#we've long passed the point where it would have made sense :')

[bolithesenate]

hiiii

13. How much planning do you do before writing?

23. How do you choose where to end a chapter (if you have multi-chapter works)?

29. Share a bit from a fic you’ll never post OR from a scene that was cut from an already posted fic. (If you don’t have either, just share a random fic idea you have that you don’t plan on getting to.)

sorry this took a while. i was hiking. and then i was sloshed from hiking.

13 - the big fat goose-egg is the norm. zero planning. even if I try to do planning, what I actually put down devolves from what i planned so quickly that it doesn't bear any resemblance to it anyways.

so why bother?

(that being said, I do come up with a lot of worldbuilding seperately and without it being tied to writing. Like, i will think up elaborate subsections to the jedi service corps and make flowcharts which i then can use in fics, but that's not tied to a specific project usually)

23 - vibes. i write until there is a good stopping point and i've reached the rough amount of words i wanna go for (i try to keep all my chapters at around the same length)

29 - i don't have anything that's i won't ever post, but u can have one of the mud fic deleted scenes that i haven't yet put into the deleted scenes fic :P

The flitting lights of Coruscant's nightlife blinking through the window painted Sifo's face into an ever changing cascade of wandering shadows. His eyes, whenever the light caught in them, had the blurred, dreamlike quality they often took on after a vision passed.

He was staring out of the window. Captured by the passing speeders and holo billboards.

"Sy?," Yan asked quietly, placing one hand on the other's thigh.

Almost unwillingly, Sifo pulled himself away from the mesmerizing view, directing his gaze towards Yan below him. 

As if only realizing now that the other Jedi was in the same bed, happy surprise rolled off him in gentle waves. Elation but no recognition. Yan's heart sank. He reached out in the Force, already guessing what he'd find.

Sifo's mind, normally a roiling cloud - gentle but powerful, always in a tug-of-war with the ambient Unifying Force -, was more akin to a light fog now. Spread out, barely more than a slightly louder whisper against the backdrop of the Temple's own hum in the Living.

Quiet fear gripped Yan.

This wasn't good. Not good at all.

Sifo hadn't felt this… thinned out in forever. Not since the first few visions, right after the incident itself, where none of them had truly known how to properly aid him through them. 

Yan pushed himself up, meeting Sy who - for some reason - had been straddling his middle halfway. His arms wrapped around his frail form, pulling him into a desperate hug. 

"Don't you dare lose yourself now, Sy. We've come so far," he whispered in the other's ears as he scrambled to, best as he could, help the Seer pull the bits and pieces of his being back together. It was like trying to catch fog with his fingers, always slipping through, barely following the paths he laid out. He tried to not let the fear get ahold of him. It wouldn't serve anyone in this situation. 

Sifo - Sifo's body, his mind was almost completely gone - let out a shuddering breath against the nape of Yan's neck.

It felt like the breath of a dying man.

Screw the Order's tenants. Yan was properly panicking now.

(This was too close, way too close to back then when Sifo had first lost himself to a violent vision. They had thought this under control. It wasn't supposed to happen like this anymore.)

Yan couldn't say how long he sat there, cradling Sifo close, pulling him back together like wet sand in the flood.

Piece by piece.

Memory by memory.

Every second he feared that he'd not be fast enough, feared that the bit of Sifo that remained - the bit that remembered that his body needed to breathe and his heart needed to beat. That he wouldn't irrevocably come apart when he was right there in his grasp.

The entire time, not that he remembered much of it, he was too focussed on gathering Sy's mind back together, Yan was muttering into the other man's ears. It just spilled out of him. Everything, from paltry stories to fond memories and ruthless threats that if he didn't come back… well, Yan wasn't sure what he'd do, but it wouldn't be in accordance with the Order's tenants. At all. 

Somewhere in there there might have been a confession of feelings he wasn't entirely clear on himself.

There might have been promises. Promises of a future together, bound by every vow and bond imaginable. Bound by so many ties that Sy would never get lost like this again.

[whetstonefires]

So like, I'm pretty darn sure Mo Xuanyu did not actually make a pass at Jin Guangyao.

For several reasons, like for one thing hitting on your own actual brother who is also your boss is genuinely insane behavior, in a way nothing else we know about the guy actually matches, other than his reputation for being crazy which mostly seems to originate from the same point as the sexual harassment allegations. which tracks because even with rampant societal homophobia, that's such a crazy thing to do people would question it if it didn't come paired with the information that he's insane.

Then there's the fact that if that had actually happened, there's basically no way master spin artist jgy would have let it get out, because actually experiencing that would trigger his sense-of-uncleanliness issues so hard.

But what we see is that somehow Everyone Knows that it happened, but also that Jin Guangyao totally didn't tell anyone, because he's too merciful and kind and respectable. It just mysteriously leaked somehow that this private scandal happened.

(Also, to step up a meta level, the gay goth kid who was never quite accepted into his own family and wound up self-destructing was in fact guilty of the homophobic allegations spread by the powerful man who manipulates reputation for personal advantage? This is not the kind of story where that would be true. The thematic dissonance is too much.)

The only way it's believable that mxy made a move on jgy is if jgy spent a long time maneuvering him into it, hinting and deniably flirting and just generally being maximum skeeze, just a huge elaborate incestuous honeypot, just to bait a 'ruined reputation' trap. Which makes no sense at all.

I don't think jgy is necessarily above that kind of creepy grooming behavior but I do think he would hate it, and definitely wouldn't resort to it when sowing rumors would work just as well. and expose him to less risk.

So Mo Xuanyu didn't do it.

So what we've got is that Jin Guangyao systematically obliterated this kid's credibility.

No one would listen to anything he said after being expelled in that sort of context, especially anything against Jin Guangyao, whom he now has obvious motive to smear. This was a preemptive strike against some kind of leak.

It's exactly the kind of thing jgy would do--it targets individual vulnerability, leverages the weak points in Mo Xuanyu's reputation into gaping chasms, in a way that associates jgy with scandal but makes him personally look better. also shows signs of jgy projecting his own issues onto others. The MO fits.

And his motive is easy to construct: Mo Xuanyu had had access to his secrets, such as Wei Wuxian's manuscripts and probably a lot of the other ugly shit. And Jin Guangyao needed him silenced, due to some thing or other, but as with SiSi didn't want to have to kill him.

(A fascinating thing about jgy as a villain is the moments where he yields to sentiment pretty consistently contribute to his destruction.)

But then we come around to: so why didn't Mo Xuanyu sic Wei Wuxian on Jin Guangyao, then?

In cql wwx does have a curse cut for jgy, to keep him in the plot and create an additional open storyline to resolve, since viewers are gonna be denied romantic catharsis, but in cql the homophobia plotline isn't there because all the gay is censored, and mxy allegedly hit on qin su instead. which is less utterly unhinged to do though still big wtf.

In the book, mxy summoned the Yiling Patriarch just to kill the Mos. (Which he didn't even do lmao.)

So I've always been sort of poking at that, like if you're destroying your own soul to get revenge, why spare the person who deliberately ruined your life?

Even if he had done the thing, it was weird! Maybe even weirder; if you're in a headspace where making sexual advances anyone should be able to predict are unwelcome seems like a good idea in the first place, there's a pretty good chance getting punished for them isn't going to make you think you were in the wrong. Otoh there is a zone where he could have done it, gotten the backlash, cleared his head a bit, realized it was fucked up to do, and therefore not held a grudge in that particular direction, but it's still weird. (And also he definitely didn't do the thing.)

But if he was so angry, why was he not angry at Jin Guangyao? Who definitely kicked him out of the Sect, all else aside?

And then I looked at the passage in Jin sect where we swap to Jin Ling's pov and he tells us one of the few first-hand things we hear about Mo Xuanyu: He thought Jin Guangyao was the most amazing person in the whole world. He adored him.

And being betrayed and rejected by him didn't turn that into resentment. Even though he resented the other side of his family enough to want them gratuitously murdered.

So you know what I think happened?

I think Mo Xuanyu thinks it was an honest misunderstanding. That Jin Guangyao, his idol, falsely concluded that his gay little brother was creeping on him based on a misinterpretation of his admiring behavior, and was appropriately revolted. And that Mo Xuanyu doesn't blame him for it. He blames himself.

He went back to his mother's family to rot genuinely feeling like the ruination of his life was his own fault for being creepy. And died like that.

Because of that, to a considerable extent. How can you bend any of your will to saving yourself, to getting out of an abusive situation and seeking a better one, when you don't think you deserve to be saved?

Fucks me up.

[dsudis]

Adaptive Tea Making

For @domaystic Day 5: Learning Something New.

Dream is human now, and determined to learn how to make his beloved a cup of tea. He just has a small difficulty with time to get over.

___

Hob looked over at Dream, who was perched on a stool at the kitchen bench with his ever-present notebook open to a fresh page, his phone unlocked beside it, and an actual stopwatch beside that. He had a pencil in his hand, freshly sharpened, and a second pencil also perfectly sharpened set beside the notebook.

Hob had secondhand text anxiety just looking at those pencils. 

"Ready?" Hob asked, though surely it was not possible to be more ready than Dream currently was. 

Dream didn't even meet his gaze, his eyes fixed firmly on Hob's hands. "Ready. Please show me, one more time, how to make a cup of tea the way you like it." 

As Dream spoke he wrote on the pristine notebook page: Hob's tea instructions. His handwriting was crooked and crabbed but legible. 

"So--there's water in the kettle already," Hob said, feeling like possibly he was the one being tested. However he made this cup of tea, Dream would continue making this exact cup of tea for him forever. 

Hob was fine with that. Hob would frankly have been fine with continuing to get wildly undrinkable cups of tea from Dream forever, but Dream was determined to learn this particular human skill correctly, and seemed somehow convinced that this time he was going to crack it. 

Hob flipped the switch. Dream turned on a timer on his phone and then wrote down the first two steps: water in kettle and turn on kettle. He also wrote to one side, Phone timer: total length of process and drew a little line beside it to be filled in with a number later. 

They had learned, after Dream had committed a series of frankly baffling tea mishaps including "hot water with no detectable trace of tea" and "oversteeped to the point of activating an immortal's gag reflex through sheer bitterness" and "boiled the kettle dry" that Dream had no real sense of how time passed. It passed how he wished it to pass, in the Dreaming, and even in the Waking he had always been able to nudge reality a bit to make the flow of time conform to his narrative sense or personal convenience.  

Now that he was divested of those powers and operating a human body, the linear flow of time had so far made absolutely no impression on Dream. Hob had had to point out to him things like "if you wake up and it is still dark, it is still night, and you will probably want to go back to sleep until it's light out" and how often meals should happen.  

It was the tea that had made it clear that even telling Dream times when things should happen was not very helpful to him. He couldn't seem to hold the numbers in his head or make sense of them when he consulted a clock. Hob had simply started giving him other ways of gauging the passage of time, teaching him about the sun's position in the sky at mealtimes and when Hob returned from work, and about the activity of people visible from the windows, and which programs on the telly corresponded reliably to morning, afternoon, and evening. 

Hob had spent long stretches of time--most of his life, really--without access to clocks. People nowadays were obsessed with them, and with precise timing for everything, but Dream wouldn't need to worry about being punctual to a work shift or keeping all sorts of appointments. Hob could help him with where precision was needed, and could teach him to get along where it wasn't. 

Tea, unfortunately, was a matter of some precision. When the kettle let out the first gurgles, Hob grabbed the tea canister. "Plenty of times I just use bag tea, but my insufferably posh lover seems set on spoiling me, so," Hob scooped tea into the strawberry-shaped infuser. "This is what we've got in place of a tea bag. Time-wise, either should work the same." 

Dream faithfully wrote down prepare infuser (or tea bag).

"The timing for the kettle will change a bit. A smaller amount of water boils faster. There's a bit over two cups in right now," Hob pointed to the line on the side, "so it takes a little over two minutes." 

Dream wrote down kettle boils and then waited watchfully until the kettle hit its automatic shutoff and consulted the time. Kettle shuts off, he wrote down, and then 2:38 with a tidy little asterisk beside it.

"Infuser goes in mug," Hob narrated. "Pour the water over it, leave about an inch at the top for milk. And start your stopwatch, because this is the bit I couldn't tell you, because I do it by feel." 

Dream started the stopwatch and scribbled down more notes, drawing a little box for the all-important steeping time to be entered. Hob watched the mug, wondering once again how he did know when it was done steeping. He'd tried more than once to describe it to Dream, but none of his descriptions had been at all helpful--as proven by the various disastrous cups of tea--and had only frustrated both of them. 

He wanted to fill the silence, but Hob didn't dare mess this up for Dream, when he was so determined to get this right. Most of human life had come easily enough to him, once he set himself to adapt to it, but tea had thwarted him. Hob was a little worried that Dream was building this up into some kind of epic battle of wills he had to win to Succeed At Being Human. 

Dream looked up at him expectantly and Hob looked back down at his mug, a little worried that he'd gotten distracted--he'd certainly oversteeped his tea enough times for one reason or another--but no, a sniff and a glance told him it wasn't quite there yet. "Almost," Hob said. "Not really a bad cup of tea if you stop now, but not quite." He drummed his fingers, waiting for-- 

"Ah," Hob said, "Now." He reached for the infuser and lifted it out, and the stopwatch clicked at the exact instant it cleared the top of the mug. Hob set the infuser in the sink and then swirled the cup of tea, giving it another sniff to be sure, but yes, that was a just-right cup of tea. He grabbed the jug of milk and looked to see that Dream was intently watching before he poured in a dollop. 

Dream's eyes narrowed slightly and then he nodded and wrote down a specific liquid volume that Hob was sure was in fact precisely correct--Dream's spatial skills were laser-accurate and slightly unnerving.  

"And a spoonful of sugar, because I'm feeling like it today," Hob said. "I do honey sometimes. Sometimes two spoonfuls of sugar." He stirred in the sugar and sipped. "And that's--" 

Dream clicked the timer on his phone and recorded the time, then picked up the phone and tapped rapidly at it. "Tell me that the water should boil about now," Dream said, and held out the phone like a reporter's microphone. 

"Water should be boiling about now," Hob parroted obediently.  

Dream nodded, tapped at the phone again, and said, "Now tell me the tea is ready."  

When Dream held out the phone, Hob said, "Tea's ready, love." 

Dream was startled into a smile at that addition, and asked, "How is it?" 

"Just right," Hob said. "But if you--" 

Dream shook his head, still smiling, and went back to tapping at things on his phone. "These things are amazing, you know?" Dream said. "I thought I would have to learn magic, but these are like little prosthetic memories. If you work out all the steps, you can make it do all these things for you. Well, not for you, you don't need it. For me." 

"I mean, I'd be lost without my calendar and things," Hob said. He'd never thought of technology to solve Dream's difficulty with time. He'd thought it was just more clocks all the way down, there. 

"Watch," Dream said, and then, to his phone, "Computer, making a cup of tea." 

"Acknowledged," his phone replied, because Dream had watched possibly too many sci-fi movies with Hob at what had turned out to be a formative time in his life. "When there is water in the kettle, turn the kettle on." 

Dream mimed flipping the switch on the kettle. 

Nothing happened, since Dream was still a good yard away from the kettle. Reminded, Hob ran some more water into it and put it back. He was sipping his tea again and nearly choked on it when his own voice came from Dream's phone. "Water should be boiling about now." 

"Computer, wait," Dream said, and the phone was back to its Computer voice when it said, "Acknowledged." 

"In case there is more water in the kettle," Dream said. "If there is less, I will be able to tell it to skip ahead when the water boils." 

"Computer, resume," Dream added to the phone. 

"Prepare the infuser, then pour boiling water over it." 

Dream mimed dropping the infuser into the mug, then pouring the water. "Computer, steeping." 

"Steeping," the computer said, sounding slightly stilted like it had had to assemble that word from individual sounds instead of having it pre-recorded.  

"I'll be able to use this for anything to do with timing," Dream said, scratching down more notes in his notebook. "I just have to set the intervals and key phrases, and optionally recordings for specific announcements, and then I will be able to do things that need timing. As long as I have my phone. Possibly I should get one of those watches." 

"That's no trouble, then," Hob said, pulling out his own phone to order a watch to sync with Dream's phone. "And you know I'm always happy to be your speaking clock, love."  

Dream came around the bench and kissed him, curling a hand around Hob's on his mug. "I shall feed you your lines when I need them," Dream said, and somehow it was desperately romantic and made Hob so proud he could cry, knowing Dream knew that Hob would always be glad to help him do things in his own way. 

He opened his mouth to try to say it, his heart almost too full for words, and was cut off by his own voice from Dream's phone. "Tea's ready, love." 

[Now on Ao3!]

[sinner-sunflower]

A HH Lucifer-centric AU 3/?

PART 1, PART 2, PART 4, PART 5, PART 6, PART 7, PART 8, PART 9, PART 10, PART 11, PART 12, PART 13, PART 14, PART 15, PART 16, PART 17, PART 18, PART 19, PART 20, PART 21, PART 22

Apologies if some grammar makes no sense. English is not my first language.

I do have another Lucifer angst fic right HERE, there's currently 2 parts but I swear I'll update it. There are just too many ideas flowing in my head right now and I don't want to forget them!

Really appreciate the likes, reblogs, and comments &lt;3<3

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

The two Sins arrive at the very edge of Sloth where Lucifer can see a long barrier with multiple guards.

Scientists were everywhere and from the looks of things, no one had gotten any sleep.

Belphegor leads Lucifer past the barricade. Many of Belphegor's employees stare in awe and dread as the king of hell passes by.

They both come to a stop to a series of black and red roots on the ground, crawling their way out of hell's deepest realm. (Imagine those root things of the Upside-Down of stranger things)

Belphegor: Apologies again, Lucifer. I should not have kept this from you for as long as I did.

Lucifer: And why did you?

The Sin of Sloth is nervous. She and Lucifer are close friends, some may even call them (all of the Sins, really) as siblings. Despite being an ex-angel, the Sins hold Lucifer in high regard. They were created because of him, after all.

Belphegor: You have entrusted me with this duty when I was bestowed upon the title Prince of Sloth. I... simply did not want to- I have no excuse.

Lucifer: And how long has this been like this?

Belphagor: A scientist of mine spotted the anomaly a month ago. It was barely the size of a puddle initially. It did not grow more than an inch for 2 weeks. But then, seemingly overnight, it grew a mile. We set up a perimeter and tight security after..

Lucifer: After?

Belphegor: An animal escaped from a nearby farm and made contact with the anomaly. And it.. it took over its whole body. It acted like a parasite, controlling the body. We shot it dead.

Lucifer: Did you retrieve it?

Belphegor simply points to the creature, blood dried from where it was killed.

Lucifer: And I'm the first to know of this apart from your guards and scientists?

Belphegor: Yes. We've been monitoring every bit of media and so far, information regarding this is still contained. The locals have dubbed this as a personal excavation of mine.

Lucifer hmm'd and walked a little too close to the anomaly than Belphegore would like. The king crouches down and-

She panics and surges forward as her friend, her brother, touches the infected ground.

Belphegor: Lucifer! What are you doing?!

She pulls him back and freezes. The Sin of Sloth has never felt more awake than she did now as her brother's arm became engulfed in glowing red root-like veins all the way to his collarbone.

Lucifer stares at his twitching hand and arm and pays no mind to Belphegor's concerns.

Lucifer: Call for a meeting, Bel.

She stops, confused.

Belphegor: With the Sins?

Lucifer: With everyone. King's decree.

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

What to look forward for in Part 4:

By everyone, he means everyone (Sins, Overlords, Ars Goetia, etc.)

uh oh, Lucifer has the cheese touch

Is it painful? who knows

[cherryrainn]

Hi, i have a request! Could you write a funny lil bit with onceler x reader with a scenario where reader and onceler (or greedler) are having dinner with reader's parents. Cue the iconic "daddy can you pass me the salt?" from reader and both reader's dad and onceler reach out for it - how will he squirm out of that????

HAHA YES THIS IS GONNA BE SO FUN. im gonna do greedler because i feel like he just fits more with the whole "daddy" thing.

☽ ༚  ༵ ۰ ✧ ۰  ༵ ༚ ༵ ۰ ✧ ۰ 

— a dinner to forget

onceler (greedler) x reader

the dining room exuded an air of warmth and elegance, the flickering candlelight casting dancing shadows upon the polished wooden table. you sat nervously next to onceler, your boyfriend, who exuded a certain enigmatic charm with his distinctive attire. his black top hat, coupled with his long green tailcoat, made him stand out in the refined setting. his light-blue eyes gleamed mischievously behind his sunglasses as he leaned back, exuding an air of confidence.

across from you sat your parents, eagerly engaged in conversation, their eyes filled with curiosity and excitement. it was the first time they were meeting onceler, and you couldn't help but feel a mixture of anticipation and a tinge of anxiety about how the evening would unfold.

the clinking of silverware against fine china echoed through the room as the dinner conversation flowed effortlessly. laughter filled the air as stories were shared, and onceler's witty banter intertwined with your parents' anecdotes.

in the midst of the lively exchange, you felt a sudden craving for an extra sprinkle of salt on your dish. without missing a beat, you turned to your father, who was seated next to you, and pointed to the salt shaker resting in the center of the table.

"daddy, can you pass me the salt?" you asked, unaware of the comedic mishap that was about to unfold.

in an almost synchronized manner, both your father and onceler reached out for the salt shaker, their hands meeting halfway. the room fell into a momentary silence as everyone realized the hilariously awkward situation that had transpired. your father's eyes widened in shock, and a stunned expression crossed his face.

onceler, usually a master of quick thinking, found himself at a loss for words. the confident facade he had carefully cultivated cracked, revealing a touch of embarrassment. his cheeks flushed a faint shade of pink as he withdrew his hand.

onceler's light freckles seemed to stand out more prominently against his blushing cheeks as he tried to gather his composure. he exchanged a sheepish glance with your father, who couldn't hide his bewildered expression. your dads eyebrows shot up as he processed the unexpected response from onceler.

sensing the need to address the confusion, onceler cleared his throat, his voice carrying a mix of embarrassment and nervousness. "o, um, i apologize if that caught you off guard. it's just a term of... something... we use between us, a playful nickname," he explained, hoping to provide some clarity.

your father's shock transformed into a mixture of surprise and awkwardness, his face turning a shade of pink. he stuttered slightly as he tried to compose himself. "oh, i... i see. i wasn't expecting that," he muttered, his voice filled with a mix of confusion and discomfort.

your mother then but in, "right, well, i suppose every couple has their own unique dynamics. we might not fully understand it, but if it works for you both..." she trailed off, a hint of resignation in her voice.

a brief pause followed, the silence punctuated by the clinking of silverware on plates. onceler shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his eyes darting between you, your father, and your mother. sensing the need to break the tension, you decided to lighten the mood with a touch of humor.

"looks like we've accidentally created a 'who gets to pass the salt' dilemma," you quipped, offering a lighthearted smile.

your father chuckled nervously, a small smile forming on his face. "yup, seems that way. well, someone's going to have to make the first move," he replied, a playful glint in his eye.

onceler, taking the cue, let out a self-conscious chuckle and extended his hand towards the salt shaker, offering it to you. "after you, my dear. i wouldn't dare to come between you and your seasoning," he said with a hint of amusement, his embarrassment dissipating.

you gladly accepted the salt shaker from onceler, your hand brushing against his in the exchange. a sense of relief washed over the room as laughter filled the air once more, dispelling the awkwardness that had momentarily enveloped the dinner table.

[crossdressingdeath]

I have thoughts about Nico's sword. Seriously, where the fuck did he get a three foot long Stygian iron sword at the age of ten or eleven? Was it a gift from Hades? Possible, but he has that sword while he's hanging around Minos and I can't see Hades tolerating his kid getting used that way by a mere ghost, and certainly not a son of Zeus; if nothing else I feel like it would hurt his pride. Did Nico make it himself? Also possible, but it would display a level of control over metal that he doesn't show at any other point. He might have been able to find the raw metal on his own even though Stygian iron seems to be the rarest of the three godly metals, since as a child of the Underworld he might be able to sense it even if precious metals aren't his specialty, but how would he get a sword out of it? He's not a swordsmith I don't think, and he definitely wasn't at that age. It'd be cool if he just willed it into shape, but a) I don't think Stygian iron works that way and b) see previous point about how he never shows that level of control over metal at any other point. Stygian iron has to be cooled in the Styx, too, so if he made it... uh, how. I don't think it would be safe for him to get that close to the river.

Also according to the wiki Stygian iron can harm mortals as well as immortals, demigods and monsters, and it is absolutely wild to me that this passes without mention after what a big deal and terrible sign Luke acquiring a sword that can harm mortals is. ...Actually all the information about Stygian iron on the wiki is wild (WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT MIGHT BE ABLE TO KILL MONSTERS PERMANENTLY. WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT MIGHT DESTROY SOULS. WHAT DO YOU MEAN AMONG DEMIGODS ONLY CHILDREN OF THE UNDERWORLD CAN WIELD IT SAFELY BECAUSE IT WAS COOLED IN THE STYX. WHAT DO YOU MEAN IT'S AS FAR AS WE KNOW INDESTRUCTIBLE AND IF IT CAN BE BROKEN MIGHT ONLY BE ABLE TO BE BROKEN BY CHILDREN OF THE UNDERWORLD), Rick can we please have a whole book about how Stygian iron works. Also can the wiki please list its sources, I suspect a lot of the Stygian iron info comes from Read Riordan but that site is such a bitch to search.

Also the fact that Nico is the only demigod we've seen so far who uses Stygian iron is so much to me (*squints in Zagreus!Nico*). Oh, and according to the wiki Nico's sword is a falcata, which... okay, I don't know where they're pulling that information from—I think it's Read Riordan? The picture they've got from Read Riordan definitely looks falcata-ish—but if true that's interesting because as far as I'm aware that would make Nico the only main character in the Greco-Roman series who uses a weapon that isn't Greco-Roman (the falcata is from pre-Roman Iberia). Nico's sword is just so interesting to me and I desperately want to know more about it, Rick can we have a flashback or a short story or something about how he got it at least.

[mickeys-malarkey]

Pt. 3/3: My BATDR Timeline & Plot Twist Theories!

First, I think both BATIM and BATDR take place sometime between 1978 and 1991. I already suspected BATDR was happening in the ‘80s based on the fact that card readers – which have featured in many of the environment screenshots we've seen – were invented in 1979...

…and Audrey's clothes and hairstyle look very 1980s.

Then they released the images of Audrey's office, where her chair and desk lamps also look very 1980s, and the wallpaper and flooring looks pretty 1970s…

…and @inkdemonapologist pointed out that the type of bankruptcy we see documents for in Joey's apartment didn't exist until 1978…

…and I remembered that Joey's apartment also had a newspaper whose headline took place in the future— Princess Diana's 30th birthday which, as TetraBitGaming on YouTube pointed out, would be in 1991 since Princess Diana was born in 1961. She should be two years old if BATIM were really taking place in 1963!

Maybe, at the time, they didn't mean for these two to be clues, since they seem to have rolled the date backwards a bit from the newspaper one; but at this point it feels pretty clear when BATDR takes place, to me. And I'm even more certain than I already was, after finding out that this image from the JDS website…

…is titled “museum” (good work yoinking it, @halfusek /gen 👍🏻), that we know the ink dimension's new home: Nathan Arch Sr.'s private Joey Drew Studios museum that he mentioned he was curating in TIOL (meaning it's existed since around 1972).

“Over the years, I have collected every single piece of the studio memorabilia I could find to restore it to its former glory, to create, in a sense, a private museum that gleamed with the true vision of Joey Drew…” ~ Nathan Arch, The Illusion of Living, pg. 2

Also, besides the fact the museum image has clearly aged, here's some more evidence that at least a few years have probably passed since Bendy was purchased: it generally takes a fair bit more time (years!!) to make movies/documentaries, as Archgate Pictures seems to have made about Joey, than it does to make shorts.

As for BATIM, I think that time has been moving as normal outside of the loop, we were just seeing a repeat of that significant day in 1963; Henry and Joey have been trapped in the ink dimension for somewhere between twenty and thirty years, and the bankruptcy paperwork and Princess Diana newspaper were pieces of the real world leaking into the memory. This explains how there seems to be evidence of Audrey in BATIM and how BATDR is still supposedly neither sequel nor prequel to BATIM despite all the evidence that it takes place long after 1963! They're happening at the same time!! I wonder if Audrey is the daughter of the little girl we hear at the end of BATIM? So, Henry's (great-)granddaughter or Joey's (great-)great-niece?

Now, onto my big theory: the plot twist.

If they handle it right, it would be really, really cool if “break the cycle” really doesn't just mean “end the time loop” but also “break the cycle of abuse/trauma” and a lot of the huge cast of not-so-innocent characters wind up with the potential to get redemption arcs. I have an idea of exactly how they might be planning on even providing the opportunity for Joey.

Victor McKnight commented this on his Artistic Hallowing music video and pinned it:

Those last two sentences. “Make sure you're watching every second! You don't want to miss any vital information. 😉” Does that not sound to anyone else like he's got insider information? Now, I want y'all to watch these music videos that either Victor himself or his brother Noah were suspiciously involved in all of (and one of which is supposedly a BATDS song but for some reason involves Audrey) and tell me if you notice any patterns.

This one seems to be a duet between Sammy and the Ink Demon, both singing to Audrey. Sammy mostly sings in the default sepiatone, asking us things like “Can you see me? Can you feel me?” (that feels so… sad… and desperate…) and telling us things like “make sense of the consequence we witnessed on that day” (Excuse me, you're telling me that there was a consequence for something on a specific, significant day that we witnessed?? 👀) The demon, on the other hand, mostly sings when the grayscale effect is on, and seems to just be playing a stereotypical villain roll until you notice “be forced to believe what I see” (why would we even give a crap about what you're seeing /srs? How the actual heck would we see what you're seeing /gen? You don't even have eyeballs, bro /j) and “be damned in this evil received” (how do you receive evil that damns you? Maybe by being abused and becoming an abuser in response?).

Two apparently-separate characters singing with the same voice but very different tones and outlooks on the situation, still both singing to Audrey, in this one. One mostly sings in the default sepiatone, again, at first seeming more hopeful, helpful, and friendly until you start noticing ominous comments like “you've made mistakes, accept the change. You will be punished too” (*incoherent noises* 🚨🚨) and “welcome to my dream . . . you still think you are safe in my dream.” The other mostly sings when the grayscale effect is on, again, and seems much more aggressive and seductive until you start noticing comments like “take up your weapons, just leave my friends be” (why is this stereotypically evil-seeming character both telling us to take up weapons, not just letting us have them, and asking us to leave his friends alone with them?).

More hints that the demon who will rise and presumably is most important to the story is linked to grayscale, in this one.

And, in this one, Sammy's asking if the grayscale-linked demon is the one who will set him free (as he claims to be in the first two videos).

Across all four of these first videos, there seems to be an overall “things change when we switch from the default sepiatone to grayscale” and “grayscale is dangerous and seems hopeless but it's important and linked to truth and freedom” theme…

…You're telling me that Sammy and his followers' past (BATIM?) selves were worshipping an imposter demon…? And the truth will be revealed in BATDR…?

Hum, hum, hum… fascinating. I'd noticed the sepiatone vs. grayscale split and imposter vs. true savior thing long before I read the books; for the longest time, I thought it meant we would be dealing with a Henry-Bendy and a Joey-Bendy, as I've been seeing people theorizing. But then I read TIOL, and discovered what I think is evidence that this info is indeed canon and was not left on the cutting room floor while BATDR was in development limbo.

Nathan makes a very strange note on Joey's story about the Sparkle Unicorn speakeasy…

“…I remember this night well. Though I remember it being at the Bee Room, gold and black, not silver as the main design aesthetic. Doesn't really make much of a difference though, I suppose.” ~ Nathan Arch, The Illusion of Living, pg. 44 (emphasis added)

Nathan remembers that night in sepiatone, Joey remembers it in grayscale.

Now, I've seen all kinds of theories all over about how Wilson actually “banished/killed the ink demon…” “Wilson took advantage of some sort of blip in Bendy's existence that happened when Joey died,” “Wilson got rid of him by purifying him and turning him into Dapper Bendy,” “Wilson got rid of him by fusing him with either Henry or Joey,” “Wilson got rid of him by trapping him in Henry's loop,” “he didn't, Wilson's just another liar manipulating everyone,” etc…

What if we're looking at this from the wrong angle? What if the point is that, whatever happened, neither of the BATDR Bendys is the original soulless monster we see in BATIM and the books? What if, whether they share a body or are separate, there are two human souls involved here? What if one of those souls is the “new evil” in the ink dimension, not Wilson, who may have been meddling in ink dimension affairs since 1963?

Going back to the time frame I propose BATDR is happening in… Joey was born in 1901, which means that if Nathan was 18 or 19 when Joey was just turning 16, then he was born in 1899 or 1898. So, in 1978, Nathan would've been 79 or 80, and in 1991 he would've been 92 or 93. Especially considering the clues that point towards Nathan having been a smoker, it wouldn't surprise me if he's straight-up already dead in BATDR. Mayhaps for 211 days? During Loop 414…? Could this be why the BATIM loop is different, with Henry apparently not remembering anything that previous versions of himself could? The now-previous owner of their prison has died of old age and/or lung cancer? And could that be why the JDS museum has fallen into bankruptcy? Has Nathan Jr. taken over and isn't as ruthless a businessman as his father?

Itsjustjord on YouTube pointed this out in his trailer reaction, which when he said it set my Clue Radar off so that I went to the trailer again to get a closer look. And… well… *clears throat*

…Do y'all see this weird effect over Dapper Bendy? Compared to every other character we see in the trailer as well as the environment around him, does it not look as if we're seeing him, specifically, through some sort of cartoony filter? Maybe it'll only be in circumstances like this (far away in weird lighting) that the edges of the illusion will fray in-game, based on the other teaser image we have of him, but it definitely looks off to me.

Especially with what I now suspect Allison and Susie's situations were in relation to Nathan, I think that the ink creatures’ perfection vs. imperfection has nothing to do with how pure/good vs. impure/evil their hearts are as we've been lead to believe/is the conventional surface-level reading, but instead how intact vs. broken their hearts are. I think that the more horrific the ink being's appearance, the more the soul inside was abused while it was alive. Allison isn't a perfect Alice because she's a better person, it's because she obeyed Nathan and wasn't made to suffer as severely as Susie, who Nathan chose to be his next Isabel. So, why is one new Bendy (apparently created after Joey lost everything, I suspect even being made to watch his Shoulder Angel's murder before being murdered himself) so much scarier than the original (created before Joey lost everything) and the other so goshdarn perfect, proportions and all?

Maybe the banning of everything related to Sammy's demon cult and Henry under Wilson's rule has to do with his decades-old mission to keep the Creators from joining forces, as well as everyone including himself feeling like they're finally free from The Great Puppet Master?

I love Dapper Bendy's design as much as everyone else!! He's positively adorable, and it would also be a nice outcome if the baby boy is exactly what he seems and just a precious lil friend to love forever; but I theorize that Dapper Bendy is the perfectly sane, untraumatized, and truly evil one, that (assuming we actually get choices in BATDR, unlike in BATIM) his route, no matter how things seem in the moment, is the wrong one, that he's Nathan. And I think Freaky Teeth Bendy (that's been my nickname for him since we first saw him and I'm sticking to it lolol) is the damaged as heck but able to be saved one, that his route is the correct one, that he's Joey. I also think that we won't get to see either demon for what they really are – won't be able to get the True, Broken Cycle, “Joey's Redeemed & Nathan Faces Justice” Ending – unless we somehow unlock Grayscale Mode like we could in BATIM and gain the ability to see Joey's truth. Until then, we'll be seeing the demons the way Nathan wants us to see them. Through Nathan's tainted, gaslighting, sepiatone filter.

If I'm right, the fact that they did choose these color palettes is so perfectly poetic~! Sepiatone is what happens when black-and-white images have been chemically altered for preservation purposes; Nathan's altered our perception of himself, Joey, and all the events surrounding them, and his version of events is much more resilient. Meanwhile, Joey's would be more pure and unaltered but easily destroyed— including by himself, with his Illusion of Living coping mechanism… The only thing that could make it more perfect is if not only do we get to see Henry in BATDR, but when we do he's an angelic toon… *Vibrates with excitement*

Please, please, please, JDS, let me be right about where you're going with this!! Cause this would genuinely be so freaking cool…!! 🙏🏻 I hope that we eventually get to “rejoice with our founders,” as Artistic Hallowing says, when they're reunited.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk, rofl. Congratulations on making it through the ramblings of a hyped AuDHD fangirl (though, I guess we already knew you were capable, if you've read TIOL. I could do a whole nother rant on evidence that Joey's basically confirmed canonically ADHD(+?), my freaking gosh). 😝

Read the Rest of the Original Analysis/Theory: Part One • Part Two • Unexpected Part Four

BATDR Analysis/Post-Playthrough Theory Revision: Part One • Part Two • Part Three • Part Four

[crooked-wasteland]

We've Peaked

A little more than halfway through the second season, Helluva Boss has finally found its place where it performs best: embracing its own mediocrity with an emphasis on shallow storytelling and a narrative death spiral that only serves to strip the world and characters of depth every time they are engaged with. It’s almost disappointing to see how highly rated this episode is by fellow critics solely because of the superficial aspects that add nothing to the plot, nor do these scenes affect change in the characters. It is far from the worst episode, but it has every major narrative flaw from every previous episode inside of it, that seems to get a pass because it's a “Special” and not necessarily expected to progress the main series in any way. My counterpoint is that an episode that is self-contained should then be able to narratively progress a character, if not the plot, which Medrano and her team continues to fail to accomplish.

To make my points concise, I will alternatively deconstruct the episode as is while including a general rewrite of how Medrano could have accomplished the same story with any shred of competence.

The narrative needs to skip around a bit, so, starting from the present, FizzaRolli is in a frenzied state of distress while looking for his foundation to hide his imperfections. It is far from a subtle metaphor of Fizz requiring the image of perfection while being “broken” underneath. It isn’t in any way revolutionary from the setup to the execution, though that isn’t to insinuate it is bad because it is unoriginal. Arguably, nothing is. But this scene establishes the major conflict throughout the episode, that being FizzaRolli's self-esteem. The issue is, this scene is a contradiction from the actual cold opening.

FizzaRolli and Blitz going to the Mammon show sets up the entire backstory premise of FizzaRolli’s climb to fame, but presents a confusing representation of what Fizz’s self-esteem issues are. There are generally a ton of problems with this opening on a systemic scale. Why is the circus so run down if FizzaRolli’s shows are so popular that he has a fanclub as a teenager? Why is it the audience is supposed to be invested in FizzaRolli’s self-esteem about being good enough when every external indicator in the episode shows Fizz as already being at the top of his game. The star of the circus, his own obsessive fanclub, winning Mammon’s clown pageant and being the “Host with the Most” for Ozzie’s shows a character who has maintained a very consistent rise to fame. Shoehorning in a singular and random nobody claiming Fizz is overrated after fawning all over him doesn’t warrant the tearful meltdown he has associated with his abilities, nor would it warrant the shaky sense of esteem he apparently keeps with him the entire rest of his life. Even in Oops, it's Blit’s insinuation of FizzaRolli being a sugar baby pet of Ozzie’s that upsets him, not any jab at Fizz’s abilities.

The alternative version that would have made all of this make sense would have been not questioning FizzaRolli’s ability to do, but the crushing weight of expectation to continue to succeed. The fear of having “peaked”. It’s why he can both be at the top and severely anxious. The knowledge that once you’re at the top, there is an awfully long way to fall would have made far more sense than Fizz questioning his actual ability to get to where he is. The reason Fizz can’t be obtuse to his popularity and fame is because of every other episode we have actively seen him revel in it. Just the episode prior he is so confident in his status that he shows off ostentatiously with a limo decked out in phallic shaped sparklers and even says that it's nice not to be a recognized celebrity after that display. It’s clear that being “good enough” is not a long-standing fear for Fizz’s character, but that it should have been the pressure to keep being “good enough”. This misinterpretation of what their own character’s weaknesses are, and said weakness being the plot, is the root of the obnoxious weed that has strangled the show from the beginning.

Once again, I also can’t help but point out the lack of information on Tilla is still a huge problem with this storyline. For a character whose existence is the inciting incident for the entire series:

As I said, this episode is merely the accumulation of every other episode’s main problems put front and center. It’s almost an exercise in self denial to limit the number of tangents that my arguments could go down.

1) Blitzo meets Stolas to “help” his mom, being the inciting incident for the entire series to this point.

2) Tilla’s implied death in the fire is why Blitzo lost his family as a whole

3) Tilla’s implied illness is why it makes implied sense that money was never used to make the circus better/safer so the fire never happened despite FizzaRolli being so popular that he has a rabid fanbase so he must be making the circus substantial money, which Cash even claims when he is a child.

Regardless, the insecurity in the flashback sequence of FizzaRolli and Blitz is fundamentally not the same insecurity as seen in the rest of the episode. Not only does it not make sense for the character, it makes no sense for the storyline up to this point.

Then there is the confusion that supersedes the plot: the timeline. It is nothing new for Medrano to lack a clear definition of her own narrative; linking The Circus with Loo Loo Land was one of the most egregious misunderstandings of her own story that generally derailed the escalation of the relationship between Stolas and Blitz and required the assassination plot to be unwritten. So this episode puts us back in that exact same position by having it be that somewhere between this episode’s flashback and the accident from Oops, FizzaRolli went through puberty, won the pageant, got prosthetics, went through rehab and instantaneously exploded in fame. It is a miserably scrambled mess of events that just necessitates the practice the writers obviously utilized to get to this point: Don’t think about it.

Fizz had to have won the Clown Pageant before he got his prosthetics because he has his prosthetics. It's clear they were designed and built by Asmodeus so he would have needed connections with a Sin before that. Fizz linking his romantic relationship to Ozzie with his business relationship with Mammon specifies how that connection was made. As such he needed to win the pageant BEFORE the accident, so regardless of Fizz entering the first ever pageant or a subsequent one, it doesn’t change the complications of the timeline.

Back to the story issues at hand, Asmodeus is very clear that he would prefer if FizzaRolli would not attend the Clown Pageant that year. The fact that he has Fizz’s foundation in hand to give insinuates that Ozzie was actively hiding the makeup from his partner to keep him from going in the first place. Regardless of how much one would prefer to read character into these actions, it makes it very clear that Ozzie is not impressed by Fizz’s participation and he tries everything imaginable to talk the jester out of it, just short of forcibly locking him in their home. FizzaRolli makes the claim in this scene that being in the pageant is for himself and not Ozzie’s opinion of him, only for that to not be the case come the emotional turn of the narrative. When the reason Fizz breaks away from Mammon isn’t because he has any confidence in himself, but because Ozzie would love him anyway contradicts the entire setup. It additionally weakens Fizz’s resolve and the meaning behind his rejection of Mammon by making it not at all about him and all about the relationship. It isn’t FizzaRolli overcoming a codependency, but merely reassigning the target of it from Mammon to Asmodeus. Which, in terms of the beginning, is his brokenness. He never fixes that metaphors, just that it is okay now which is never the case with codependency.

Then there is the pointless addition of Blitz’s to the story. Unlike the Theft subplot in The Circus where it felt like some kind of repercussion should have come from the event due to its inciting nature, Blitz’s presence in this episode is purely unnecessary. Which falls back into how Medrano and Spindlehorse fail to optimize time and animation (and thus funds) in the show.

There was absolutely a way to have this episode work with only the most minor of changes that would have overwhelmingly shifted the plot and made all these elements cohesive. This is why I state this is one of the worst episodes, but that this is probably the best Helluva Boss will ever be able to achieve moving forward. It isn’t a means of insulting Medrano and the team by calling this episode incompetent, it is merely stating a fact. The issue with this episode is that it is incompetent and this is why:

As previously stated, the episode needed to keep a clear focus on the nature of Fizzarolli’s self esteem issues. They put their money on the wrong horse in practice, but just a slight contextual shift would have rectified those problems. Still have the episode play out generally the same

I personally do not like how one dimensional the antagonists are in this episode. The clown competitors deserve to have some dignity and be defined as something other than “bitch”. I am pained every time a female character in this show gets boiled down to that one word. There is a major difference between a character being “bitchy” and a character just being a “bitch”. It's demeaning to women, makes them one dimensional, devalues feminine competitiveness and ambition to being a personality flaw. It is agonizing to witness it happening over and over again.

Have Fizzarolli become progressively overwhelmed by his need to be the best and seeing younger and fresh new talent threatening his status. Not necessarily because Mammon or Ozzie would replace him, but because of his fear of losing value in himself due to equating it with his professional popularity. Have Blitz be a voice of concern about FizzaRolli’s declining mental health. Play into that relationship they started building in Oops by having Blitz say something along the lines of “This isn’t you.” Go back to the line in Oops about how he demands to know if the sex thing is all Fizz is about anymore and show that, actually, no, it isn’t.

Stepping back a bit, it feels highly inappropriate to include a child in this episode when placed in context with the show. Especially a disabled child where this merely feels like a manipulation ploy by the creators that shocks the moment out of being a true emotional connection.

For one, the pageant and Fizzarolli’s performance prior to this scene has been rather sexual, additionally the sexualization of the entire performance starts with the designs for the girls in the competition and merely becomes more overt from there. It is obvious this isn’t a show for a child as young as the one depicted, maybe a teenager, but not a child. The argument can be made that it is Hell and whatever, the show’s sense of values oscillate based on what reaction the creators are seeking to elicit from the audience. The choice of having the character be deaf is simply the cherry on top of what the purpose of this character was: Brownie points. This entire sequence is solely to garner praise for representation and animation instead of playing any narrative role or being impactful to the characters. It isn't even a deep representation, but one that disappears once they feel they did enough to earn that adulation, utilizing a real disability real people live with as a means of creating attention and praise for themselves.

Instead, this scene should have focused on the poor kid who was thrown out. It could have been a group of kids who shouldn’t be there in the first place due to their age and lack of money, allowing the deaf child to remain in the story and have a more meaningful impact. Start the scene with FizzaRolli being obviously uncomfortable with his older fans and how this life he has been working to achieve and maintain actually isn’t what he wants. Having this scene after a moment where Blitzo tells Fizz, “You haven’t changed that much. I know you, and this isn’t you.” could really show how stressful Fizz’s job is because he doesn’t belong there.

Use the kids being tossed out or shooed away as the inciting factor for why Fizz gains his confidence.

The biggest problem with the deaf child scene is that the interaction lacks any depth. FizzaRolli doesn’t break through his own insecurities by engaging with the child, instead it is cut short and the scene is immediately forgotten with the comedic villain from the beginning interrupting the moment and the kid proceeds to vanish, no longer useful to the creators.

This should have been the moment when FizzaRolli had his emotional turn.

Remove the Ozzie scene in the back room entirely and have Fizz engage with the kids. Ask them their names and what their interests are. Treat them like people and not just props. Having Fizz be poor growing up himself, have them connect on that. Growing up in an adult world with nothing and being unwanted unless they are useful for some greedy or selfish adult. Have Fizz rekindle his genuine love for performing through the kids and wanting to give them the best performance, because he sees how he inspires them. Added with the (admittedly inconsistent) world building that Imps are socially regarded very lowly, it brings power to Fizz’s position and resolve to be the performer who would have inspired himself when he was a kid.

Following that scene, have Fizzarolli cut the Meet and Greet short and run back to his dressing room where Blitz is and have Fizz ask Blitz to perform with him like when they were younger, incorporating Blitz’s presence in the story more fully and allowing their relationship to progress from the previous episode. This allows Fizz’s song to feel empowering because it is coming from him and inside himself, not because his buff boyfriend is just behind the curtain to protect him. It would legitimately be Fizz risking something in the process of rediscovering himself and reclaiming his identity as well as reconcile Fizz’s past with his present to merge a new future.

This isn't even touching on the super public reveal of the one secret Ozzie and Fizz are supposed to be living under that has been proven not to matter seeing as how many demon nobility are dating the "lowest" of commoners in this universe. Additionally, people have already known about the Ozzie and Fizz relationship based on the newspaper, so, again, having the resolution being "true love" and the reason everything is okay at the end being about a romantic relationship just further reaffirms the implied belief that the creators think codependency is romance and relationships can replace a personality.

The point being that these changes don’t fundamentally alter anything from the episode while creating a stronger character for FizzaRolli and progressing the larger story. It would have also been a moment for Blitz to grow as well and set up the starting point of a turn for his character too. It could have rehabilitated the worst parts of Seeing Stars and additionally worked on Blitz’s self esteem issues vicariously, showing how bettering yourself can also improve those around you. It also wouldn't have taken much to make these changes in the writing and editing process because these problems are so glaringly obvious and simply required a couple more eyes on the script to make it something good.

So the only reason it failed to identify any of these weaknesses can only be chalked up to pure incompetence. And excuse me if I guild the lily for a moment, but if these slight changes were missed for how they would have benefitted the characters and elevated the story, then there is no reason to believe or hope the writing will ever get better.

Helluva Boss has peaked.

[breathlesslink]

Chapter 2 — Kimi

[chapter warnings: rude bitches, panic attack]

t.o.c ; << | >>

"Do I know my way around Hyrule? Do you not?" You gazed at the boy's pointed ears. "You're Hylian, you should know your way around. You're from here."

Link looked away from you. "I don't remember." He mumbled.

"What?"

"I don't remember." He said a little louder. "I, uh, got injured. And now I don't remember anything. I need to talk to Impa, but I don't know who that is or where they are here."

Impa. What a familiar name. She was the elder of Kakariko when you were still young, and you supposed by the sound of it she was still kicking. Good for her.

"I might be able to show you to her, but that's as far as my knowledge goes." You smiled sheepishly. "I don't know Hyrule either, except for Gerudo Desert. The rest I've only seen through maps."

Link raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you a traveler?"

"This is only my first week of it. I left on my twentieth birthday a few days ago." You shook your head, not wanting to delve further into why you didn't know anything about Hyrule and grabbed Link's wrist. "Come on, let's go see Impa. I think I remember where she stays.”

If the elder Sheikah remembered you, she didn't show it. Instead, she focused on the man in front of you, ushering you upstairs with a girl named Paya as quickly as you had entered.

Paya was around the same age as you, yet seemed completely different. She was nearly spastic, moving around her room with no purpose other than to fidget. She answered your attempts at conversation with one-word answers, only reciprocating when she wanted to turn it towards the stranger downstairs.

"Link, you said his name is? Is he your boyfriend?"

At the question, you awkwardly laughed. "Him? No, I just met him not too long ago and he asked me to bring him here."

"Oh," Paya sounded relieved. Your tight smile turned into a real one as you sensed a wonderful opportunity.

"Yeah, he's real cute, isn't he?" You subtly tried to tease, "He might be into you. I saw him looking our way when we were leaving."

Paya turned a bright red, matching the accents of her outfit nearly perfectly. "R-really?!" Her voice raised a few notches, "I- there's no way! Maybe he was looking at you, you're gorgeous!"

"I'm nothing like you," You made a face, slightly playing it up to see how far this would go while simultaneously rejecting the compliment, "If there's any gal Link might be into, it's you."

Paya seemed to swoon at the thought, but before she could respond Impa's voice called you both down from her room. Link stood where you left him, but this time with a different wardrobe. He had a bright blue tunic on, matching his eyes nearly perfectly.

You weren't the only one who noticed, though, as you noticed the red on Paya's face returning.

Link thanked Impa and glanced at you— a silent way of saying "let's go". You followed him out and began your trek back to the hotel.

"What did she say?"

"She said that I could maybe get my memories back by going to places that I have pictures of."

"Pictures? Do you have a camera or something?"

"Or something." Link reached for his belt and grabbed some device— you recognized it as a Sheikah Slate, old technology you learned about while scouring the poor excuse of a library in the Yiga hideout. They weren't the smartest, so books were uncommon. "This isn't mine, it's an old friend's. She has these pictures of places we've apparently gone together, but I have to go to Hateno to get it fixed."

Together? Were they together? Goddess, that would suck if Link had a girlfriend he didn't even remember. Poor chick.

"So you're going to go to these places and just... what? Hope for the best?"

Link shrugged. "If I have the time, yeah. I have more important things to do right now."

"Like?"

Link didn't answer, instead opening the door to the Inn and letting you in first. He went to his bed and sat down, pulling out the slate and swiping through it. A while passed and Link continued to just stare at the screen, brows furrowed in what was probably some attempt at remembering his past.

"You're gonna get a headache from looking at that."

"I already have one."

You stood up and went over to his bed, slipping the slate out of his hands and turning it towards yourself. "Why is the map blank?"

"I have to go to certain towers to get a map of each region."

"Ohh, those weird super tall glowy things?" You grinned like a child in a candy shop when Link nodded, "They just showed up a little bit ago. What, were they made specifically for you?"

"Kind of? And those shrines are too. I just wish I knew where to go and where I am."

"Goddess, you must be mighty special for a bunch of ancient technology to just work for you." You joked.

Link looked at you with a look you didn't really recognize. "You said you just started traveling. Do you have a paper map?"

"I do." You turned and dug into your bag, pulling it out and unrolling it in between you. You also grabbed a pen, just in case. "Where do you need to go next?"

"According to Impa, first Hateno. Then Zora's Domain, Eldin, Rito Village, and Gerudo in no specific order."

"Hm," You looked at the map, "That order seems to be the most practical— starting close and then traveling to the further ones. It just works out that Hateno is first on our way, I need to go there too."

At that, Link paused. "Our way?"

"Yeah, I'm coming with you. I need to go to those places too, so it works."

"Uh, absolutely not." Link shook his head and took the pen from your hand, "My journey is way too dangerous for you."

"What?" You grabbed the pen back, "We have the same journey— we're going to the same places. How is that too dangerous? If anything, it would be safer to travel together."

"I just wouldn't be able to protect myself and someone else, you know?"

"Who said I needed you to protect me?" You were a little offended. Was this because you were a woman? "I can handle myself."

Link raised an eyebrow as if to challenge that. "Y/N-"

"Listen, you don't remember anything, right? You need someone who at least knows a little bit. I might not have actually traveled but I read books and know people who do. I know the monsters and the cultures of the regions and all that shit. You need that. Let me come along and help. I'll stay out of whatever shit you have to do."

Link seemed to think about it for a moment and then sighed. "Fine."

You cheered and looked back down at the map, marking the locations you needed to go to— the main towns in every region, stables, smaller villages, and Hateno itself. "First, Hateno. Then, to East Necluda to Zora's Domain."

"Why do you need to go to Hateno so badly?"

You looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. "If I tell you my mission, you have to tell me yours."

"...We'll see."

"My little sister lives there. I haven't seen her in four years, so I need to visit. As for the rest of Hyrule, I'm looking for my brother. We all got separated." Link looked as if he was going to ask questions, so you interrupted. "You?"

"I have to tame the Divine Beasts."

You couldn't contain the loud laugh that erupted from your throat. "I'm sorry- what? Ganon controls those beasts, nobody can tame them except for the Cham...pions..."

You trailed off, suddenly putting two and two together.

Link's name was familiar to you. You'd heard it numerous times.

The Hylian Champion, destined to destroy Ganon with the Sword that Sealed the Darkness.

The Yiga drilled it into your head that he was a bad guy. You didn't believe them when they said he'd return, and yet you sat in front of him, talking as if he was a long-lost friend.

"I thought the Champions died 100 years ago."

"They did. I almost did, but I was put into a healing shrine on the Great Plateau. I woke up about a week ago. No memories, nothing. Just the Sheikah Slate and the ghost of the King telling me what I have to do."

"That's— wow. That's a shocker." You didn't know what to say. The traumatized part of you was conflicted— riddled with guilt. Guilt for betraying the organization you grew up brainwashed into, but also guilt because this guy seemed like a great dude. And yet you were trained to kill people like him. Or more specifically, just him. "So what if I just joined you on this little adventure and didn't fight the Beasts with you? Would you feel better then?"

"I definitely would."

"Deal."

"Deal." Link held out his hand and you grabbed it, feeling the rough callouses on his palm and the warmth of his skin that seemed to seep into your own. You were both definitely holding this handshake for too long.

You coughed awkwardly and pulled your hand away, rolling the map back up and tucking it into your bag before sitting in your own bed. "Wake me up when you're ready to leave. Goodnight, Link."

"Goodnight, Y/N."

———

"This is fucking stupid."

"You're fucking stupid. Drop the attitude or I'm leaving your ass."

"You're the one who woke me up at 5am, Link! You can't be mad at me for that when we didn't go to bed until 1."

"If you're gonna adventure, you gotta get used to running on little sleep. From here on out, it's tough."

You huffed and crossed your arms, focusing on Taz's mane as Link rode his own horse beside you. "Shit sucks."

"Imagine having the fate of Hyrule on your shoulders along with that."

You cut your eyes at him. "I liked you better when you were quiet."

At that, Link let out a little laugh. It was the first time you'd heard him laugh and it was a pretty sound. You smiled back, ignoring the slight tinge of heat in your cheeks.

"Thanks for this, by the way. Letting me tag along and all."

Link didn't look at you, choosing instead to focus on the road ahead. "It's no worries, really. I enjoy the company. I've already figured out how lonely traveling gets, so it's nice to have someone to keep me away from my thoughts for a while." He let out a dry laugh.

"It's gotta be tough-- being destined to save humanity. I'm glad I can help in any way.”

Link finally looked up at you and flashed a wide smile, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Hateno is a few more hours. How about we take a break here for lunch?"

You nodded and pulled Taz off of the road into a large patch of grass, watching as Link pulled an axe out of an extra weapon holder on Epona and started going towards a patch of trees a few yards away. Patting Taz's nose, you pulled out a pot and some vegetables you had bought in Kakariko and met Link, starting a fire and placing the food inside to cook. After a while, you were able to pour the soup into two bowls and you began eating.

"I didn't know you knew how to cook." Link hummed, stuffing his face with the veggie cream soup you had made.

"You don't know a lot about me in general," You joked, "but I've known for a while. I guess I've become good since you just finished your second bowl."

"Super good!" Link put his bowl in his lap, seemingly finished, and looked at you. "So tell me about you."

You raised an eyebrow, pausing from your soup. "What?"

"You said I don't know a lot about you, and you're right. So tell me more. I think I have a right to know who I'm traveling with."

You internally cringed, wondering what all you could give away without letting Link know the truth. You know, the truth that you were actually raised by an organization created almost specifically to kill him.

"My mom was Sheikah and my dad was a regular Hylian, so I grew up in Kakariko with my brother and sister. We, uh, got kidnapped and taken away for a while. Eventually, we escaped and I ended up in Gerudo Town and I didn't know where my siblings were. As you know, I found out my little sister is in Hateno. So now I'm here, traveling and looking for them." You shrugged, feigning nonchalance as Link raised an eyebrow.

"You glossed over the kidnapping pretty quickly. That's scary."

"It was, but they kind of just kept us there. No clue why." You looked down at your soup, finding both it and talking about yourself unappetizing. "What about you? Do you remember anything from before?"

Link shook his head. "Nothing. Impa said to go back to her after I've remembered something, but there's nothing so far. I was Princess Zelda's knight, and I apparently failed at defeating Ganon."

"Yeah, no shit." You snorted. "This time will be different, though."

Link glanced at you with a face you couldn't describe. "I hope so." He stood up suddenly, taking the bowl and putting it back in Epona's pouch. "Impa said something about there being someone in Hateno who could help fix my Sheikah Slate. Let's go so we can get there before sundown."

———

"Halt! Who goes there!"

You skidded your horse to a stop, Taz's hooves digging into the wet dirt road beneath you. Link stopped shortly after, eyes wide at the pitchfork being brandished in front of the both of you.”

"Uh, I'm Y/N. That's Link." You backed Taz up a bit, not trusting this random short man outside of the village. "We're travelers."

"Travelers, eh?" The man looked you up and down with a scrutinizing gaze. You felt like shrinking under it. "Hylian?"

"Yes?"

He lowered his pitchfork, but not by much. "General Store is right ahead, same with the Inn. Don't go nowhere else causing trouble in my town. I'm sworn to protect this place with my life."

Link raised an eyebrow at the man. "Thank you, uh,"

"Thadd."

"Right. Thadd." You interrupted, "Could you tell us where to find a girl named—"

"You're askin' the wrong man. I ain't one for giving tours."

"We're not asking for a tour, I just need to find Kimi-"

"If you want a tour, go talk to Seldon right at the boutique. He's real nice."

"I— okay." You resisted rolling your eyes, "Thank you."

You continued forward, sharing a look with Link before finding the boutique and a smiling man out front. He waves you both over, "Hello there! My name is Seldon, care for a tour of our wonderful town?"

"Uh- we're just looking for one thing." You replied, feeling a little bad to deny his offer.

"Wh- so no tour?" Seldon sighed loudly, his shoulders dropping in disappointment. "What can I point you to?"

"Do you know where a little girl named Kimi lives?"

Seldon raised an eyebrow. "Kimi? She's too young to be having random visitors without her parents knowledge—"

"I'm her sister. Before she came here. She somehow found me and I just want to see her." You pleaded.

Seldon seemed to think for a second, then sighed. "Alright, but if it turns out you're lying Thadd's gonna have at you both."

Without waiting for a reply, Seldon turned his back to you both and walked up the main road of Hateno towards a small cluster of houses near the top. After leading you a few doors down, he stopped at one with a bright red door and gave it a knock, only stepping back once it opened to reveal a woman a bit older than you.

"Can I help you?"

"Uh yes," Your heart was pounding, "A little bit ago, I started getting letters from my little sister, who you took in—“

"Y/N? Is that you?"

A meek voice came from behind the lady, and then out peeked a small head of hair. Suddenly, the girl grinned widely and pushed past the woman, running to you with her arms wide. "Y/N!"

You smiled as well and crouched down, engulfing her in a tight hug, fighting to keep tears back.

"Kimi..." You pulled back and held her shoulders, "You've gotten so big!"

Kimi giggled and fiddled with the edge of her dress before gasping and turning to the older woman. "Mom! This is my big sister, Y/N! She finally came!"

"That's wonderful." The woman smiled. "I'm Ameil, and my husband— who'll be out in a sec— is Laslow! Kimi has said so much about you. Come in!"

You smiled at Ameil and stood to walk in when your wrist was grabbed by a gloved hand. You turned back to the owner— Link— and raised an eyebrow.

"That research lab up there on the hill— Impa said I needed to go there."

"What do you want me to do about that?"

Link snorted, "Nothing. I want you to catch up with your sister, so I'm going to head up there and see who I can talk to about fixing my Sheikah Slate. I'll be back soon."

"Oh, okay." You smiled at him, "Be careful, it looks like it's going to rain soon. I don't want you getting sick."

"Yes ma'am." Link fake-saluted and turned away, heading towards the research lab.

You, on the other hand, followed Kimi and Ameil inside. Sitting in one of the living room couches was who you assumed was Laslow. Ameil joined him on the couch while you and Kimi sat on one across from them.

Ameil continued to smile— it was getting a little strange at this point, but you shrugged it off— while Laslow put down his book and paid attention to you.

"So, Y/N, we've heard a lot about you." Laslow began, "But one thing we've never understood is how she came into our care in the first place. One minute Ameil and I are traveling the Taobab Grasslands, next we're picking up a little girl unconscious under a tree and taking her home. How did that come to be?"

Your breath caught in your throat and the world began to spin, but you tried not to show it.

They really went in for a first meeting, didn't they?

"Honestly," You steeled your voice and looked down at Kimi in a silent way of saying 'I will not tell'. "There was an accident. Kimi, our brother, and I were in Gerudo when a sandstorm hit— that Divine Beast is no joke— and we got separated. I couldn't find them, so I went to Gerudo Town and stayed, trying to find them. It took four years for Kimi to finally reach me. How did you find me, by the way?"

At your redirection of the topic, Kimi perked up. "At first, I just asked every traveler who came into Hateno if they knew you! None of them did, but a Rito suggested that I send a letter to every town asking about you and describing you, and if they found you then you would write back! And you did!"

"I did." You laughed, "I told you I'd always be there for you, I keep my word."

Kimi threw her arms around you once again and you felt a shift in the atmosphere. You looked up from your little sister to see Ameil, still sitting in the same spot, still smiling. She folded her hands in her lap and took a deep breath.

"I just think it's rather irresponsible for you to have your younger siblings out in the harsh elements like that in the first place." Ameil shook her head in disapproval. "It's common sense for sandstorms to happen in Gerudo."

You tried not to roll your eyes and reminded yourself that Ameil didn't know the truth— you might have to be the bad guy and take blame that doesn't even exist to save your identities. "We didn't have much of a choice. I can't go into all of it but—"

"But what? What could you have possibly put little Kimi through that required you to trek through potentially deadly weather and risk her life? Do tell."

Ameil was obviously pushing your buttons, trying to reveal things that you were sure she had pushed Kimi about before. "I can't."

Ameil threw her hands in the air. "I am Kimi's mother. I have a right to know what goes on."

You opened your mouth to respond, but Kimi beat you to it.

"Y/N, are you going to look for Hiro next?"

"Yes!" You were relieved, "Have you heard from him?"

Kimi's face dropped. "No, but I want to come with you-"

"Absolutely NOT." Ameil interrupted. "You are not going on some dangerous trip with strangers.”

"But Y/N is my sister. My REAL sister. You're not even my real parents!"

Ameil gasped, and Laslow sat up and practically growled, "Go to your room!"

Kimi stood up and ran to her room, slamming it hard enough to make the house shake. You could only watch as she left, the atmosphere getting even more uncomfortable in her absence. You didn't want to look back at Ameil and Laslow, but when you did Ameil was already looking at you with a look you couldn't recognize.

"You do see where we're coming from, right?" She asked gently, as if you were some toddler who needed talking down to. "Our sweet Kimi is our pride and joy. We can't possibly let her go back into the hands of the person who lost her. Who knows, she could go missing a second time. We don't quite see you as a responsible big sister. After all, why did it take so long for you to come find her?"

Condescending. That was the look.

At Ameil's words, you realized her feelings towards you. Ameil hated you. She looked down on you— blamed you for "abandoning" Kimi. But she doesn't know the truth.

How you risked your life for your siblings.

How you turned and faced the Yiga Clan head-on to give them enough time to escape and survive, even if you didn't.

How you fed them, defended them, took care of them while you were all imprisoned in the desert, working every day to get stronger and stronger to one day escape and create a better life for Hiro and Kimi.

You stood up and walked to the door, ignoring Ameil's fake protests and questions about why you were leaving, and slammed the door hard enough to shake the house once more. Tears blurred your vision as you walked down path, heading nowhere in particular except away from that house, and in your rush you accidentally bumped into a body.

"Goddess," You wiped your face, "I'm sorry-“

"Y/N, what happened?"

Link's voice sent a wave of comfort over you, and his hands gripping your shoulders gave you enough stability to collapse, tears streaming down your face more as your knees hit the ground.

Link fell to his own knees in front of you, quickly pressing you into his chest and gently shushing you, waiting until your sobs ceased before talking.

"What happened?"

"They-" Deep breath. "They blamed m-me for Kimi going missing. And my brother. And-and they said I wasn't a good sister, and I know that I'm not— who leaves their siblings for four years? I couldn't help it—"

You started to cry again, coughing out your words and wheezing in breaths in between. Your hands trembled, yet you couldn't stop it. Eventually it spread to the rest of your body, shaking like a leaf in an emotional storm. It was hard to focus on one thing when everything crowded in your vision and overwhelmed your senses.

Breathe in. You couldn't.

Breathe out. No.

In. Please.

Out. You can't.

Was this it? Was this the end? Just like that?—

"Y/N!"

Link.

He's still holding you.

His hand is laid atop your head, rubbing soothing circles into your hair. Your face is in the crook of his neck, finally able to breathe. His smell was comforting. His other arm wrapped itself around your torso, holding you close to his chest. When did he pull you onto his lap?

"It's okay. You're okay. Is Kimi upset with you?"

"No," Words struggled to escape, "Just her parents."

"Then who cares? You still have your sister. She still loves you."

You stayed quiet for a second, contemplating. Link was right— you still had Kimi. Ameil and Laslow were the issue. You just had to somehow prove that you were responsible enough to be around Kimi again. But how?

Find Hiro. Reunite your family.

Your muscles unclenched, and you slouched into Link's warmth a bit more. In your thoughts, he had begun to rock you gently and laid his cheek upon your head.

"Yeah." You yawned.

"C'mon, silly." Link shifted and stood you both up. "Let's go to the inn and rest, then. We'll figure out the next step tomorrow when we're fully rested."

"Right."

[dazais-guardian-angel]

Okay, a good amount of time has passed, and after having seen this post by @weretiger-be-my-horse , I've been turning it over and over in my brain going absolutely feral over this concept. I need to expand upon my thoughts on this idea and all the evidence there is pointing towards it, whether that be actual tangible things, or purely strong vibes I have.

First of all, full disclaimer: I did not like the season 5 finale, and how it wrapped up the DoA arc. To say that I "disliked" it is putting it extremely lightly, in fact -- I absolutely hated it, and I am still, to a degree, in disbelief that I actually even watched those 24 minutes with my own two eyes, and that it somehow wasn't a complete fever dream. While I'm not going to go in long-winded detail into all the ways that I feel like the finale almost completely bastardized all of its featured characters and destroyed any and all buildup we've had going on in this arc for 50 some chapters now, because that's not the main point of this post, I will not make any attempt to hide the fact that the theory-crafting I'm about to pose here is partly influenced and prompted by how much I hated the finale, and how much I desperately hope that it will not end up being manga canon. Therefore, if you enjoyed the finale — and that's fine! — and don't want to read any negativity about it, then I would not recommend reading any further (I mean, you've probably already left by this point, which is fair lol), While obviously it's important that I be as objective and unbiased as possible when explaining my thoughts, some of my negative feelings about the writing will be a part of this analysis, even if this isn't going to be a full-blown rant. Just know that if you proceed.

With that out of the way, let me continue.

So. In the aforementioned post, the theory presented is that the anime may be operating on an alternate timeline, and that this will become evident once we read the upcoming October chapter, wherein things will go completely differently post-chapter 110 than they do in the final episode — probably for the worse, with the s5 finale intending to lull us into a false sense of security and make us assume that everything in the manga arc finale will wrap up as smoothly and consequence-freely(? lol) as it did in the anime one. It also suggests that the Fukuchi we see at the very end that sskk are fighting came from the manga timeline, where he won, and that he used the Book to jump to a timeline where he lost, the anime one, proven by the fact that this Fukuchi is wearing a mask with the same design on it as the mask Fukuchi is wearing on the chapter 110 DoA color spread/title page.

First of all, I want to note the fact that it's not just the mask design that's the same: the entire outfit is roughly more or less the same as well. It's not completely 1-to-1, because the anime can never fully match the intricacies of Harukawa's beautiful outfit designs, and the Fukuchi in this scene has the kimono half-off because of the... super saiyan mode he's in, but most all of the main pieces of clothing are there. Any small inaccuracies could also be attributed to the fact that Harukawa probably didn't have this finalized art ready back when this episode was being made, so the animators wouldn't have had the complete design to work off of. But in general, because it's all so similar, I think we can quite confidently say that the ending episode Fukuchi is meant to be the one from this manga art.

Also, people have pointed this out, but it's worth mentioning that the mask Asagiri wore at Anime Expo in July was referencing this Fukuchi. It's not a crucial detail, but it just proves more that Asagiri is a gigantic fucking troll, and that he clearly wanted to draw attention to this Fukuchi design. It's important. He describes the mask here as made in the motif of an ellipses inside a speech bubble... could that perhaps be referencing meta aspects, like the Book?

Next, I want to talk about the even bigger elephant in the room, which to me is the most damning and undeniable piece of evidence there is of the anime operating on a completely separate timeline from the manga:

This Fucking Hand™️

As we all know, in the anime, Fyodor injures his hand when the password input device blows up, and as we all know, this does not happen in the manga. In the last episode, Dazai claims that the final nail in the coffin of his impromptu plan to kill Fyodor relied on this hand injury: because Fyodor couldn't pilot his escape helicopter himself, he would ask one of his Meursault vampires to do it for him, unaware that Bram and thus this vampire was now on the ADA's side, and said vampire could kill him while his guard was down.

Ignoring how utterly stupid and contrived this plan is when you stop and think about it for more than two seconds, the fact of the matter is that something that initially seemed like nothing more than an odd but inconsequential anime original addition ended up snowballing into being the entire reason one of the big bads was brought down. If Fyodor hadn't hurt his hand, he wouldn't have needed another pilot, and so the traitor vampire wouldn't have had an opportunity to get near him and kill him without him expecting it even though said vampire was presumably with him as they were leaving Meursault, and was probably already a traitor by then, so there was plenty opportunity for him to still die. not to mention by Chuuya's hands at literally any time he wanted to, because Chuuya was coherent the whole time. Also there's absolutely no way Dazai could have known exactly what Ranpo would do, no matter how smart he is and how much he trusts him. idk it's fucking dumb, just roll with it. Therefore, putting aside all other variables for now, we can conclude that, on the most basic level, this signifies that no hand wound = no death.

And let me tell you, this hand wound bothers me. It really, really does. Because they focus on it a LOT — they go out of their way to draw attention to it MULTIPLE TIMES, from the moment it first happens to the end of the season. Fyodor even talks about it to himself, about Dazai being able to cause him tangible, visible, bodily harm, (something that, again, as far as we've seen, has never happened in the manga). Hell, even after Fyodor's death, they're still drawing attention to it, because his right arm is all of him that survives, and Dazai picks it up and gives it to Nikolai to do his hilarious sad little gay fondling of it played completely straight even though there's nothing straight going on here at all! It's like it's a big red flashing sign at all times going "you see this injured hand? This is important. Are you picking up that it's important? Are you taking note of it?" Why is that? Obviously, it serves to give us the lore crumbs about Fyodor and "that man", but that's hardly the main, much more glaring reason, as I've already mentioned.

Fyodor doesn't hurt his hand in the manga. Fyodor won't die here in the manga. I am so dead serious by this point about this, and it's not just simply the fact that this was absolutely not at all the time for him to die, or the fact that his hand is the reason for his death in the anime in and of itself, but how much EMPHASIS they place on this, and on the hand in general. What would be the point of adding something like this, if it's not meant to alert us to the fact that it has a major impact on how the story plays out? We all know Bones: they struggle to get right and include everything that's already there in the source material; they would never go out of their way to add something this noteworthy if there wasn't a very good reason for it, if it wasn't absolutely necessary. I've seen a few people bring up the fact that Fyodor gets shot in the shoulder by Sigma and that that could lead to the same outcome in the manga, but I disagree: although he has blood on his shoulder in the manga, it seems like the bullet just grazed the top of it, because his arm and hand appears completely functional afterwards (not hanging limp by his side or anything). But that doesn't even matter, because this isn't even about the semantics/logistics of how the hand wound caused Fyodor's death because again, it's a stupid outcome, or what could serve as a substitute in the manga — thematically, this is a textbook example of the butterfly effect. Countless parallel universes exist within this series, ones where even the most minute differences lead to a majorly different outcome: this just happens to be one of them. There's no reason to think it isn't, and there's no reason to not think that the anime wants us to clue into the fact that things only went as smoothly as they did on the Meursault side because of this wound; in other words, that things will go very differently in the manga thanks to the absence of said wound. They wouldn't have added it in the first place and put such clearly deliberate emphasis on it otherwise.

Things are going to happen very differently in the manga, at least when it comes to the Meursault crew (but then, if you assume that, you then naturally assume it all will be very different). This is the only conclusion one can come to with the presentation of this anime-only wound, combined with the fact that parallel universes are a very real thing in BSD.

I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent, so bear with me. I play a lot of visual novels, and although such concepts aren't really as original now as they were a while ago, some of my favorite and some of the very best VNs out there are the ones that break the fourth wall and make the visual novel branching route format directly intertwined with the story: you know, the ones where the characters go "if only I had done things differently, maybe everything would have turned out better...!" in a wink wink nudge nudge moment, and the ones where the characters are aware of the different timelines, even, or even have the ability to gain information from their selves in said alternate timelines to influence events in their current one (I'm intentionally not naming the games I'm thinking of for the sake of spoilers, but if you know, you know lmao). It gets very meta in this regard, and this is how I started viewing BSD through the lens of ever since I first learned about Beast: like a visual novel with many branching routes, and only a few routes that feel entirely "right".

When I first read Dazai's Entrance Exam, I was struck by how unnerving the ending sequence in the abandoned hospital felt. Obviously, Kunikida's internal struggle over Sasaki's actions and motives is him still desperately clinging to his ideal world that does not exist, but the specific type of phrases he uses — "who is wrong?" "[who is] the cause of all this?" "there has to be an ideal world" "there has to be something, I'm sure of it" "There must have been something we could have done!" — and the framing of the scene in general, is eerily reminiscent of a bad ending in a visual novel, to me. There's a haunting, looming, bleak sense that a different outcome could have been achieved, if different decisions had been made, or if things outside of anyone's control had been different... and we know that this is true, because in Beast alone, Kunikida never goes through the Azure Messenger incident, because Dazai doesn't have his entrance exam. Hell, you could even consider the anime's version of the Azure Messenger arc an alternate timeline in of itself, if you really wanted to, long before we even arrive at season 5.

When it comes to Beast, this timeline has almost the opposite feeling of what I described above, that I've also encountered in visual novels: the idea of a "good route" or "good ending" that still doesn't feel quite earned, or as perfect as one would expect. Beast is presented as the "ideal" timeline purely for one sole reason: Oda is alive. It is the only timeline where he's alive, and keeping Oda alive is the ultimate goal Dazai wants to achieve, the only reason this timeline exists; therefore, disregarding all else, Beast should be the best timeline, because Oda's death is the greatest devastation in the series to date. We all want him to live, so why wouldn't the timeline where he does be the best one? And yet... of course, it isn't. Dazai is alone, and steeped in darkness and loneliness without Oda, and dies by the end of the story for Oda's continued living. Atsushi has Kyouka still, but he's suffering and more traumatized, and unable to heal while stuck in the mafia, and neither can Kyouka. Akutagawa is living a much better life in the ADA... but without his sister, and without what he has from his bond with Atsushi in canon, that isn't replicated in Beast. And Oda... Oda is alive, and he has his children and his novel, but there is a feeling that he is aimless, that something in his life is missing. He has everything he ever wanted, but all that means nothing without what he truly needs: Dazai, and his time with Dazai and Ango at the bar. In this way, things going well and us getting what we want — in this case, Oda living — goes against how it's supposed to be, the natural order, which is why it feels so hollow. In the specific visual novel I'm thinking of here as a comparison (again, shoutout if you know), there's an alternate ending that involves you inputting information you gain at the end of the game very early on in the game, wherein the protagonist now has memories of the future and is able to bypass and prevent all of the events that take place normally. This means that people who die or are hurt somehow in general are saved from that fate, and nothing bad ever occurs; everything wraps up neatly and nicely... but again, there's an undeniable, unsettling feeling of emptiness, of a victory that rings hollow, because what's the point if everything is simply handed to you easily, where's the sense of accomplishment, without any struggles to achieve said victories, or any growth along the way? How can it feel earned if one doesn't have to, in Dazai's words, "scream within the storm of uncertainty, and run with flowing blood"?

You can probably already see where I'm going with this.

This finale feels weird. Really, really weird. It feels too cheap, too simple, too unsatisfying. So much so, in fact, that for almost the entire runtime, as I was bombarded with resolution upon resolution one after another, I kept thinking "There's no way this can be real. Where's the catch? When is the "gotcha!" moment gonna happen? The "it was all a dream" reveal?". And this isn't just because I hated the writing, and that it really did feel like a fever dream watching fanfic levels of bad (actually, that's an insult to fanfic writers, tbh; they could do better) — no, it genuinely feels so incredibly fake. Even upon rewatching it and already knowing what happens, my brain still naturally keeps expecting some kinda of "sike, you THOUGHT!" moment to suddenly appear. It just.... feels "too good to be true". Dazai and Chuuya come out unscathed, and it's revealed that they were never in any real danger to begin with. Fyodor, one of our biggest threats, is dealt with supposedly for good (I say "supposedly" only because of the Jesus line, but if anything imo, I think that's just a hint that this won't be the canon ending in the manga, so in a sense he's going to "come back to life"), and Nikolai seems somewhat at peace with his death. The other biggest threat, Fukuchi, is also dealt with, and he and Fukuzawa get their final moment together of closure. Yes, Sigma is left in Meursault don't even get me started on how angry this alone makes me, and Fukuzawa loses Fukuchi, but overall, everything is portrayed in a positive light, and any negatives or losses are quickly glossed over. Everything is tied up nicely, neatly, and smoothly. ...And that is exactly what makes it feel so wrong, and hard to trust in.

I'm not sure if this will make sense, but to me, the finale is so incredibly poorly written that it almost feels.... intentional. It's so bad to the point of feeling self-aware in how bad it is, how unrealistically happy and convenient an ending it is. It had to end this neatly in order to rush to wrap up this arc for the season finale and not leave the last episode on a cliffhanger — which imo is chiefly the main reason it turned out this way, and, if this whole theory is true, Asagiri just used it to his advantage — and I'm not saying this was probably an effect Bones had in mind intentionally, I'm sure they just threw shit at the wall and went with whatever stuck, maaaaybe with some suggestions/approval from Asagiri, but the result is that you have a conclusion that contradicts so much of what was set up before and goes against so many character arcs, making some characters so out of character and even regressing in their development Dazai. I'm talking about Dazai abandoning Sigma, because he would never; hashtag #NOTMYDAZAI. Also Nikolai, Nikolai for most of that is so ooc I can't even begin to describe it oh my god. Everyone is OOC to a degree though lmao, and opens so many plot holes, to the point that it's impossible not to watch all that and get the feeling that it is subtly saying to you "did you really think it could be this easy? It feels wrong, doesn't it? It doesn't feel satisfying. It feels unearned." I find it incredibly interesting and suspicious in particular that they confirmed multiple theories people had about soukoku in Meursault: that Chuuya slowed the elevator's fall so that Dazai wouldn't die from it, that Chuuya slowed down the bullet so that it only penetrated Dazai's skin and not his skull, and that the both of them used Fyodor's camera angle to their advantage because they knew he wouldn't be able to see certain things from his view. I'm not saying that Asagiri trawled BSD twitter and tumblr after those chapters dropped for the most popular theories before the final episode was made lmao, there was no time for that (imagine though lol—), but I do think it's highly likely that he already had in mind exactly what theories would be made about these parts (I mean, the evidence for the gun scene was all there), and that Dazai rattling them off in his long monologue to Fyodor at the end is essentially him speaking to the audience and going "yeah, that's what you would predict, right? Those are the clichés, after all", much like him suggesting earlier that he can maybe bring Chuuya back to himself with a few moving words and the power of friendship, and Fyodor using the split personalities trope to fool Sigma. We expect these tropes to be true. Of course we'd fall for them, as Fyodor tells Sigma, especially if the evidence is right there. But Asagiri himself has explicitly said that he likes doing the opposite of what people expect. And so just because people predicted correctly with the three things I mentioned in this timeline... doesn't mean they'll be true in the manga's. Things happened how we wanted and expected it to, and everything turned out happily. So we can relax now, right? Everything will work out just as easily in the manga, right? Or... is the reason most of this finale feels so fake and unsettling and unsatisfying because it's meant to lull us into a false sense of security before all our heroes lose in the manga? Because deep down, we don't want an ending that's this simple, because we'd rather have a conclusion where our characters have struggled more and grown more and come out the better for it, and we know it?

After rewatching the episode a lot, and watching some other videos, and doing a lot of thinking, I am pretty confident in suspecting that the only part of this finale that is actually from manga canon, aside from Aya jumping off the building of course, is Fyodor and Nikolai's exchange after Fyodor leaves Meursault — specifically, them talking about Fyodor leaving Sigma behind, and their "new game" and Nikolai being excited at the prospect of it. This little conversation actually feels in character for them, and it's easy to tell this when contrasting it with everything that happens immediately after, wherein Fyodor is fatally stabbed, and Nikolai, completely at odds with what he was just talking about, just... stands there and watches Fyodor die while Dazai monologues lmao. I'm not sure if the helicopter is still a factor, but I would bet good money on Fyolai getting out of Meursault being manga canon, and that Dazai and Chuuya getting out as well and killing Fyodor + everything with FukuFuku, is part of the anime original ending, in order to wrap up everything positively. It makes much more sense if you think about, in reality (aka in the manga), Dazai and Chuuya still being left behind in Meursault (where they can eventually try to get Sigma), because none of it was an act and things did not go according to plan, and Fukuchi having an entirely different goal that doesn't feel so stupid and contradictory to his character, and Fukuzawa possibly dying — everyone seemingly loses, with Aya still being the last hope, perhaps by awakening her ability like we all speculated.

There's a youtuber I watch who covers BSD in-depth, despite being an anime-only (she reads the respective manga content after each season, though). Going into this finale, she knew about the fact that the anime had overtaken the manga, though she didn't know where the cutoff point was; despite that, however, she made predictions about what was from the manga so far and what was anime original, and it was almost entirely spot-on, based mostly on what she basically described as "anime original dialogue." She talked about how you can always tell when dialogue is veering into the realm of anime-original, because the sentences are very short, choppy, and slightly out of character, but generic enough to not be TOO out of character, and so that anyone can easily write said lines, even if they're not extremely familiar with the character like the original author would be. And when I heard this explanation, everything clicked — because so much of this finale has dialogue like that. The Fyolai scenes just feel peppered with it, around the lines I mentioned earlier, the Dazai dialogue does too, and ESPECIALLY shit at the end like Fukuchi and Fukuzawa exchanging the cliche death lines to end all death lines: "Are you there? I'm a little tired." "Rest up." That just isn't Bungou Stray Dogs. That isn't Asagiri. BSD is cheesy at times, yes, but it isn't like this; it's smarter. The dialogue is smarter, the explanations/plot twists are smarter, Asagiri is smarter, and the aforementioned youtuber I watched agreed. She's a pretty casual fan of the series, so if even she could pick up on these things, I think it speaks volumes.

I mentioned this briefly earlier, but this theory makes sense if you consider that this situation probably came about because of Bones wanting two seasons back-to-back when they did, and this arc being as long as it is. Season 3 aired in 2019, and I imagine Bones would have wanted season 4 in 2020, and might have then been willing to wait a bit longer for season 5 in order for more of this arc's manga chapters to come out — but then covid happened. Because of that, season 4 was delayed to 2023, creating the longest gap we've had between seasons, and I wouldn't at all be surprised if the delay made them want season 5 right together with it, after getting so far "behind", so to speak. S4 was announced in November of 2021, and roughly around that time, Asagiri was finishing up writing the plot of the DoA arc. If Bones came to him sometime in late 2021 and said they wanted two seasons now (so basically, one giant two cour season), Asagiri would know that not only of course would this arc not be finished publishing in the manga for a very long time yet, but that roughly 20ish episodes would not be enough to cover it all to the end, with this arc being longer than any arc the anime has adapted to date. Because of all this, and the arc manga chapters being nowhere near fully drawn to completion, he'd have to make a decision about what to do, and what to give Bones. Without ending season 5 on a massive cliffhanger that wouldn't be resolved for years until an eventual season 6, the only other option would be to rush towards an anime-original ending for the DoA arc.... and for Asagiri to take advantage of that, and integrate it into BSD's lore. Thereby creating a truly unique cross-media experience that utilizes the different mediums to create multiple timelines, that could make both the anime and manga interact with each other and become part of a bigger picture (not that you'd need to see both to get the full experience, mind you, just that it'd provide a little bonus if you did).... and would without a doubt be Asagiri's biggest surprise yet.

...I feel like at this point I'm starting to ramble, and my evidence become more and more incoherent and less substantial lmao, so I should probably end this post. 💀 Thank you if you've read this far, and hopefully it made some semblance of sense, despite not being structured very well; I know I promised at the start to try to be as objective as possible and curb my negative feelings, but I'm not sure how well I succeeded in that regard. If it weren't for the Fukuchi thing and the Fyodor hand thing, I probably wouldn't take how wrong and strange and bad the finale feels to me as serious evidence about it being an alternate timeline, especially since I seem to be one of the only people who actually hates all of it.... but combined with everything else, I am just so convinced of this theory being true. It started off as pure copium, but as more time has gone on, I fully, 100% believe in my bones (ha) that there is no way that finale is the same Bungou Stray Dogs I know and love, for so many reasons. It just isn't. It can't be. I know BSD better than this, I know Asagiri better than this, and I know that it's absolutely in the realm of possibility for him to cook up this whole scheme to completely blindside us with in the upcoming chapters, because that's exactly the kind of shit Mr. "Please Be Surprised!" himself would pull. If I end up being completely wrong, I guess I'm wrong, and you can laugh at me all you want then.... but I just know that ages ago people were teasing the idea of the anime operating on a different timeline from the manga, and I truly do think that only now are we finally seeing that idea come to fruition, as a setup for Asagiri going full-bore insanity with the Book in the upcoming arc(s). if I and the OP of that theory end up right, this will be the wildest time in the BSD fandom's history.

Like. I cannot even emphasize how hard they are trolling us at this point. Something is going on. Something is being cooked over there, the likes of which we've never seen before... and I don't think any of us are ready for it.

Oh yeah, and one last thing of note: both Fyodor and Nikolai here have their right arms hidden from view. Is that alluding to anything? I'm not sure. I also think that since chapter 110 was so short, next chapter will likely be 110.5 instead of 111, and if that's the case, this title spread could still technically be associated with the next chapter... wherein we might see this Fukuchi, who ends up wreaking havoc, right before he jumps to the timeline in the anime, as we see him at the end of the s5 finale.

I guess we'll find out on Tuesday.

[strangerquinns]

34 with Matt Murdock?

Matt Murdock x Reader

“Hurts.” “I know. It’s going to hurt some more, okay? Deep breaths. Im sorry- I’m so sorry-”

masterlist

You jumped slightly at the sound of something smacking against your window. You stood there for a moment, confused since most of the night all you'd heard was the soft sounds of rain and the city in the distance. But then, quickly, you remembered the late-night visitor you'd been getting the last few nights. A long few weeks have passed since he'd last come to you for help - honestly thinking last time was the last time.

Quickly you moved across your small apartment toward the window that led out onto your fire escape. Lying across the small metal landing was who you expected, the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.

"Fuck," You cursed low under your breath before moving to help him into your apartment. His body leaned heavily against yours causing you to let out another groan. His body loomed over yours as you led him toward your aged couch.

Matt hissed out in pain as you set him down onto your couch. You grabbed your kit from the top of your fridge and walked back into the living room. As you moved to take off his shirt, it seemed the movement brought his consciousness back. His hand wraps around your wrist tightly.

"It's me! It's me!" You called out, voice rising with panic for a moment. "It's m-me..."

Matt panted harshly from the pain that was moving through his body. But the moment his senses came to him, your scent wrapped around him and began to calm him. He was able to smell your perfume and the shampoo you used earlier in your shower. The faint and lingering scent of your dinner, or was it your neighbor down the hall?

"S-Sorry," He panted heavily as he relaxed against the couch more. "I'm s-sorry..."

His tongue moved across his lower lip his body still tense even with him knowing where he was.

"It's ok, I've got you. You're safe." You sighed and continued to take off his shirt.

The Devil's battered chest came into view littered with bruises, new and old, along with deep cuts littering his defined chest. You began to clean away the blood and saw the damage he'd gotten himself into. Your stomach rolled with how deep some of the cuts were that spanned across his chest. Normally whenever you asked him what he'd gotten himself into he'd never answer but there was something in you that wanted to know what hurt him.

"I-I'm sorry...I-I had nowhere else to go," Matt spoke softly, voice strained and tight as you continued to clean him up.

"It been a while since we've been in this position, was thinking for a second something had happened to you." You spoke as you grabbed your needle and thread from your kit. "Or worse found someone else to patch you up."

Matt smirked slightly, his black mask still wrapped around his eyes, "Never...just hadn't gotten into as much trouble as tonight."

You hummed softly before starting with the deepest wounds at the top and starting to stitch. Matt's hand reached out and gripped your thigh tightly as the needle dug into his skin.

"Sorry....sorry, sorry," You spoke quickly.

"N-Ne-Never used to that," Matthew groaned loudly, tensing up again as you started another stitch. “Hurts.” 

“I know. It’s going to hurt some more, okay? Deep breaths. I'm sorry- I’m so sorry-” You spoke the more and more you continued to patch him up.

As you finished up you made sure to lay bandages across the stitches. Matt slowly moved to sit up from his lying position. You untied his mask from around his face to clean off the cuts along his cheek.

"Think we can now get to the point where I can know your name?" You asked after a long moment of silence.

Matt sighed heavily, "Think it would be better for you if we didn't."

You couldn't help but let your shoulders sag as you began to clean up. Matt could sense the shift in the room as you moved away from him and your footsteps leading toward the front of the apartment. He hated the heavy sadness that started to suffocate him. Matthew wanted nothing more than to allow himself to get to know you. But deep down, he knew that he couldn't.

That he had to keep you at a safe distance.

"W-When will I see you next?" You asked, coming back into the room

"Mmm, I'm not sure," Matt spoke, slowly rising up from your couch, "Hopefully not for a while."

Your lips turned down in a frown and slowly nodded your head, you knew that he couldn't see you. But you were afraid to speak. Even with the circumstances of you seeing him only when he needed medical attention, you couldn't help but come to care for the Devil of Hell's Kitchen.

Matthew left out of the window and was gone before you could say furthermore. A small tear fell down your cheeks as you walked over to shut the window tightly. Matthew stood there for a moment and listened as you shuffled around your apartment, the sound of your tears breaking his heart.

[b3achysurfur]

I know I originally said in a comment at some point about how annoying the Logan war got (think it was in that post asking why we all suddenly backed off) but now I just find your posts humoring it's like "THIS LITTLE GODDAMN PIECE OF SHIT-" and it's the most innocent picture of Logan.

Love seeing it nowadays (cuz it's funny), but you have a good point that he hasn't furthered the story yet but I feel like Red might change that soon. Hopefully. Also how we haven't had his backstory but that also might change too (we've got a hint in one episode where they fought his bullies, something about how his parents didn't want him and he fact that we've only seen his grandparents but not his actual parents says something....)

Anyways something I need to ask you! What are your opinions on the others, what you like about them or dislike, favorite moments and what not. I'm curious!

Sorry this may have been long!

SEE NOW YOU GUYS ARE GETTING MY HUMOR , THIS ACTUALLY MAKES ME SO HAPPY!!! THANK UUUUU A LOT

also UR SO GREAT FOR THE QUESTION YOU ASKED!! I love talking about everyone else

I’ll assess them in order of: ashlyn, aiden, taylor, tyler, ben (not by order of how much I like them or anything btw). Some sections are longer than others because I’m bias BUT ALSO BECAUSE I got tired of typing and realized there was wayyy tm to read. Sorry!!!! if you don’t wanna read all this I put a short summary all the way on the bottom + feel free to me ask me specific questions ! now let me talk your ear off

ASHLYN:

I really like ashlyn because she has the most potential out of everyone (and that’s not to say the other characters aren’t deep, because that’s the opposite of true but bae is the whole reason we’re here). I think she’s also really relatable in the sense that she doesn’t like interacting with people but she can easily take the leadership role when needed. like okay queen I see you. also I really enjoy the fact Red made her dislike aiden at first even though they have a side romance plot going rn. bc that’s how it would’ve been if they were real. ash would not just become chatty out of no where and fall head over heels for him. and I really appreciate the slowburn. Ashlyn’s also higher on my favorites list because I’m bias and we have the same hair length 😣 usually when characters have long hair, authors tend to let their hair flow a lot, but red put ts in braids 🙏 and ask anyone with long hair like that, their hair is up 99% of the time bc it’s annoying, hot, and (personally) GRABS ONTO EVERYTHING LIKE ITS A THIRD HAND. I have a lot of headcannons for ash just based on small character designs / aspects that not a lot of people really think about. She’s so interesting and I really just love her. And since I have positives, I’ll give one negative about her. In the beginning, Ashlyn was really hesitant to tell the group anything. I understand where she was coming from, and given Tyler’s reaction, I don’t blame her for keeping things to herself. But mannnn ts was so frustrating sometimes. it’s ok tho bc all good stories stress you out.

AIDEN:

omg guys it’s my favorite ever. I know aidens really popular already so I’ll try not to rant on about him forever but hes just the best 😣 but mans really does not gaf EVERR.

now I could rant on and on about how silly Aiden is and why he’s so misunderstood as a character, because he’s not crazy like at all and if anything he’s one of the smartest characters in sbg, but I’ll save if for a better time. Instead I wanna talk about how observant he is of Ben and ashlyn.

it’s cropping weridly, sorry. but aiden’s eyes are always watching the ones he cares about most. I feel like this has to do with the fact Ben cannot voice his concerns/opinions so aiden always has to glance at him to make sure he’s not missing any important signal. But I also think it has to do with his childhood (I don’t have fast pass or anything this is just based off of theories/analysis based on his character bc I do that a lot 🤒). Anyways, he has a specific way of comforting people that I think it’s rlly niche. He uses his hands and gets the person what he thinks they need. Like in the attached images he gets ashlyn fabric to squeeze and distracts her with light conversation, and he immediately offers to take a walk with Ben and get some fresh air. If a person refuses or asks him for space, he immediately obeys and doesn’t question their decision. He’s very trusting and understanding. He gives people room to make mistakes and gives them room to ask for help. I’m mainly bringing this up because it ties back to something I’m gonna talk about in Taylor’s section. I just think that this detail is so important to his character and we always brush over it. I don’t wanna say he doesn’t like physical touch, bc he’s always touching everything around him, but I like to think his main love language is acts of service. When you really look at it, his actions speak a lot louder than his bickering and it really helps display how much each character means to him individually. what elseee. He’s able to quickly adjust and assess situations (like when he attacked the phantom or pulled up ashlyn in the bus). He’s very quick to his feet and always needs to be interacting with something to keep his hands busy. Aiden just really don’t gaf 99% of the time (unless it’s Ben / ashlyn) and honestly that’s why I like him. He doesn’t take anything seriously or personally. clap it up for my hb. Also I notice the sbg fandom has a habit of doing it with everyone, but I feel like Aiden is always reduced to his impulsive behaviors and ‘crazy kid’ persona. please guys. look deeper into Aiden Clark. Instead of wasting your energy trying to defend a NERDY FREAK like Logan fields, you should study more on Aiden Clark and his complex character.

yes. do that. rn. You want to so badly. I know you do. Do it. Go reread sbg and focus on Aiden. wowwww. I know you want to. (I’m hypnotizing you btw) Or just ask me I can talk about Aiden (or really any character) alll day long. Ask me anything about anyone and I’ll tell you what I think with proof and evidence. yes. I just need to cut it short because I have to talk about everyone else to. But study Aiden Clark. do it. really. really. Right now. Go. Go. Now. PLUS Aiden’s probably the least likely to die because he’s to cool for that + he’s better than death and injury. YAAA!!! MAKE AIDEN CLARK UR FAV BC YOULL BE SAFE FROM ANGST 🎉

only thing I don’t like about Aiden gotta be his fashion sense sometimes (usually beginning S1). like WHAT R U WEARING MAN???? 🙁

TAYLOR:

okay now let me talk about my shnukums Taylor. I love her a lot but her and Tyler had very different childhoods regardless of the fact they were in the same situation.

We don’t know a lot about Taylor’s version of growing up, so a lot of the details are vague but everything I say is based off of observations and analyses I have personally made, so please take everything I say about Taylor’s backstory with a grain of salt and understand that no matter what, both twins were majorly affected by the passing of their father and illness of their mother.

At first i thought of Taylor was the more lucky one out of Tyler and Taylor when it came to their childhood. Yes she struggled, I knew that, but Tyler was under a lot of stress. But that’s when I realized that she suffered just as much. Although she didn’t need to sacrifice herself to help her family survive, like Tyler did, she went though the most loss. She lost her mother, father, and brother all overnight. One second they were all happy together and the next she was all alone. Physically, her mother and brother were still there, but they were both shells. Her mother isolated by grief and her brother isolated by responsibility. She was all alone. Yes Tyler did his best to support her, but at the end of the day, there wasn’t much he could do to change the situation. Taylor suffered a lot, and since people mostly focus on Tyler, we never really see Taylor’s POV of it all.

Now her backstory leads me into the fact Taylor is the most socially smart character in sbg. She is also the most observant and supportive. This is not to say others aren’t observant/supportive, like Aiden for an example, but she does it much differently. I would attach a picture here but I’m close to maxing out the photo limit and I want to save it for later.

Taylor is very good at reading the emotions of other characters. She is also very observant. Taylor is often the first to notice when a charater is uncomfortable, panicked, or harmed. For an example, she’s the first to notice Ashlyn’s fear back at the house. Unlike Aiden, Taylor is able to verbally let people know she is there for them. She comforts them through words and physical affection. Taylor is usually aware of how much support someone is in need of and the best way to display it for them specifically. For an example when Logan was getting bullied, she defended him against Tyler’s mean words and held his shoulder for reassurance. This same tactic would not work for ashlyn, and Taylor is aware of that. So, when ashlyn broke down about the struggles of being leader, Taylor comforted her through words and reassured her fears. Taylor opened up a space for ashlyn to be scared and share her burden. She was able to do all of this in only a couple of moments. This skills also becomes a werid quirk when she is able to sense Tyler’s condition in the hospital, but maybe that was just twin senses? 🤷‍♀️ idk

Taylor is also very aware of everyone around her. We know that she is very social and has a lot of friends and connections, but she also educates herself on the people she doesn’t interact with. Even if she doesn’t know a lot, she makes sure to acknowledge their presence at the very least.

What does her ability to read emotion have to do with her childhood? Well, Taylor basically lived with a shell of a family. Tyler was under constant stress, which made him prone to outbursts. Her mother was disabled by grief. Taylor was in a situation that made her feel like she had to take care of her family mentally. It was, to her, the least she could do. So, she was mentally mature from a very young age. Although having to hold the burdens of others constantly is very unhealthy, I’m not sure if she’ll crack because of it.

Taylor being very social and having a lot of friends is also another example of how she’s different from Tyler and how their shared childhood affected them differently. Tyler saw people as distractions while Taylor sees them as her means to keep living. Taylor lives off of other peoples energy, and she maintains the energy of other people by being a supportive beam for them. This is also why I’m okay with Taylor being shipped with others. She’s use to being around people and can form close bonds with others while still only viewing them as friends. Tyler cannot do the same. Taylor is in a position where she can expand her horizons into romantic relations if she was interested in doing so. That’s why I feel as though it’s okay (if that doesn’t make sense I’ll explain it again, but I tried to condense it down)

Something I don’t like about Taylor is that we haven’t gotten to see her brain in action yet. We know she’s the president of the robotics club , but we haven’t had the chance to see her charater support the story in any other way but socially and mentally. The story is only at 60 episodes though, and I’m sure we will see it eventually. Im just impatient and want to see women in STEM shine 😣😣 I wish I could talk about her more, but we barely know anything about Taylor as of right now. I will say it’s interesting how she told her and Tyler’s backstory, but only talked about how Tyler was affected and not herself. Interesting… I hope we learn more about her experiences and I hope I’m right 🙏 also CAN WE TAKE A MOMENT TO APPRECIATE HOW PRETTY SHE IS??? UGHH I LOVE HER SMM

TYLER:

I feel like Tyler has been the topic of discussion for the past couple of months because his backstory was revealed and the end of S1 / beginning of S2 was all about him and his past, so I don’t have a lot to say that I haven’t already said. but I do really like Tyler. At first when he was in his jock era I was very , oh! about him. but he’s actually warmed up to me sooooo much since then. he’s so goofy I just want more interactions between him and Aiden. I think I good place to start is how much I HATE people shipping him with other members of the main cast. I talked about it a little in Taylor’s section, but him and Taylor had very different childhoods. Again, I’m not saying their father’s death and mother’s illness was not hard on the both of them, but Tyler was under a lot of pressure too. We know he isolated himself harshly, and stopped having fun all together. The way I look at it, everything, including living day-to-day, became a chore for Tyler. Ever since he was a little kid. His dad’s death changed his entire world overnight. He had to learn how to physically and mentally support everyone important to him, because if he couldn’t no one else would. Tyler had to learn everything about living life by himself as a baby just so everyone else could survive. He stopped having fun. Little kids find fun in everything. Tyler stopped himself from finding it. He didn’t do anything for himself anymore. He was almost like a empty shell doing automatic tasks so that his sister and mother could have space to grow, heal, and live. In a sense, it was self sacrifice (which he attempts again when he tells the group to leave him behind)

So when Taylor tells us that the main cast started to become an extension of the family he sacrificed himself for, it’s so heavy on his character. Especially because for once in a long time he started relating his ‘family’ back to joy and fun, not just safety and survival. That’s why it bothers me when people ship him with others. It’s so werid to imply he’d date any of the main cast when he sees them as his family. consider them blood-siblings if you gotta, but just stop shipping them. PLEAASSSSEEEEEEEEEEE. otherwise I’ll eat your dog. thanks! also him being friends with the main cast at all is such a huge step for him. I don’t think Tyler has time to get involved with romantic relationships when he believes friends are a distraction. I know a lot of people go to romance when they want to express how strong a connection is between two characters, but you guys are forgetting that Tyler considering everyone as his friends is sooooo much more complex and deep compared to (for an example) Logan saying he considers everyone his friend. ANYWAYS ENOUGHHH!!! let’s move on.

I also wanna talk about this scene (I was to lazy to go find the original scene so the flashback is all you get). I never really realized how much ashlyn ordering Tyler around must’ve affected him. He literally spent his whole life making decisions and taking leadership and all of a sudden some random lil girl is over here telling him to stfu and sit his ass down. I would imagine as mad as he was, he probably felt a least a bit of relief. For once the responsibility wasn’t on him, at least not only on him. He could share his burden with others, and he wasn’t suffocated by being responsible for the lives of everyone else. We see this same struggle affect ashlyn, as she feels like being leader strangles her with the weight of guilt, paranoia, and responsibility. Imagine if Tyler had been the one to bare that weight after everything he’s already been through? he would’ve cracked, whether we like it or not. so let’s clap it up for ashlyn rq!!! yasss girl 😋 I know I’m rambling a lot about tyler but I know a lot about him and want to talkkk 😣 but here is my last point: Tyler’s coping mechanism to the unknown and things that confuse him is denial. Just like his mother 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

woww! do you guys remember when Tyler thought this whole thing was a joke? me too! he would’ve never thought this silly prank would almost kill him. Tyler’s mom probably thought her husband’s illness wouldn’t kill him either. oops! 😂 (I’m going kms). sorry. my point is they both refused to believe it happened (although his mom’s denial may have been more of a trauma response while his was just to help him cope). Even with evidence, they both couldn’t understand what had happened to them and pretending nothing was wrong. Tyler saw the picture of the phantom’s shadow and brushed it off to technology he couldn’t understand yet. he felt more comfortable with not knowing how technology worked rather than not knowing if he was in danger. his mother is similar. She couldn’t understand and cope with the death of her husband, even though he died in front of her. She felt more comfortable not understanding why he was late from work than understanding he was dead and gone. Guess it runs in the family? 🤷‍♀️ and since these are all things I like about his character, I will tell you what I don’t like. THAT STUPID ASS JOCK ATTUIDE FROM S1. okay I didn’t hate it, and it fit him sometimes, and I kinda miss it sometimes, but he’s like 5’5 and a stick, he is not beating no one’s ass 😭 respectfully. now he could probably rock me but he’s matured a bit since S1 so it’s different. Tyler’s not even my favorite idk why I talked about him sm , especially when I held off on talking about Aiden because I didn’t want to say to much 🤦‍♀️ whatever

BEN:

I have a lot to say about Benny boy, especially because he is SOOOOOO mischaraterized. Now I won’t go crazy like I did for the twins because I’m thinking about making a separate post just about Ben (maybe.. maybe not idk). plus I just reminded myself anon asked me to just say a few things I like and disliked about each charater not give crazy long paragraph about them. so, sorry Ben but you will probably have the most boring paragraph of them all. I still love you a lot pookie 🙏 I’m just tired AND MAXED OUT THE AMOUNT OF PICS I CAN USE EVEN THO I NEED TO TALK ABOUT U WHILE USING PICS 🤒 anyways enough rambling.

bens charater is often reduced to his backstory which genuinely makes me want to start tweaking out. if you expand on why his trauma affects him, then I will happily listen to you talk. But when most the fandom sees Ben as “music boy who hate bully, will fight you if you be mean” it makes me so SAAAADDDDD. no, Ben will NOT beat my ass for making fun of Logan. That’s like… the whole point of his backstory? He doesn’t like violence, at all. He’s ashamed of his anger issues. He blames himself for having to move and putting his family in danger. The only reason he got involved with Logan’s fight was because the phantom interference + no one was there to help calm him down.

also he doesn’t only do music. he draws too! he’s a very artistic dude. He also gardens. Ben be planting food and shit. which (as much as I HATE the ship) Logan n Ben shippers could probably use to their advantage. Yk bc Ben gardens and Logan helps his grandparents in their greenhouse? wtv. Bens prob growing flowers for Taylor anyways. Fuck Logan. sorry.

Ben is also very compassionate and gentle. He’s always thinking about what’s best for the group, even if it puts him in an uncomfortable position, like sharing his trauma. Ben is also very soft hearted. He gets flustered very easily, we see this when ashlyn and Taylor complimented him. He is very protective over those he cares about and he does not come to play, ever. Also his character development from S1 makes me so happy. He use to be attached to Aiden’s hip 24/7 and we could often only understand his emotions when Aiden would translate him to us. But we’ve seen lately that he’s much closer to Taylor, even putting her safety before his own.

wow, gentleman alert❗️if I didn’t run out of photo space than I would’ve shown more examples where he holds onto others as a way to comfort or protect them. he’s so respectful I might cry. maybe I will make a Ben-centered post. I need to show you guys pictures so you can understand what I’m saying. But Ben is growing and he needs more attention. thank you.

SUMMARY:

Ashlyn

pros:

- has crazy potential + most hinted at lore

- very relateable

-introverted but stands on business

-W relationship development between her and the cast, very natural and not forced

- her hair

cons:

- she is very hesitant to spill info (only in earlier chaps tho!)

Aiden

pros:

- silly

- observant of those he cares about

- acts of service love language

- trusting/understanding

- quick on his feet

- good at assessing situations/making plans

- he doesn’t GAF 🦅🦅 EVAAA

cons:

- often misunderstood / mischaraterized by the fandom

- has ugly ass outfits sometimes

Taylor

pros:

- most socially smart character in sbg

- good at reading emotions

- good at comforting others

- aware of her surroundings/the people around her

- supportive

- social

- super pretty

- wrote a paragraph on why it’s ok to ship her with the rest of the cast js cuz

cons:

- we don’t see enough of her robotics president side, show me women in STEM 🤬

- we never saw how she experienced childhood (yet..)

Tyler

pros:

- deep childhood trauma/responsibility

- sacrificed himself for his family twice

- not meant to be shipped with anyone in main cast

- sees main cast as family

- he finally made friends

- talked about the scene where ash tells him to shut his bitchass up

- copes by using denial (js like his mom)

cons:

- his jock attitude during S1

Ben

pros:

- hates violence

- angery at his anger issues

- ashamed of his past

- draws and gardens as hobbies

- compassionate and gentle

- soft hearted

- easily flustered

- very protective

- slow but steady quiet charater development

- a gentleman

cons:

- you guys mischaraterize him a lot (like someone told me he doesn’t change as a character bc he never speaks, ts made me mad asf)

THATS ALL! THANK YOU FOR ASKING!! again feel free to as me questions about anything at all even if you didn’t read allat. And if you did, thank you ur so sweet and amazing. Sorry for writing sm 😢

also everyone is open to their own opinions, this is just what I think. As always, I’m always down to debate.

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: DK Pass Debut: Mario Kart DS

DK Pass is your average Mario Kart snow course. There is nothing all that special about it. It's not a bad track, by any stretch of the imagination (even if getting run over by a snowball after a blind turn can feel a little cheap), but I do find it a pretty forgettable one.

Anyway. Isn't it weird that this is a Donkey Kong course for some reason?

Yes, that is literally the entire reason I am talking about this course!

The Mario Kart series has always loved exercising its god-given right to arbitrarily name generic courses after whatever character they so feel like. Toad has a turnpike, Yoshi has a desert, and Donkey Kong has a snowy mountainside! This is Mario Kart after all! They gotta remind people that this series is about these guys:

But I end up singling out DK Pass because out of all the courses arbitrarily named after characters, it easily feels the most arbitrary. At least Toad's Turnpike had pictures of Toad on some billboards, and Yoshi Desert had the big Yoshi Sphinx! The only thing that makes DK Pass a Donkey Kong course is the name. If you renamed this course to "Cool Cool Mountain" or something, it would have no connection to Donkey Kong whatsoever.

I mean, when you think "Donkey Kong" and "places you'd associate Donkey Kong with" you don't really think "big snowy mountain", do you? Maybe you do. Maybe your only exposure to this character is the existence of DK Pass. I'm not judging.

DK Pass wasn't always a winter wonderland, though! Early on in development, DK Pass was a more standard mountain track, with green grass and everything. This version of DK Pass is generically named donkey_course, and while it's clearly early on in development here, you could argue that this version may have been a jungle course reminiscent of DK Mountain, or that it could be set on Donkey Kong Island or something.

But at some point in development, a developer said "Hey! We don't have our obligatory Snow Course yet! We can't have a Mario Kart game without an obligatory Snow Course!" And another developer said "You're right. Let's turn this Donkey Kong course into our obligatory snow course. And let's keep it a Donkey Kong course because he has such a lovable face."

It was either that, or they didn't want a course called "DK Mountain" two games in a row. But if that was a concern...

Then why did they give Donkey Kong ANOTHER snowy mountain course in Mario Kart Wii?! This is DK Summit (known as DK's Snowboard Cross in PAL regions), and while I think its Donkey Kong theming is marginally less arbitrary (this course does have a barrel cannon after all!) it's still weird that there was a period in Mario Kart history where the go-to theme for a Donkey Kong course was "snowy mountaintop".

Of course, since the release of these courses, we've gotten Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, which aside from being one of the best games of all time, is also all about Donkey Kong Island being frozen over!

I'm not trying to suggest either of these courses are set on Donkey Kong Island, that would be silly. However! I do think it'd be a fun way to re-theme DK Pass if they ever bring it back again! It would go a long way to make the course feel a lot more memorable, especially since DK Summit does everything it does and does it better. Plus the name would actually make sense now! Bonus!

The only concerns would be places that localize the name as "DK Alps" or "DK Ski Resort," but the original Japanese version is generically "DK Snow Mountain," and that feels like the most important one. Sorry to the other localizers that made perfectly reasonable decisions before this course became Tropical Freeze themed in my imagination!

But I wouldn't get my hopes up, since both these courses are in Mario Kart Tour, and both retain their original designs there. As far as Nintendo is concerned, DK Pass shall remain one of the most bafflingly-named courses forever... And maybe it doesn't really matter all that much! I mean, it'd take someone really pedantic to make such a big deal about this course's name, right?

*slides the rest of this post under the rug*

[gofancyninjaworld]

Some more thoughts on 'Morality Pets Redux'

Link to original post.

ONE still blows me away by how clearly he differentiates between manga and webcomic. There's a tradeoff that he respects: if the webcomic is short, sharp and to the point, then the characters have limitations in how they can interact, try things out, and grow. Conversely, if the manga is long to the point that it can take a long time for it to get to some sort of point, the characters have more scope to find themselves. He treats both versions with respect and if there's no scope for characters to change themselves, then they don't. Which is why we have two great stories to read! :D

There's no point in Tatsumaki changing in the webcomic because there's no one willing to have her in their lives. She's been so toxic that all Fubuki wants is to be left the hell alone, and even Saitama's gone 'eh, I've lost all interest' after she rebuffs his attempts to reach out very rudely. She notes that she ends up driving everyone away, but she's far from actually accepting that she needs to change. Tatsumaki in the manga has positive reasons to change -- she has a sister who wants to get along better with her. Doing so means accepting both her and the people around her, even if it's difficult and there are legitimate challenges. It's a hard pill to swallow but she's trying.

I really appreciate the difference between regretting the consequences of one's actions and being prepared to change one's actions. So human. If feeling bad about our actions was enough to change them, there'd be no anti-addiction or dieting services, counselling would be rare, and prisons would be all but empty.

In both versions, Genos is the guy who wants ultimate destructive power and is willing to even kill himself if it'll take enemies to Hell with him. However, for a guy who is so committed to destruction, it's striking that he's cut to the quick when Sonic taunts him saying that he can't protect anyone.

There's no scope to explore this seeming contradiction in the webcomic. We need to accept that hey, he has places where he won't go and that's fine. The manga has more space, so ONE can dig into the protect vs. destroy issue and have him have to make decisions about what he actually values. The despair that lanced through him when victory slipped through his grasp when fighting Elder Centipede says so much about what matters:

Something @carma-tjol said in their tags really added a lot to my understanding: they pointed to the link between Genos seeing himself as having value and changing his outlook on heroes from assets to people. It added so much salience to Fubuki refusing to run away and risking her life to save him because she didn't abandon her people. She really challenged his outlook.

I like that he's still wrestling with himself after the fact. Had King not come when he did, it'd have been a lose-lose situation: Tatsumaki would be dead anyway and the monsters would be free to rampage over the land and kill millions. He needed to hear Saitama telling him he'd done right to feel a sense of peace. It's very human -- it's hard not to look back even when we see that we've made the right choice.

Come to that, there was something that we'd (okay me and the small sharing circle of mutuals who talk too much about Genos) had been fearing: that Saitama would just note that Genos was broken again, the way he had in the webcomic. Remember this thread? It very nearly came to pass but for King intervening and vouching for Genos so that Saitama had to change the way he saw his disciple. Thank goodness.

If King hadn't been there, because Genos is actively questioning himself, the outcome of Saitama seeming to be dismissive wouldn't have been mere depression. It'd have been total despair. What Genos would have heard is that he's weak and lacked the guts to follow through on his committment to destroy enemies even if it meant killing himself. Talk about a tragic misunderstanding! Blessedly, ONE meters his angst -- it doesn't do to crush all your character's hope in one go.

[litrumi]

(Main Story FINALE Spoilers) "A Drop of Light in the Night"

*(Note: These are VAGUE, ambiguous spoilers for my fanfic. But I couldn't stop thinking about it, so I absolutely just needed to write this down. Even if they might not be part of the final product, which is an EON from now. Only time will tell.)*

Any of these tracks fit: Machine in the Wall (Mausoleum) or Innocence Mangled (Depths)

Italics = Inner thoughts "Quotes" = Talking aloud

Enjoy!

--

Even though we walk on and on, it almost feels like no progress is being made whatsoever.

I just can't shake the feeling we're in another one of those instances...

But the pup behind me doesn't seem all that worried.

"You're not even a little scared?" I ask as we keep going down the dark, cramped, and rocky path.

I hear a small chuckle from him. "We've gone through how many whacky and dangerous adventures now?" He replies. "Besides, we've known about this place for almost a year by this point. I'm surprised this is the first time we're exploring it."

"Only because that research-obsessed elephant wants to know what's down here..." I sigh. "Why didn't he tag along?"

"You could've asked that same question about literally every other time," the dog tells me with a sheepish grin. "Does this place really make you that anxious? It's not nearly as crazy as everything else. And we haven't even heard about a single thing happening around here until now."

"I just have a very intense sort of bad feeling about this place..." I admit, focusing on keeping Dogday's hand held in my own as we venture further, with me taking the lead.

And even though I look at these cave walls, no matter how they all look the same and formed as one would expect the innards of a rocky formation to be, some of these spots give off a familiarity to them.

"Well, when we get back, maybe we can just tell Bubba that we don't wanna go exploring anymore," Dogday suggests. "We'll make this our last expedition, if you want," He smiles at me. Then he looks at a pocket watch he holds in his hand. He examines it, and tilts his head when he notices something funny. "That's weird..."

"Hm?" I sound out, stopping us in our tracks and turning myself to look at him. "What've you got there, Pup?"

"Oh, didn't you hear that last part of the page he found?" He asks me directly.

I muse on the thought. "All I remember was him saying that the page hinted at 'letting reality guide us to our destiny' or something like that," I explain.

"Well, he also said something about wanting to know how long we've been in here once we got started, so I borrowed this from him before we left," he looks back at the watch, shaking it a bit. "But maybe this thing is just broken... I swear it's gotta have been at least thirty minutes by now."

"Let me see," I say, as he then gives the pocket watch over to me. Holding it in my other free hand, I look at it closely.

The canine rubs the back of his head with his other hand. "It's at the same time from when I checked, you know, as soon as we started walking around," he says.

But even as I look at the watch, I notice that not a single hand is moving. Not even the hand representing "seconds passing."

Then, my eyes widen.

Oh no...

Frantically, I look around us.

"Huh? What is it?" Dogday curiously asks.

With so many sudden and worrying thoughts running through my head...

This just can't be. This doesn't make any sense.

I don't see anything or anyone out of the ordinary, but I tense up because the atmosphere now feels so much more sinister than before.

I don't like this.

I really don't like any of this...

"Catnap, what's wrong?" He wants to know what I'm thinking.

It is another one of those times...

Where time means nothing.

"Dogday," I look at him instantly.

"W- What is it, Kitty?" He looks at me with a little concern.

"No matter what," I begin, my body shaking a little. "Stay close to me and don't let go of my hand. Never let go," I plead.

"Huh?" His eyes widen a little.

"And please, please promise me," I gulp, feeling a lump in my throat. "Promise me... that you'll watch your back."

"What?" He seems unsure yet saddened. His own brain is trying to comprehend my fluctuation in emotions. "Don't you mean 'our' backs?"

I shake my head vigorously. "No," I tell him. "No matter what, please, watch YOUR back."

He doesn't understand. He seems more perplexed and worried than anything else. We stand in silence as he tries to process my request.

But I mean exactly what I said.

And even though he would usually try to lighten the mood and calm the tension, I could tell he knew exactly what I was feeling. He could sense just how deathly terrified and serious I was.

"..." He blinks, looking at the ground only for a moment before letting our eyes meet again. "...G- Got it..." He nods.

I grip his hand even tighter in my own. "...Good," I nod in return, believing he understands the situation better.

Without another word, we press on. But now everything just feels heavier. And it's a mess we no longer can just leave behind so easily.

Please... I'm begging whoever's out there... If there's really anyone at all...

I hope and pray, marching on into the darkness with the one I care about most.

...Just let us get out of this, together, in one piece.

That's all I ask.

--

Anything's subject to change when I get to this point in the story. Just thought I'd leave that out there. I definitely wanna give this portion the vibe of "This is it, it's almost the end... There's just one last thing to do."

And all that. Yup! That's it! Take care~

[crazy-maracuya]

WIP

"Michael, Michael! Wake up Michael! Come look at this!" 

In his eyes, a bright young being was smiling directly at him. From those days and now he remembered there was no man or woman to describe his appearance, its charm knew no bounds beyond the ethereal, the being was like no other, sometimes even in its most horrifying form he could still look beautiful, enchanting. With its dark blue eyes and golden hair, each strand of it was a luminescent metal braided, still hiding his mineral skin. Helel smiled at him, pushing the other to move out of the lush grass, devoid of any filth and with the wet smell alongside its flowers still present, he could fall asleep in those fields for a long time. Alas, Helel wanted none of that, and so he let his two hands be taken, both bodies transformed closest into the shapes of Elohim, to its image. To have a symmetrical form of hands and feet, no need for wings to fly and with the saffron hair to cover his head. Taking his hand, the younger ran with him out from the lush green scenery and into the crescent fields of barren wastelands that were the grounds of his Cherubim brethren.  They were baby guardians at this point, would play around in and bite one another, playfully, for nothing here could cause any pain or suffering, for they were still within the realms of Heaven, where nothing could hurt another.

They passed by, and by other trees and animals sleeping on the sea or flying away, never to be seen on earth due to their splendor. They ran like children do, their feet crushing on the sand feeling the warmth of its rays as Michael looked on to the hand grabbing on to him. He was made of gold, with veins of white fire, a huge contrast compared to his own skin, one as stone cold, deep brown as the bronze on statues, and even then it did not feel soft as the golden being. He was filled in rough scratches due to his many careless times, covered in marine green and blue spots all around his body as he could not wash away his bronze back again to its illustrious state. Tried as he might, Michael was a rotten statue compared to gifted gold that could even wear diamonds for eyes and pearls for teeth every time. 

In a moment close to the cliff on a northern winter desert, when the soft warm ground had become cold and sucked their feet into the ground, Helel stopped and moved around the snow with one hand, the other still tight to Michael's. It didn't take much before he spotted something that made his eyes go wide and grab Michael closer to him. "Look at it Michael, is it not beautiful?" 

The other looked, and looked and found a new creature, far smaller than them, sitting upon the branches of the trees, filled with white feathers that made him almost invisible to them, it looked soft, its short beak held a branch. Its eyes were round but sharp, for the moment that it sensed them it flew away. Still, both of them did not chase it. Instead the golden one turned to him, "You saw it right, You saw it? It's another one of His creations! This time it was white instead of black, and it lived here in a place full of other white creatures!" 

Michael nodded along to his words. 

"I'm sensing a pattern here Michael! I know I am! It's been so long since we've seen another one of these being changed, what do you think we will see next? Maybe one in the grass that is green, really really green! Or one in the sea that is blue! Or, or, or—" 

Bells rang, from all other sides, choruses sang and the most highest of divine beings, bright as constellations, moved all around the sky to the court of Heaven, in its center where The Lord's throne stood, around where other beings that served Holy Lord, Seraphim and Ofanim, Michael could remember them, the only divine beings to have never grown unlike the rest of the other beings that closely resembled the Lord. They didn't appear to have an animalistic personality unlike the Cherubim, they didn't appear to grow around plants like the Virtues, be attracted to rocks and flames like the Powers or around stars like the Dominions. Carefully all of them stood in a realm of consciousness closer to the Lord, sharing wisdom that made them grow more than any other divine being themselves. 

And Michael was one of them, but the Seraphim had prophesied he ought to be more. In their words;

Child you ought to be the Prince of princes, Chief who commands the army of Heaven. That is why you and those closest to you grow in mind and wisdom, unlike us.

Qaddisin; that same Throne by the east of Him, had come to tell him that at his ceremony. In secrecy to all other angels of Heaven. Qaddisin was also the one who came down to them floating down from clouds made of fire before stepping down to meet them. 

If they were already giants, then Qaddisin is the tower itself, twice the size of the trees they both came out of, a posture straight as a tree, wings made of diamonds, shaped like birds, hid their face and bodies; Qaddisin's arms where many, each attending to holy scriptures on notes that they couldn't see, they could only watch the movement of each ten fingers in one hand, and ten hands within one arm, then many arms that made Helel dizzy and the animals freak out. 

"Michael." They called out, their voice sounded like it had trained upon thousands of years, and maybe they had, for time whisks away endlessly short and long for those who look for it and for those who don't. He didn't seem to care about it though. Simply, his feet went forward, and suddenly, the winds revealed thousands of eyes engraved on them. Michael did not fear it, having grown close to this ever since he was born.

The eyes closed, everything which had been said, had been said. Helel looked to him, and Qaddisin looked to Helel, not letting him speak they said; "Helel, anointed Cherub, have you finished training in your arts for you to have a reason to go around without worries?" 

Helel did not hesitate, his smile never ending as he clung to his life long companion in one arm. 

"I have, Holy Twin Qaddisin, I am the best around my brethren, and among the Powers too, no one can outshine me in battle." He looked at Michael, "Not even you!" And Michael didn't feel threatened in any form at those words. It was a fact, one to feel proud about rather than mad. Of all angels, he was the one to have worked so much.

Qaddisin did not speak, they simply turned to the other side and walked before actually talking, "Tomorrow shall be the finalization of the Fifth day. You already know that Eden and Heaven don't operate on the same rules of Time and Space as Earth." One day on the highest realm of Heaven would be the equivalent of thousands of years for the universe around Heaven, and millions or billions of years on earth. Or maybe it was the opposite, Michael would have to ask Raziel about that again. "So for that reason, Our Lord and Creator has decided that day to give out a special job for both of you, This time inside the Garden of Eden." 

"The only place that is in between Earth and Heaven!!" Helel shouted in excitement, granted, he had just been given his job in the most important place around all the Universe, second only to the Palace of The Divine Council. Michael could feel his hands tightening on his skin, he grabbed those hands with his own and also squeezed them as a way to reciprocate his excitement. 

They continued with: "Your job for the sixth day is to come up with land animals, you will help Our Lord directly." One of the arms stretched to go behind Qaddisin and struck Helel softly on the top of his head, its stern voice commanding, "Learn and Listen well. Especially listen, for only then can you start to love the creations more." 

Helel giggled, "Of course I'll listen. There is nothing more that I love to do after all." 

"Sure, sure." Qaddisin dismissed it. 

Both walked behind Qaddisin, their hands all going back to work and the eyes of most wings closing, with the remainder two focusing on the halo on top of their head, two rings that moved around like the wheels of the Thrones and provided information– forbidden information– Helel always used to say. It really wasn't, Michael had tried to read it one day and all he understood was nothing so he left it as it was.

Talking of him, Michael felt a slight push to his side. The golden one next to him had gotten close enough to whisper to his ear, wishing to tell him a secret only for his voice to hear. 

"I saw their anger coming the moment Qaddisin had looked at me."

Michael was confused, his face transparent about it made Helel talk more. "It's always Qaddisin the one to think that I don't do anything but laze around. They don't believe the words of Kadishim, their other twin because Kadishim tends to be more relaxed than them, so they think that I'm doing the bare minimum." 

Qaddisin moved one eye, catching Helel laughing, going silent as a plant and pulling away from Michael when their eyes met. 

But once  the eye turned back, Helel went back to grabbing Michael and adding; "They probably don't like me considering I'm Kadishim's favorite." 

"We are here." Qaddisin interrupted the two. In a moment. The shining eyes of Helel shined even more as he saw one Qaddisin's rings grow to the size of Qaddisin itself and show a beautiful garden, far more beautiful than the Universe in which they stood in– without hesitation, Helel jumped inside the ring and landed his feet on the air, his form had almost disintegrated from all the excitement that he couldn't contain. Alas he was smarter and therefore could properly maintain the golden skin, one which did not tempt the order of Eden. 

To his surprise, Helel did not reach the ground, instead falling into the arms of someone. 

"You..." Michael could hear the irritation in those words after the sudden gasp that Qaddisin had given when Helel surprised them. Despite that, it only looked forward to Michael and said, "Too much is he not? Even Gabriel ought to be calmer than he is and isn't going to be thy Holy Me—Ah, why is that importance of mine? Should it not be my twin's? Come Michael, Our Lord awaits us." 

As before, Helel would always stay closest to Him in one form or another, all out of love. While others held themselves back at His feet, or around the throne, around him overall, only Helel would be the one to be held tight unto His hugs, sit on thy lap and even in his younger days, be placed close on thy bosom, to be carried by thy hands that created thee. 

It was no wonder that the one to have caught the fallen angel from the sky would be Him. 

"Father!" Helel cried out to the figure, skin darker than any night, but bright over the stars that shone in it, for He was everything itself. The light was so bright that for a moment Helel had to close his own and slowly regain his eyesight. When he wasn't so close to Him, being slowly set onto the grass fields in tranquility and kindness, he could finally make out two other beings behind the Lord. One letting out breath from his own nose, his skin made of paper that couldn't be broken, with inky black hairs like a half dipped brush. He stood out like a sore thumb, upright and with his arms wrapped around his dark hands. Gabriel. Helel could instantly notice him by the way he was being looked at. Amusement over how childish he acted when standing near Him. 

The other one was not too bad; shy as always, shoulders slumped and hands on his back–unlike Gabriel's– he stood the farthest from them all, and didn't even look at Him nor the rest of the angels. His rose quartz eyes only stared at the ground below, the same color as himself, mostly due to the fact that he was molded from the dirt and wood while the rest of which he covered himself with was flowers and leaves, especially unique trinkets in his hair. A new thing that Helel noticed was that a rose had grown on said leaves. He wanted to point it out but a new voice entered the field. 

"Helel!" 

Kadishim's favorite had come, so of course Kadishim instantly ran out of their work to hug him with— two arms, surprisingly. When he got to pull away from Kadishim's embrace did he finally notice Kadishim and Qaddisin had changed to a simple form. Both figures were as symmetrical as the angels, but this time they were covered in veils from head to toe. Qaddisin wore dark blue while Kadishim wore light red.

"Oh how good it is to know that all of you will soon be sharing the most important role of all!" 

"All of us?" Helel said, going to look at Michael who had finished greeting good before meeting his eyes again. "Was it not just Michael and I?" He turned back to Kadishim. 

"No no no!" They laughed while poking his nose three times. "Oh Qaddisin, I always tell you to be fully truthful."

"I am fully truthful, Twin of mine! This child is just half as patient as the other." 

"Oh my how excited they can get! Then sorry dear Twin of mine! Now yes Helel, the four of you will be granted special access to Eden for only the rise of 530 million years on Earth, starting now of course." 

Qaddisin continued on cue. "So it is up to you to be able to create at least 56,709,9—" 

"Or as many as you wish!" 

Qaddisin glared through the veils at their twin. "... whatever species then… Well, you might already have references to the creations that we need, hopefully you remembered the studies back with Sophia don't you?"