#when i started caring a lot more about lore and realized the wiki is not totally complete dghKJHSG

[ratcandy]

real live clam reaction to ratau letter . for those unaware sometimes i record when i play games jus to check back and see if i missed something.and of course when i played today i saw ratau's letter for the first time so. the agonies

[zombie-bait]

Omg i just realized I have something tiny to add to the whole James Somerton debacle. I'm currently watching the hbombguy vid (as you do when procrastinating assignments) and I remembered something that stood out to me in James' old videos.

So I used to be a fan of his stuff. I am also a fan of Hannibal and IWTV. He made a video covering both so naturally I was very hyped. It was called 'The Gay Appeal of Toxic Love.' The vid itself was fine (I don't remember having any super strong opinions of it besides being excited to hear ppl mention Interview cuz I had recently become obsessed) but one thing did stand out to me. In the IWTV section he mentions Nicki and, naturally, his death:

"After becoming a vampire, Nicky becomes nearly catatonic, and eventually slips away from Lestat entirely. And after centuries of dealing with depression and severe mental illness, Nicky kills himself."

(sourced from this transcript: https://github.com/TerraJRiley/James_Somerton_Transcripts/blob/main/Transcripts/The%20Gay%20Appeal%20of%20Toxic%20Love.txt)

To anyone who's read TVL, I don't think I need to explain that Nicki had not, in fact, been around for centuries. "Nicki had lived to be 30" has been rattling around in my head since I first read it.

And like, obviously I don't expect every youtube essayist to read several long-ish novels to have a full grasp of the series' deep lore, especially when the focus was largely on IWTV and Loustat rather than the entire Vampire Chronicles. Still, it makes you wonder a bit about the quality of the research being done here. You can find the proper info in like, 5 seconds by just going on the fan wiki so I'm not sure what his sources were. And that's the issue at hand, isn't it?

At the time I felt a tiny bit smug recognizing the error but in light of everything that's been revealed, it's kind of telling. I'm not saying this part was plagiarized (I haven't found anything but others on reddit have found issues with different sections of the same video) but rereading the transcript it comes off as someone who clearly doesn't know much about Interview.... It feels like he's reading through a loose summary of plot points rather than analyzing a piece of media that actually means anything to him. It's very much Interview for people who don't know Interview which, one could argue is fair. Especially beyond book one, VC is a niche series and a lot of elements that are important to certain characters or plot lines cannot be summarized quickly for an audience unfamiliar with it. A good writer, who's done a lot of research about the specific topic they have chosen to make a video on, would be able to balance this. There is a LOT to analyze about queerness in VC and its a shame to see one of the more popular queer media channels half-assing it just to churn out videos heavily made up of other people's work. In retrospect he had several videos like that, where he would discuss things like manga/manhua communities while clearly having little knowledge on the nuance of those subjects. He was an outsider who presented himself with a strange amount of authority.

This was content created with the sole intention of propping up queer stories and history, yet it's built off stolen work from queer authors and doesn't actually care that much about exploring the communities it features. Vids like the IWTV one weren't really fact checked because it's only people like me who would might give a shit or even notice anything is off in the first place. There's a bit of a similar vibe in some of his other vids where he undermines the experiences of queer women because he clearly has not taken the time to learn about the nuances of representing queer women in media. These are things that irritated me when I first started to notice them but I put those concerns in the back of my mind because I cared about the topics he was covering and was excited to see these discussions becoming more mainstream.

The revelations of this evening have been disappointing to say the least.

(also for the record I know he made other more recent vids about IWTV but I haven't seen those and even if his account was still up I don't think I would lol

BUT

I did look at the transcript for his 'Vampires and the Gays Who Love Them' video (found from the same link I included above) and this quote about the IWTV AMC show is sending me: "Daniel has never grappled with the complexities of being gay"

Shoutout to straight, uncomplicated icon Daniel Molloy. Devil's Minion was a mass hallucination, spread the word)

[artofapeach]

How do you think the characters of termina would be different if they were born in fear&hunger 1 times

(I’m specifically asking about paavrin)

I TOOK PHYSICS AND THAT WAS EASIER THAN THIS WHAT THE FUCK

No but for real, like, so much of Pav and Karin especially is like—they’re a product of their time?? Like, I hope I’m not sounding like I’m playing favorites, but besides August, they’re very much characters made especially because of the events in Funger Senior, so it’s hard for me to imagine them DURING Funger Senior!

I’ll still try though!!

Pav feels so redundant, because like, in Termina, he’s basically a mix of Ragnvaldr and Darce. Joined the Bremen army and worked under Kaiser’s command, but instead of it being for love, it’s to exact revenge. And like, that’s his WHOLE CHARACTER. That was his LIFE GOAL (which is why when he fails, he becomes so utterly defeated and thinks there’s nothing left for him anymore but this isn’t about that, I’ll save that essay for another time)

So to put him in Funger Senior…he’d need a similar event to really feel like Pav, ya know? But again, that’s just end up very similar to Darce and Ragnvaldr, where it works centuries later as “ah, another run of the cycle”, but not really during the same time period, ya know???

Although, hmmmmmmm…what if Pav actually tricks Darce into thinking he cares as deeply for Le’garde as she does (no homo) (well maybe a little bit) and they go into the dungeons together?? But when they find Le’garde and Pav kills him, the utter betrayal Darce would feel—especially since this would have been a knight she knew rather than a random hunter she met in a dungeon—hmmmmmmmm…

Karin though! She’s even HARDER!

What is there even for a journalist to do in the medieval times??? (this is most definitely an invitation for any nerds to teach me on any medieval journalism please, that’d be cool 👁️)

My first thought though was, maybe she’s like a spy?I also don’t know at all what a medieval spies are like, but I’m sure they existed dinakdkskjfje

Also, if I remember my Funger lore properly (which it’s very likely that I don’t, my memory is shit, and I’m on my phone so I’m not about to flip to the wiki fifty times djsjjcjsjjd), Le’garde was NOT well liked by the main government and wealthy families. But he was well liked by people who felt like the world was unjust? And Karin, like, is SUCH an advocate for human rights—I get the feeling that she also would have fallen into Le’garde’s team, maybe genuinely believing in him at first—again, similar to Darce (let’s be real, there’s a lot of D’arce’s in the world).

But Karin’s real perceptive—I get the feeling she would have clocked Le’garde falling into the occult early and realize something is up and wrong. And rather than having that blinding trust, she starts to gather information—maybe start a third party separate from Le’garde and the main government to ACTUALLY do some good.

OOH WAIT OKAY okay okay, so, what if Karin clocks Le’garde’s occultism and starts to look into him, and then she and Pav clocks each other’s distrust of Le’garde and they work TOGETHER????? It’s completely different from Termina and there’d be no enemies to lovers 😔 but I feel like, personally, that’s would be the most fitting way for them to meet and work together (and eventually fall in love, of course).

And we all know Karin would ALSO go in the dungeons of Fear and Hunger, because there’s no way she’s not getting involved. Just D’arce and her band of lovers that are plotting against her jcjdkfkdkkdmf

I do get the feeling Karin would be less of an advocate of straight up murdering Le’garde rather than roughing him up and then bringing him to Justice. That said, in Termina, what I find interesting is that Karin is actually more trigger happy than Pav is (Pav makes threats, but actively avoids killing when unnecessary—Karin meanwhile whips out her gun on August just for making some notes on the other contestants). Maybe in a Funger Senior setting, she actually convinces Pav to wait on killing Le’garde, but while going through Mahabre and Le’garde has one of those fascination “I’m gonna become a god!” moments, Karin gets involved with a scuffle with him and accidentally kills him?? Then she would have to deal with the guilt and D’arce’s wrath—Pav there trying to comfort her and tell her it had to be done and it was for the best????

I DUNNO, DO WE FUCK WITH THESE IDEAS??? AM I COMMITTING MISCHARACTERIZATION HERE???

I am NOT doing the other characters, this alone hurt my brain (and I’m p sure August would be near impossible) BUT I do want to point out Twitter user @/B0nesJam’s au with their Nightshade dungeons of Fear and Hunger designs, ‘cause they’re super cool :3c

[randomsloredrops]

Random's Lore Drops - King Fluffybuns

I wanted to put goat dad and the mountain king both as the title. Unfortunately i felt like that'd be stupid. so instead, we got his nickname. Source? Gerson. Thanks gerson. Also gerson gave us this photo.

thanks a lot gerson. anyways, time to talk about goat dad a bit. or the mountain king. or king fluffy buns. or asgore dreemurr. or-

So, here we are. I finally got to work on this on June 18, compared to when I said I would on June 7th. I'm a lazy bastard, aren't I? Well, that, and I'm a cunt, but eh, it's in my nature. King Asgore. Asgore Dreemurr. This is the ruler of all of Monster-kind, and the one to declare war on any humans who fell down. King Asgore is, I'm not sure if he's misinterpreted, or if people like him. I fail to see many Asgore haters, but I personally like him. It's just that he doesn't get a lot of screen-time. Now, King Asgore is, as stated, the King. He is also the ex-husband of Toriel Dreemurr before she left him. He is a Boss Monster, as expected from a king, and he goat. (but not goated with the sauce) King Asgore is an avid tea enjoyer, a gardener, and obviously likes his wife, as well as her pies. Most definitely misses Toriel too (if it wasn't obvious at all). There's also a bunch of quotes I never even knew about from Undertale (according to the wiki) from Asgore himself, such as "I just want to see my wife. I just want to see my child." Anyways, back on topic, let's talk about why he declared war. His children. Now, if you don't know what I'm talking about, I'm talking about the day that the first fallen human and Asriel Dreemurr died. On that day, Asgore declared war on all humans, seeing as his son, Asriel, had died right after the fallen human, by the hands of the humans on the Surface. (Honestly, a better excuse than most characters). Now, all I really have is random-ass info here. First, his own feelings about HIS declaration of war. Asgore himself... does not want to harm any more people than he must (according to himself). To him, the reason why he fights you despite not wanting to, is because it is HIS duty to his people. He keeps his promise to get seven SOULs to make sure his people have hope again after all of it was drained from the death of Asriel and the First Fallen (i will not refer to them as Chara yet). There's also a moment that I assume is overlooked based on the conditions. If you defeat him once, and give Flowey the treatment he deserves (or some second weird condition i dont know about), he will start off with him saying that he will treat the human well, and care for them, before stopping himself. He then states that, for the sake of what Asriel would've wanted, Asgore OFFS himself to give YOU, a human child, his SOUL. While grim, he genuinely would care more to see YOU, a human, escape via his SOUL, and would end his own life, than to kill another human. (at least, according to the wiki that is) fucking WILD tbh. oh yeah, pacifist. During pacifist, after Toriel whoops his ass, Asgore (unlike his deltarune counterpart), realizes that he is technically to blame (when his idea was MUCH better than Toriel's, and would at least give him more of a fighting chance against modern human tech), and simply asks Toriel if they could go back to something as simple as friends. and then gets shot tf down (damn his love life and friend life's worse than mine, because i don't get rejected since i have none). Asgore is also the one to help Undyne be a part of the Royal Guard, simply because one day, she ran up to him and challenged him. After that, he decided to teach Undyne to fight, as long as she managed to hit him once (he was constantly dodging, indicating his ability to dodge, even against somebody as inexperienced as a child (WHICH ALSO INCLUDES FRISK, A HUMAN CHILD. OUR EXPERIENCES OF FIGHTING DONT FUCKING INCORPORATE TO THEM)), and she managed to do it... Eventually. Asgore and Undyne are also pretty close, seeing as she knows his favorite type of tea (probably makes sense), and that he gets marshmallows stuck in his beard when he drinks hot chocolate. tbh imma be real, if there's such thing as asgore hate i dont get it. he seems like a good father, he's a nice guy, he taught undyne, and he's a family man.

[fancylala4]

So I read and watched some things about the Tangled tv series and it’s such a mess.

There’s magic everywhere in this series when the only magic in the movie was in that flower. I guess they realized that it would get boring fast and added more interesting lore into the series. There also steampunk stuff in it which is really weird because there was none of that in the movie. There wasn’t even a gun in the movie but there’s robots in the series?

They added in some black characters in it so they don’t look as white as the movie. I’m also sure they ripped off sinbad again and gave Flynn a friend that reminded me of cal.

They also ripped off of frozen as well. We have sister issues plot lines like the queen has one and rapunzel has one with cass. Rapunzel struggles with being a queen and is anxious about it like Elsa was( when she was super perfect at everything in the movie). She even copied Anna in being a funny sleeper and not being a morning person. There also was a special where a snow storm threatened the kingdom just like with frozen! Stans whine that frozen ripped off this movie like Elsa having a similar hair part to rapunzel (lol) or that Anna is a rapunzel clone (when rapunzel was already a Ariel clone) when this show clearly rips off frozen. I guess they wanted that frozen popularity.

Mandy still can’t voice act for shit. It’s so funny how she hasn’t improved in the role since she started it and it sounds like she did this for the money. For example, That scene when rapunzel was yelling out and crying when pascal sacrificed himself was so painful. I heard more emotion from a girl who drop her own phone. it’s embarrassing because you can see that she’s out of her league when the got great singers in the mix with the guy who voiced that 14 years old and cass. It also says a lot that the song that got an award for this show had a great singer (cass I think it was) and not any of the songs Mandy sings.

The series made three king look like even more of a dick than he already was in the movie and made gothel look less of a dumbass than she did in the movies. The reason why she never moved the flower from the spot was because of some rock spikes would grow everywhere for some reason and it can cause harm to people who live in the area. But the king didn't care about this at all and took the flower knowing the things it would cause. He also kept the original flower and said that anyone who steals it like he did would be a criminal. So he’s a thief who stole a flower and used all its power for his own selfish purposes (when it could have help anyone in the kingdom with a similar or even worse case than him) and didn’t care that it would cause harm to not only his own kingdom but the world.

The 14 year old kid (who is super popular because I’ve seen his design everywhere) in the show was made out to be the bad guy because his dad got caught into that rock thingy and he just wants to issue to go away because it can hurt anyone. Rapunzel also kicked him out into a snowstorm (or someone in the castle did and she did nothing to stop it) and didn’t give a fuck about him for two episodes. He was low key right about everything going by the wiki.

I would say that the king was an abusive piece of shit because how he treated rapunzel but I already said something about that in an another post! I still can’t believe he locked her up in a fucking tower and the show pulled the “he loves and cares about you! So the abuse is ok” crap!

I do have to say that the music in the show was way better than it was in the movie. It seems like no one was holding Alan back and they got someone who could actually write good lyrics unlike that guy from the movie. The song ready as I’ll ever be (it was every where at one point and I had no idea it was from this show) was so much better than the trash ass songs they had in the movie.

The art is a mix between lolirock and a storybook. I like it better than the movie’s but it’s not the best. I also liked rapunzel’s hair better here than in the movie since it didn’t look like plastic.

[canonically-a-genloser]

Fable smp, I did not type all this out it came from the wiki :>

Ghosty is an adventurer and traveler whose main focus was finding his friend, The Lady of the World. He joined the SMP after being rescued from the End Prison

Aax is an olm hybrid who was discovered by Rae in a cave where he was waiting for someone to return. The cave was souped out with a nice couch and some signs that counted fours as by their logic "if [he] didn't cross over them; it wasn't a full five days". He enjoys fishing, is sensitive to sunlight and has very strong hearing as he was able to speak to Athena through the caves and heard Momboo (Strawberri) in the cave earlier in season two

Athena is a the child of Netherum and a friend to all on the server. They and Jamie are best friends and became Rae's lab assistants early in the SMP. Athena's disappearance during the Halloween Episode kicked off the major lore of the SMP as the server set out on a journey to bring them home.

Centross has a rocky relationship with a number of the other SMP members due to his actions in season one but regrets them and has been actively trying to make up for them.

Chaos is... a vibe. They have dragonfly wings and are decidedly not human but were not always such. They are a mercenary and currently co-king of Sea Side with Ocie.

Easton is a college graduate with a degree in Real Estate. They were adopted when they were younger by Momboo a year before she also adopted Jamie. Currently they are living at the foot of a volcano.

Galahad is a blaze hybrid and is a Nexai Knight that fought under Netherum during the war. They are kind and care for their friends. The cold and water are painful for him to be in.

Haley was a traveler and the first member of the SMP to canonically die. She was a bit of a hermit and didn’t interact much with others on the server before the events that lead to her death, but she was friends with Momboo and Sherbert.

Strawberri is is the embodiment of the land given human form. She’s the adopted mother of Jamie and Easton. She cares a lot about nature and especially the tree in the center of spawn.

Oceana is the embodiment of the ocean given human form. She misses being the ocean and used to freely tell people that she was the ocean before realizing that's probably not something you should tell people. She’s currently co-king of Sea Side along with Chaos.

Rae is a scientist whose main focus of study is dimensions. He started on the SMP primarily researching the End before its discovery, but now is studying several dimensions and the gods (most of them are his family).

Seven is a robot with multiple functions whose objective is doing tasks for others. However in season one he eventually learned how to think more for himself and make his own choices.

Sherbert is an alchemist who has made a number of new potions through trial and error. There are a lot of mysterious occurrences and happenings that surround them. From their left eye constantly bleeding to their house changing on its own.

Ven is a writer that lives at the top of one of the mountains around spawn. They are a bit of a recluse and put signs leading up to his home to deter others from visiting but they have not worked very well. Typically they need to be dragged to events by other people, namely Ocie.

Will is an adventurer. He loves maps and takes notes of the interesting places he finds on his travels. Though he likes wandering, it is lonely and he has been making friends for the first time in a while in the SMP.

Wolf is a wolf-like person formerly known as the dog "Void".

~Remi

That sounds really cool! :D I like their names a lot tbh like that is really cool to me sjdnsnjw

I actually almost panicked when I saw this like 'did Remi really just spend like a half hour typing??' turns out we're good xD brain went ACK-

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

I've been thinking about this for the last few minutes because I can't get it out of my head... Partially because I just discovered that one of my windows into British politics, Welsh Culture, and Walrus shenanigans is also apparently a prolific force for good in werewolf erotica, and that has sent me. But also because thinking about the idea of disability for magical shapeshifters made me think about my own disability which is less physical (so not the goal of your ask, sorry) but mental, with ADHD.

When I was younger, I was an avid reader of the ElfQuest comic series, and one of the things that always stuck with me as a particular ideal was the idea of the 'Now' of Wolf thought that was a component of 'The Way' that the Wolfriders lived by. AKA living in the moment and caring about only what your immediate needs are. You're hungry, so you eat. You're thirsty, so you drink. From the wiki, "...living entirely in the present, not dwelling on the sorrows of the past, or the worry of the future." That sounded perfect. I always loved the simplicity of it, and I'm honestly just now starting to connect the dots a bit that maybe I loved it because it was so freeing from all of the concerns and anxiety that my undiagnosed ADHD was giving me (wasn't until late 2020 that I got diagnosed). I didn't need to worry about the future, because now was all that mattered. It also fit in with another one of my symptoms that I've disliked about myself for a long time until realizing it was because of the way my brain was organizing things (though I do have some resentment on it) in that, I could easily compartmentalize my feelings for friends and store them away until I saw or talked to them again, in the next 'Now' moment. How I felt about you didn't change despite the absence. We votuld go a year without talking, and I'd cheerfully pick up where we left off. The problem was, this meant that I was also shit at maintaining a lot of friendships properly online, and even familial relationships after I moved out because essentially once people were out of sight, they were out of mind, until I saw or interacted with them again and then sort of 'unpaused.' And that worked for me, but it's a shit way for others who don't operate that way, and I'd been called too aloof (at best) or a shitty friend (at worst) as a result. And it's not like I didn't want to fix it; I did. But I just couldn't, because I wouldn't even realize I was doing it until it was done and I was happily speaking with them again. Coming to the realization that it has always been ADHD lurking over how I function has helped... But it's still frustrating to me that in the way I appreciated ElfQuest for how it idealized that ability to live in the moment, it's not a way that I can live because most people don't.

Sorry, I didn't realize some of the things above until I started typing this out, and then wanted to add more context to my next question... But does your lore cover anything in terms of mental disabilities (in particular ADHD, but obviously other ones like DID would/could play heavily into such a setting too)? Does it go beyond the 'lol, Moon Moon you're so random' people would stereotypically expect of a wolf with ADHD, or does it go into any of the impacting negative symptoms? Does living like the wolf feel easier and freer? Does hyperfixation, lack of stimulation, or lost time happen? Are they worse in one form vs the other? Do stimulants help or hurt?

... man, some of that hits close to home for me as well...

So I currently haven't consciously included anyone with ADHD, but as someone with The Devil's Affliction myself, I wonder if an outsider would read any of these characters and think I have. That's something to look into more closely, I think.

I do know @coto524 is writing something with a werewolf with ADHD because he and I have talked a bit about that. He even has a plan in place for medication.

[spacedustmantis]

Enderwalk Theory Time! /rp /dsmp

I've been thinking about this one for a while. I'm referring to the characters, when talking about the CCs I will be tagging them as cc!name.

in short: dream abused and manipulated ranboo in similar fashion as he did with tommy, my thought process and reasoning is under the cut, because this got a bit long

(also if this doesn't get notes simply because it is long, I'm going to flip my shit! this took so long to make /lh /nf)

Let's start with a couple of facts:

1. ew!ranboo is ranboo but with all of his memories

2. ew!ranboo is not emotionless or hostile, he cares about people close to him

3. ranboo has in the past heard a voice in his head that sounded like dream, that pushed him to "realize" a lot of negative things (the tnt in the panic room, the disc at his house, helping dream). this can be interpreted in mainly two ways: the dream voice told the truth or it was lying.

4. ranboo has an irrational fear of dream, even though they haven't really interacted while ranboo was awake

5. dream and ew!ranboo held eye contact while dream was being escorted to prison. this has been confirmed to be relevant to the lore

6. the prison nightmare is something that happened

7. during that nightmare ranboo goes on about how horrible dream was, despite not knowing of the extent of tommy's abuse nor dream's plan to hold every attachment hostage nor his plan to kill tubbo. he says he's not sure why he wants to talk to dream so bad.

8. dream has an unhealthy obsession with tommy but seems to not care that tommy hates him (this will be important I promise)

9. the fucking entry in ranboos memory book written by ew!ranboo

(10. I thought I remembered that ranboo said that something caused his memory loss but he didn't know what, but I can't find anything regarding that on the wiki. I know the wiki is not a great source, but I don't know wether to trust an untrustworthy article or my shitty memory more.)

(11. i am working under the assumption that the dream voice is not actually dream but a part of ranboo himself. that is not confirmed by the lore. it's just something that I think is most likely but I will not elaborate on that. my brain is already fried. maybe some other time.

I'm also working under the assumption that dream is human or maybe an animal hybrid, and that he does not have powers beyond any other mortal on the server)

now that we got the relevant facts down, here's my thought process:

first things first, it is pretty apparent that dream and ew!ranboo have a close relationship. before one could speculate that the dream voice claiming that they were close was just a manifestation of ranboos anxiety, but now that we've had dream confirm that ranboo used to visit a lot (during techno's prison stream), plus the prolonged eye contact when dream was arrested, it's pretty clear that they have at least some history that we are unaware of. wether it's positive or negative is a bit less apparent.

now dream could have been lying when he said that, but it's highly unlikely since the only reason for him to lie (that I can think of) is to use that as a tool against techno and if we were to assume that ranboo did not talk to dream regularly he wouldn't know that ranboo and techno were close. also what he said and what the dream voice said during the prison nightmare coincide heavily and since we have the same information coming from two (most likely) independent sources, it's safe to assume the information is correct.

if we go off of the assumption that the dream voice told the truth that time, we also have to assume it was right the other times (this is even more likely since ranboo visiting the prison is much more obscure and less likely to be just a "lucky guess" than the other stuff the dream voice has said). this means that ranboo most likely did help dream blow up the community house. but why? we have confirmation that the enderwalk is not inherently evil, and the memory book entry states that ew!ranboo wants the best for the server. so him helping dream cause chaos and conflict doesn't quite add up here.

except, it does. ranboo is fucking terrified of dream. enough to send him into enderwalk by just showing him a smiley face. he was one of the first people to be convinced that "dream [was] the reason" despite the fact that he didn't (and still doesn't) know the magnitude of what dream has done.

dream and ranboo have a past. a past that ranboo doesn't remember.

and this is where the analysis ends and the theorizing begins

it is not uncommon for someone to experience amnesia after bad trauma. and even though cc!ranboo has stated that the enderwalk is not a depiction of DID, I feel that the comparison might be helpful here (I want to stress that the enderwalk is not an accurate representation of DID and shouldn't be equated to it in any way, but since on a surface level the two can seem similar, and a lot of people draw the comparison already, I feel it could explain what I'm trying to get across). when a kid is confronted with too much trauma for their brain to handle, the memories of said trauma get isolated into a corner of the mind. this leaves the child with the loss of those memories. the part of the brain that does remember grows into a different person than the part that doesn't and that's why alters exist. (this is a heavy simplification, and if I got anything wrong please tell me immediately!) and maybe ranboos scenario is similar to this. if my memory is correct and something did cause his memory loss, then it wouldn't be surprising if that something was a particularly traumatizing event. and thus the part of ranboo that remembers, the enderwalk, would certainly develop differently than our ranboo (again, I do not want to imply that ranboo has DID. if anything I said crossed the line, or if this whole comparison is inappropriate please let me know).

so, if we assume that ranboo faced trauma that was bad enough to cause amnesia, and if we look at ranboos subconscious reaction to dream, it's pretty easy to make the connection that dream caused ranboos trauma. how? the same way dream has always done. abuse and manipulation.

we know that dream isn't above child abuse or driving someone to the brink of suicide just for the fun of it. we know that he intended to manipulate absolutely everyone just to regain control over the server. we know that he would kill for his own self gain. so character wise, this makes sense. and most importantly it would explain why ranboo helped him.

in my mind, dream did something to ranboo before he joined the server. something that was bad enough to break him, which then also caused the amnesia (which I don't think would have been intentional on dreams side, since 1. why? 2. that would almost impossible to calculate. however in some cases the memory loss might have been helpful to dream) (I'm pretty sure that the bad memory and the actual memory loss are two different things. the bad memory might just be unfortunate genetics). after that dream had ew!ranboo under his control. he had broken him down and now ranboo was all the easier to manipulate. the fear that ew!ranboo had of dream seeped into ranboos subconscious, made him terrified of dream and caused the dream voice (which in my perception of things is literally what it says it is, a part of ranboos mind that knows what he's done) to be, well, dreams voice.

why would dream do this? during the new l'manburg era he didn't have as many reliable allies as he probably would have liked to have, he was already incredibly power hungry and ranboo with his bad memory, water allergy and anxiety was an easy target.

additionally, for people who want to point out that dream said that he and ranboo were close friends, dream also said that about tommy. and dream knows that Tommy hates him, but that doesn't change the fact that he thinks they're friends. same thing goes for ranboo.

and that's basically it!

to spin it a little bit further, I like to think that ew!ranboo is free of dream. with him in the prison, the dream voice disappearing (at least for now), ranboo getting happier it only seems logical that ew!ranboo has been able to get out of dreams grasp and heal. also the thought is just nice. but this doesn't have much backing as the rest so I wouldn't really count it as part of this theory.

it would also be interesting to see how the lessons would tie into this…

To summarize: dream did something to ranboo which was traumatic enough to cause the memory loss and the separation of ranboo and ew!ranboo. ew!ranboos horrible mental state then allowed dream to manipulate him into doing certain things (e.g. blowing up the community house, securing one of tommys discs, setting off tnt at the prison...). ranboo was and is unaware of this happening, but it did affect his perception of dream to be quite negative.

[waveridden]

all the prime numbers for fic writer ask!

thank you for testing my basic mathematical knowledge. let's go

1: fic you're most proud of

i have several for different reasons lol but i was thinking about this powerful throwback earlier so i'll drop it in here: forward momentum is a rock band au i wrote when i was like 17 based on cw's wildly popular program the 100. it's a little odd in places because. i was like 17. but it was the first long project that i finished and it is something i still feel a lot of fondness for and i am so proud of it because i did it! it was the first project i committed to in that way. happy 7th birthday to that fic

2: what's a fic that took you to an emotional/dark/hard place?

writing stuff during the pandemic is very much looking back and going "oh, that was about the pandemic!" and nothing did that so extremely as stand tall, which is a blaseball fic about the snackrifice. i reread it a while ago and i was like. oh huh! a story about people experiencing physical separation who have to connect with one another via storytelling and adjust to the distance and loneliness! wonder what could've inspired that!

putting everything else under a cut bc i just realized how long this is going to be

3: what's a fic you're emotionally attached to?

oh i'm attached to many things i've written lol but i am going to shout out syrinx which is a taz balance merle character study about religion and is one of those things that i have just. always liked! sometimes there are ups and downs and sometimes "liking" things i write means going "yeah that was good" but this is one that i have always fully enjoyed and thought was sweet and i am immeasurably fond of it

5: what's a fic of your own you won't read?

my ofmd fic because it freaks me out looking at how many comments and kudos it has lol. i know this sounds like a humble brag but like 20% of the kudos i have ever gotten is on that fic and it's intensely intimidating

7: how does receiving or not receiving feedback impact you?

wow what a complicated question lol uhhh. the person whose opinion i care about the most is mine, let's start there. i try to write things that i am proud of and happy with. that being said! i like getting comments and kudos! i think it's cool when strangers read things i write and enjoy them, and sometimes it's frustrating when i put in a lot of time on something and it just...... doesn't get a big response. and at the same time i am always grateful for anyone who takes the time. it's one of those things where there are a dozen contradictory and equally true statements that i could say. i wish i could say the numbers don't matter to me, but they do! if i didn't want people to read what i write, i wouldn't post it. (there's plenty of stuff that i don't post!)

11: has a fic you've written ever caused issues/controversy?

there's a story here that i'm not going to tell lol but real ones remember free play (derogatory). my second answer is i wrote a page for the blaseball wiki recently that somehow indirectly resulted in a couple lore jams and major rewrites and issues. i don't really follow how like nobody told me i was involved but i guess i was

13: do you take pride in your writing, or does it embarrass you? why?

oh i'm so proud of it! this is a skill i've worked on and like i'm not kidding myself about my odds of getting published but that's not the goal, the goal is writing things for myself and my friends that i like and i am GREAT at that.

17: what is the best interaction/feedback/engagement you've received on a fic?

long comments make me happy! actually the thing that makes me lose it is transformative works, i've received three podfics and a translation and a sequel and some art (and of COURSE jamie who sent this ask sent me a physical bound copy of my d20bb fic destination as well as leaving a comment that delighted me and that's like. one of the all time coolest things.) idk i just think it's neat when my art moves people to make more art

19: if you could write an ideal fic, what would you include?

oh MAN what a question. uhh i'm never good at listing favorite tropes/plot points or things like that but i WILL say something i really struggle with is like. subplots and plot motion and things that feel external to the characters. so my ideal fic would include a strong subplot. (i am DYING to try and write a mystery sometime, i just haven't had a good idea yet.)

[littleouroboros]

I absolutely LOVE Eduard's lore, and your DM's setting. Can I ask more questions about him?? I have A Lot, sorry if I'm overstepping! Only answer if u want! But what's his relationship with each of the Black Rose like?? The party got attached to them, but it sounds like they got attached to Eduard. When they entered the dungeon the rite was taken to, is that the same one that Modus Tollens has trapped people in? Do any of the Rose know about any of what's going on between Modus and Eduard? (1/2)

(Cont. of the ask): Also, what's Ed's connection to Queen Lida aside from working in a library named for her? She's an idol to him, but you said "was" a psionic, and the wiki lists her as possibly deceased... have they ever met? And how does Ed feel about the Lattice? Does he regret knowing them? He's trying to get his old life back, do You as his player think he would be able to, even if his memories of the Lattice were removed? I love your Boy's story, but what are his Feelings abt it...?! (2/2) (Answer): Okay okay putting this again under a cut bc I've got a lot to go through here.

First and foremost, Ed and Eduard are different people. Ed is the big, bald half-giant, Eduard is my little warlock man! It's confusing, I know, but my DM had no clue Ed was gonna be such a recurring character I'm sure. I'm going to be proceeding assuming you meant Eduard with every "Ed"

Alright, now that we've got that squared away, let's start with the questions!

What is his relationship with each of the Black Rose?:

I portray his relationship with all three of them as a happy, healthy polyamorous relationship. They are all in love with one another, no one is one-sided or anything like that.

That being said, the individual pairings do have their own dynamics.

[Above] Jara and Eduard's conversation on their way to the dungeon for the first time.

Jara was probably the first one Eduard fell in love with, but not the first one that he really began any sort of real romantic relationship with out of the three. Jara has been sweet and protective of Eduard from the very beginning. She is the group's captain and takes the leading position of the Rose, and as such the other three often look to her for direction, and she is always very caring of her boys. Despite being an elf and not requiring sleep, Jara would spend every night in the dungeon with Eduard holding him in her arms to make sure he got a good night's rest (he had problems sleeping then.)

[Above] Ed holding Eduard after the latter received healing. Eduard had dropped to like 3 HP moments prior.

Ed is likely the one that Eduard initiates things with. Ed is basically the darkest dungeon stress healer of the group. Without him, the other three would be walking around with rainclouds over their heads. Ed's influence makes Eduard want to be a better person--and it's likely the same for Jara and Zack who tend to also lean towards evil and neutral alignments. Ed's also the one that is most in touch with his feelings and is able to easily read how his companions are feeling--which means that he's the first one to realize that Eduard is in love with himself and his two companions, as well as vice-versa. With Eduard in particular, Ed is very protective and frequently puts himself in front of Eduard during combat to make sure he doesn't get hurt.

[Above] Zack taking an academic interest in Eduard but being kinda gay about it.

Zack and Eduard probably have had the most growth together in terms of their relationship. When Jara was trying to decide if she wanted to bring Eduard along with them on their delve into the dungeon, Zack said something along the line of, "Well if we bring him with us, there will be fewer questions when he disappears." But now, in current time, Zack forsook their mission (which they were all willing to risk their lives for, mind you) by influencing a magic ring tracking the rite to instead track Eduard to find him when he went missing--then scoured the halls of the lowest level of the mega-dungeon for four days to find Eduard. Their relationship went from conflicting, to curiosity (As Zack was interested in Eduard's warlock magics and the tome once Eduard confided in him), and now to only vaguely veiled yearning so desperate that they'd risk life and limb for one another.

When they entered the dungeon the rite was taken to, is that the same one that Modus Tollens has trapped people in?:

Yep! It's all part of the same mega-dungeon. Modus Tollens currently has Zack's rite within his vault, and that's why it would be a suicide mission. To attempt to steal a cursed rite of power from a Lich as powerful as Modus is basically a death sentence.

Do any of the Rose know about any of what's going on between Modus and Eduard?:

To be completely fair, "What's going on between Modus and Eduard" is not nearly as homoerotic as I like to depict it as, I'm just gay. HOWEVER, that being said, Eduard and Modus Tollens are still doing shady and dangerous shit, and the Rose does not know the full extent of it. This is not Eduard intending to be sneaky or anything like that, though. Eduard just sees no reason to burden his companions with that, he doesn't want to worry them. He believes he can handle it on his own, and it would keep the people he cares about safest if they didn't know everything.

Also, what's Ed[uard]'s connection to Queen Lida aside from working in a library named for her? She's an idol to him, but you said "was" a psionic, and the wiki lists her as possibly deceased... have they ever met?

Eduard has... sort of met her. Technically she disappeared about 700 years before the current game, but it was revealed that she had died within Modus Tollen's dungeon--and the Lich's influence stretches farther back in time than that. Queen Lida was killed and had her flesh eaten by Odrea--someone she had trusted--because Odrea wanted power from the Lich to help her own companions escape. It didn't work, and Odrea and her companions are still stuck in the dungeon to this day... sort of. That's another long story.

Back to Eduard, though. Eduard only knew of Queen Lida because of her history, her library, and the fact that she was the founder of the Order of the Black Rose; an order made with the intent of finding and obtaining sensitive information and relics, evil or not, and learning to harness them. It was a cause that resonated with Eduard, especially after his run-in with the Lattice.

He only discovered she was a psionic when Modus Tollens told him. The Lich offered him one of her eyes preserved in red glass, which alone granted him the ability to use his own psionics after he had touched it.

[Above] Meme with a living Lida, Eduard, and Lida's preserved eyes.

Another PC, Mendrin, had hold of her other eye at that point, and when Eduard learned of that he asked for it and acquired both eyes that way. By using both eyes as foci for his psionics, Eduard... uh... well, he brought Queen Lida back to life.

Sort of.

She revitalized as a pulsing, floating nervous system that connected to her reclaimed eyes, but she had no brain, no bones, no skin, etc. She was, however, insanely powerful, and vanished rather quickly after regaining her sentience. Modus Tollens is quite obviously frightened of her.

And how does Ed[uard] feel about the Lattice? Does he regret knowing them?

Eduard is scared of the Lattice. That's the easy way to put it. The Lattice scares him so long as it is basically holding him at figurative gunpoint. The Lattice could decide at any moment that keeping Eduard alive isn't worth it and simply vanish him from existence, removing his memory from every mind on every plane, erasing any loose ends so that the god can return to blissful anonymity.

He does, however, also appreciate it. The Lattice has offered him a life he never dreamed he could have had. Eduard was a book nerd working a cushy desk job at a fancy library preparing to go to a college for wizardry, but now he has experiences more incredible than any he has read about. He is altering real history with every action he takes, and he has three new companions in his life that he would do anything for.

He doesn't regret knowing the Lattice, but he does want to get it over with.

He's trying to get his old life back, do You as his player think he would be able to, even if his memories of the Lattice were removed?

Perhaps saying his "old life" was bad phrasing. Eduard would not like to go back to the way things were verbatim.

Eduard would, however, like to one day be able to settle down with his three partners in a black stone Chroma manor by the sea without fear of forgetting them, or worse, them forgetting him as he fades into the obscurity of the Lattice. That, I believe, is certainly within his power...

As long as he can find a way to kill Modus Tollens.

[amazingphilza]

DSMP!OC HEADCANNONS

i dunno if ppl on here make dsmp!ocs for themselves outside art but here’s my long list of headcannons?? idk what to call this, but assume all names have c! before it ofc :]

,, this is kinda messy & probably has a lot of plot holes but i just needed a space to write out all my thoughts LOL

also cw / ment of manipulation & ib: dsmp wiki <3

character origin :

previous life was the l’mantree :D

allegedly planted by schlatt, we will never know who’s my canonical parent(s)

reborn as a dryad after niki burns the l’mantree

i think being a dryad would fit especially since they’re typically nymphs of oak trees :]

appearance :

my character’s mc skin has long light brown hair & is seen wearing a flower crown with petals that are around the color of a pale violet and navy blue

clothing would consist of black shoes & a long light grey sweater that falls down to the legs and covers most of the hands which adorned with 2 black stripes on the upper arms

lore / history :

since my past life was the l’mantree, i would’ve known the ins and outs of the history when l’manburg was still standing, up until niki burned the tree

after witnessing everything, i’d hold a grudge on niki (+ allies?) and loyal to wilbur since he’s the whole person that made a meaning of the land of l’manburg

however i’d still be on edge w any side because i could sympathize with everyone to some extent after seeing some sort of distress from everyone at some point

i think seeing both sides of the spectrum when l’manburg/manburg still stood could change my perspective of some other characters

but at the same time, not everything was completely centered in l’manburg so i wouldn’t know the whole story of everyone’s character

i’m currently writing this just after tommy has left the prison & mostly everyone is treating him differently, so i’d try to befriend him by not showing that i dont care about his past & trauma but also not being fully faithful about our friendship ahaha,,,

he seems like the type that needs someone to see through his past history but tommy would definitely disapprove of my character visiting dream at the prison (i would do it anyway :))

vowing my current life to wilbur, i would help dream escape to revive wilbur & follow along with their plans of chaos

i don’t fully support dream but he is the only way to wilbur, making me comply with dream’s decisions

“growing up” in my past life and witnessing endless conflict, it is the only thing i know and understand; chaos

but i think during the process of helping dream & wilbur i’d keep my connection with them secret, being the person to obtain all the inside information they need

i could see myself as a type of equilibrium like ranboo but in a bad way, i don’t know how to explain it

but i would try befriending ranboo since he seems like he is involved in many things and would know a lot, despite his short term memory

unfortunately i’m not sure how much his character actually knows since i haven’t been able to watch his pov that much but i’m sure there’s a lot in his memory book...

to blend in as a normal person within the rest of the characters, i’d surround myself with connor a lot

not only because he needs more lore, connor is one of the “normal” citizens of the smp so i believe being with him doesn’t bring as much attention to myself, unlike people that’s related to the egg and their noticeable features after associating themselves with the egg

he is currently only on bad terms with techno which is rly good when comparing that to other characters and their relationships with other people

connor could probably sense my real intentions eventually & tell everyone else that i’m not who i say i am but if that’s my flaw & my downfall is caused by connor, so be it! sorry dream & wilbur

i feel like for being a young dryad, i’d still fool around with dream/wilbur & help give tommy an small “advantage” to defeating the two ?

like yes i’m supposed to be on your side but where’s the fun if tommy can’t do anything to begin with?

i honestly don’t know if wilbur was revived he’d actually be his vassal but let’s assume that happens, but either way i’m with wilbur on his decisions

but ya dream seems like the type to punish me for helping tommy and send me to the afterlife to learn & become smarter like wilbur had done or smth

in the end, i just want to give tommy bits and pieces that tease him from ending all the wars and problems he has been faced with

like here’s some info about dream and wilbur but it won’t be no where close to enough

but who knows, ghostbur said ‘villains are just heroes that aren’t convinced yet’ & maybe tommy could eventually grow on me & change my ways,,

maybe me fooling around & teasing tommy with answers he’s been searching for is a way to mask that i want to be a good person

ok but imagine after knowing so much about dream/wilbur, the revive book, & the afterlife & then i switch sides,,,

surely if tommy can’t put and end to them, dream would make sure i’m gone for good instead

but also if me & connor are in good terms & he’s canonically a necromancer & can bring ppl back to life,,,,

personality :

to all besides dream & wilbur, i’d try to act passive and friendly on the outside to get on everyone’s good side

however under the mask i am more mischievous & strive to cause more problems for everyone on the server from the inside out

in a way, i’ve taken up some of dream’s manipulative personality but still very understanding

i’d like to think of my character as a good listener,, trying to do less talking than others so i do not open up about my true self and intentions

i’ve seen rumors about schlatt & mexican dream also being revived along with wilbur & i feel like i’d have some soft spot for schlatt & pick up a few things from his own character, not sure what though

schlatt planted l’mantree theory, dad!schlatt au part 2 !! /j

because of my character’s closed off and quiet personality, i feel like i’d be pretty analytical

i would know how to slip between the cracks with some characters & notice the smallest things to make them question themselves

maybe my character is good at holding their composure, and not that susceptible to being “emotional” in a way so it’s easier to face people

like i understand when a situation is sad, etc but i can’t show emotion towards how i feel about it (i don’t know if that makes sense but ya!)

i wanna try to elaborate more,, like imagine my character before tommy visits the prison, i would be unfazed from when i found out he died to the point he’s released and we find out he’s been revived

everything is a constant blur hehe

i just can’t fully process everything i guess? i dunno if that’s helpful but yeah!

in the end though, my moral compass has been very tainted; despite wanting to show my loyalty, it can be slightly easy to sway me, making me internally feel guilty to other people

but me trying to get on everyone’s good side to impress wilbur/dream to seem useful to them would ruin me before i would even realize that i’m another “pawn”

we know damn well dream is faking it till he “makes it” but yk,,

but i’d be stuck in this kind of dilemma of not knowing what thoughts are my own or just something trickled down from wilbur or dream

there’s like maybe something that clicks in my head like “maybe i wanna think for myself for once” or smth

like who am i really?

powers , bonuses , etc :

since dryads can technically manipulate plants in some ways, theoretically i could control the blood vines to some extent ???

i’m pretty sure dryads can communicate with plants so i could understand what the blood vines are saying as well

maybe i could get a good sense of what the egg is all about and stuff

assuming that i understood anything that was happening with the egg in the first place but anyway—

i guess similar to ranboo like how he can’t really be around water without some type of amour or something, it would make sense for me to primarily reside in a type a forest or be near one ?? who knows

seems a bit morbid in a way because of the whole history but if i can somehow easily get rid of the blood vines without it affecting me (if there is still some there) i think it would be kinda pretty to build a tree base in the middle of the l’manburg crator (iskall tease)

like it can show a sign of some rebirth, not the same government repeated once again but a new era in general

you know how you see like destruction years after it the disaster or smth happened and it gets all overgrown with plants and stuff? ya that’s what i’m going for in my head (mumbo jumbo s7 tease)

i know it’s covered in glass already but i dunno, some broken glass and a giant tree emerging from the whole thing and all the rubble seems cool

i’m not a good builder but i have the vision LMAO

omg puffy is like a sheep human hybrid im pretty sure & like there’s a specific type of dryad that are a protector of sheep & other animals?? i’m not exactly sure but that seems like an interesting element to incorporate somehow

also glatt randomly planting a oak sapling in quackity’s lore stream yes pls feed my nonexistent dsmp character lore /j

i honestly dunno how to incorporate the fact dryads can turn shapeshift into trees when trying to escape something but i read something that if a dryad stays in a tree form for too long they’ll forget who they are and stay stuck as a tree?? which like woah that’s cool & some material but at the same time what—

since everyone’s backstory is kinda a mess, mr beast parent tease bc he planted a bunch of trees /hj

i have realized wilbur saying like “the whole reason i built this nation is gone” & blowing up everything or whatever is kinda a plot hole in like ‘why would i follow wilbur if/when he’s revived when he said this?’ but i’d like to think he was the one that made some meaning of the area lmanburg was on, which includes the lmantree

like he was the one that started everything and created that sentiment of that land, and however he views it now is how i would see it now

he gave meaning to my past life and now in my current life, i feel this obligation to repay him for it

not really lore bc i think it was cc!tommy talking to cc!ranboo about his height & age when he first joined but yk it would funny to make my dsmp character than his just to slightly spite him anyway

canonically 6’4 dryad yes . /hj

also i have no idea anything about hannah and her lore but we do be flower buddies :D

also omg like this isn’t at all important but the way ranboo can pick up grass blocks will just have me at awe, i dunno seems in theme with the forest/plant stuff

and i remember reading like there was something about dryads and apples but i can’t remember but i’d give tommy a bunch of apples /hj

apples am i right chat,,,,,

i’ll just have infinite apples in my inventory, like kill me in game, not like losing lives kinda deal but just in general and boom stacks of apples

“bee i get you’re half tree but do you just poop apples out like they’re nothing??” “girls don’t poop” /j

ok but like no matter how many streams i watch i cant grasp where everything is but omg but no if i was new to the server & stuff, canonically & not, i would feel my character to be the curious kind to explore everywhere

like besides a mini tour from some other person in the server, since my character only knows things in the bounds of lmanburg, i’d go off exploring different places like pogtopia, the sewers, showchester, etc

i feel like my character would be really into history, like they would have questions about what happened to lmanburg after the last war? what was life like before wilbur? what was the whole history about the antarctic empire? i dunno but reading a bunch of books from a library seems really interesting

oh but in theory, me and tubbo are loosely related if you wanna count schlatt as my “dad” because he supposedly planted the lmantree ???

i mean could make sense but it seems like a stretch

also if my character ever got close to schlatt, i’m not sure if this is canon, but i swear one time he mentioned how the whole dsmp sever is just a game/server in a game & he’s the only one that knows that ??? but like imagine if i found that out canonically,,,,,

big existential crisis pls

and i’m not 100% sure how dryad shifting works with like going from female to tree form and stuff but if i’m able to morph into different girls on the server & act as them,,,, the about of problems that can cause in the lore omg

lemme frame niki real quick and get inside information /j

oh ya and like hey bee do you support the government then? yes but no. whatever my “fav” person is canonically (assuming this is based in the beginning of this whole hc) whatever wilbur thinks, i think. head empty. but subject to change as the dsmp storyline progresses and stuff :]

ngl i wanna throw in some like random lore that doesn’t make sense to throw people off but i can’t think of anything

not actually really lore related but my choice of stream music like how ranboo has his undertale stuff that makes everyone cry, i will have in love with a ghost

yup i like in love with a ghost sm & i’m pretty sure their music is like not dmca too which yay but yk theoretically never gonna stream on the dsmp but still a fun aspect to think of bc i love listening to music & it’s very impactful to a story & associating something to it makes it more meaningful :D

like i could imagine the chill pop lofi piano stuff fits witha few lore streams of like exploring the whole smp before my character would really go out with being this lost villain in a way?

tubbo’s gangnam style who?

like i feel like i made my character bad/evil so they could have potential to get better in the future

on one hand, i’ll end up w dream and/or wilbur for the rest of my life, which is okay but i could also switch to be with tommy or even disregard all of them and be with techno/phil or quackity & potentially schlatt even who knows

also i cant wait for more connor lore tho, like as much as i tried to make my character give him more content i wanna see how everything goes with him having connections to schlatt & stuff

anyway i would’ve made concept art for my character but i honestly don’t rly like my art currently but who knows LMAO

and lastly if u read all of this ily /p

i might update this later when there’s more lore but ya

[927roses-and-stuff]

Miracles in Gotham: Chapter 7: A Brewing Storm

A/N: So, with Season 4 of Miraculous Ladybug officially starting, this is a reminder that this fanfic is non-compliant with any events after Season 3, even with the added lore in canon. I know this is also a crossover so that’s to be expected, but because this fic is also dealing with Miraculous lore, I feel the need to put this up. Please don’t comment about canon disproving any of the material here, because I am already fully aware of the fact. I don’t really care for the show anymore, and the only thing keeping me in the fandom are the fanworks. Like many in the Maribat fandom, I discovered the more vast lore of DC through this, so there is a mix-up of canon from different worlds/universes (e.g. Young Justice, New 52, and Prime Earth), I just don’t care enough to discern which wiki I’m getting my info from.

That said, thank you to everyone who is taking the time to read this fic, and I hope that you like it. An extra thank you to everyone who has given this a kudos, bookmarked, and/or commented. I appreciate you all so much.

Also, shout out to jackmand1, Sp8cefluff and BenRG who commented on ways to open the box (getting Bunnyx to get the tablet before Hawkmoth, and asking the box to open), which is all mentioned in Marinette’s diary entry.

If you want to see more, follow: #miraclesingotham or ask to be added to the tag list.

Tag list: : @northernbluetongue @zerotosiki @spicybelladonna @my-name-is-michell @legendaryneckjudgestudent @lokiifriggasonn @iloontjeboontje

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Dear Diary,

There’s still no luck with the Miracle Box. After we tried Chat’s idea of dropping it from the Louvre using the chew toy as a pressure point, we tried hitting it with our weapons (didn’t even make a dent!), Chat asked the box to “please open don’t close up on us like my dad did” (we had a talk about that but he didn’t want to delve too much into it, and it didn’t work), the kwami tried phasing through it (thank god kwami don’t get concussions), and we even tried contacting Bunnyx, but goodness knows where she is and after Chat Blanc, I didn’t really want to see her anyway. We gave up sometime in the early morning, and now it’s shoved in one of my luggage carts, ready to bring to Gotham tomorrow. I hope it doesn’t trigger any of the airport security.

In better news, it’s been a few days since Chat and I officially introduced our new Ladybug and Bee to the scene. For the most part, I think they’re doing well- better than I did when I first started, anyway. It took a bit of time for Luka and Kagami to get used to the new set up, but Chat and I were there to help them, so it wasn’t too bad. Luka, or Bleu Acier, took a while to get used to the yoyo (who knew Luka had a fear of heights?), but he’s gotten used to it...after we had to convince him he wasn’t going to splat into the pavement or anything like that. Kagami, who decided on the name Shūyō, had to adjust to short-range fighting and not using Venom too soon, but she managed to navigate the top and cause a lot of damage to the akumas that we dealt with in the last few days. I think Hawkmoth has some idea that Bustier’s class is on the move because we’ve had an akuma attack every day so far. I’m hoping it’s just Hawkmoth becoming more desperate, although hopefully Bleu Acier and Shūyō threw him off a little bit. As of right now, I’m using the Snake Miraculous as Couleuvre, so it’ll be easier to-

One moment, Marinette had been settled comfortably in her chaise, and the next, a large crash through her bedroom walls threw her across the room, her back hitting the wall hard enough that she felt pain upon impact. When the world around her gained focus, she spotted a large woman-like figure in front of the hole in her wall cackling. The woman’s glassy skin that was translucent, yet she could also see a muddled reflection of her own face. Upon her head she wore a heavy silver crown adorned with gems that was reminiscent of her skin and a white, flowy dress that trailed behind her from the waist. In her hand was an open contact mirror that contained no reflection except for her own blue-bell eyes.

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng! I am Mistress Mirage! Soon, I will show you the darkest parts of yourself, the secrets you hide behind your so-called truths!” she bellowed, her voice echoing in Marinette’s ears. In the background, she could barely hear her parents’ muffled screams and bangs against her bedroom door.

“Who-” she hissed, trying to balance herself and stand up. “What did I do to you?”

As far as she knew, she hadn’t angered anyone in the last hour she had been home for lunch.

Mistress Mirage zoomed towards her, her face shoved near into hers, her burning cold fingers choked her. Marinette backed into the wall, grabbing onto Mirage’s marble wrists, a pain shooting up her spine. Marinette could only struggle in place, her legs kicking listlessly, as the glassy, bright green emeralds Mistress Mirage had for eyes stared into her very being. The longer she stared into the empty gems, trying .

“Your weaknesses, your darkest secrets will be mine, Dupain-Cheng.”

Her voice, tinkled within Marinette’s mind, and she watched as the woman’s glassy skin shifted and soon she was faced with a kaleidoscope version of herself, blue sapphires glinting harshly, her breaths now ragged and shallow.

“Wha-” Marinette tried taking a deep breath, but Mirage’s fingers tightened their hold. “Why?” she managed to weakly choke out.

“Doesn’t it bother you?” Mirage’s voice, no longer bellowing nor echoing, but now a whisper right in her ears, sounding eerily like her own. “That you aren’t enough? That you will never be enough?”

Marinette shook her head, trying to ignore the voice as it taunted her endlessly.

“What are you hiding, Marinette?”

“Why do you hide from the world?”

“How pathetic. You claim to hate liars,” Marinette felt Mirage’s fingers tighten around her. “But aren’t you a liar too?”

Tears stung the corner of her eyes. She didn’t know what was going on- Mistress Mirage wasn’t saying anything incriminating. If it were any other situation, she could brush off these accusations, but as Mirage continued to taunt her in her voice, doubts and fears, both new and old, she usually ignored were brought to the forefront of her mind.

‘I’ll fail as a Guardian- I’m not enough.

I’m abandoning my city to find a man who might not even be alive.

Chat Noir will never trust me again.

My parents want to send me away.

Why doesn’t Alya believe me?

Alya would’ve made a better Ladybug.

If Tikki could see me now she’d be disappointed.

What a failure I turned out to be.

“What a failure you turned out to be.”

Mistress Mirage’s emerald eyes glinted gleefully, a wide smile cracking into the glassy expanse of her skin. Her voice echoed Marinette’s thoughts and Marinette repeated her words as much as she could, her breathing becoming more shallow. Mistress Mirage couldn’t actually read any of Marinette’s secrets, however, she could read her psyche, a doubtful, anxious little thing, and she only said out loud what Marinette had already been telling herself to make her putty into Mirage’s hands. A neon violet butterfly appeared over her face, reminding her of her duty to get the Miraculous.

But for now, she had Marinette in her grasp. Once Marinette was in her trance, shaking slightly and mumbling nonsense as tears streaked down her cheeks, Mirage grabbed her and headed to the Trocadero, when three figures- black, steel blue and honey yellow- surrounded her in the middle of the street. The two new heroes stiffened at the sight of the girl in her arms. Chat snarled at Mistress Mirage.

“Marinette!” Chat yelled, rushing forward with his baton at Mistress Mirage. “What are you doing with her?!”

Mistress Mirage smirked. “If you want her, you’ll have to give me your Miraculous.”

She leapt out of the way only to stumble beside Shūyō who held her yellow top- flatter than Queen Bee’s with a long, black handle- the tip poised to the side of Mirage’s ribcage.

Before Shūyō could enact Venom however, Mirage turned and kicked the bee heroine away from her, holding out her compact mirror, creating a wall of mirrors that trapped Shūyō on the other side. She rearranged Marinette in her arms, ignoring the silent struggles of the bee thumping against the mirrored walls and swearing at her.

Chat Noir extended his baton towards Mistress Mirage. However, she jumped and landed on top of the baton, sending Chat sprawling through the air. Bleu Acier attacked at the same time. Mirage was quick and held out her compact to the two heroes, entrapping them in their own mirror dimension. The butterfly outline appeared again, and Mirage set off. She had special plans for Marinette.

Within the mirror dimension, Bleu and Chat were trying to navigate their way around crystallized walls which reflected everything around them. They had tried to find Shūyō, only to realize she was a reflection, then had almost been driven over by a car that had then disappeared.

“What is all this?” Chat muttered, nudging his surroundings. “It’s like, some of it are just reflections, but some of it is real.”

Bleu Acier nodded. “The reflections have to come from somewhere, so the real objects and people are in here somewhere.” He looked up and pointed a little ways forward. “Look, you can see our reflections.”

“Hope they’re getting my good side,” Chat quipped. “We have to get Shūyō and Marinette soon.”

Bleu Acier blinked, as he caught his yoyo when it hadn’t rebounded against a wall. “Do you know her personally?” He asked. He hadn’t been aware of Marinette’s close relationship with the Parisian heroes.

Chat gave a stiff nod. “She’s worked with Ladybug and I a few times. I met her when we fought Evillustrator.”

“So, do you and Ladybug often have civilians fight for you?” Bleu frowned. He scanned the area, and turned left.

“Only when we really need to,” Chat scoffed. “It’s not ideal, but it’s just me and m’Lady and sometimes we need help.”

Bleu could sense a resonating low, flat tone emanating from Chat. “That’s horrible. You guys look like you’re still kids.” Chat shrugged in response. As they walked onwards, investigating every inch of the way, Bleu noticed a figure dressed in a black and yellow-patterned fencing uniform, wearing a striped domino mask, thumping against a transparent wall. “Chat, look.”

Cat’s eyes widened at the sight. “Shūyō!” he yelled and rushed forward, only to be trapped in a corner with several reflections of the bug-themed heroine. Chat’s breath quickened. “Shūyō! Can you hear us?!”

Shūyō’ perked up and looked around. “I can! But where are you?” She shouted, her voice vibrating through the air.

“Shit.” Chat stared at his hand, before clenching it and turning towards Bleu. “I think we might need that Lucky Charm now.”

He nodded. “Lucky Charm!”

A bright red object with black spots dropped from the sky followed a series of chimes. Bleu Acier’s eyes widened as he held up the wind chime, eight hollow tubes ringing against the slapper in between, the clear, steady ringing piercing all around them. The wind chime was half the size of his torso, so fortunately, it was lighter than it looked.

It was a curious thing Ladybug had noted, that most of Bleu Acier’s Lucky Charms were sound or music-related.

“Well, this blows. You going to chime a pretty tune there, Bleu?”

He held back a chuckle. In the week he and Shūyō had been working with Chat and Ladybug, he had grown to appreciate Chat’s humour and the jaunty tune he associated with them.

“Maybe,” he said. Raising his voice, he addressed Shūyō. “Can you hear this?!” He asked, shaking the wind chime from its hanger.

They could see Shūyō’s reflection moving around, her eyes closed in concentration. “Sort of!” she answered, echoing slightly. “Are we able to use Chat Noir’s Cataclysm?!”

Bleu stared at Chat who was staring at his hand in deep thought. “Probably! We just need to make sure I’m not using Cataclysm on something real!”

“Maybe it is not my place to say as your junior, but this is not the time for hesitation!” Shūyō yelled back.

A beep echoed in Bleu’s ears. “We should hurry. I only have four minutes.”

Chat nodded. “Alright!” He looked around, scanning nearby walls until he found a reflection of himself- a sure way to make sure he hit the mirror. “Cataclysm!”

The walls around them crumbled in seconds, revealing the world around them. Chat smirked, and they scouted for Shūyō who met them in the middle.

“Why did you not use Cataclysm in the first place?” Shūyō asked, when they reconvened.

“I didn’t want to accidentally use it on the wrong thing,” he said, flexing his fingers. “Come on, we have less than five minutes. Don’t use Venom until you receive my signal.”

Shūyō nodded.

Chat turned to Bleu Acier and pointed to the wind chime. “Keep that on you and look out for opportunities.” He turned around and headed off. “Let’s go!”

In the end, Mistress Mirage was defeated quickly. In their absence, she had grown arrogant, and the three heroes found several clones of Mistress Mirage atop the Palais de Chaillot, a crowd having gathered at the bottom. Each clone had a Marinette bound in front of them, at the edge of the roof, standing listlessly. Despite this, Mistress Mirage was not prepared for the ambush of the three heroes. Bleu’s wind chimes were used as a distraction for the real Mistress Mirage while Chat and Shūyō attacked from behind.

“Shūyō! Use it now!” Chat yelled, as he grabbed Marinette and set her down on the ground below, and allowed the paramedics to deal with her.

“Venom,” Shūyō muttered. She dropped beneath Mirage and her top, stabbing her opponent beneath her ribcage. “Gotcha.”

Mistress Mirage froze mid-air, one leg in the air and both hands outstretched. Chat’s eyes widened when he didn’t see her holding the akumatized object. Chat pounced back onto the roof, ignoring the second beep from his ring. He noticed the satin sash that was wrapped around her waist.

“Shūyō, the akumatized object is the mirror she carries around. It should be in her sash,” he said, his cheeks tinged pink. “Can you- uh-?”

Shūyō nodded. “I do not understand your need for modesty at such a time, but it is commended.”

Chat’s cheeks reddened further. “It’s just polite! I don’t want to be touching anyone without their consent!”

Shūyō took out the compact mirror that had been tucked into the sash just above her left hip. She tossed it to Bleu Acier who quickly broke it and captured the akuma.

“It’s just the principle of it!” Chat squawked as the trail of tiny red ladybugs flowed throughout Parisian skies.

She snorted. “I understand. I was just teasing.” She turned to nod at Bleu then at Chat. “You two are close to de-transforming. I will bring both victims home.” Shūyō then grabbed Lila, who had been the akuma and was now disoriented, and jumped down to retrieve Marinette.

When Marinette had woken up from the akuma attack, she had been escorted home by Shūyō, who had fussed over any injuries she may have gotten before eventually leaving with a pack of honey macarons. Marinette smiled. Chat had made a good choice with Kagami. After, she had endured cuddles and hugs from her parents who were now even more determined to get her out of Paris.

Later that evening, after reassuring her parents and making sure the kwami were okay. She headed off to patrol where she had to answer for her absence, and where Chat had regaled how they did. Marinette smiled, knowing she made the right choice. After the patrol, which had been less of a patrol and more of a small goodbye ceremony, she returned home and recorded the events in her diary, slowly anticipating the trip.

The next day, she had just made it to the airport an hour before boarding. Everyone had gone through the usual airport processes and she was the last to arrive with her passport and airplane tickets in her carry-on shoulder bag. When she arrived to the waiting area where her friends were (with Adrien’s bodyguard nearby playing on his phone), she was met with a lot of mixed reactions.

Alya had rushed over and hugged her, frantically asking if she was okay. Several classmates had joined her, like Rose, Juleka and Mylene. She hugged them back and reassured them that she was alright, and wasn’t going to jump off roofs anytime soon (though she didn’t remember that from yesterday anyway). They then moved on and Alya asked her a question that stopped her in her tracks.

“Why were you arguing with Lila yesterday, anyway?” Alya asked, leading the two of them to sit down.

Marinetter furrowed her eyebrows and frowned. “What are you on about? I’m not talking to Lila at all.”

Alya frowned. “She told us that’s why she was akumatized yesterday. Apparently you called the mirror she got from Bruce Wayne as a birthday gift, fake.”

Marinette forced herself to not roll her eyes. “What? Why would I care about anything like that? She’s lying!”

Alya frowned even more. “Lila said you’d probably say that. Why can’t you two just get along?”

“Alya, you’re the one that believes Lila has a lying illness. Why don’t you believe me when I say she’s lying and that I didn’t even see her at all yesterday outside of class?” Marinette tensed. How petty did Lila think she was? How petty was Lila?

“She did get akumatized yesterday. Her story matches the events,” Alya said. “Marinette, you’re my best friend. That’s why I want to know why you did what you did.”

Marinette snorted. “And I’m telling you, I didn’t do anything. Is this what the whole class believes? That I’m so shallow that I would akumatize Lila over something as trivial as a mirror?”

Alya blanched. “No, of course not. We’re just saying you two had an argument and Lila got upset enough to turn into an akuma. We’re not saying it was intentional on your part or anything.”

She sighed, her shoulders sagging. “Look, my version of events is that I went home for lunch, was in my bedroom, got attacked by the akuma, and was out for it until that Bee hero Shūyō brought me home. Believe what you want, but don’t expect me to apologize to Lila for something I didn’t do.”

Marinette stood up and was about to go before she was stopped by Alya grabbing her wrist. She looked back and watched as Alya looked down at her clenched fist, biting her lip.

“I,” Alya sighed. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but I’m not saying I don’t believe Lila either. Either way, both of you were the victims yesterday. I’m sorry I was asking you stuff like that.”

Marinette frowned and sat back down. She wasn’t sure what was happening between her and Alya. Alya had been spending more time with Lila, even ending up as her seatmate on the plane and her roommate for the hotel. It made Marinette uncomfortable that they were becoming so close, considering who Lila was. But, Alya was a good person- she just wanted her friends to get along, and it’s not like she could force Alya to cut off her other friendships, even if it was to manipulative lying rats like Lila. That had to be on Alya’s terms. All Marinette could do was be there for her and hope she’d return the sentiment.

She forced a smile. “You’re forgiven.” Alya looked up and smiled, reaching out to hug her. “Now, let’s hang out for a bit before we’re stuck in a plane for twelve hours.”

Alya smiled back. “Yeah! By the way, did you hear that Jagged Stone knows Bruce Wayne?”

And just like that, they had spent the rest of the hour waiting to board the place. The plane that would take them to whatever was awaiting them in Gotham City.

A/N: So that's the end to the first arc I guess, if I intentionally have arcs lol. The rest of this fanfic will be in Gotham. Thank you again for joining me this far and I hope you continue to read it!

Other notes: Bleu Acier is based on the Steelblue Ladybird, with Bleu Acier meaning Steel Blue. Shūyō has three meanings in Japanese, but here, it’s used to mean self-discipline (because that’s something I associate with bees and hard workers). Couleuvre is just another way to say snake in French because Marinette sucks at names.

P.S. I don't hate Alya. In fact, I think we often brush over the fact that Alya is fiercely loyal and in the show, doesn't have all the facts so she's not too suspicious of Lila.

[lucky-sevens]

on aurora

aurora! she’s 1. the love of my life 2. incredible i care her and finally 3. all her lore is a mess. recently, i’ve been bothered by the lack of aurora-centric fics- there’s a few, but they’re all nastyaurora- but i’ve realized that’s not really a fault of the fandom! aurora is difficult to write and hard to learn things about! so, i’ve decided to make this meta on her!

it has two sections; history, which is more lore-focused red stringing, and characterization, which gathers some of her canon thoughts and reactions on things in an attempt to help people write her.

a large amount of this is based on things maki has said on the discord, which are both partially secret and of dubious canonicity, so please keep that in mind! (and assume that when a source is not cited, that is the reason).

in addition, i have written the aurora’s wiki page, which includes a list of physical features! this is helpful for anything set onboard.

history

terra

aurora was born as a moon! moons being weaponized is apparently a thing that happens, so that’s likely how she’s a ship now, but the physics of all this are very strange. she seems to have grown up in the same way as a human, meeting carmilla as a baby and jonny and nastya when she was older. importantly, she was sentient as a moon, and this is before she had any sort of programmed ai! she wasn’t capable of speaking at that point, but that may have just been because of her very young age.

aurora and dr carmilla have known each other for a very long time. extrapolating from things maki has said, we can assume that aurora was a moon of terra, carmilla’s home planet. maki has implied in the discord that 1. terra used to have two moons and 2. carmilla blew the other one up; that, combined with ‘i raised an orphan’ and a few other messages, could suggest that carmilla did the moon equivalent of killing aurora’s parent. perhaps because of this, carmilla took it upon herself to raise aurora. however, aurora is not a mechanism. as a alternative theory (though not a mutually exclusive one) there are a few messages about carmilla ‘creating life’ in discussions of aurora; we know carmilla didn’t assist with aurora’s birth, but it’s possible, as they are moons, that rather than already being there aurora was created from one of the fragments of the moon carmilla destroyed.

cyberia

we don’t know what happened between aurora and carmilla that made them separate, or how aurora ended up in cyberia; however, we know quite a lot about what happened there.

a large amount of it can be found in the fiction ‘the ghost in the machine’. the first thing there that i will address is that aurora’s sentience was actively inhibited rather than increased by her programming. as noted above, we know she was sentient as a moon, and the fiction repeatedly pushed that cyberia did not have fully fledged artificial intelligences, or if they did did not treat them as people. she is also said to have ‘hard-coded inorganic response patterns‘ coded into her, which are likely things similar to the toy soldier’s compulsion to follow orders. needless to say, that was most likely not a good situation for her to be in. it’s difficult to speak on this without getting too far into my headcanons, but my thoughts are that she was very dehumanized, most likely turned into a warship against her will, and the one person who cared a small bit more about her only did so as a project/experiment, which is equally as bad.

speaking of which, let’s discuss that! we meet aurora’s programmer, specialist 278 tereshkova, in ghost in the machine, where her distress call serves as the titular ghost. (i’m not going to summarize the actual fiction- it’s 1152 words and quite well written, if you want to read it!) the one direct line we have about her relationship with aurora is this- ‘[Aurora’s] software engineers never needed art either, although Specialist 278 Tereshkova thought of programming like lacework.‘, which suggests that 1. tereshkova had a bit more focus/care on aurora specifically but 2. still viewed her in a dehumanizing lens and likely contributed to aurora’s suffering. this is supported by the fact that aurora did not talk about her or attempt to help her when she was dying on the ship.

we actually have a large amount of information about who tereshkova was as a person! this is because she coded the mechanisms’ blog, (as in specifically, the wordpress one with posts archived on their website) and in a way that makes her personality show. well, what is her personality, you may ask? ...incredibly passive-aggressive and annoying. it’s so funny i love it. (’tales of the blogbot’) (sample blog post). we know the mechs are able to reprogram it, though with difficulty (1 / 2), and nastya actually mentions communicating with it (x), which goes unaddressed. 

joining the mechanisms

moving on: when jonny and carmilla go to cyberia, carmilla tasks him with stealing aurora. (’how the aurora was won’). this could be because carmilla recognizes aurora; in fact, getting her back could have been the entire reason why they went to cyberia in the first place, with nastya being a bonus.

the aurora is most likely based upon the historical ship of the same name. (wikipedia). said ship fired the first shot of the october revolution, signalling the assault on the winter palace. this is the revolution nastya died in (both historical anastasia and mechs nastya, though i’m referring to the latter here). this suggests, because jonny stole her from the cyberian navy rather than revolutionists, that jonny and/or carmilla decided to fight in the revolution. this ties in with the theory that carmilla was purposefully sabotaging the mechanisms’ past lives (i have not written on this and do not plan to, but it’s a fairly common one) or it could also be viewed as several other things, including them just finding it a fun idea. this is contradicted by ghost in the machine, in which tereshkova says that an already supposed-to-be dead nastya was one of the people boarding the ship- however, that bit of ghost in the machine does not line up with any of the other canon.

characterization

any attempt to tell people how to write her is obviously going to be dependent on my own personal views and headcanons, but i’ve tried to compile as much canon as possible to let people make their own decisions.

in ‘the aurora strikes’, aurora is the one who advocates for the mechanisms to help briar rose. there’s an additional line in ouat(is) live, ‘she cannot bear to see another biomechanical organism in pain’, that points to her being sympathetic towards briar rose, and/or having high empathy. (it’s important to note here that empathy and sympathy are not synonyms- empathy is literally feeling someone else’s emotions to some degree, and so aurora having high empathy would be a slightly more literal take on that line). either way, she makes the mechanisms help briar rose, pointing to her being more compassionate/having more morals than most of the other mechanisms.

the fiction ‘a bedtime story’ is the one with the largest amount of dialogue from aurora. the main thing we can learn about her character here, besides the physical features of the ship, is what her speech patterns are like. they’re a bit strange, and read very much like an ai is speaking. in addition, we know aurora is comfortable enough around nastya to let nastya edit her programming, which given the cyberia section above could definitely be interpreted as a big deal.

this facebook post is interesting, because in the comments we learn aurora’s reaction to nastya leaving to destroy cyberia. (if you didn’t know about that bit of nastya’s story, ‘drive the cold winter away’ is here and ‘cyberian demons’ is here.) we don’t know if aurora was aware of nastya’s plan, though she likely was, but either way, her response was to become quiet and stay very cagey about it. 

edit: a few small points i forgot! aurora has a voice + can communicate with the crew beyond nastya (ghost in the machine) and apparently has the same amount/brand of chaos as nastya (discord messages).

there isn’t too much else on what aurora’s like, given that she’s not an actual band member, but these three things are a good starting point. i could find a few more, but at that point it would just be a compilation of links to very minor mentions or bits of dialogue that don’t give very much of an actual insight to aurora’s character.

thank you for reading! aurora is one of my favorite characters and i hope to see more fic about her in the future!

[incorrect-toriko-quotes]

Kinda related to your last post: If Coco was being chased by IGO scientists, doesn’t that mean that Ichiryu allowed permission for them to do so??? Or at the very least wasn’t aware of it?? Like man, that’s your son.

THANK YOU FOR ASKING THIS, ANON

I’ve put more thought and research into this than I care to admit, so I'm gonna put this rant under the cut.

TLDR; Ichiryu not only knows, but he's totally cool with it.

(Screenshot from the Toriko Anime. I don’t remember which episode. It’s IGO Headquarters)

To start, I want to clarify: as far as I can tell (across the many translations, manga and anime, etc I've seen), Coco was chased down and experimented on by IGO scientists. Though personally, I find it likely that Coco would’ve been on non-IGO scientists’ radars, I can’t find anything that backs that up.

So! Back to the question:

"If Coco was being chased by IGO scientists, doesn’t that mean that Ichiryu allowed permission for them to do so??? Or at the very least wasn’t aware of it??"

I've spent what is, quite frankly, an UNGODLY amount of time digging down this rabbit hole.

My thesis: Ichiryu is not only fully aware of what is happening, but is completely okay with it

Let's start with the blatantly obvious, when it comes to reasoning:

Ichiryu isn't stupid. He's a whole lot of things, but 'stupid' isn't one of them. As Anon said, “that's his son”, and he's not only being hunted by scientists, but they've succeeded in capturing and experimenting on him (more on that later). That seems like the kind of thing Ichiryu'd NOTICE.

Now, getting into the deeper Toriko lore...

In the official Timeline for the series (as published by Shimabukuro himself!) it's stated that Coco was born in 473 GA, and was declared a Class-1/Highest-Level Dangerous Beast in 485.

(Screenshots from the Toriko Wiki, but information aligns with official book release)

Now, Coco was born towards the end of October (29/10), but we don't actually know the date he was declared a Dangerous Beast. Rounding for the sake of easy math, this means that he was likely 11 (~85%) at the time (with the chances of him being 12 being under 15%)

Either way, Coco would’ve been a CHILD.

(Image from Volume 2: Coco!! - VIZ Media translation)

Now, recall that he was declared a Dangerous Beast BECAUSE of his poison, which he got as a result of extreme IGO-mandated mithridatism. This means that he was already on the IGO's radar, and his powers were GIVEN TO HIM by the scientists who would declare him a "Dangerous Beast" later.

So, we have a child no older than 12 who was not only given his powers by the scientists, but is still being pursued.

Remember, again, that Ichiryu isn't stupid. He's laid-back and goofy, but he's not an idiot. Even TORIKO knows, and Toriko would've been ~10 at the time this happened.

(Screenshot taken from Episode 4: Prepare It! The Poisonous Puffer Whale! The Heavenly King Coco Appears! - Yes, this is a screenshot from a fansub)

Now, remember how I said that Coco would've been, at times, caught and experimented on?

I've seen this explicitly stated in some translations, but not others. However, it's worth noting that again, he had to be declared a "Dangerous Beast" for a reason.

He's about 11 at this time. Zebra, in the present, is also classed as a "Dangerous Beast" (if I'm recalling correctly) -- and this is PRESENT-DAY ZEBRA we're talking about. It's not like 11-year-old Coco's gone on violent rampages throughout cities and EATING entire species to extinction.

Granted, Zebra's an extreme case, but given the monsters that we see battled on the daily in this series? I think it's safe to assume that being given the label of Highest-Level Dangerous Beast is serious business. I highly doubt a calm, generally peaceful preteen boy who can shoot poison out of his hands is going to warrant that type of label -- at least, not without confirming that the poison he's using is seriously dangerous.

And these are scientists who need to be making such confirmations. See where I'm going with this?

(Photo taken of Volume One: Gourmet Hunter Toriko!! - This line is said in reference to the Troll Kongs, but as I mentioned in this quote, it SURE HITS DIFFERENT once you hear Coco’s backstory)

I'd also address Coco's general avoidance mannerisms throughout the series, but a lot of that could just be chalked up to both an unwillingness to be... y'know... captured for experimentation as well as his general demeanor. Either way, it’s worth putting out there.

With all this, not only should Ichiryu be AWARE of it, but it seems like he'd try to put a STOP TO IT.

While it's true that Ichiryu sometimes has a bit of a "tough love" attitude towards the Kings (sucker-punching Toriko during their early-series sparring match and sending him FLYING across the ocean and all), it's also true that Ichiryu generally seems to love and care for them.

When Sunny breaks a cup, Ichiryu focuses instead on bandaging up the cut on his arm. When he first met Toriko, he cradled him close and decided to adopt him after he collapsed in his arms. So when Coco was being hunted by IGO scientists, it'd make sense that Ichiryu would want to protect him, right?

That is, unless Ichiryu not only KNOWS, but is totally okay with it.

Yes, I’ve put WAY too much thought into this. A lot of this is just speculation, but I don’t think my theory is too ‘out there?’

(I tried to shorten this. And failed.)

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And, just for funsies (and because, if I had to think of it, I'm dragging the rest of you down with me), I propose to you this theory:

Not only did Ichiryu know, but Ichiryu directly EMPLOYED THEM to hunt him as part of his "training", and the real reason Ichiryu was upset with Coco quitting Hunting to become a Fortune Teller was because Ichiryu realized how badly he screwed up (having completely traumatized his son and all)

(I have no real basis for it, I just wanted to make you all suffer with me!)

Feel free to argue in the notes ;)

[pseud0knots]

Please tell me about shatterstar's Childhood

oh my god anon okay I’m assuming in context of what I’ve recently posted you want like... my version of events rather than what’s canon but just in case I hope you know that there’s basically zero canon material that actually describes his childhood/young adulthood beyond “I was a warrior born” or whatever the fuck. if you want to know about that idk go on the fucken... marvel wiki page or something

also--I hate that I have to put this out here and I doubt anyone would actually do this but just in case--I have spent like 1 million hours thinking about this because I have brain disorders and it is very close to my heart so please do not A) use this in fics, etc without letting me know/getting my permission in advance or B) reblog this post

anyways. this is a can of worms so I’m going to do a cheeky lil

first we have to get something out of the way: I hate the “shatterstar’s his own grandpa” paradox. I am sorry if this angers people but it makes me mad so I ignore it. the reason it bothers me is because it means alison blaire essentially married her grandson, which is A) weird and B) bad from a genetics perspective.

in my version of canon ‘star IS the biological child of longshot and dazzler but longshot wasn’t cloned using ‘star’s DNA because..... oh god... another whole separate post can be made about this but... in my head, on mojoworld the way genetic engineering works is not really the same as it is here. here genetic engineering generally means taking an existing genome and inserting or deleting genes. this is how they make, for example, animals that glow, or confer pesticide resistance to plants.

but on mojoworld I think the way they genetically engineer is more like... the way we mechanically engineer. like the entire organism is built from the ground up. there’s a master genetic blueprint which is essentially the “minimal genome” required for a functioning humanoid. this was created by study of Earth humans by arize and the other genetic engineers. they can then go in and customize by adding elements to the genome that code for the signals/building blocks that control things like height, strength, hair color, eye color, having hollow bones etc. so in my head longshot was sort of... designed with ‘star as the inspiration, but not directly cloned. that wouldn’t even make sense anyways because A) different hair color and B) LONGSHOT HAS 3 FINGERS ON EACH HAND and shatterstar has 4!! thats NOT HOW CLONES WOULD WORK!!!!

(side note, the concept of a minimal functional genome is a real thing in biology! some scientists have taken a bacterium that already has a small genome and reduced it to the minimum size required for viability. here is a wikipedia article on it and here is the original paper (DOI: 10.1126/science.286.5447.2165) which I can explain in more detail because I took a class on synthetic biology which this technically falls under and I had to read this paper very closely).

fuck I’ve written 4 paragraphs and not even talked about his childhood yet. I am so sorry. anyways. so the way I think they raise the gladiators on mojoworld is they create them in batches of 5 to 10 identical copies of a certain “model”, place each copy in a different “class” with a set of 2-3 mentors/teachers, and train them to fight until they are 13 or 14. until this time the only names they have are the names that identify the “model”--like for shatterstar that would be gaveedra-seven where the model identifier is “gaveedra” and he is (in the lore that I have come up with) the 7th of 8 total.

the reason they create multiples and put them in different classes is each mentor is going to have a slightly different style of teaching which is going to work better for some and worse for others, so it allows them to have more mass production while increasing the chances of creating a truly great champion. it’s classic nature versus nurture--the genetic engineers create your nature, but you don’t end up exactly the same as others of your model. maybe you get an edge, maybe you don’t.

another thing that happens is different mentors believe in different ways of raising the kids in their care. shatterstar specifically was raised in a class where there was absolutely zero emotional development at all and no attachments allowed beyond fighting alliances. that’s not the case in all classes, and it also had the effect of making him somewhat of an outsider even within the other gladiators as he got older.

at 13 or 14--and yes I realize this is very fucked up but dude its fucking mojoworld idk what you expected--they start participating in fights. the first ones aren’t to the death and they’re as teams and they’re not usually televised they’re more like high school sports games that are attended by scouts (here, they’re “sponsors”--I think that’s a canonical term but I honestly can’t remember) and if you get sponsored you leave your class and join a new “team” that’s really just a bunch of people who all have the same sponsorship. this is where things can get interesting because they’ve all been raised with slightly different fighting styles but more importantly, slightly different degrees of Personhood.

also at this point I should mention that by this time, there are usually only 2, maybe 3 of each model left. either they died or were recognized as not having talent so they were sent to eventually fulfill other roles in the network. in ‘star’s case there was just him and gaveedra-five. once you get to the stage where you’re sponsored and you’re actually fighting to the death one of the first people you’ll fight is any remaining members of your model group.

by the time you’re the only one left of your group, you’re also eligible to earn a stage name. this usually happens if you have a particularly epic fight with a lot of viewers, you win and the commentators will typically say something like “Let’s give this crowd a real name to cheer!” and they’ll have a few candidate names and they’ll kind of just pick one. AUGH I actually have this scene written out in story form but its too long so I think I’ll save it.... :) 

after you get a name you also get a cool outfit and usually some kind of mark or tattoo that serves as a brand. this brings me to another important point--shatterstar inherited the X-gene from alison and therefore he IS a mutant. his mutation is the swords vibration thing and the glowing eye. the star mark is a tattoo and teleportation is benjamin russell’s mutation (how he fits into all this is... for another post). basically after he got his name the costuming department guys were like “hey your eye glows, you look like the Legendary Warrior of Old, Longshot, we’re gonna pattern your look after him” so they gave him the star tattoo and the outfit that’s literally inverse colors of longshot’s.

also this brings me to another aside: you’re probably wondering “if he’s the biological kid of longshot and alison how are there 8 gaveedras?” when the genetic engineers got a hold on him as a baby they were like Sick! free baby! free genetic material! thats our job done for us! so they cloned him (in the traditional sense) and made 7 copies. this was also to kind of conceal his identity as technically being from outside mojoworld, which would make him stick out and thus be a target. they DID edit out the x-gene in the other gaveedra models though. this wasn’t a problem for ‘star because his mutation didn’t manifest until he was already sponsored.

I think that’s .... pretty much it for macroscopic lore on what it was like to be a kid gladiator on mojoworld. now let me give you some Tidbits of his life specifically:

like I said he was raised in a particularly cold and ruthless class. the mentors that raised him are like well-known by everyone to produce some of the best warriors but also there’s discourse on mojoworld because some people say perfectly emotionless killing machines aren’t as fun to watch. when he was sponsored there were 4-5 others in the same sponsorship and they were like Theres Something Wrong With You LOL

they speak earth languages on mojoworld because they’re imitating the broadcasts they (the spineless ones) used to hear from earth. however, most of the lower-class as well as almost all arena fighters and other television personalities speak cadre or other languages which are native to the planet. the stage names are all vaguely in english, but the gladiators don’t really understand them at first.

shatterstar got his name before he got the glowing eye, and when he learned what stars are, and saw his eye as a little star, he was like wow :) this is Me :) which is why that name is so important to him. it’s also one of the first things that wholly belonged to him.

(you can’t see stars on mojoworld because of light pollution and also because it’s a pocket dimension and there just aren’t that many stars to see)

I hate to bring up the s**ley miniseries but I do think it would be interesting to have him have a sort of ... mentor/first friend, similar to the concept of gringrave but they were NOT in a relationship. it was more like... another kid who was a year or so older than him got a soft spot for him and helped him not be so clueless. she didn’t make as much progress as xforce did, obviously. but they were.... something like friends.

unfortunately she was used by spiral to get shatterstar to murder the first rebel guy who tried to get him out of there. then she got switched sponsors (this can happen) and he had to kill her, and he was like well I will simply never develop any kind of attachment to anyone ever again.

he almost didn’t make it out of the first training session with his sponsorship group (this is semi-canon--there’s a reference when he’s teaching terry to swordfight to almost not surviving the first time he was in a gladiator class or whatever it was).

the closest he ever came to losing was the day he got the name. that’s why the crowds loved it so much.

the double-bladed sword was a gimmick weapon but when he got his mutation they realized it works way better if there’s resonance between two parallel blades so they redesigned it as an actual weapon.

(forgot this but I feel like I should include it) at 17 he escaped the arenas and joined the cadre alliance. two years later he came to earth and joined xforce.

I think that’s going to have to be it for now because it’s literally almost midnight and I have work tomorrow and I did NOT intend to stay up this late but I did. thank you for this opportunity anon :) feel free to ask me any other questions and also I realize a lot of this probably makes no fucking sense and that’s because I am not a writer or anything I’m just a biochemist with brain problems that cause me to obsess over stupid shit

[itsclydebitches]

I've never played WOW, but my friends into it. I might as well try. Any advice for someone who's never touched a MMO?

Oh, fun question! It’s actually hard for me to think of things I’d have wanted to know when starting out because I started playing MMOs around age... 9? So in some respects I grew up alongside the genre, rather than trying to learn it after the fact, but some things I’d highlight about WoW now is:

Don’t worry about your race/class. There is SO MUCH about the “right” and “wrong” way to create a character, but at the end of the day you should choose whatever interests and appeals to you most. The caveat to that is that picking a tank or a healer class will put a bit more responsibility on your shoulders  — whether you like it or not at times  — so just be aware of that. Some people like taking on a specific role, others (me) do not. There are also classes that are better suited to soloing as much of the game as possible, if that’s something you’re interested in. 

Regardless, you will have to play with others eventually. If your friends are already into WoW it sounds like you have a good community/potential guild to turn to, but I’d recommend waiting until you feel confident in playing your character before entering groups with strangers. Frankly, the WoW community can be pretty damn toxic. I’m no expert, but I’ve played it long enough to feel confident in my abilities and I’m still cursed out by pissed off dungeon groups if we wipe. Raids will expect you to have learned the fights via youtube prior to coming in and when many inevitably haven’t (because it’s a game and homework shouldn’t be required lol) they’ll start yelling too. PvP is just a mess of accusations and slurs, depending on how badly it’s going... so yeah. I don’t want to make it sound like WoW is made up of nothing but assholes, but there are enough to make an impression. It’s something to avoid if you’re not feeling up to it, but given how much of the later content requires working with others, wait until you’re geared, have a good handle on your class, and are in a good head space before diving in. Or stick to playing with friends. 

Speaking of friends, if you do want to play with them I’d recommend picking their faction (Horde or Alliance). That will allow you to visit each other in major cities, help with the same quests, queue up for activities together, etc. Though the story has moved away from the Horde vs. Alliance rivalry recently, the gameplay still very much divides them. 

Check out everything you can (without getting too overwhelmed!) WoW has a LOT going on and while very little is required, much of it is beneficial while also being easy to miss, just by virtue of there being so much to do. Pick up any quests you find, explore as much of the world as you can, talk to NPCs, save the loot you get, etc. You can always get rid of something  — drop a quest, destroy/sell an item  — but it’s a bummer if you just go and sell everything only to realize you actually needed all that stuff for something else. So go slow and check out your options before making decisions. 

To help with that, I recommend WoWhead and Icy Veins for info, or just good old-fashioned plugging the thing into google with “wow” next to it. How often do I look stuff up? Constantly. MMOs don’t have cheating culture the way a single-player game might (I mean, there’s absolutely cheating, just not in the same way), so don’t be afraid to just google anything and everything you want. The comment sections of a page are your best friend. Whereas the official description may give you an overwhelming amount of information you don’t actually need, player comments tend to focus on what others really want to know: here’s where to find this NPC, yes this quest is bugged, make sure you do X before Y, etc. WoW has become a lot more accessible over the years in terms of helping players figure things out, but it’s still confusing at times, so make use of any resource you please. 

Another “cheat” is to use addons. I’d recommend grabbing WoWMatrix which will allow you to (safely) download addons without any of the hassle of putting it in the correct folders. I’d recommend Bagnon (makes all your bags open as a single window so you can see all your loot at once), Bartender (allows you to customize your action bar), Coordinates (puts a tiny, movable coordinates button on your screen which is basically necessary at this point to find things. Players will almost always provide coordinates when giving locations), HandyNotes (provides lots of info on your map, like how you go about summoning a rare mob), Pawn (helps you compare gear to see what’s best for your class/specialization), and if you do any PvP, Healers Have to Die, or HHTD, which marks all healers with a cross so they’re easy to spot in battle (always kill healers first! :D). WoWMatrix is SUPER easy to use  — just search for the addons you want via the application, download them, delete if you don’t like ‘em, and open it once in a while to “Update All” — and the various addons you can use are an absolute godsend. They make playing the base game that much better. 

If you’re someone invested in the story side of games, lore is going to be very weird here, just because WoW is 16 years old and you’ll be entering into the 8th expansion. I’ve played WoW since it came out and I don’t know wtf is going on a lot of the time lol. So just roll with it, or if you’re interested, make use of wikis, the novels, etc. But it’s not the sort of game where you’re in trouble if you have no idea who this person is or what battle they’re talking about. Just accept whatever they want you to do and pick up the story wherever you came in. 

You’re going to die a lot. A lot, a lot. That’s fine, everyone does. Again, not the sort of game where that’s a problem. Just know that you can either return to your corpse (flying there as a ghost) or rez at the graveyard you appear in if you’re willing to deal with a bad debuff for like 10 minutes. Also, all armor has durability that goes down over time, but it goes down faster the more you die, so you’ll want to repair (finding an NPC with the anvil icon) soon afterwards. 

There’s lots of little things to learn like that: a brown bag icon means you can sell to this person, blue exclamation marks are quests that will reappear daily, items with a gray name (as opposed to white, green, blue, or purple) are pretty much just junk and you can always sell them... there’s a lot. Pick things up as you go, keeping in mind that you’ll be given SO MUCH INFORMATION and no, you’re not going to learn it all at once. Part of the fun is figuring stuff out and seeing yourself improve. Feel free to ask questions too (there’s a chat box and you can speak to an entire zone at once), though frankly it’s a 50/50 chance whether someone will give an actual answer, or just roast you lol 

If you ever want to play “seriously,” I’d kinda recommend learning WoW with keybinding early on  — AKA, creating button shortcuts for various spells/skills so your mouse is only used for camera movement and targeting, rather than wasting time looking for the action you want to click on. I say “kinda” because I don’t do that. At this point my click method is too ingrained in my muscle memory for anything else, but I recognize that I’m in the minority for saying that’s an “okay” way to play. 

Anything is okay though. Do whatever. I mean, the above aside, literally my best advice is to just throw yourself headfirst into the game, accept that you’re going to mess so much up, shrug, and have fun with it. I spent an hour of my life running a Tourghast floor today... and then wasn’t able to beat the final boss. So I “wasted” that time since I didn’t get the loot, but who cares? It was fun! Literally do whatever and don’t let any of the assholes get to you. Someone sends a message you don’t like? Block them (right click their name in the chat box to get the option). Group is making you uncomfortable? Leave. Don’t know how to do something? Google it! The best thing about an MMO is also the most overwhelming: it’s a whole world with (almost) endless options, so though that freedom is exciting, it also means you have to curate your own experience. It’s a bit like being here on tumblr. Figure out all the nuances at you own pace, lurk as long as you’d like, and if someone is being annoying, google how to keep them out of your inbox. 

Idk how helpful any of these tips are, but I hope you enjoy it!! 😊