and the whole Sun thing is the complete opposite of Wednesday, so it can be played that way, Wednesday being a misfit in her cabin, going against what's expected of her as a daughter of Apollo. You can also do the same with Enid, give her a darker god who fits her, like Ares or Hecate, and have it clash with her sunny personality. Funny, now that I think about it, both Enid and Wednesday fit with Hecate but for different reasons. Enid could also be one of Artemis' huntresses, which could add Drama (Artemis would be the obvious choice for her divine parent if she had kids).

I suppose it depends on what kind of story you want.

Oracle and god-Morticia work best if you want to keep closer to canon by keeping the Addams family intact.

Hades and Hecate are a good choice if you want to make her a witch, basically.

Apollo I think is the one that has the most room to play with, especially if you pair it with Hecate!Enid, but this option is the more AU one of the lot, it requires you to focus much more on the pjo side since part of what makes it interesting is Wednesday's clashing with her divine heritage

Other assorted thoughts:

Bianca is an interesting one. A Siren is already a Greek mythology monster, and probably one with divine blood. I think it would be more interesting playing with that than making her daughter of Poseidon. I also feel like she's got Nike in there but it would require not making her water themed. Or if you're thinking of including Camp Jupiter in your story, I think she'd fit in better in there, perhaps as daughter of Mars or even Jupiter. But again, that's if you want to get rid of her siren-ness. Also if you make Wednesday a child of Hades, you HAVE to make Bianca a child of one of the big three, it's the rules, and water theme aside she has BIG Jupiter or even Zeus vibes the more I think about it.

Eugene, son of Demeter. Easy.

Yoko: again, Hecate. I like Hecate, alright? And she has connections to certain vampire-ish monsters. But ALSO, ALSO, Dionysius! The blood ans wine parallels, the partying, the passion, there's a lot of fun that can be had here, exoring Dionysius' darker side.

Divina: unlike Bianca, I see her more entrenched in her water theme, perhaps as the daughter of a minor deity or as a monster.