melanciahome

[macchitea]

satisfying my need to draw kirby art and rw art by ,, combining them,,,

[hinamie]

siren!megumi concept sheet i whipped up in a single-minded fever state fr @uriekukistan

[lunarharp]

..polly pocket au.. (<- a type of doll.)

[ew-selfish-art]

DP x DC AU: Danny desperately wants to find the explosion guy. Tim is really good at covering his tracks... he didn't account for ghosts.

The explosions make it onto TV as purported terror activity and most people haven't heard of that part of the world much less ever given a second thought to care about it. The only real reason it gets reported on has something to do with the Justice League and... Danny knows too much.

He's been in training for Clockwork's court (which he's suspicious of- feels like kingly duty bullshit- but Danny is playing along out of curiosity for now) and he's learned a lot about how the living and non-living worlds collide. That means learning about CW's usual suspects- one of which just happened to have a ton of bases around the area Danny was seeing on the news.

It didn't take long for Danny to try to piece together that whoever blew up Nanda Parbat was trying to fuck with the League of Shadows, and was doing it successfully. Less green portals in the world the better, same goes for assassins. But it gets Danny thinking... Maybe he can employ similar tactics on the GIW Bases that keep spawning on the edges of Amity Park. It would at least set them back while he and his friends navigated the help line desk to request Justice League intervention. None of them can leave Amity Park, so outreach is going to have to be creative.

So Danny figures he'll just find the guy. Call up some ghosts who were there, or er, came from there and get a profile and track him down. But the ghosts keep saying it was The Detective. Annoying!

Danny goes full conspiracy theory, gets Tucker and Sam involved, and begrudgingly asks Wes Weston his thoughts.

He hadn't expected Wes to garble out a thirty minute presentation (that had 100 more slides left to go before he cut it off) about how Batman totally trained with a cult and so did his kids. Danny kind of rolled his eyes but... hey, new avenue of searching in the Infinite Realms at least.

The ghosts confirm that Bombs is for sure not Batman's MO- But maybe his second kid would know? The second kid was already brought back to life though, so no way to easily reach him... Danny starts to realize that this might be the work of a Robin now. Wasn't the red one known for solving cold cases? (Sam provides this information- its a social faux pas to not know hero gossip at Gotham Galas- everything she's learned is against her will).

It all comes to a head when Danny goes about the hard task of opening a portal for the guy to come through at just the right time, explain the infinite realms so he doesn't panic and then describe what the fuck was going on with the GIW. It takes months, just over a full year, of random (educated guesses) portal generating- Finally, Red Robin drops into the land of the dead.

"So, you're the guy I've got to talk to about explosions right?" Danny enthusiastically asks.

Tim thinks he's died and landed in the after life following 56 hours of being awake and plummeting off the side of a building into a Lazarus pool. Nothing makes sense about the kid in front of him.

"Yeah, I got a guy for munitions." Tim answers cooly.

"How do you feel about secretly sanctioned government operations that violate protected rights?"

"Gotta get rid of 'em some how. Need me to point you in the right direction?" This might as well be happening.

[summertimemusician]

Linktober 2024, Day 1, Mirror (Self)

Alright here we go again.

Technically a sneak peak of a bigger thing to come in the future that I'm repurposing, and the result of my final playthrough and readthrough before EoW dropped being Four Swords Adventures and that made me sad about Shadow Link again.

Note that this is for the Four Swords Adventures iteration of Shadow Link that might evolve into an LU Shadow, not Dark Link in either LOZ or LU, I have other plans for him.

This one shot was brought to you by Scars by The Crane Wives, Ribs by The Crane Wives, Ruin by The Amazing Devil and Two Minutes by The Amazing Devil because the author's playlist decided to be incredibly cheeky when they blacked out to write this like an ancient seers being cursed with visions and then called mad and hearing they've been put up for execution.

As always the nature of the relationship can be romantic or platonic, mostly due to the author's time constraints and further plans.

Anyway enjoy the reading!

It was cold.

The sort of cold after a wildfire, when everything's turned back to ash, the sort that left burned your vision white after the flames licked through your veins and left an ache in your bones. He shuddered, coughed black onto the stone floor, shaking with a muffled whimper.

It never got any easier, being dragged from the Dark World and into the Realm of Light, the goddesses' world itself revolting against an intruder, wanting the wound torn asunder into their oh so precious realm cauterized. To purge the intrusion and smite it where it stands.

Too bad for them (and for him), his master didn't particularly care about what the world wanted. Didn't particularly care that he hadn't grow accustomed to the pain or the cold, he had to stand up. There was work to be done.

(Shadow gritted his teeth, willed himself not to think about the prophecy of a golden haired princess- because whether he liked it or not, it was prophecy. As those with divinity running through their veins are wont to spill from their throats so carelessly- of violet eyes and a smile a third moonlight and hands holding a hammer.

It always hurt more, after one of the heroes liberated one of the maidens, or the jewels, the pain lingering for days afterwards and carving a home in his metaphorical bones. But just this once he'd take the cold bite of the Four Swords over the pain in the hole in his chest that Vio's betrayal had left, something that felt so much worse than every other time before.

Just this once he wished that maybe, just maybe, the hurt would be too much to bear, that he wouldn't wake up again-

Why? Why does it hurt so much but he's still here? He already knew the Light was uncompromising and unforgiving, but he thought them at least above curses.)

His ears twitched as soft, almost silent footsteps came up to his side. Someone crouching by his fallen form, setting a cautious hand over his own that Shadow couldn't help but draw away from with a hiss, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the world again, to your face, carefully blank as you guided him to lean against your side, a silver choker with a crimson gem winked mockingly at him, the shade closing his eyes and going boneless against your side.

Shadow was so, so tired.

He heard you quietly sigh, plucking his cap from his head and running your fingers through dark amethyst, smoke and mist made hair. "I told you so."

"Shut up." He grumbled, nuzzling further into the crook of your neck. One clawed hand curling against your free wrist, digging into the skin. Absentmindedly noting there were new scratches just above the metal.

It was routine by now, the warmth of your existence against his own a welcome balm, not quite of the Realm of Light where it's unpleasant, not too close to the Dark World where he felt like melting back into the embrace of the darkness, only to howl in agony at being dragged out.

Memories not quite his own bled into his mind all the time. How you'd shape ice into flowers for the princess in winter with nary a though, of blinking and from one second to the next you'd have whatever sword he had hostage if you though it was time for a break with a smile brighter than the sun.

His master had changed that though. It took months for you to stop trying to claw the collar out and to stop trying to fight Vaati.

(Funny how holding a mage's dragon as a bargaining chip is just as effective as kidnapping a ruler.)

Your gaze flicked to the polished obsidian of the Dark Mirror, to the gold, ornate frame. "The offer is still open, you know. Let me take the suffering from you."

"No." He scowled, leaning back to glare into your eyes, a hint of fangs poking out from a maw struggling to keep the shape of a human jaw, "You helped him. Helped them." Shadow spat, there is that hurt again.

You shrugged, a movement that's just slightly awkward as you flinch, "That I did." You confirmed simply, it almost made Shadow see red as he leaned away, knocking your hand from his head in the process, but if there's anything him and the heroes shared, was a lack of a desire to hurt you. It was a little grating to be honest, "Vio even offered to take me with him, to be honest."

"Then why didn't you leave?" He demanded.

Why did you stick around?

Your eyes shuttered, a hint of conflict in your pursed lips. Before you found your words, they come out softly, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you why. You'll just have to find out yourself."

You tug your wrist from his grasp, and Shadow lets you go.

(Stubbornly pushing down on memories and emotions that arearen'tarenotanymore quite his.)

You stand and turn away, pushing the curtains away from your sight, you turn your tired eyes to Shadow with an emotion he can't put a name to. "Just keep it in mind that there's more than one way to end this. Nothing is truly inevitable."

Shadow watches you go. 'There's nothing that can be done. He tells himself, hand hesitating above the Dark Mirror, briefly, it curls into a fist. The hero's original self stares back at him.

'… Does he really believe that?'

He shakes his head, and focuses on willing the Dark Mirror to show him his counterpart.

His chest still hurts.

[2hoothoots]

i was having a chuckle to myself last night about Gristol, and how his plans are basically:

Restore Ford Cruller's memory

Find Maligula

???

Profit

but then... of course they are, right? this is Gristol we're talking about. Fatherland Follies drives home again and again that he's still operating on a child's logic, a warped and reductive version of the world that he never bothered to grow out of. both of his memory vaults center on the images of his childhood, this idealized version of the past that he clings to no matter what. and that's still how he remembers Maligula, too - as this saviour figure, who rushes in to help him when he's in trouble.

[ID: Two slides from Gristol's memory vault, Glory to Grulovia! Left: Gristol clings to Maligula's back as she summons waves to sweep away his assailants. Right: Gristol and Maligula waving from a balcony as the people cheer. Gzar Theodore brandishes a dagger in the background.]

like so much else, Maligula represents a return to this idyllic childhood - to the peace and simplicity of his youth, when he was free from worries and responsibilities. in his mind, he doesn't need to make any further plans - once Maligula's back, everything will go back to normal. Maligula will make everything better.

...is what i thought, but then i remembered this line:

[Screenshot source. ID: Gristol, in Truman's body, bows on his hands and knees in front of the newly-awaked Maligula. The caption reads: "Yes, High Priestess! I am here to correct the mistakes made by my father!"]

and that's kind of interesting, right?

to be clear: this happens directly after Maligula sees Helmut-in-Gristol's-body, and recognises him. her line before this is:

"Little Gzesaravich! Have you come to pay for your father's sins?"

my first thought was that Gristol hadn't expected to still be in Truman's body by the time he managed to find Maligula, and this was him trying to placate her and buy some time until he could explain the situation. but watching the cutscene back, that's clearly not what's happening here. Gristol is answering as himself, and his response of throwing himself to his knees before her is, as far as i can tell, genuine.

so what is going on here?

in Fatherland Follies, there's this line in the ride narration that stuck out to me:

"Why didn't the Gzar help Maligula in her time of need? No one knows, but historians agree - it is Gzar Theodore's biggest failure."

other lines mention Gzar Theodore's "mistake", and it's wording Gristol himself echoes in the screencap above. evidently, he believes that his father abandoned Maligula, leaving her to her fate at the hands of the Psychonauts, and it was that mistake that lead to them being driven out of the country - that mistake which he seeks to correct. maybe he even feels like he has a debt to repay to her for his family turning their backs on her all those years ago.

the 'High Priestess' thing, though - that's kinda weird, and threw me for a loop the first time i played the game. it took me until my second playthrough to connect the dots, and remember how the room in the Lady Luctopus - Gristol's room - was full of Delugionist scribblings and symbols.

[Screenshot source. ID: left, the walls of the hidden backroom in Gristol's hotel suite, covered in scrawlings of eyeballs and Maligula's name. Right, the pinboard from the hidden backroom. On its surface are photographs and newspaper clippings connected by pieces of string.]

i mean, look at this stuff! he had a whole conspiracy board and everything!

we learn very little about the Delugionists and their beliefs as a whole during the game, but i think drawing the connection here suggests two important things. one: that Gristol was in deep with this stuff. i don't know how he linked up with them - maybe via old family connections, or just good old-fashioned digging (we know he's skilled at worming his way into peoples' good graces, after all) - but it seems likely that he's begun to internalise their ideas, maybe even warping his own memories of events. and two: the Delugionists themselves are, if you'll pardon the pun, pretty far off the deep end.

like... i understand why PN2 didn't go heavy on the "mass-murderer cult worship" aspect of things, in the end, but man this is such a tantalising glimpse into the wider mythos around Maligula. Gristol is proud and haughty and thinks himself above everyone else; the fact that his first reaction seeing Maligula is to throw himself to the ground at her feet says so much about the way he's come to see her. he's not just trying to bring back Maligula, his childhood bodyguard. he's trying to bring back Maligula, the High Priestess of the deluge, the semi-mythical figure whose supporters believe even death couldn't stop. he doesn't even flinch at the way she confronts him, and maybe it's because he's bought in so completely to this deified figurehead, this idea of Maligula; more a living force of nature than a person. and it all comes back to the same place: an abdication of responsibility, not just to the person who protected him when he was little but to this avatar of floods and destruction. Maligula will make everything better.

i'd write more about my thoughts on the Delugionists but that'd be taking a hard turn into speculation, and this is already kind of long and rambling so i'd better end it here. but what an unexpected and evocative line, right? it's some of the only stuff we have to go off of regarding the Delugionists as a whole, but i think it does such a good job of hinting at the wider story - at teasing another layer to the mythos surrounding Maligula, one whose ripples we see throughout the game but which never quite breaches the surface.

[creatorae]

[Photo ID: a page of three blue inked drawings of the kageyama brothers as kids. Mob is a demon in these drawings, having two little horns, a tail, wings, and fangs. In the first drawing Mob has his mouth open displaying his noticeable fangs, while Ritsu looks at him with curiosity. In the second drawing Mob has closed his mouth and watches Ritsu who is now prodding at his own teeth, which are unfortunately blunt. The third drawing then has the brothers sitting down facing away from the viewer. Mob has an arm over Ritsu's shoulder as he says "don't worry Ritsu, I'm sure you'll get your fangs someday." End ID] the potential mob psycho demon au brainrot is real (I think this drawing came somewhere around october or so)

[mallywarez]

I love my Human AU but also why is Human AU!Nickel like this </3

[aeolianblues]

the real fiction in a lot of band AU fics is the amount of time bands seem to have on the evening of a show!

[storfulsten]

You don't have to...but I wanna see Whitty listening to music with headphones in, and Bf is just curious about what he's listening to. Also they're on a bench, and Bf is sitting next to him looking confused as to what he's listening to.

(My guess? It's a Corpse Husband song, since in my opinion, it goes that way for Whitty.)

sorry it's so sloppy and lazy and probably not quite what you wanted but here

whitty's just vibin and bf is just hella confused bc yea.. hearing some dude that sounds almost exactly like your crush singing about choking and other such things sounds totally groovy and not all that awkward at all no sir lol

[victorluvsalice]

💬I'm curious about the New Severance fic (mainly because I don't think I've heard of that series) and the BITD Smiler BABS fic (Because...self indulgence)

*cracks knuckles* Okay, so, let's take these in order:

The Severance AU: Severance is a show on Apple TV from 2022 (though season 2 is coming out in 2025) about a bunch of workers for the Lumon Corporation who have undergone the titular procedure to "sever" their work and home selves (involves getting a computer chip inserted in your brain). Basically, an employee who gets severed has a home self (Outie) that doesn't remember anything about what they do at work, and a work self (Innie) that doesn't remember anything about their outside home life (like, they know basic stuff, but their personal lives are a complete blank). The Innies are in fact basically trapped on the basement floor they work on because the elevator that you use to access the floor also turns the chips on and off. So from their perspective, they get into the elevator at the end of the day -- and then immediately get out again and go back to work. The show follows the people in the "Macrodata Refinement" department (they sort numbers based on vibes, essentially) and their Innie and Outie selves as the Innies are shook up by new hire Helly R. and her desperate attempts to escape and the appearance of an outside self-help book on the Severed Floor, and the Outies (specifically Mark Scout) start to learn that Lumon is, uh, fucked up. Honestly, given how fucking weird the whole thing sounds (I haven't even gotten into the whole part where Lumon basically operates like a cult, or the Break Room -- which is not the room where you take a break...), I think the series might be your jam -- here's the Wikipedia page should you care to learn more.

ANYWAY -- I haven't actually SEEN the TV series, but I DID recently read "Welcome to the Panopticon," a BTTF/Severance fusion fic by @penny-anna that covers most of the relevant worldbuilding for the TV show while putting BTTF characters into their own version of the mess. I found the fic fascinating and inspiring, especially with all the Innie/Outie stuff, and my brain immediately decided two things:

One, I would love to do a Valicer AU with this fucked-up premise

Two, this kind of corporate malfeasance feels VERY Aperture Science.

Cue the mental creation of a currently-unnamed AU where Victor, Alice, and Smiler are severed workers working for the Macrodata Refinement department of Aperture Science! Victor's there because he was severely depressed after the death of his fiancee Victoria and their mutual friend Emily during a robbery and his parents talked him into it; Alice is there because she murdered Dr. Bumby, got caught (though she did at least expose him in the process), and was pushed into the program as a "rehabilitation effort" to make her a "productive citizen;" and Smiler -- well, Smiler was simply forced to have the procedure by their asshole father Dr. Kelman, who wanted them to do it as a PR move and to try and force them to bend to HIS wishes about their life. The idea would follow mainly the Innie versions of everyone as Smiler joins the team and makes it their job to try and keep them all from going insane down in that basement, with the trio gradually falling in love as they get to know each other (well, as much as they can when they're all amnesiac on the floor) and having adventures dealing with their weird-ass circumstances, their personality core supervisor Wheatley, and their unsevered boss Miss Glados (aka Caroline, one of the big movers and shakers of Aperture) --

And THEN managing to escape because of an incident involving the Overtime Contingency (which allows the Innies to wake up outside of the Severed Floor if the bosses really need them to for some reason), which allows them to wreck a party their Outies were attending with the real facts about Innie life -- and then the Outies get to see the Severed Floor, go "holy shit this is fucked up" and manage to escape when Chell shows up to cause chaos in the name of rescuing her old friend Wheatley... I mean, there's a LOT more detail in my head about what happens in this Hypothetical Fic Eating My Brain, but I want to actually get to the OTHER half of your question, so let's call it there for now. XD

BITD Smiler in BABS Verse: Okay, you've probably guessed that this relates back to when I asked you about VITD Smiler ending up in the "Beneath A Broken Sky" world and what you thought might happen with them and the cast. This version is a little different, as it involves a Smiler from a Blades In The Dark world that doesn't actually have a Victor or Alice in it, because I wanted to see how they'd react to the Victor and Alice who got sucked in without having any of their own. I haven't got like a FULL idea of how it would go yet, but I do have a few key items in place:

-->Smiler would end up in the BABS verse because, in this version of Duskwall, the moon is slowly but surely beginning to fall on the Shattered Isles and will eventually destroy everything, and Mar-Mal is trying to find a way to save their Advocates -- I'm thinking they manipulate a Special Tree to shoot Smiler to the BABS verse to "scout it out," so to speak

-->I picture the "local" Victor and Alice wanting to support their fellow dimensional refugee and checking in on them as they're getting settled -- and being perhaps a little concerned by how almost unnaturally cheerful Smiler is

-->I think it would be funny for Daniel to want to cast that spell that provides all the modern contemporary knowledge on Smiler, only for Victor and Alice to leap in and be like "don't, do you not remember all the vomiting when you did that to us" -- only for Mar-Mal, using their limited influence in the new universe through their connection to Smiler, to find the spell, go "oh, that looks useful," and cast it on Smiler anyway XD (though I'm picturing them managing to spare Smiler the vomiting -- not the fainting though, they still go down for the count)

-->I really have to wonder how Gef would react to Smiler -- I imagine it would be quite the thing XD

-->I imagine that Victor has some nasty nightmares after his experience with The Bleeding Eye (like, there's no actual contact by the creature again, Daniel's made sure of that, but Victor keeps having bad dreams about the "room" and the Thing in it -- can you blame him?), and Smiler eventually offers to help with their hypnosis skills -- Alice is immediately like "I want to observe to make sure this is on the up-and-up" and Smiler's like "Sure!" Cue Smiler helping Victor out, Alice being like "...wtf I didn't know that could be used for good," and the three getting closer as a result, with of course eventual romance

-->I want Smiler to go to OmegaMart, see the employees, and want to cheer them up -- mostly I want them to offer one a hug and the employee to be like ??? Smiler wants to improve happiness in this place damn it

-->Potential endgame is them finding a way to get Smiler back to their world, with Victor and Alice tagging along for a visit...only to discover the whole "moon falling on the world" thing and realize that Mar-Mal's plan is actually to evacuate the Advocates (and whoever else wants to come with) to the BABS world before everything, you know, gets smashed. Cue panicked race to get people through whatever gateway they got open before the end

Basically, it's just me going "I want that version of Smiler to cause Even More Shenanigans in that world" right now. XD

[itstimeforstarwars]

The information on the kings and queens of Naboo before Padmé is somewhat inconsistent especially if you stick to exclusively canon so I am going to be rewriting about twenty years of Naboo monarchy to better suit my purposes.

[pyrriax]

[poisonouspastels]

[phoenixcatch7]

The problem I'm having with one of my stories is that it is compelling - but not clicking.

It's a sephiroth gets reincarnated into mdzs. Straightforward. I've got several branching paths: lwj, jc, nmj (my personal fave) and the jade twins (one mind in two bodies). All five of them have great potential, but for some reason my heart is set on sephiroth!lwj, because the aesthetic is sublime.

But! It's! Not! Working!

My main problems are a) despite similar surfaces, sephiroth has fundamentally different morals and life experiences to lwj and lwjs morals are a huge part of his and wwx's stories. B) I can't NOT have wangxian. I don't ship often at all, but when I do I'm pretty set on it lol. I don't want to deny soulmates. Unfortunately I HATE writing romance. C) I do not think sephiroth should be in any sort of romantic relationship at all nor can I see him wanting one. I've read tons of fics where he is in relationships (healthy or otherwise) and they're amazing, yes, but... Under my pen it's just not in the cards. And I do feel pairing him with wwx would just amplify wwx's worst traits, which is the opposite of what lwj does for him.

Everything's in conflict, but the lure of sephiroths second childhood in strict gusu and his complicated feelings about it, wwx being a perfect mix of all his important people with a spine of steel and righteousness that they all lost as everything fell apart, the relationship between sephiroth and his new mother, and how he'd inexplicably lose her too, the white on white aesthetic, the older identical brother, the cruel angels aesthetic with the benevolent demon, the angst of wwx's defection and death, his relationship with qi as a planet's overflowing life force, the tragedy of the mourning angel, monster x monster.... It calls to me.

But there's also the way wwx becoming a demonic cultivator was so vital to winning the war, and the way that affected things, gave him a legitimacy. Involve the silver soldier, and well. Everything else becomes a little extraneous lol. And sephiroth himself is such a big mover and shaker, I don't know what I could do to manage that without wiping out 80% of the remaining jianghu after the burial mounds siege with sephiroth appointing himself king lmao. He's not the kind of person to make small ripples, you know?

And I'd love a twin jades au to sort of turn the chaos inwards a bit (nmj and jgy would be Excellent foils) but again, I can't separate wangxian and imagining scenes feels a bit too close to incest for my tastes, even when it's ONE PERSON in identical bodies!

It's frustrating, wanting to write a non romance fic set in a love story lol. I just. I hate writing romance. But wangxian just don't want to be parted.

But the image of lwj in the xuanwu cave secretly covering a feverish wwx with his wing, only to notice a handful of white feathers pushing through the black as he unknowingly becomes a better person through showing care for other people, shaking his own deep belief that he is a horrible irredeemable creature incapable of love. Caught in an act of love. Hnggh.

Any ideas?!

[no1ryomafan]

I have said this before but me being self proclaimed number 1 Ryoma fan and that being possibly literal-bc even if this bro had fans before me I might’ve simply done the most for him by talking about him so much + being the first to write fics that are in depth studies on his trauma across canons-I gotta say if there’s one other character I rotate a lot that isn’t him it’s probably Kei. (Shocking it’s not Hayato even if I do think about him too- but it’s usually associated with Ryoma bc gays 🗿)

I’m not even exaggerating when I say Kei would be my favorite and only isn’t because she doesn’t exist in many other canons yet my brain rotates the endless possibilities of how to incorporate her. I’ve already written a fic where she’s in shin vs neo verse which worked surprisingly well but I’ve been thinking how universally she could appear in other things. (Whether it be fitting her into a idea of a possible Go team in New or just a new canon completely) I think what I’ve narrow it down to is that she could be like- in Michirus role? Like she’s the supporting female who isn’t a pilot but helps out the real occasionally which I think would align very well especially with the original manga role she has of being Hayato’s assistant. And even if Hayato isn’t grandpa mode yet he still very much is in Saotomes position at that point. Not sure if she’d Hayato’s biological kid to further parallel Saotome and Michiru given well Hayato already adopts the Go team and his wife is irrelevant LOL.

I have no idea if I’ll ever write this specific idea but I’m still- rotating it cause this is such a easy way to get around “picking between Sho or Kei as the 2nd pilot” since both of them can still exist even if one doesn’t get to pilot, idm my supporting females. (Granted there could always be like- plot line where Sho gets hurt so Kei is temporary pilot but I can’t remember if Getter ever really did this since “once your hurt your ass is basically replaced” lol)