#s3 they probably won't be featured much at all

[jackie-mae]

with your outfit drawings for the mystreet character. im so curious about with vylad having outfits for s2-s6, if you want can you expand upon on that?

I WOULD LOVE TOO >:3c

Long and Short of it is I've always hated how Vylad was there in Mystreet S1, PDH S1 and then he just... dropped off the face of the earth after that. It always irked me a bit when it would show Garroth and Zane having brotherly bonding moments (and trauma) and always having the thought of (Man wasn't there a third brother in all this?) there in the back of my mind.

I'm now going to do some little bullet points of my Vylads role in S2-6 but this is a great time to mention I've never seen past S4 so I'm running on Wiki Lore and the gospel of AO3 and @catzgam3rz; who collaborates (Read: Infodump and Ramble) on a hypothetical rewrite with me so it gets vague and murky for the later seasons.

S1:

Basically the same as canon (as in S1 is kinda just slice of life) but instead of Vylad just travelling around the world he is an off the grid hunter that wanders the wilderness all the time (The freak)

This is based on my very fuzzy memories of MCD Vylad always kinda just being in trees as he watched Lady Aphmau in the early seasons so I just put Mystreet Vylad in trees for fun this time

Has a vaguely similar relationship to his brothers as in MCD. in the sense it's better with Garroth and more strained with Zane

S2:

Goes to LLP with the rest of the main cast (which consists of the 11 big designs I made) because season 2 is not when you should be writing out characters Jessica

He wears little rainboots and unlike Laurance (Who FYI wears cowboy boots a majority of the time) the rest of the cast did not get him into flip flops before he went trudging into the ocean (again a freak)

I like to imagine that if any drama is going on in the story you could always see him floating around on an inner tube off in the distance

S3:

Again back to slice of life so he does a lot of shenanigans with the cast here

This is the season where the shadow knights feature but for the life of me, I cannot remember if Vylad was officially a part of them or not (And his Wikia is not even a paragraph~) But if it turns out he was there'll probably be more shenanigans around that.

He ends up leaving mid-season (Fall ish?) to go on a hunting expedition

S4:

Oh hey look Vylad is back because we don't believe in writing characters off with little rhyme or reason Jessica

Vylads hunting expedition ends up being in the same area as the lodge. and we all know nothing bad happens there!

there's now a little ski village downhill from the lodge which is where Vylad is staying at seasons start. He's good friends with a lot of the people there.

He's a werewolf now... Don't worry about it!

Oh, what's this? Is that relationship building between him and Zane on the horizon? Well, that won't hurt at all, will it?

AY:

A not-alone buddy comforts his not-alone buddy (I do not know much about Aphmau's Year but know it's short so that's all I got)

S5:

As he is a part of the Lodge crew he gets to go to Starlight!

Possibly is involved in a certain shenanigan with his brothers I'll be posting a comic about that in a few days

Get's lost constantly. Figures Starlight being an island means he can't really get lost since he'll hit ocean eventually and refuses to acknowledge how big said island is.

Doesn't float around like in S2 but you can still find him wading on the shore in his boots

being a hyperattentive freak, he get's some bad vibes from the island sooner than most

S6

Gonna be honest, me and Catz have not watched all of When angels fall but are planning to soon so I'll just leave you with the fun fact that all of my season 6 designs are supposed echo my MCD's designs for the characters (Since S6 is when it was decided hey maybe Diaries is really important here now)

TLDR: Vylad was shafted in Mystreet so I'm fix it

[bitteralmondbutter]

It’s a bait, promo video yes actual scenes no

why are you mansplaining what a promo vid is to me

[claudiablogger]

im excited for s3, mostly about Louis role tbh but I have to admit I’m dreading armandstat, so many so-called Loustat fans are creaming themselves about them, is gonna be a nightmare, bc all of them hated loumand for two years, and let’s not talk about Sam& Assad in contrast of how those same people treated Jacob&Assad, disgusting. anyways s3 is gonna be a ride and also the new little white boy Paul revere aka Nicki lmao a nightmare

yeah unsure if i'm watching if we don't get louis in every ep.....people's princess for real and the star of the show always. to me. r.j. did say Choices in s2 were made w the intention of having louis on screen as much and as significant as possible so i do have faith. and omg i have no idea how armand will be featured tbh i haven't read any of the books except interview and i don't even want to know truly armandstat doesn't intrigue me.....the louis-off is over her hot girl vampire summer has begun there's nothing they could add to their dynamic imo the most interesting aspects have already been explored. especially in pain ep3. it's frustrating and insanely antiblack how ppl want to focus on anything but louis and it's only going to get worse w the lestat season but i'm staying in the mutuals and louisgirls bubble for the most part. besides there's no lestat without louis what are they going to do? pretend there's some other love of his life he's writing 2 albums about? I'll confess I'm excited for the lestatgabrielle aspect of s3 + the gothics and hopefully the show stays horror bc from the excerpts of their relationship that i've seen there's so much to explore wrt gender and incestuous enmeshment and how a parent seeing their child as an extension of themselves is taken to the extreme w lestat and gabrielle. as for nicki.....truthfully i don't think this show needs more white ppl lmao. but nicki does establish that lestat has a type and everything is about louis if you squint. or loustat. i look forward to w/e they do w armandnicki though if anything bc didn't louis insinuate that he knew (is he going to lick my boots or chop my hands off) like was it another instrument of violence armand always threatened to play....probably ! as a loumandgirl i wonder if it'll unearth any aspects of their relationship like of course it won't be from new angles per se but the nicki/louis parallels are crazy crazy.....im curious im tuned in armand is one of my favorite villains of all time. abjectly terrifying :)

[stitching-in-time]

Voyager rewatch s3 ep 26: Scorpion pt 1

AKA, the beginning of All The Borg Crap. I do not love the Borg- I don't really like any of Voyager's continuing villains, but I've had issues with the Borg as a concept since Next Gen, and I feel like all the additional spotlight on them in Voyager just shone an even more glaring light on their flaws, but this particular episode was actually pretty decent, and better than I remembered.

For one thing, there wasn't a lot of actual Borg in it, just a lot of the crew preparing to face them, which has enough dramatic tension in and of itself. In any given episode, you know the crew is going to face a life and death scenario at some point, that's just how Star Trek, and most sci-fi, works, and you accept it as the status quo of the genre and don't think about it a lot. With the Borg, however, they're facing a fate much worse than death, and it's actually just really stressful to watch characters you love have to deal with the gnawing, existstential dread of that. Like, hmm, do I really want to think about my beloved space family facing the prospect of being turning into mindless zombie slaves? No! I do not! And the fact that Starfleet could literally have stopped the Borg forever, and didn't, because they felt sorry for them, makes it all ten times worse- but my burning hatred of the ending of 'I, Borg' is the subject for another post someday, when I do another full rewatch of TNG.

I liked the little scenes of Janeway on the holodeck in DaVinci's studio; the set is very detailed, and pretty, and they have a cozy, meditative atmosphere that acts as a nice counterbalance to the existential Borg dread and frenetic activity of basically arming themselves for war.

Having a new villain that could take down the Borg was actually a nice change- as evil as species 8472 is, it's actually a relief to have regular baddies who just want to kill everyone. It's kind of hard to judge the cgi fairly now, since it was the best they could do with the tech and budget they had at the time, but it doesn't hold up super well. (One thing I think is absolutely hilarious though is watching the DVD special features, and finding out that the pile of dead Borg was actually just action figures that they sawed apart and glued together and filmed from different angles. I thought it looked a little uncanny valley, and that's because yeah, it's literally a pile of miniature dolls. Actual mass produced merch, for children, used as an actual prop, in the actual show! Too wild!)

I appreciated the dilemma of deciding whether they should go through Borg space or not, and the disagreement between Janeway and Chakotay was well played, and pretty devastating, tbh. Chakotay always seems more ready to give up and be willing to settle for a new home, whereas Janeway never is, and considering that her stance on that has never wavered, it hurts when Chakotay disagrees with her. It hurts more when he won't concede she's right, even knowing that in her mind, she doesn't even consider not going home as an option. Chakotay must know that for her, the choice has always been get home or die trying, no third option, and that the crew would all follow her to it if she asked it of them, so it hurts when he won't back her when she takes the best option in a bad situation. On the one hand, I get where he's coming from- it would be safer to give up and go live on some planet, they could probably have had good lives- but they're Starfleet, and they'd choose Starfleet every time, and they'll chose it even when it the odds are against them. Janeway is the most Starfleet any person could ever be- and he had to know that, but when it comes down to the wire, he lets her know she's on her own when she makes that decision. At the end of the day, the hard decisions all fall to her, with no one to ask for help or intervention, and no one else to bear the weight of those decisions with, except maybe for supportive words from her crew, especially Chakotay and Tuvok. The only people she can rely on are her crew, and ultimately, Chakotay does let her down in that moment. Maybe he's too angry to be Starfleet when staring down the possible loss of everything they have on Voyager, but it still hurts that he won't even pay lip service to believing in her, for her sake, since he's going to follow her orders anyway. A heartbreaking scene, but very real. Sometimes no matter how much you love someone, you're going to end up disagreeing, and when it's something as fundamental as right or wrong, life and death, it's going to hurt worse. But still they do their jobs as though it didn't tear their hearts out. Ugh. This show sometimes!!!

Anyway, it ends on a very nailbiting cliffhanger, and I remember being pretty excited to find out what happened back in the day. Of course back then we didn't know about the cast change of doom looming ahead of us, and I'm not especially looking forward to it, but I'm hoping that maybe now, with hindsight and the perspective of a few decades, I might hate it less, or at least find things I didn't appreciate back then when it was all happening the first time. We'll see!

Tl;dr: A surprisingly suspenseful and tense episode that managed to bring a heap of character driven drama without bringing nearly any Borg directly in to it at all.

[dwreader]

Do you think Louis will be a secondary character in s3? If s3 will be to a large extent Lestat's story, it means Louis can only be there in present time and maybe some Nola flashbacks from Lestat's pov. I don't want Louis to disappear, I'm worried cause Jacob said he went to significant places in Nola to say goodbye to Louis for a bit after they had finished filming s2.

i dont think they'll be going back to nola to film even if there are some new flashbacks in s3 so he could be saying goodbye to the places he spent a lot of time in during s1. but i also dont think nola will feature much in s3 anyways cause it sounds like all of that stuff will be done w/ after s2 "revisits" those parts. and its just not very compelling tv to keep rehashing stuff we saw 3 years ago.

listen after s2 we are all completely in the dark about louis cause he has no more book storylines and they haven't given up much info about what they plan to write for him. we probably won't find out until s3 starts filming and the actor's schedules are public.

plus the armand bits of tvl are going to be done in s2 it seems so i don't even think he will feat. much in s3 either so unless they write a new present day storyline for loumand, neither of them will be around for much of s3? it'll just be a bunch of lestat's white friends/side characters unless they figure something out.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

I think it’s soooo obvious that Daryl’s spin-off will heavily feature Beth. At first I thought the descriptions they were giving were stupid. “Daryl wants to find a way out of France but his relationship to the people there complicate things.” I was like, what?! There is absolutely no way this show can even imply that Daryl would choose new people over people in the United States. But then I realized, if Beth is there he sure would. Especially if he couldn’t get her out. The only other people I could see him staying for would obviously be Rick, Michonne, Maggie, Carol, Judith and Rj, etc. but all of those people are accounted for in their own spin-offs or are known to be back in the United States. Beth is the one person unaccounted for who he would possibly stay in France for.

I kind of have a theory that the reason Beth can’t leave will at first be because he can’t get to her, but maybe even because she has a family there or something? Probably not a romantic interest but honestly if there was one I would still be ecstatic of course. Maybe a kid, adopted or not. There was that one little girl in Normans Insta post a while back that I remember you seeing say might be connected to Emily 👀

Thank you! This is a great way of explaining it. Because no way Daryl would choose a "different" family over the one he already has back home and has promised to return to.

Just saying at all that he's struggling with this decision suggests that he develops a relationship (whether romantic or platonic) that he wants to stay for.

And even if we WERE talking about Rick or Michonne, I don't see that as being a choice between Daryl staying or going. If that were the case, he'd be trying to drag them back to the states and home to their kids. He wouldn't just consider staying there with them indefinitely.

So yeah, I have no idea why, with any other person (such as Beth) they would want to stay either, but I'm sure there will be a story reason for it. So, even if, for example, there is a group of people there that Beth wants to stay for indefinitely and help, while I'm sure this will be a thing in the spinoff, eventually that reason will evaporate so the characters can all come back together. Either those people will be killed off or, much like with Woodberry at the end of S3, they'll find a way to bring them all back with them.

I've definitely thought about Beth having adopted kids. I've always thought Jocelyn, Michonne's friend from Scars who turned out to be evil, was a foil to Beth. I think Beth will have a whole troop of kids she's taking care of and training (but in a good way, the way Daryl trained her to survive, where Jocelyn was murderous). But it would also be sweet if she had one child in particular she was bonded with who Daryl could also bond with and love because Beth does. *sigh* Ah, headcanons.

I've also been thinking lately about how the spinoff will begin. We thought Daryl would take off at the end of the flagship show in a mad dash because he heard something about Rick or Beth or because one of the kids had been taken. Obviously, they didn't do that.

And their jumping off point for the spinoff is that he will mysteriously "wake up" in France with not much memory of the trip. I'm probably going to make this sound WAY more complicated than it is, but I wonder if the reason he ends up in France is specifically because he heard something about Beth, but they won't reveal that to us right away. The reason he interacted with the CRM to begin with will be a mystery and over the course of several episodes they'll reveal that he heard something of Beth and went to investigate. Something like that.

Total conjecture on my part, of course. Just something I was thinking about.

Anyway, I'll stop rambling now. Totally agree with your above analysis, Nonny! I know I always say this, but I can't wait for the spinoff! Xoxo! 💌💝

[aliasficrecs]

All of our friends and family during the holidays:

Us, reading Alias fanfiction 😌:

You might be wondering why we are Alias characters, if we're supposed to be reading the fanfiction. Are we reading about ourselves? That's not important. What is important is holiday Alias fics!

First off, submissions! We got one from the inimitable juliareed! They recommend Tonight, and here they've described it for us:

Sharing my favorite Alias holiday fic! It’s a mid s3 ensemble fic, called “Tonight”. It has everyone in it: Sydney, Jack, Irina, Sloane, Allison, Lauren, Vaughn, Dixon, Marshall, Weiss, Will, Sark. There’s a separate section dedicated to each character, and every section is incredible. It’s so so great!

Thank you to juliareed for sharing!

Next, you all have to suffer through reading my synopses (but trust me when I say you won't suffer while reading these fics!) In no particular order, we have:

#1 The Near and the Dear Ones by Auburn Sark and Sydney get into a tussle (as they do), and Jack and Irina have to work together to make sure their respective protégés don't freeze to death. Soup, singing, and stripy socks ensue. There are some very excellent conversations between Jack and Irina here! Rated G/K.

Quick sidenote: I think the fic might be archive locked on AO3, which means you have to have an account to read it. It is also on ffn, if you don't have one, however!

#2 The Third Gift by Caedn

Intrigue! Adventure! The magic of Christmas! All that and more awaits you! Sydney gets a mysterious summons to a tomb in Egypt, which happens to a) have a bunch of Indiana Jones-esque traps, and b) be themed after the three wise men. Now, she must navigate the dangers of the tomb with none other than one Mr. Sark in order to learn more about her time in the Covenant, but (as always) things are never quite that simple. Bonus: Will working for the CIA! Rated R.

#3 The Greatest Gift by spaztic lapdancing pinata

Sydney and Francie are shopping when they run into a friend from Syd's work. Vaughn gets invited to a Christmas party, and there's general wonderful fluff all around! The Syd and Francie dialogue is wonderful here, and bonus points for Amy being there! Rated T.

#4 The Sweetness by Karen T

A wonderful, bittersweet journey through Sydney's Christmas memories with Danny. I don't want to say too much and spoil it, but it is hilarious and wonderful, and then very, very heartbreaking. Rated T.

#5 Thaw by Rez

What's a man to do when Jack Bristow tells you to be his daughter's backup at Sloane's Yuletide party? Probably listen to him because he's terrifying. Sark gets a job thrust upon him, Lauren and Vaughn go dancing, and Sydney gets threatened (well, maybe). Rated M.

Another quick sidenote: I think this one is archive locked too, but you can also read it on ffn!

And finally, #6 Secret Spy Santas by vyduan

It's Christmastime at SD-6, and our pals our having a secret Santa exchange! Featuring some *amazing* Syd and Francie friendship and Irina being sweet to her children! (no seriously, Francie steals the show despite the fact she's never actually there. Such is her awesome power!) Sarkney-ish, fair warning. Rated G.

Anyway, stay safe, have fun, and go tell your favourite authors you love 'em! Happy holidays!

[galvanizedfriend]

Drabble: Feel the madness closing in

Written for KC Spookathon

[Set in TO S3. Caroline is in NOLA when Lucien and the Ancestors attempt to destroy the Mikaelson family - and they know exactly who to target in order to get to Klaus. Paranoia sends him to a very dark place, and Caroline finally learns the price of being loved so profoundly by a monster.

No magical babies. Beware of Deranged Klaus. 1.8k words.]

---

Caroline comes to with a thunderous feeling low in her stomach. It spreads across her entire body, her senses flaring up with predatory precision before she's aware of even thinking, as though the monster was awakened before her human conscience could take over.

Her senses are instantly overwhelmed by the pungent smell of blood - fresh, warm, making every hair on her body stand to attention. Food. She's starving.

She worries her fangs against her lower lip, parched throat aching as she forces down a swallow. She struggles against the shackles trapping her to the chair. Her skin is raw and tender where the sturdy iron binds her wrists. Being stuck in this same position for so long means not even the comfortable chair or her vampiric constitution can save her from the soreness. But she's not injured. Dirty, maybe, hungry to the point of delirium, her insides ablaze with the need, but not hurt. Not physically, anyway.

Her eyes adjust quickly to the darkness, and then the source of the blood reveals itself. Three bodies lie on the ground, one of them twisted inhumanly, all three in pools of dark blood. She recognizes two of them: the big bald guy and the dark-haired woman who had been her constant companions for the last so many days - weeks, maybe, she doesn't know how long it's been, time dragging on painfully slowly down here -, assigned to standing guard in her cell and almost as annoyed by their task as she is for being there.

Apparently, they were stupid enough to make their displeasure known.

"Welcome back, love."

Caroline stiffens at the sound of his voice, rumbling loudly against the rough stony walls of the dungeon and settling deep within her chest with an eerie coolness. She sits up straight as he walks around her, finally coming into view. She can't quite hold the gasp when she sees all the blood. On his hair, his face, his clothes... Klaus never bothers with evidence.

He stops in front of her, unreadable eyes searching her body, head to toe, and then holding her gaze for an uncomfortable long time. "How do you feel?"

"I..." she stutters, unsure of what to say. There's a blank space in her memory. She takes in the scene before her, her own unconsciousness in the middle of a massacre, and a line forms between her eyebrows. "What happened here?"

Klaus' expression darkens further, lips furrowing into a scowl. "These ungrateful rats tried to betrayed me. Lucien offered them immunity if they delivered you to him. They took you out with vervain, tried to take off the shackles. Freya's warning system alerted me of their betrayal." He motions easily towards the mess of corpses on the ground, pursing his lips in a matter-of-fact way. "I took care of them."

Caroline shifts in her place. That explains the burning in her veins, then. She thought it was hunger, but it's poison.

"They won't be an issue anymore," Klaus says, his voice softening as he kneels down in front of her, probably noticing the worry on her features, though not all of it is for how close she came to ending up in Lucien's hands. A part of her is more concerned about the consequences of this plot than about the attempted betrayal itself. What this will do to Klaus.

He takes a flask from his jacket, uncorks it and offers it to her, turning it gently against her lips and helping her drink it. Caroline accepts without so much as a thought, for once not bothered at all with where Klaus got the warm blood from. Her entire body relaxes as she feeds, muscles unknotting, the growling inside of her subsiding almost completely for the first time in a very long while. Her thoughts clear in a second; she finally feels a bit more like herself.

Usually, Klaus limits her access to blood, making sure she doesn't starve, feeding her three times a day, but always in small doses. He doesn't want her strong enough to fight. Says she's way too clever. She's so hungry and annoyed most of the time she doesn't even have it in her to be flattered.

This time, however, he lets her drink the whole flask. Caroline shuts her eyes when she's done, relishing the feeling that washes through her.

Klaus pulls a strand of messy hair away from her face, his finger brushing lightly against her cheek. For a moment, she can almost believe everything will be alright. But then she opens her eyes again, looks straight into his, and reality sinks in like an anchor once more.

"Klaus..." she starts in a small, pleading tune.

"Save your breath, love. You're weak." He puts a finger on her lips to keep her quiet when she tries to argue, his thumb caressing her chin. "Do you see why I have to be so careful? Do you see what we're fighting against here? I can't trust anyone, Caroline. Not with you."

She jerks her face away from him, expression clouding into a scowl. "You can trust me."

"I do trust you, love. More than you know."

"Then let me out of here!" she counters with a near-shout, feeling her tramper fraying quickly, as has been the norm these days. "You can't keep me in a vault forever, Klaus. I'm not a thing."

He lets out an impatient sigh, standing to his feet. "I don't intend to keep you here forever, Caroline, as I've explained to you extensively. But I'm not bargaining with your life. Those damned Ancestors will stop at nothing until they've destroyed me, and you are their primary target. Lucien has a bounty on your head. Until we know how to take him down, you're staying put."

Caroline grunts in frustration. Ever since Lucien Castle completed his insane transformation into Super Hybrid and became the Ancestors' champion, Klaus has been unhinged, and it's only gotten worse since. After his first sireling made his intention to kill Caroline as revenge for Aurora known to all, paranoia has been devouring every bit of rationality left in Klaus' being. But it all escalated to dramatically new lows after what happened to Kol. The Ancestors gave a show of strength taking hold of his brother, making him kill Davina.

That sent Klaus free-falling into a spiral of derangement nobody seems able to stop. Not even her.

They were arguing at the study room one minute, the next she was waking up in the dungeons, bound to a chair by shackles spelled to hold a vampire and protected by a number of different enchantments. Nothing Caroline has tried - not even screaming from the top of her lungs - has had any effect. She's completely invisible down here, left to Klaus' maniacal whims and paranoid ideas of safety.

"Klaus," she starts again, trying to reel in the resentment that's been hardening into anger. Yelling at him has been proved fruitless, so she'll try a different avenue. "Look at me. Look at me." She waits until he does, latching her gaze onto his and baring all the angst and the bitterness in her soul to him. Klaus' eyes flash with something akin to shame before his mask of impassiveness slides back down, totally unrepentant. She's always known he's stubborn, unrivaled in his bullheadedness, but this is... Something else. "I know you're worried. I know you're trying to protect me. But this is not the way, Klaus. I'm hurting. You're hurting me," she says, warmth prickling behind her eyes. "I'm withering away in this place. Please. Let me out of here. Let's discuss something else. I will do whatever you want, will stay out of sight, hide under a desk every time someone comes in, but please. Just let me out."

He swallows the space to her with two purposeful strides, placing his hands on each arm of the chair, his face mere inches from hers. Caroline flinches inwardly, but forces herself to remain unmoved, even as her hands ball into nervous fists, making the skin under the shackles scream with burning ache.

For a split-second, she thinks of all the times she woke up with him this close to her in bed, smart blue eyes watching her with sheer adoration, a dimpled smile on his face that spoke of nothing but pure joy. Klaus does not make it easy to love him, but once they settled into an easy rhythm, finding their footing over countless disagreements and moody outbursts, it was bliss as Caroline's ever known. She was happy. Truly happy. And then this happened.

Now, when she looks into his eyes, she finds no trace of the man who loved her with abandon and devotion, no evidence of the softness he seemed to only reserve for her, in the safe haven of their intimate moments. It's all gone, replaced by world-burning dementia.

It makes her wonder if he hasn't been hexed like Kol. If his mind isn't being mauled by dark magic, destroying every bit of clarity he might have in a most trying time. But who is she going to share her suspicions with? Who will listen to her? The only other people who ever come down here are now lying dead at her feet.

"I would rather die than let them have you," he speaks from behind gritted teeth, his voice steady with the force of his resolve. "I will burn this city to the ground, Caroline, before Lucien or any of those miscreant witches touch a hair on your head. I will destroy the Ancestral plane if I have to, chase down every single one of their descendants, obliterate entire covens from the face of earth. I don't care what I have to do. But I will not lose you. Do you understand?"

Her face crumples up as the tears she'd been trying to hold back finally break free. Caroline never could've imagined that it could break her heart to be loved so deeply.

"Klaus..." she whispers.

"Don't cry, my love," he coos, cupping her face with his hand. It's warm and tender and she's so miserable, so desperate to reach him, that she can't help but lean into his touch, even if all she can feel is the stench of death all over him. "It'll be alright. I promise you."

With a swift move, he steps away. "I will have someone come clean this up," he announces. "And then they'll be dealt with accordingly until I can find someone of trust. I need to see to something now, but I will be back later."

With that, he shuts the iron gate behind him, heavy footsteps dwindling away. Soon she's left with nothing but the sound of her own sobs and the twinge in her chest.

She's never felt so lonely.

[beautifulterriblequeen]

Want more TDP canon goodies? Tales of Xadia has got your back!

Today's Role and Keep Twitch stream covered the Table of Contents from Tales of Xadia's upcoming rules handbook, which is scheduled for release in the first 3 months of 2022, before Bloodmoon Huntress comes out. Take a look!

The first chapter, Welcome to Xadia, is for those who don't know The Dragon Prince at all. It covers the basics, and there probably won't be too much in the way of stuff the TDP fandom doesn't know in there.

Chapter II, Welcome to Cortex, covers the gaming system. If you know D&D, try to ignore it. Cortex doesn't run terribly similarly, and the focus of the gameplay in ToX is very different, in a more intuitive way that really embraces cooperative storytelling.

Chapter III, Gazeteer of Xadia, is - ohoho fams - this is the good stuff, this is the grand prize! This chapter is the deep dive into all kinds of lore, culture, locations, myths, and other worldbuilding that we have not learned anywhere else before - and it's all canon, created in collaboration with Wonderstorm.

And there's art in this book. Glorious art. I am so excited!

Chapter IV, Player's Guide, is the meat of the handbook, containing a complete guide to creating a character from scratch and learning how to interact with the tale you're playing. I've participated in one of ToX's online character creation workshops and created a dozen or so catalyst and narrator characters, and it's very simple once you get the pattern.

Chapter V, Mage's Guide, goes more in depth on how magic works in ToX - and it's going to give us shiny new details on how Ocean and Earth magic work! Aah! It sounds like we should be getting a full explanation for dark magic as well as all the primal magics, except for Stars. Because someone has to be a mysterious drama queen in his mirror.

Chapter VI, Narrator's Guide, is all about how to be the person spinning the tale for your friends, and what you'll need to do it. I've been writing and running original tales for a few months, and it's still a bit wibbly without the full ruleset, but the online tools on the ToX website are really helpful and I always have them open for reference.

Also of note: I asked a question in the stream about whether we'd be getting any new pre-gen characters, or perhaps if there were character sheets out there for canon show characters that players might want to interact with or play. Cam Banks (Cortex's creator) responded to say that there are some characters from the show that are available as catalyst characters - I assume that's in this chapter, under Featured Catalysts - and that it's very easy to shift a character from narrator-character to catalyst-character to playable-character. Which, yes, it should be, because there are only so many stats you need for each of those three roles. So I guess we'll see who got into the book as a featured catalyst!

Chapter VII, The Tale of the Corrupted Core, is, I expect, the long-awaited playable tale set in Lux Aurea between S3 and S4. It's been a long time since anyone mentioned this specific setting, but I have been waiting for this for a while, and Cam confirmed that this tale is very much a Sun tale, just like Gloaming Glade was a Moon tale and Lost Oasis was a Sky tale.

The Appendix is where all the glorious lists are, for the good details like Distinctions and SFX, which will be so much fun to delve deep into for nosy nuggets on our favorite characters from the show! See, Cortex's first ever game was based on the TV show Firefly, (which has a Cortex) and its character distinctions were pulled from characters on the show itself. I have been assuming that ToX will do the same, from the few distinctions I've have seen so far - because Cortex has been delightfully coy with sharing these. I'm expecting that all the available character distinctions and SFX will have been created and included in the handbook because they belong to a character we know or will meet eventually. So if you want to piece together a playable version of Nyx, or Callum, or Amaya, or Corvus, or Ethari, or Claudia, or literally any canon character at all, and there isn't a character sheet for them yet, you won't have too much trouble crafting something that feels very much like them!

Also: ToX has released 12 pre-gen characters, thus far, for people to just jump into gameplay with. They're amazing, with humans and elves as mages and fighters and diplomats and adventurers and rogues and more. But in the Appendix, that little section there says a Baker's Dozen. That means 13, guys. Looks like we're gonna get blessed with one more secret playable pre-gen character! OMG WHO IS IT??

I am SO HYPE for this book, I have had it pre-ordered forever! But there's more canon fun to come, and it's just around the corner.

Every Wednesday at 3PT, Role and Keep has a live Twitch stream. And on December 2, 9, and 16, Cam Banks will be running a 3-part ToX holiday celebration ttrpg which will include new canon details straight from Wonderstorm about how various cultures and/or characters around Xadia celebrate - or don't - during the holiday season! That's right, Wonderstorm is gonna dump all the fun fluffy cuteness (and angst? maybe? I gotta go find out) we need for our upcoming holiday fics, right into our arms. Oh, I'll definitely be taking notes while I watch.

Hmmm. Maybe I can write up a tale that starts out as a perfectly innocent travelers' visit to one of the newly revealed locations in the handbook... until......... Bahaha. Whatever you do, don't touch anything.

[ideekhay]

So we're just gonna forget that there's a massive half-mechanical heart lying around in Belos's castle?

Theory time: At first glance, this seems like a throwaway storyline caused by a shortened S3. It probably is. But this doesn't seem like a plot point that can be completely tossed aside and ignored.

Belos's castle was intentionally built in a pit underground. It's very much a function-over-form building. And it's not just in any pit: it's a cavity where the titan's heart should've been.

However, as of King's Tide, Belos didn't seem to have any intentions past witch genocide and returning to Earth. What's more likely is that the Collector had escape plans of his own, and he'd been getting Belos to unknowingly make preparations for him (think Bill and Ford, Gravity Falls).

If the Collector hadn't cancelled the draining spell without a second thought, I would've thought he had further motives beyond escaping his prison. But nope, he's a just a child psychopath who's been in time-out for too long. Even then though, he's an unfathomably knowledgeable child.

It seems that beyond glyph combos, most of the advanced magic Belos knows has been taught to him by the Collector. Why teach Belos a draining spell specifically to massacre the witches? Instead of thinking of it as draining spell, think of it as a collecting spell. It collects the magic drained from witches into the moon.

However, we might not be getting the full picture by simply assuming the moon is absorbing the magic. Throughout the show, the moon has been a symbolic representation of the titan, from the face on the moon to the depictions in King's nursery. I doubt all that magic was going to the moon just to dissipate: it was going to the titan.

It seems quite ironic that the "spawn of the titan" (the population of the Boiling Isles) is now morbidly returning to its creator. If that rings a bell, you've probably watched Neon Genesis Evangelion, an anime instrumental to many people's childhoods. It's influence on The Owl House is rather significant, ranging from several visual references to Hunter and Rei being clone buddies. The Day of Unity is also a parallel to NGE's Third Impact, an apocalyptic event where a giant woman expands by reabsorbing humanity, becoming God.

Piecing together the titan/moon connection, the artificial heart, and the NGE references, it seems that the Collector's contingency plan for escaping was reanimating the titan. Someway, somehow, it would've freed the collector. Perhaps the titan sacrificed itself to seal off the Collector. Or reanimating the titan would have provided enough blood to free him. Regardless of how this could've gone, it seems unlikely that we'll be visiting this storyline again because of the shortened third season.

Lastly, I do have a bit of speculation as to why this storyline won't be included in the show moving forward. But first, I'd like to give a...

WARNING BEFORE CONTINUING: OLD S2A LEAK

Context: The show's composer, Brad Breeck, uploads OSTs of episodes on his Youtube channel, typically featuring loops of scenes from the episode. However, for the Hunting Palismen OST, the loop he chose accidentally included a deleted scene.

What's so interesting is that this is a fully-animated scene. For those who don't know, here's a barebones list of the cartoon production pipeline (in order): brainstorming, writing, storyboarding, voicing, animating, and editing. Scoring (music) generally occurs around animating. This is a long process— the time between writing and animating can often take over a year. Batches of episodes are concurrently produced. You don't just animate something and decide not to use it. The crew had planned for this storyline.

My point? Something BIG changed last minute for the crew to decide on cutting out a fully-animated scene.

If I had to guess when this scene was scrapped, it was a bit after Season 3 was shortened and the crew was rewriting the main story. I doubt this was a fake leak that was intentionally spread, simply due to the cost of animation. There's many cheaper ways to psych out your fanbase.

[skellebonez]

Who Do I Go To? (Monkie Kid Fanfic)

I totally did not accidentally post this early before I edited it or added everything from my wip file... no... but anon, you gave me so much FREEDOM with this that I just went absolutely off the rails. This is not only set in a post S3 scenario where everyone survives and most of the villains have some kind of at least semi-redemption (except LBD, rip), this does feature a crackship or two of mine (you can read the tags to see the ships before you read)! Sun Wukong also has all of his immortality and some of his powers, I am writing this with the idea that he transferred most of them to MK and some of that was permanent once LBD was defeated and MK got his own back.

So... what if Sun Wukong did start communicating with the others in S3... but still has been bottling up his emotions about the past for so long he doesn’t feel he can talk to anyone because of their shared experiences? And what happens when that guilt and grief finally has someone willing to listen?

“What are you doing here, Si-SUN Wukong?” The Demon Bull King asked slowly, stumbling over his usual insult for the one once so close to him. They still weren’t close, and it was doubtful they would ever be as long as the sworn brothers they once were, but they were no longer at each other’s throats anymore.

That didn’t change how bizarre it was to see The Great Sage Equal To Heaven just... sitting outside his new home with no warning.

“DBK!” Wukong exclaimed, more startled than the larger demon was expecting as he jumped up and turned and if he didn’t look like he’d been hit with a truck metaphorically DBK didn’t know how to describe the way his fur stood on end and the redness in the other’s eyes. “I. UH. Was. Just stopping by to say hi!”

“No you weren’t,” DBK said, face falling into a deadpan glower. “You don’t do that. Even after 500 years I know you don’t.”

“I can start!” Wukong defended, crossing his arms and looking away with a wide teeth showing smile.

Too wide.

Even after everything that happened between them, from Red Boy to what happened when he needed his wife’s fan to sealing him in the mountain and everything that transpired with the Little Thief, he recognized that unhappy nervous smile.

“You can,” DBK said with a nod, gesturing to the smaller being. “You can also be here for a reason. Like what I heard you muttering to yourself behind the door.”

“And that’s my cue to leave!” The Monkey King announced as he turned to walk away before a large hand, with shocking gentleness for the one attached to it, wrapped around his shoulders.

“If you need to talk-”

“No, haha, I most certainly have no need for that!”

“-you know we’ve already made peace. I-”

“You don’t need to do anything,” Wukong insisted, struggling only a little before freeing himself from the other’s grip with an even wider nervous smile.

“-am willing to listen.”

“Don’t have to!”

“Are you at least talking to anyone?”

Neither of them said anything, The Demon Bull King staring down at The Monkey King with both frustrated annoyance and genuine concern in his expression.

The former he could deal with, but the later was so new again that...

Sun Wukong panicked.

“.... OKEY BYE!” He yelled, jumping and allowing his cloud to catch him and take him off.

"YOU CAN'T HIDE FROM YOUR FEELINGS FOREVER SUN WUKONG!"

"I HID FROM THE WORLD FOR 500 YEARS AND I TURNED OUT JUST FINE, I THINK I'LL MANAGE!"

“He turned out fine, he says,” Princess Iron Fan called from behind her husband as she emerged from their home. “So fine that it took him losing his invincibility and his successor nearly being killed for him to admit he needed help.”

DBK grunted, nodding in agreement at her words.

“He needs more, still, my dear. Even I can see that.”

“Let’s call in some reinforcements then, darling. I think there are two people who may be able to get through to him.”

~

Sun Wukong sat on the beach of Mount Huaguo’s island home, clearly trying not to think about what had just transpired.

“Hey.”

“How did you even know to look for me here?” Sun Wukong asked, not nearly as startled this time. He’d heard the footsteps coming for a long time, the other apparently wanting to make his presence known.

“Bull King called Pigsy’s asking for MK. MK called me since he’s working. I remembered where you like to sulk. Hence: I’m here.”

Wukong groaned, wrapping his arms around his knees and burying his face in them. “I shouldn’t have even left the house today.”

“But you left,” Macaque said with a shrug, watching the other stew in his frustration at himself. “And you went to see DBK... and I guess Princess Iron Fan too? But you ran off. Why?”

“I can’t check up on an old friend turned enemy turned less enemy to ‘not exactly friend but we’re not trying to kill each other’ without being questioned?” Wukong grumbled into his arms.

“Not when you make him sound as worried as he did when he talked to MK,” Macaque continued, voice becoming more tense. “You didn’t go to apologize or explain anything, I was there when all that went down. So... did you finally go to talk about everything e-”

“No.” The word was said with such coldness that Macaque knew it was put on. It wasn’t out of malice but something else, something more worried and fearful. “No. I can’t talk to him about... I told him everything that explained what happened. I apologized. I don’t need to talk more.”

"I don't understand why you're so opposed to to just talking about, you know... how you’re doing," Macaque said with a concerned frown. It almost felt odd on his face. Almost. He was still getting used to the whole "not being mortal eternal enemies and now being friends and kinda sorta caring about each other again" thing. "I know it's been centuries and all and you're out of practice but like... it's been centuries."

"I just... can't, Macaque," Wukong rebutted as he refused to lift his head from his arms. "I just can't."

"Why?"

"Don't."

The single word stayed in their air between them, heavy and hard and meaning more than the immortal would ever admit to.

"Come on, there has to be a reason," Macaque insisted as he sat down beside the other immortal. When no response came he sighed, tail flicking absently and flipping over some of the rocks on the beach as they sat in silence for few minutes. "You know... I started talking to someone."

"What?" Wukong turned his head, just enough to look at the other monkey from the corner of his eye.

“Sandy’s a good listener,” Macaque continued, falling back down to lay flat on his back and gaze up at the clouds. He remembered that Wukong felt better, sometimes, when you looked away when talked to. Didn’t know why, but he remembered. “Not exactly the kind of therapy he thinks I need, but he lends me his cats and he lets me talk and sometimes asks if I want advice. Sometimes I say yes, but when I say no he understands. Sometimes I just want to rant at that one little one eyed cat he has and she listened to... I think. She’s a cat so I wouldn’t know. He thinks I should see someone more experienced, an expert. Maybe he’s right, I dunno, but this helps enough for now.

“... who are you and what have you done with the Six-Eared Macaque?” Wukong asked with a soft glower, one that was clearly in jest from the tiny smile the other could see.

“Same Macaque,” the other said with a laugh, sitting back up with a theatrical flourish. “Just realized that talking to someone isn’t as dumb or useless as I made it out to be in my head. A lot of the stuff I thought about alone wasn’t exactly the best. Or healthiest. But now I can get that out there and sometimes it makes Sandy look like he ate a whole lime which probably means it’s good it’s not in my head anymore.”

“You ramble a lot,” Wukong said with a chuckle, tail swishing softly beside him before nudging against Macaque’s. He tensed before it slowly wrapped around the other’s. “It feels odd, having you try to cheer me up again after... everything.”

“Bad odd or good odd?”

“Good.”

“That’s.... good,” Macaque said, squeezing Wukong’s tail with his own. “Feels odd for me too. Like I’m out of practice too. But it’s good odd...” The two sat in silence for a moment, just enjoying each other’s company before he continued. “I do think you should talk to someone. Anyone.”

“I don’t know who, though. Every time I try I just... clam up and run away. I’ve put so much on MK already,” Wukong said, tail squeezing around Macaque’s loosely in return. “And Pigsy and Sandy... After all that came out, that Sandy is Sha Wujing and Pigsy is Zhu Bajie’s reincarnation... I just... I can’t talk to them either, even though Pigsy doesn’t remember anything at all. And you... DBK... everyone... who do I go to that knows enough about me to know what they’re in for but I won’t have those memories floating around in the back of my head toward making me run away?”

“Well, you could have Sandy help you get a therapist. Prepare them in advance. Or, if you’re not ready for that, you could talk to Tang?” Macaque suggested with a shrug. “He listens to me when I’m not talking to Sandy... but that’s probably because we’re dating, that’s what it is now instead of courting, right? So he kinda has to I think? Pigsy and MK talk to him too but with me I think it’s different.”

"I don't think that's how it works," Wukong said with a half hearted chuckle as he finally raised his head all the way. "Besides, I've known Tang longer."

"By like 3 months."

"3 months more is still enough to know that if he doesn't want to listen to you he won't. The man knows how to make a speedy exit."

"Guess that's one more thing that sets him apart from his great-great-great-great-great-whatever uncle," Macaque admitted with a shrug and a chuckle of his own. He squeezed his tail around Wukong's, smile softening when he felt it being returned.

“Feels... weird though,” Wukong said with a shrug. “The two of them looking so much alike.”

“Yeah, but that’s it,” Macaque rebutted. “He’s Tang Sanzang’s great-whatever nephew 5 times removed or whatever and he looks like him. Other than that? He knows pretty much all of your history. He’s mostly out of the hero worship zone but he still respects you a lot. Aside from everything that happened with LBD and MK you two have the least history out of everyone so maybe whatever’s in your head making you clam up might not stop you. And it couldn't hurt to try. It’s not therapy, it’s just talking about something that’s bothering you. Worst that can happen is you get nervous and fumble and he takes the opportunity to ask you 40 questions about the times you were almost incinerated by a baby."

"That was one time!"

~

“Uh,” Tang started, staring out the open door with wide eyes at the being before him. “Hi. I didn’t exactly expect to you see today.”

“I didn’t exactly expect to be here today,” Wukong said awkwardly, nervous smile taking over his face as his tone became far too jovial for what he was about to ask. “Macaque sent me to... talk to you. About me?” His smile drooped bit by bit as he said these words, slowly starting to lose his determination to go through with this. “Oh second thought, maybe I should-”

"No," Tang said, reaching out to put a hand on the immortal's shoulder. It was nothing, really, not to someone as strong as he was. Not when he could brush it off and walk away. Go home. Just sit on his couch and watch Monkey King The Animated Series again and just think about how no one deserved to be saddled with his problems anymore. But Wukong didn't. "Whatever it is, we’re going to talk about this now. I know I’m not trained like Sandy is, but I know how to listen. And if you need someone to listen to you, I can. You wouldn't have come here to talk if you didn't."

“... ok...” Sun Wukong said, letting Tang wrap his arm around his back and guide him inside his shared home with Pigsy and Macaque.

It was... odd. Being inside this place for the first time. He’d been outside of the door more than once, invited in as well. But never inside.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Tang said, stopping his guidance once they reached the sofa. “I’m no Sandy, but I was making myself some tea and it is a batch of his own anyway. I’ll grab us some snacks too.”

“Snacks would be great,” Wukong admitted, watching the other disappear into the house’s kitchen before he sighed and gripped his thrashing tail and muttered to himself. “What am I doing..? I shouldn’t put all this on Tang... I should have gone with Macaque’s first suggestion, I’m-”

“Do you prefer lychee or persimmon?” Tang asked suddenly, startling the immortal for the second time that day. “We’re out of peach bao, but MK’s been making them out of lots of fruits and we have so many that I was planning on eating them myself.”

The scholar returned, faster than expected, with a full tray in hand. Teapot, two tea cups, and a steamer box that presumably held the buns he was asking about.

“Uh... persimmon,” Wukong answered, and he watched as Tang poured each of them a cup of tea and removed some clearly fresh (or at least made some time earlier in the day and freshly steamed), pieces of fruit laden bao to put on a plate for his guest before taking a seat in a chair across from him. “You were... getting lunch?”

Tang shrugged, laughing as he took a bite of one of his own. “Just wanted a snack. But,” He smiled, gesturing to the Monkey King. “We’re not here to talk about snacks. What’s on your mind?”

“Awfully forward start.”

“I try to be forward with the people I consider my friends.”

“... You consider me... a friend?” Wukong asked slowly, turning the bao over in his hands. It was well made, perfect he would say. You’d think MK would have been making them all his life, not that he’d learned how to on the drone ship while on the run from an evil super demon bent on erasing his mentor from the world.

“After everything we went through, how could I not?” Tang said, putting his food down to sip his tea and then putting that down as well and looking at him seriously. “You’re here because it’s the anniversary of the day you sealed away the Demon Bull King, aren’t you?”

The bao in his hands wasn’t perfect anymore. Instead the red lychee inside dripped from his claws from where they punctured it in surprise.

“How did you-?”

“My specialty study is your history after all,” Tang said, smile returning with a sad tint. “I’ve known the date for years but I felt it was something to keep to myself. For some reason. Now with you and DBK back I think that was a good choice. It feels too personal to have out in the open for everyone to make a spectacle of.”

“Is it selfish of me to be thankful for that?” Wukong muttered, gently placing the bao on the plate to lick his claws clean.

“I don’t think so,” Tang answered.

“I feel selfish though,” he continued, not managing to take note of how Tang sat up straighter and turned more toward him. “I went to DBK’s to... I don’t know. I wanted to apologize again? But I already did and he accepted it and it feels selfish to want to again. Then I just. I froze.”

“Why?” Tang asked, scooting closer.

“It felt wrong.”

“Because you would make him feel awkward?”

“NO!” Wukong groaned, burying his face in his hands. “I just. I feel...” He took in a shaky breath, claws digging into his skin slightly.

“Don’t,” Tang’s voice came soft and closer than Wukong expected, as did the hands on his own slowly pulling his claws away from his face. “Don’t hurt yourself. And don’t bottle it up. I’ll listen to you. No matter what it is. It’s not selfish, feeling things isn’t selfish.”

“I miss it,” Wukong breathed out, shaky and choppy as his throat tightened as the words started to pour out of him. “I miss him. How things used to be between us and Iron Fan. I miss that I never got to meet Red Son when he was Red Boy. I miss Beng and Ba and Ma and Liu and how things used to be. I miss Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing even though they’re here. I miss my Tang Sanzang. I’d been alone for 500 years and I missed so much and I did that to myself and it’s selfish to miss like that...”

He didn’t realize his cheeks were wet until his hands had been let go and one of Tang’s rubbed a cloth against them. Tang cupped his cheeks softly before wrapping his arms around him and tucking the Monkey King’s head into the space between his neck and shoulder.

“No... no it’s not. You’re allowed to miss things, Sun Wukong. Just like anyone else.”

Sun Wukong started to feel better.

He didn’t know why that was what did it, but the dam broke. It broke and his tears came pouring out as he hugged the man who reminded him so much of his Master. He didn’t know if anything he said in the mean time made any sense, if he was just blubbering and finally letting himself mourn what he’d lost and never had, but Tang didn’t ever chastise him. He let him weep and hold him and for the first time in years...

~

“Oh!” Princess Iron Fan startled as she opened the door to see who had knocked, finding herself face to face at sunset with one Great Sage. “You’ve returned.”

“Are you and DBK free?” Sun Wukong asked, smile no longer too wide. “I... kinda just wanna talk with you for a bit.”

“Well... I think that would be lovely.”

[dashuisofanubis]

eddie, jerome, patricia and amber is now a group i need to see doing literally anything together lmao (also.. are you sure we shouldn't ask about your AUs of it....)

Yesss me too I'll have to write something with the four of them in the future. I imagine they'd get stuff done but there'd be a lot of chaos and it'd take twice as long. One of the bullets I have in this plan is "Jerome and Eddie are arguing and Patricia starts arguing with them over why they're arguing. Meanwhile Amber catches her hair in a tree branch" and I think that sums them up!

And no you can absolutely ask about the AUs XD. So obviously there's this one that I'd completely forgotten about, then a couple I can talk about without spoiling the current one are:

S3 AU where Eddie gets kidnapped and Patricia and KT set out to rescue him. This ones also interesting bc much like Robert and Denby I can't think what sin Willow would fall to. But she would be very intrigued by it all, probably moreso than anyone else

S3 AU where Patricia gets kidnapped. I don't think Patricia would cope great with being kidnapped again but she'd absolutely make it the Duke's problem

(A little bit spoilery but) AU where Fabian’s actually the first to be eliminated on the path and Nina's convinced the Duke's lying because nothings happened to her yet but when her rescue party arrives he's nowhere to be found. This would feature a lot more panicking bc they lost the supposed true love almost immediately but they know they have to keep trying to reach nina regardless

Eddie gets kidnapped alongside Nina so they can have some castle mysteries and more lore, while also annoying the hell out of Roman so he's more than glad to let them go free when the others arrive (@incorrectsibunaquotes I'm sorry this one isn't canon it would've been great fun)

Then an accidental one I made is at one point I had everyone sneaking out into the woods except Mara and Joy, and honestly I think them having to try and piece everything together and track down the others would be fun

So yeah there's a few of them, honestly I'm very tempted to write an s3 version, but if I do it won't be for a while 😅

Thanks for the ask!!

[chooseyouovereveryone]

hi :) what are some of your favorite songs that you associate with brittana?

Okay I am very moved by music, and I associate it a lot with things that I love, so this is gonna be a lengthy one haha.

I'm assuming you mean the ones we didn't see covered on the show (every time I listen to the originals of Mine, Landslide, Songbird etc. I'll always associate with Brittana now) so let's see...

A BUNCH of Taylor songs. She covers them in all narratives. I Almost Do is S4 breakup Brittana, Dorothea is pre-breakup when they were long distance, Dress is S1/2 Brittana, Fifteen reminds me of their high school love, Fearless gives me S3 vibes when Santana comes out and would have been amazing in the trash ep that is IKAG. There are so many more.

There are songs that I always think would have worked well from both their POV's in the show. I wanted Brittany to sing 'Born to Make You Happy' in the S4 Britney ep. Like come on it was Britney week, Brittany's whole narrative was pining for Santana and being sad about the distance between them. I just feel like "I'd wait forever, to be your girl" is the most fitting lyric from Brittany's perspective for all the patience she has over the years.

From Santana's POV, I always wanted to hear her sing Adele 'Chasing Pavements' about Brittany, 1. because how much would Naya have killed that vocal!? 2. because I can picture the lyrics fitting the S2 arc of Santana being miserable over Britt and Artie, featuring loads of shots of Santana sadly watching Bartie together from the sidelines. It could also fit with S4 about Bram, but I see it in S2 better, before they've had chance to be properly together. Also the writers would never have let this happen but imagine in the breakdown before the final chorus, Santana just runs up and kisses Britt (in a private setting considering Santana's not comfortable being out yet). I could picture it. There's so much tension and drama in that song that captures the angst of their S2 relationship.

Another S2 vibe song that reminds me of them is 'I Wish You Were Mine' by Loving Caliber. And then also by Loving Caliber, 'You Set My World On Fire' fits for when they're together. I probably envision this for their S6 arc, when they're at their most happiest and strongest as a couple and about to get married and commit to spending the rest of their lives together.

Ooooh also...Uncover by Zara Larsson is perfect for them in S1/2 as well. Sorry I have a lot of feels about S1/2 songs for when they weren't actually together bc I was in a relationship just like that and know all the songs there is to know about hidden love and pining for someone.

Other songs that remind me of them, basically just soft, soppy, love songs. Because that's exactly Brittana's vibe. Also I used to always be so unlucky in love so I'd listen to love songs and picture Brittana instead of anyone in my own love life haha, so now so many love songs remind me of them haha (sad I know):

Say You Won't Let Go- James Arthur (This one I always pictured Santana singing to Britt in S6 as a serenade if it had been out in time. We were literally robbed of a final serenade, and I think the lyrics of this fit the final part of their journey. I can just picture a reflective Santana singing this to her like as part of her proposal or in a scene before their wedding. Listen to the lyrics and think of them and I guarantee you will die.)

You and Me- Lifehouse (This is one of my fav songs of all time and if you have never heard of it, please listen to it, bc it's amazing.)

Look After You- The Fray (People always use this for TikTok's using the lyric about feeling like home, and I swoon, and that's so true of them. They definitely felt like home to one another.)

Ho Hey- The Lumineers (maybe S3 Brittana?)

Passenger- Let Her Go (This fits both of them in S4 because they both sacrificed their own happiness to let each other go and have a chance to be happy)

That's about all I can think of right now, but I'm sure there's more.

If anyone has any please drop them in my ask box, bc I love a good song association 🥺

[electricbluebutterflies]

Could you do an 'I didn't know I was pregnant prompt' where somehow Abby, who's a doctor and won't ever live it down, doesn't realize that she's pregnant until she's in labor. Possibly with it being conveniently when she's alone bar delinquents, and someone has to go track down Kane and inform him of what's going on.

Canon-divergent from early s3 ish. Also featuring Raven being awesome and Clarke trying not to have a breakdown, so hopefully I wrote those two darlings okay. Content warning for vague / non-graphic and questionably medically accurate descriptions of childbirth. PG13ish for that and also swear words. Also on ao3.

The thing about quiet is it doesn’t last. She should’ve knownbetter.

It’s been a year, maybe a little more than that. Time flowsdifferently here, but one of the kids – and Abby knows they are not that anymore,most of them are so much more capable than her, but in her mind they are stillso small – is pretty sure they saw a snowflake yesterday. So, bit more than ayear. And about a year since she broke down and let herself be reckless and…

All of this hits her in the worst way as she realizes whather body is doing. This pain is not cramps, but she can’t blame herself forgetting confused, it’s been a while since she’s had her normal cycle and-

Yeah. This is what she gets for ignoring her own body aswell as she does. Dammit.

The worst part is, Abby thinks as she paces across herworkspace because so help her she is not letting this nor anything else stopher, she justified everything. Her last implant had expired shortly after shewas widowed, and she’d passed on getting another one because she was on theedge of forty and had zero plans to ever let anyone else touch her and she didn’twant to waste resources like that, and she’d just… forgotten about that detaila year and a half later when she’d gone and taken a new lover anyways. With orwithout the implant, her cycles were always erratic and she stopped trying topredict that ages ago. Nausea got justified when she wasn’t the only person whoate bad meat (turns out mutant might’ve-descended-from-a-raccoon needs to be cookedlonger than that attempt was); a little weight gain because she iseating more, because that’s a possibility now. Said weight pooling in herabdomen is normal enough for a woman her age, right?

She justified everything, she was wrong, and now she is-

Fuck.

Okay, so right now pants are a mistake. They’re soakedthrough anyways, and somehow the idea of someone wandering in and seeing hernaked from the hips down is one of the less embarrassing details of this wholedisaster. Normal people have seven or eight months to process imminent parenthoodbefore it comes. She won’t even have that many hours. Supposedly births getquicker the more a person has had, and given her track record there…

Another wave of pain hits and she grabs the edge of the tablefor support. At least she’s having this crisis – she is trying to use everyword for it but what it is, and she will go through the guilt spiral later – inmedical. Ideal place for this nightmare. If she has to give birth on herown, as is looking more and more likely, at least she is doing so in a safeplace. That’s about the only thing going right here.

There is, after all, the small issue of her partner havingno damn clue about any of this.

Last she checked – and she tries not to hover, she is notthat kind of woman and their more recent trust in each other has eliminatedsome of her tendencies – Marcus is out on a hunting / scavenging daytrip. Whichmeans he may or may not be back before this is over. Either way, explaining howshe managed to be oblivious for close to nine months about something so significantis not going to be a good time and she is more than a little nervous about thatand-

Abby hears the door open behind her. Great. Now thenightmare is complete.

“Are you…” Raven, thank goodness, at least the intruder issomeone who occasionally has common sense. “Screw that, you’re not okay.”

“How willing are you to believe things right now?” Abbyasks, turning her head to look at her friend. Group bonding across generationsis rough, but she sees a different kind of potential in the younger woman thanmost people do. Like this one, if she doesn’t accidentally kill herself beforeshe turns thirty, has some serious untapped leadership potential. And moreimportantly right now, Raven is extremely well-connected and has a highertolerance for crazy than most people. So, again, ideal person.

“From you, pretty cooperative,” Raven shrugs. “What happenedslash who do I need to electrocute?”

“I somehow managed to ignore being pregnant and… it’scoming.” And saying it out loud sounds even more damning than realizing it herselfhalf an hour ago, dragging another person into this mess with her and puttingthat weight on someone who doesn’t need it. “Feel free to judge me.”

“Nah. Not sure what you need me to do but…”

“Get someone. Anyone. Nothing against you as a person but Ido not trust you to-“

Another contraction hits before Abby can sufficientlyexplain why she’d rather not have someone who interacts with technology betterthan people as her backup here. Great. If she factors in the number of timesthis has happened that she really did think were cramps, and how long it’s beensince closing her legs felt like a good idea… shit. Yeah no. There will be noexplaining this to her partner before it’s too late.

“What I’m hearing is radio your idiot and tell him to gethis ass back here as soon as humanly possible but do not tell him whybecause that’ll break him, grab the first person I can find who I’d trust tocatch something and send them in here to help you, and go through the storageroom and hope there’s still baby clothes in that one box I found some in lastmonth. Anything I’m missing?”

If Abby were more mobile, and/or felt less like her body wasabout to explode, she would hug Raven right now. “Yes. I… yes. Thank you.”

“And try to keep this on a need-to-know basis. Far as anyoneelse is concerned, you figured out you were incubating at a normal enough timebut you decided to keep quiet about it because you hate attention. That work?”

“I’m not sure that’s going to be believable when-“

“It’s believable if you’re a couple weeks before your duedate and you can pass that particular dramatic shitshow off as being more aboutthe timing.”

“I’m not sure if you’re an angel or an evil genius.”

“I’d like to think I’m both,” Raven laughs. “Now, if youthink you have enough time here for me to do that, I’m gonna go.”

Abby assesses herself quickly. Unless something somehow goeseven more wrong, she’s got at least half an hour here. “I’ll be alright.”

And again she is alone, she thinks as the door closes behindher. This is… not an absolute worst-case scenario, but pretty damn close. At best,she’s got a lot of explaining to do when it’s all over. At worst…

Describing this as an accident is a serious understatement. Therehas been no conversation about whether or not to have kids together. It neverseemed necessary. They’re older enough that the risk seemed so low, and therearen’t restrictions on that here, and she didn’t think…

She didn’t think. That’s what this all comes down to. A temporaryvacation from her normal instincts and look what that got her. No time tomentally prepare for a tiny vulnerable creature, no time to think about theimplications for her relationship, no time to even find out if her partnerwants this enough to stick around for it, no time to-

Getting closer. She is not attempting to measure herself butshe can feel the process. Timing-wise, she probably is a few weeks earlyhere, in that comfortable space where that won’t mean any problems for thelittle creature and a normal person’s biggest concern would be not being quitedone with their preparations. Whereas she has done no preparations, whatlittle of her fate isn’t in her own hands right now has been entrusted to atwenty-one-year-old who has even less of a baseline for this, and-

It’s all too much, and Abby starts crying. Most confusedemotional release she’s ever had, not sure if it’s stress or fear or pain oranticipation or probably all of those at once. Overload enough that the nextcontraction feels muted by comparison, overload enough to overlook how uncomfortablethis all is.

It’s just a little ironic that this started bent over atable and it may well end that way too, at the rate she’s going. That’ll be funny,in a couple months when any of this can be, maybe.

She hears the door open again and this time multiplefootsteps, this time she is too exhausted to even turn her head, this time-

“Mom? What the hell?”

Limited options, Abby reminds herself. Limited options ofpeople she would trust to be her backup here, and her own – possibly soon to beolder? – daughter is one of them.

“Clarke, I can-“

“Raven filled me in,” Clarke mutters, sounding so familiarlydisapproving. Abby’s always thought her daughter takes much more after her latehusband, but sometimes there are familiar flickers in there. “You basicallyneed me to catch it.”

“Basically, yes. There should be some towels in-“

“I know where things are. Learned my organization systemfrom you.”

“And I can grab stuff,” Raven adds. That would be the secondset of feet, the bright-red jacket Abby can see in her peripheral vision. “Iwould rather not see the nightmare fuel here but I can hold things or whatever.”

“Any luck with-“

Abby swears she can somehow hear Raven roll her eyes. “Wrongperson picked up, but we tried. The group at least knows something is goingdown here and hopefully I yelled enough to-“

The next pain is strong enough to blur Abby’s vision. “Nextone is it.” She’s amazed she can even talk clearly right now, but her presenceis not going away just because she’s in a crisis. She’s gotten through worse. Rarelybeen on this end of it, rarely felt so helpless, but she will not let anythingstop her. “Be ready.”

Around her, the girls attempt as much prep as they can. Abbydoes not know what they’re doing, does not think about it. There is only this. Thereis her, and the little creature that is about to exit her body, and her olderchild who is surprisingly calm about all of this, and another member of theirfamily who is at least trying to do the same, and a black hole where herpartner should be and-

She screams.

She lets it be a blur. She does not want to remember thesefew moments.

She knows one of the girls is hovering under her with alarge towel in hand, and the other one is yelling, and she doesn’t know whichis which and she doesn’t care. She knows that this is at least a familiar pain,and the first part is the worst, and the little creature – now officially hersecond child, she will let herself process that later – is slick andcooperative and how the child of two such stubborn people is so easy to dealwith in its first moments she does not know but-

“I have a little sister,” Clarke says somewhere in thebackground.

Abby wants to collapse. Wants to sleep for a very long time.She focuses on her body, on all the things she knows. There is still pain, waitingfor the afterbirth to come out. She suspects she’s torn but not as badly as itcould’ve been, and her breasts ache and at some point soon that too will beuseful, and-

She fades out. Exhaustion is a wonderful thing. She knowsher body will do what it needs to, and she trusts the girls enough, and… shecan’t do this anymore.

When she wakes up, she’s somehow been moved to the cot –which means someone else has seen her questionable condition, great, just whatshe doesn’t need – and she’s in a clean shirt and someone has placed cold clothbetween her legs to help the hurting and-

“You really didn’t know?”

She’s not awake enough for this shit.

Abby turns her head and yep, there is her partner (but howmuch longer can she call him that, she wonders) in a chair someone must’vebrought in, looking at her like he does not know where to start but he has alot of questions. It’s been a while since she’s had to interpret that look, andshe is concerned.

“I didn’t know,” she repeats. “You’ve known me since we werechildren, you know I can justify anything, I thought-“

“Alright.” And now for the scary-calm. That particularversion has evolved over the past year and a half or so, as Marcus has learned howto be more of a person, but she still knows it too well. He’s harder to readthis way, and more dangerous to those around him. “When I found out… I thought…”

“Do you really think I would’ve hidden this from you if I’dknown?”

“I had to ask.”

“I wouldn’t… I just went through hell,” she hisses. “Involuntarily.Again. And I wouldn’t have had to if I’d paid more attention to myself but youknow I don’t-“

“I believe you.”

She’s not sure she believes him right now, but she isstill too exhausted to move so that fight can wait a day or two. “Where is…” Shedoesn’t know the right word. My daughter? Ours? Which of those will hold longer?

“Raven’s looking after her. You needed to rest, and… I canlook after you here, Raven can keep the baby in her workshop except when sheneeds to feed.”

Abby rolls her eyes. Yeah, keep a newborn in the mostdangerous place in the settlement, great idea. On the other hand, Raven’sspace is at least warm. “And you’re…”

“Still processing,” Marcus finishes. “Someone tried to radious but we were a few miles out, and when we got back I didn’t have time tothink before someone shoved what looked like a bundle of towels in my arms and…”

“It is yours. If that was going to be your next question.”

“It wasn’t. But good to know.”

“I just… I ignored everything, and I…”

He reaches out for her hand, and even that feels like toomuch physical contact right now but it’s a nice gesture anyways. “I’m notblaming you.”

“Well that’s new,” she mutters. He’s been decent for a year,she should have more faith, but… “Are you going to stay?”

And now for the look of stunned horror, the wide eyes and haltedbreaths and for a moment she’s broken him. “Am I… how is that a question?!”

“You are aware how many bad choices I’ve made here…”

“You’ve always been a little impulsive,” he counters. “And stubborn.And usually right. And I don’t know why you think this kind of innocent mistakewould push me away.”

“It’s a screaming liability of a mistake?”

“It’s ours. And I want… if you want��”

“Yeah. You’ve never done this before. You do not realize thehell you’ve just volunteered for.”

“I’m with you. How bad could it be.”

He leans down and kisses her forehead, and the scratch ofhis beard is way too much, and… yeah. They’ll be okay.

[raayllum]

How did you start shipping Rayllum? For me it was like in s1 "aw, Rayla and Callum's dynamic is super sweet!" and then when s2 dropped (after an excruciating wait), I was like "Oh, they'd be a cute couple. Probably won't happen." AND THEN S3 HAPPENED AND I JUMPED ON THE BOAT REAL FAST

I shipped Rayla and Callum before the show came out. Even just with the initial trio poster, it was clear from their heights that each were older than Ezran at least by a bit and likely closer to each other’s age.

From premise alone, I thought Rayla would be my favourite character — a driven character who immediately switches sides to do the right thing at the cost of everything she previously held dear for just the hope of peace? — so I figured any ship I had would be adjacent to her. Callum and Claudia were the most likely candidates. Both had complementary designs, seemed to be again, around the same age as her, and would be good enemies to friends (to lovers). I naturally leaned more towards Callum, though, since he was another one of the main characters, so he and Rayla would likely have the most amount of time to interact. We also knew that Callum would be a prince and I’m a sucker for class differences, so I was primed from the start.

Then, on September 3rd 2018, eleven days before the show aired, this still got released. 

It was one of our first looks at a still image of the animation and so I thought that Rayla was actually blushing at him rather than it just being a design feature. The glimpse of dynamic it gave immediately sucked me in. Callum, sharing what he’s absorbed / fascinated by, and Rayla, exasperated but mostly fond. More than that, I was drawn in by the fact that somewhere, in a period of nine episodes, these two would’ve gone from enemies to something this friendly, and I was just as quickly enamoured. I knew, very likely, that if I was going to ship anything, there was a 90% chance it was going to be them. 

Then they had parallels in 1x02 with wanting to make things right and having father figures shoot them down. My senses pricked when Callum liked her ears, when they had a solo meeting scene, when she swept the leg and proved that she could go what he could not. When 1x03 introduced conflict and she put a finger to his lips and called him a mage and he proved he could do what she could not. They balanced each other perfectly. Then he defended her on the roof and “Say the word and I’ll go back into that tower with you” and I knew they were something beyond special.

That feeling just continued when Callum opened up to her and admitted how she had already changed him — “And then you called me a mage and that felt right” — and she was so fond. That the still of friendship happened on their first morning together, ever. The boat scene in 1x05 sealed the deal for me completely and I’ve been shipping trash for them ever since.

Post season one I thought — if they happened at all — it would be more of a slow burn. Season two developed things naturally but far faster than I expected, so I adjusted my expectations accordingly. I thought they would become canon with a kiss in season three, so I wasn’t surprised there, but I was surprised it happened in 3x04 rather than closer to the end of the season in 3x08 or 3x09. (But given that 3x06 and 3x07 are so focused elsewhere plotwise, it makes perfect sense in retrospect when looking at s3’s structure). 

So yeah, watching the ship grow to where it is now where it’s so much more than I ever would’ve expected or dreamed, both in screentime, fanon, and canonicity, has been wild and an absolute blast. Sometimes I remember we’re going to get to see them on screen together after possibly having been a couple for a while (at least a few months if not maybe even a whole year!!) and in the s2 and s3 novelizations and any future graphic novels, like “Through the Moon.” My brain still can’t quite conceptualize all the Rayllum on the way, and has never been able to, tbh. But I would not have it any other way <3

[nomadicism]

If you watch the Afterbuzz review (with LM and JDS as guests) it really seems that there won't be any kind of redemption for Lotor, which makes me a little sad, because it means that there's no thing as "more to the story" that Romelle told us.

Hi there! Thank you for the Ask!

My apologies in taking a little while to respond. I feel you on this, and I have A LOT to say about it. I drafted my answer several times as I am trying to exercise some brevity and tone down the salt. I failed. Your Ask touches on a serious issue that I’ve been slowly working on a separate post about, so expect a follow-up to this! 

First, some context to get where I’m coming from: 

They (in these interviews) are back-filling story gaps faster than J.K. Rowling can say “Dumbledore was gay.”

Seriously. 

There is so much back-filling going on (even before S6 and S5), that it appears as though many details got left on the cutting-room floor, which is to be expected with something this complex (Lotor and associated characters + arc/backstory/etc) being squished into 26 episodes where there are already many plot threads being followed that involve many different characters. And of course, some of what is said during these interviews, podcasts, tweets, etc has to be said carefully either due to spoilers or NDA, so there is some understandable misdirection that is likely happening.

However, all of this interview chatter from the show-runners (from S3 onward) about Lotor’s motivations and how hard and traumatizing Lotor’s existence was, the abuse he suffered, how he really loved Allura and was genuine, and how it was healing for her, and that his past actions were merely “skewed”, and that they [heroes] will see that Lotor was right in the end, etc; is unnecessary on their part, and comes across as “the authors doth protest too much”. 

If the story (e.g. writing) cannot adequately and clearly convey these concepts about Lotor without creator meta-input, then there is a problem with the writing or the narrative scope (e.g. over-reach). Hence, back-filling gaps in the story that may have been a part of the concept phase, but didn’t (or won’t) make it into the writing of the episodes and are not clear enough to be inferred from the writing. (I’ll get back to this further below)

(Either this, or they are lying, which is a degree of negativity and cynicism that I don’t care to entertain.)

So what does this mean?

It means that (to answer your Ask)—regardless of redemption (and does Lotor really need one?)—that any explanation will not be forthcoming, or will otherwise be minimal and won’t happen until near the end of the series. That is why they are back-filling the gaps ahead of time (again, assuming the positive/benign here). Additionally, the lack of clarity or details is affecting the perception of the character and author intent.

It seems odd that there wouldn’t be more explanation, but if there is, then it probably would not be from Romelle or from her PoV. Other than a flashback sequence in which Lotor may appear, it seems that it any explanation will more likely come from Acxa…(assuming that the generals survived being out in space without ships while the Castleship was exploding the reality tears shut). Given the Galra death count in the show, it is possible that the generals are dead or just not coming back. Lotor’s arc is over (as they’ve said), so it’s Honerva’s turn now, and that ends things (or greatly reduces scope) for secondary characters that were a part of his story (I would love to be wrong).

Since Lotor’s arc is over, does it really matter if there is no more explanation? Other than being very—and understandably—unsatisfying for many fans, I’d personally rather not revisit it as I find what they did in S6 to be thoroughly disgusting. As for redemption, I’m generally in the “villains don’t need redemption arcs” camp, but in terms of tropes/concepts as they apply to Lotor: Beautiful quasi-supernatural hybrid immortals that cross the moral event horizon (regardless of reason) are only redeemed through noble sacrifice/death (assuming they survive long enough to do so). That said, there is a case to be made that Lotor doesn’t need to be redeemed due to what I’m calling the “double standard setting” that exists in VLD: Hellscape with punishing choices for the antagonists vs easy mode with few consequences for the protagonists. (this will be the topic of my follow-up post)

Returning to back-filling:

As a designer (mostly UX/UI these days but my career has crossed many domains of design)—it is a huge problem if my audience comes out with two or more widely different interpretations of what is supposed to be the same coherent message (or user interface for the applications that I design). It is the foundation of design practice to clearly communicate a message, regardless of domain or application of design.

I cannot give interviews or answer questions in panels that explain what is “really going on”, or adding additional information that the design itself either does not explicitly convey—OR—does not convey well enough that most viewers/users are in agreement (or at least similar agreement) with what that message is or was.

In VLD, the back-filling of story gaps coincides with an essential problem with the characterization of Lotor and his arc as a whole: that his story and who he is is not clearly expressed and that has yielded at least three very different reads/interpretations that have very little overlap.

In application development terms: the widely differing interpretations of Lotor in VLD is not a feature, it is a bug—and this is not the fault of viewers/fans (for some this is a fun bug, and that’s fine). It is not on the fans to expend high amounts of energy and take on a cynical mindset/view (which can be bad for some people) to ferret out hidden meanings or unclear/inconsistent characterization in a Y7 show of this particular genre. Just as it is not the fault of my users if they do not understand the purpose of a component within the UI that I design, or if they experience high friction when attempting to complete a complex form. That’s on me.

I am not saying that every interpretation of a character must be perfectly aligned. Many stories benefit from contrasting interpretations (even widely differing ones, looking at you David 8). I am not convinced that VLD is one of those, and people will see what they see regardless of author intent, which is fine. My point is that the majority of the intent should be clear and should not require clarification outside of the story unless it is a story that was designed/intended to “have a manual,” or is otherwise of a genre where such things are expected.

I get that when it comes to writing, people can and should write whatever and however they want, and that’s great, but if one has to keep explaining their intent or characterization, then the message/writing wasn’t clear enough to begin with. I see that as an undesirable thing, some fans may not, and that’s fine. Also, the story isn’t over yet, so one does need to be patient. Still, I would prefer that they not say anything at all rather than continuing to talk up a message, or interpretation that is not clearly found or held, or worse, providing an explanation* outside of the story in such a way that the characters within the story never have to be faced with it.

Finally—since it happened on the heels of that Afterbuzz review—bless AJ for this tweet:

What a wonderful human, but AJ shouldn’t have to say this. 

The story should speak for itself, and right now, it isn’t.

*Outside of Story Explanation: Den of Geek has the explanation in the form of this fucked up business about Lotor’s upbringing as the cause of his downfall. [X] Cool message team, I certainly got that loud-and-clear without further explanation, as I (and others who can relate even more) have endured that tired-and-predictable message through countless pieces of fiction, including seeing this done in the 6 previous iterations of Voltron.

Way to perpetuate some damaging myths about abuse. There are people who endure terrible upbringings without a support system and manage to escape it without becoming mass murderers with god complexes.

Meanwhile, there are people who have every privilege in the world that are actively causing harm to society right now through their abuse of power. There are people who have had every advantage, including loving-and-supportive parents, who end up committing mass shootings in schools. Why don’t we start making them the monsters in the stories that we tell to children instead?