#...I think I’ll post an abridged version after this

[9w1ft]

I always interpreted evermore as a song about depression, I never linked it to Kaylor, can you tell me your view on this song?

dang i had a conversation about this with someone several months ago but i can’t find it. ill give you the abridged version. firstly, i think it can be about both! because the situation got depressing there for a hot minute!!

taylor said in an interview with zane lowe for apple music that she had written the song when the election was upon us and she didn't know what was going to happen. evermore the album was released in december 2020, which suggests that she wrote it pretty close to the release date, but also had time to reflect on what she knew to be true before releasing it— that trump wouldn’t win reelection. there’s a billboard article where she talks about the moment she learned biden won and i think it meshes really well with how evermore concludes thematically and emotionally.

when we think about the impact that trump being elected had on kaylor back in 2016–throwing a birthday party for lorde only days before the 2016 general election and wearing the vsfs angel wing ring in public for the first time, and that picture of them both kissing lorde on the cheek, going from that to at once enacting a love blackout and never being seen regularly in public again (the next time being rep tour 2018)— and on top of that, them going out of their way to separate themselves in the media via the creation of a “feud” during 2017 (swish swish, sushigate, etcetera) which pitted karlie with katy perry and kanye and cast her as someone for swifties to hate, guilty by association, we can imagine the weight and sadness of this chapter in their story. this is the start of the pain. this choice (i consider it a choice), to take the battle underground, sunk kaylor little by little into the world of the improbable for any casual observer. and it also put somewhat of a hex on karlie indefinitely, and for as brave of a soldier as she is, its an awful long while to be put in jail for something you didn’t do.

with these details as the background, i consider evermore to be a song chiefly about 2019 onward, though you might also position some of the date markers in the song within a sort of 2016/2017 focused timeframe. personally though i tend to think that 2019 events work just as well and operate under similar themes. for example, “hey november i’ve been down since july” could be in reference to the period of time where it became slowly more clear that the 2016 election results might not be a non-starter. or, it could reference the day after the masters sale (which was end of june 2019) and the theorized “failed coming out” that many expected her to do at the new york city pride parade that week. this followed by november, the conclusion of editing Miss Americana which would be released the following month (“motion capture put me in a bad light”) or alternatively november 2020, the point at which she is writing this song. there’s also an lsk theory that taylor and karlie were broken up from july to november 2019 but im not so versed in that so i’ll just keep it to a mention.

in any case, “hey december” can circle back to miss americana being released, not as a coming out documentary but as a “political coming out” documentary. hence the “can’t remember what i used to fight for.”

or it could be both, in a way. for example rewinding the tape but all it does is pause on the very moment all was lost could be both the rewinding of the miss americana documentary released in 2019, and/or perhaps conceptually the idea of the 2016 election night footage being rewound by everyone in the disbelief that occured the night that “all was lost”

because all was lost that night, in a way, no?

i tend to see justin vernon’s part as being a depiction of karlie after kaylor was exiled to a new level post the masters sale. i don’t mean this to say they were broken up. it’s just that they had to do a factory reset on a lot of the progress that had been made up until that point, and they would not be seen together (in order to accomplish some vigilante shit, is what i think anyway). back to justin vernon’s lines. it just reminded me deeply of all the hate karlie got that summer. and indeed, all the hate she had accrued until then. whether summer or winter, this feuding arc had put karlie in a position that i would argue was growing unbearable and incessant. “out on waves im being tossed, is there a line that i could just go cross?” referring to the latest wave of said hate. in this scenario, “can’t not think of all the cost and the things that would be lost oh can’t we just get a pause to be certain we’ll be tall again?” seems like karlie calling out to taylor, amidst the haze and confusion of the masters sale, think about everything that we would be giving up if you don’t come out right now. (think of me.). and then upon that line leading nowhere saying hey let’s pause before we hurt each other, to be certain we will make it through. here “tall again” reminds me of paper rings “standing here so tall”

so what of the ending? well, as a time marker i would once again refer to when the song was released, post-2020 election, where taylor saw that trump had lost and they would have a path forward. …covid-19 was yet to happen of course, and with that i think there were life priority shifts, but i just see evermore as a song that covers taylor and karlie seeing a light at the end of the tunnel that had been their love lockdown to love blackout to exile story. its a song that encompasses so much hope and i just really really really love it as a kaylor song because of the specificity with which you can tie it to their story, specifically a more contemporary chapter, the likes of which we hadn’t had too many songs depicting up until that point (basically just peace/hoax/the lakes).

so yeah that’s why it’s a kaylor song to me 🫶

#it paints a singular picture

[mmuzzledmuttt]

Just a heads up, I removed the Shangliu section from my last post because I don’t know if the interpretation is 100% solid/people would enjoy how I wrote them both as equally quite toxic …. I also feel as though I have a tendency to demonize Shang Tsung as I project so heavily upon him (and demonize my own mental issues). Just know that I don’t think they’d be very healthy on both ends but it’s a fun dynamic to explore nonetheless.

I’ll post a more abridged version below this.

1.) Spite. Shang Tsung, out of anger, gets with Liu Kang, and eggs him on, presses his buttons in the wrong way, finds ways to bastardize the pristine picture of the god. It ends in fighting, not yelling, no punches pulled, but a quiet sort of debate that ends up in Liu Kang either storming off or engaging. If Shang Tsung can’t have greatness, neither can Liu Kang, it’s just not possible.

2.) Entertainment. Keep in mind a hc I subscribe to is that he was genuinely depressed at the beginning of the game and also has issues with empathy. I could see Shang Tsung initiating a relationship only to less outwardly press Liu Kang’s buttons. There’s something so pleasing about Shang Tsung making himself appear smaller and slowly making Liu Kang feel guilty. But what does the depression have to do with this? Shang Tsung has other reason to get into this situationship (for lack of a better term). He would definitely see Liu Kang as a perpetrator of his suffering, and the only person to truly punish him for something. Maybe…just maybe if he allows Liu Kang to enforce his own punishment, he’ll feel something, feel anything besides this earth-crushing, sinking feeling in him. The way Liu Kang treats him, either out of pity (which turns to guilt), sometimes with anger, sometimes with a despondent sort of sadness, it makes Shang Tsung feel alive.

I also think that after a certain point, Liu Kang ends up just… giving up on trying to fix Shang Tsung. Even so, he still stays, still spends time with him, and it’s confuses the sorcerer to no end because suddenly the whole reason he was here in the first place. He doesn’t mind it though, it’s almost nice, and he chills just a little with the button pushing…..

I still have much to develop with this one, but just know I’m a big fan!!

#mortal kombat 1 #mk1 2023 #mk1 #shang tsung mk1 #shang tsung #liu kang #shangliu

[aphroditestummyrolls]

12, 49, 50 for the writer asks! 💕

12. Are there any tropes you used to dislike but have grown on you?

Hmmmm. Usually I’d shrug and say nothing really comes to mind. And, I suppose that’s still true, because I never “disliked” these things in fic necessarily. BUT! Since finally accepting my own transness, I’ve started actively seeking out and enjoying trans headcanons in fic and playing around with gender/assignations in fic. Trans characters, omegaverse, AUs that mess around with different gender systems— of course, I don’t always like them in practice, but they’re a lot more interesting to me as I’ve grown on my own gender journey.

49. What are you currently working on? Share a few lines if you’re up for it!

I’m one (ONE!!) scene away from finishing the next chapters of both Spare Prayer AND Between Hope and Desperation. So close. I’m also like, half a scene away from finishing the first section of the Jesper Honeypot Whump-shot, too, and I’m contemplating turning it into a multi-chapter fic (not sure though. But I’m really happy with how it’s turning out, and I’m getting really excited to post it!!).

Here’s a little snippet of the Whump-shot:

Kaz stood utterly still, a solid metre of distance kept between him and their dark hiding spot.

It would be easy to blame the distance on Dirtyhands being his usual cold, emotionally devoid self. Wylan wished he could. Suddenly, he was desperate to be angry with someone other than himself. But, the second he clapped eyes on Kaz’s wrathful, stony expression, he knew what the boss was doing— standing guard. He was shielding the rest of his team, he was watching over Jesper.

Jesper.

No. No, no, no. Wylan finally got his body to catch up with his brain. Urgency slammed into him and propelled him onward.

50. Answer any question of your choice, or talk about anything you want to talk about!

Ooooo! In that case, I’ll answer 22: Who is your favorite character in [insert fic] and why? Because I just reread Keep You Safe, and I just… I love the ways that I showed that the characters had grown, without making them feel out of character.

My favourite character in Keep You Safe is Inej. I think in a background type of way the story is hers as well as Jesper, Wylan and Colm’s— she initiates the plot by bringing Colm to the club. She puts her faith in the things jesper had told her about his father, and manages to balance her belief in Colm’s love for his son with her protectiveness over her friend. Even more than that, though, by bringing Colm home and doing her part to help jesper heal his relationship with his da, she is looking for a sign that she too can seek out her family and learn to fit with them again, even after all she’s been through. She and jesper have such a quiet, strong bond in this story, and I love it. I love their friendship and I love how i wrote Inej’s love for him.

There’s a part in Chapter 4 that I think really encapsulates all of that. Inej sits with Colm and tells him an abridged little version of her story, tells him that she’s afraid to contact her family. And then uses his response to remind him what jesper needs from him right now. Opening up to this man is so difficult for her, but the fact that she does is both a testament to her own growth, and to her love for her friend.

Thanks for playing ❤️

#ask games #thanks for playing! #six of crows #wesper #the jesper honeypot whump-shot #wylan van eck #jesper fahey #colm fahey #inej ghafa #kaz brekker #keep you safe

[squirrelkiln-art]

Unearthed Revision - Chapter 1 Notes

If you haven’t read Chapter 1 of the Unearthed Revision, read it here! This post is gonna have some behind the scenes details and minor spoilers for the chapter it’s about.

Since this is the first chapter behind-the-scenes post, I’ll explain the premise. These posts will have a link to the chapter/s they’re talking about, a quick note by me, and after a ‘read more’ will have my thoughts on things. (I usually have more to say than I feel appropriate putting in AO3 notes so I’m using this.) Later chapters will have more visuals in the way of art and concept work. The first few, however, will be all or majorly text. Anyway, onto the post.

Oh boy, the start of the adventure! I’ve read this chapter so many times it actually bores me, in both the old version and the revision. Still, I like how I revised it from the original. For now, here’s some notes I took or remembered while doing this. They’re pretty rambly, but if you’ve read Unearthed you’ll be used to me doing that anyway! I’m aware I’m more excited about these notes than others but it’s nice putting them out there.

Minor spoilers ahead!

This chapter was stuck in my drafts upon its initial writing years ago because I struggle so much with titles I couldn’t even think of the proper name for Unearthed. And to think I wanna give them chapter names now. Ha! We’ll see.

For some reason the talk of the stakeout business at the start of the chapter really messed with my sense of timing in this fic. It still does, actually, and I have a written timeline because of it.) I’ll probably share that in a future post once I neaten it up a bit.) Though the entirety of Unearthed takes place over the course of only a few days, I like making timelines for multi-chapter fics.

Ben's stimming when he’s anxious (clawing at his arms, pulling his hair and clothes) is a reference to what I do, or rather did, when I was majorly struggling with my health. It's not stated in the fic itself but my version of Ben is often based on myself via projecting, including my autism and ADHD. I’m the author I say what disorders my protagonist has! (/lh)

Even in the first chapter, Rook’s improvement between versions is practically tangible.  In the Old fic, he brushed Ben off because he was impatient and didn't really take Ben seriously. Here, he does acknowledge and validate Ben’s concerns, but only denies them because he believes that they're still unlikely. As a result, he insists Ben gets sleep for his own wellbeing and not to get rid of him.

“The human curled around his spare pillow and clutched it for some sort of comfort, a life raft in the raging black ocean of his furiously beating heart." Theatre/musical kids might recognize some of this line. It’s a reference to the song Lifeboat from the Heather’s musical (TW for that song) thanks to my working on that musical in school, around the time I wrote this fic. This song got stuck in my head SO much during revisions lol.

"...And, fortunately, he didn’t find himself trying to hero in his sleep again…" This is a simple callback to an OS episode, Midnight Madness!

"...His eyes scanned the various squares of paper from top to bottom–dancing groups, physical therapy, an advert for a lost Galvan Organization table, a single card from a trading card game..." This line about the trading card is a small, admittedly silly reference to the Yu-Gi-Oh! GX abridged series by ShadyVox. These abridged YGO series shaped my sense of humor growing up more than I’d like to admit.

"He could recognize it as something he had unfortunately felt nearly every day since he was ten years old. It was fear." This line was more for the emotional impact overall, but is a sight reference to the game OFF. The line it’s referencing goes, “He has your eyes... They are full of fear.”

For the first couple chapters I plan on posting their BTS Notes today and editing the AO3 chapters themselves to include a link to their respective Tumblr post. Anyways, thanks for reading if you’ve gotten this far. I hope you can enjoy the rest of the Unearthed Revision as well as the notes I leave behind.

#Shut up Sky #Unearthed Behind The Scenes

[sakarrie-creates]

2022 Fic Round-Up/Reflection

Am I over a month late? Yes. Is that going to stop me? Nnnnnnope.

Another year gone and another end of year summary! Yeash, it’s been a rough creative year haha. I’ve practically done nothing but school and work, which has certainly been problematic for writing. It’s been a productive adulting year though, so hopefully this dead period will help me find more opportunities down the line. My gosh I’m ready to be done with school already.

Since I’ve really not written much this year, this will be an abridged version of my reflection from last year’s template. That being said, I’m still very rambly so you can see the details below the cut!

2022 Stats:

Fics Started: 11 Fics Fully Written: 3 Fics Posted: 2 New WIPs: 7 Total WIPs: 20 (ish?) Words Written: 25,950 (33,176 if including documents of pure brainstorm ramble lol) Words Posted: 9,541 Fandoms Written For: 2 Events: 2 (+1)

Posted Fics

Carmen Sandiego (Gen): 1

So Long As You're With Me (7,804): It's been several months since Team Red rescued Player from the clutches of VILE and snapped him out of their control... mostly. His base personality is back, but he still doesn't remember them from anything other than the false memories VILE created for him. And it's just their luck that VILE painted Carmen and company in such a way that Player thinks that their attempts to help him is all some elaborate form for torture, and it doesn't help that he's currently recovering from an injury she caused. Carmen is near her wit's end, but she refuses to give up on her oldest and best friend.

Supernatural (Gen): 1

Still the Same (1,737): After a hunt, Sam and Dean watch the stars for the first time since Dean came back from Hell. Things are finally starting to fall back into place between them, but it's impossible to ignore the ways things have changed. 

Specifics:

Events Participated In:

SPN Summergen, Player Appreciation Week (Fic and Art), Code Secret Santa (Art), Miraculous Magic Zine (Revamp Fic), and Fandom Trumps Hate (Offered Art/Fic).

General questions:

Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?

Oof, hard to answer. Definitely less than I’d hoped and maybe still a fair bit less than I expected, but I did know that my life was about to get swallowed by school and I wasn’t wrong. I definitely wish I had been able to participate in more events for sure and I’ve had a lot of inspiration for all sorts of stuff that I just haven’t had the brain power for unfortunately. What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?

I mean, looking at posting, I only have two options lol. In general though, I stuck fairly close to my norm for all that. I poked around time travel AUs which was fun but most of that was brainstorming/animatic storyboarding rather than writing.

What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest.

Definitely So Long As You're With Me! That AU lives in my head rent free and boy howdy I’d love to share it all one day but there’s just so much to it. I swear, the pieces I have shared are hardly recognisable as the same story haha. Anyway, it’s definitely a little rushed at some points, but it was a very crammed piece that just kept getting longer, so I’ll take it!

Okay, NOW your most popular story.

Since I’ve only posted two new works this year, we’re going to go overall. Which would definitely still be Fragmentation. It’s got 20.3k views!! That’s only 400 less than it’s total word count and it seems like the hit count keeps going up slowly, which is wild to consider it’s on FF.net in a faded fandom and has been complete for like a year. Next up would be The Problem With Good Intentions at 11k, which also blows me away a bit cause Merlin ended a decade ago but I’m proud of the fandom for staying alive! XD

Story most underappreciated by the universe?

Probably still A Letter to Never Be Read on FF.net. It’s a pretty niche fic, so I can’t really be surprised but I felt artsy writing it way back when lol.

Most overdue story?

Welp, It’s Only Natural is certainly overdue, but I don’t think anyone is really following that one so it’s not in a rush. A Long Ways Home on the other hand drives me crazy cause I’ve actually been wanting to write for it, but brainpower’s been too low from school. Can’t believe it’s been a year. :’(

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

Tbh, not really? I pushed myself in what I did, but it was all relatively in my comfort zone. I guess I tried writing in S4 of Supernatural in Still the Same, but that doesn’t feel much like a risk. I also tried out some writing from screenshot prompts which was super fun and interesting, but unfortunately that was sniped by lack of time/energy too. So I guess not really this year.

How’d this year compare to your goals of last year?

Oh boy, I’m so intimidated to read these paragraphs haha. I bet I did like none of them. We’ll start with the bullet list though since that should be fairly straightforward. -Unfortunately, prioritizing school is honestly my biggest writing goal this year. So if I do that all successfully and get through any more than like, 1-2 of these, it will be a success haha. 

-A Long Ways Home (Gonna break it up into Chapter 3, Chapter 4, and if that’s not the epilogue, then an epilogue. I’m determined and really think it’s doable, I just need to be careful not to overestimate again) WIP Bang if not done by Summer. -SPN Summergen -PAB if enough interest -February week event -Loyalties AU Plotting/Drafting -SQZ Zines -Comments

If crazy inspired year: -Gencest Bang -WIP Bang with It’s Only Natural -Post More CS One-shots -Other Zines

Okay, so some of those crossings are a little generous, but I wanted to at least check off the school one haha. Tbh, though, it wasn’t as bad as I expected! I did a decent job of having low expectations lol.

What are your fic writing goals for next year?

Oh boy. See I wish that this last year being so sad would mean this year would be back to creative rush, but I’m already a month in and I haven’t even tried writing anything other than school papers. I’ve been getting surprisingly into Huntlow (omg, Sakarrie having a romantic ship that she’s like legit into????? whacK), so it’d be fun to experiment with some fic there! Willow needs more angst fic to balance out our traumatized golden boi. Trying to find some zines would also be fun! And I’ll be sad if I ever have to miss Summergen cause it’s 100% my favorite event of the year. Oh, and of course I’m hoping to be able to participate more in Player Appreciation Week this coming month!! Shameless plug.

I’d also like to make some progress on A Long Ways Home, so hopefully in my Summer break I’ll finally have a chance to sit down and write. I’m not going to be dumb enough to put time frame estimations on it again though haha. I also am not a huge fan of having WIPs just sitting out there so if I could knock off It’s Only Natural sometime, that’d be great, but it’s honestly not a priority and I haven’t been feeling Voltron for a bit.

As for other plans, Loyalties AU and EverYOnE is bROkeN AU both haunt me at night and then there’s the time travel au that just has my brain zooming whenever I think about it. They just all get so intense and I WANT to share that intensity cause I know they could be epic, but first I gotta finalize the details, then I gotta have the skills to pull it off, then I gotta actually write sooooooooooooo we’ll see where those get me.

Okay so comments. Bah that project is such a mindset monster haha. I want to be supportive and express thanks to those who write and comment, but also the more pressure I put on it, the harder it gets. I feel like it makes reading new fics very intimidating and makes leaving chill comments harder. I think it would be nice to get through, but I think my goal for this year is to let my 1000 tabs go and just comment/respond in the moment whenever I can and not overthink it. I do want to catch up on replies though so that can be my comment goal for this year. In terms of my numbers, though, I did meet my generous goal of 20k written and 10k posted this year! (Rounding a little but close enough.) And I met my ultimate wc goal if brainstorming essays count!

Bullet list time!

2023:

-Unfortunately, keeping my scholarship has to be my biggest goal this year again so gonna put that here in case it's the only thing I can check off come December. -A Long Ways Home (at least 1 new chapter) -SPN Summergen -At least 3/7 Player Appreciation Week days -Catch up on comment replies -At least do some more brainstorming for bigger CS aus -Huntlow/Owl House fics? -One zine?

If crazy inspired year: -All of A Long Ways Home -All Player Appreciation Week Days -WIP Bang with It’s Only Natural -Post More CS One-shots -Write out more big AU scenes -Other Zines

So with that, I’m gonna set my word count bar pretty low again haha. In fact, I think I’ll just leave it as it was last year.

Easy Goal Word Count Goal: 20k (at least 10k posted)

Stretch Goal (aka, if I don’t die from school): 40k (at least 25k posted)

Ultimate 2023 Word Count Goal: 30k

#sakarrie's fic #carmen sandiego #supernatural #gen #ao3 #fic list #2022 fics #end of year reflection #2022 fic roundup

[ldrconfessions]

Who Still Uses Tumblr?

It has really been a longgg ass time  It has been two years since my last post.

Two years. I’m 30 now. Wow. Isn’t that kind of insane? I’m trying to decide if I want to keep this tumblr going, so I’m putting out a feeler.

If you’re new here, or heck, it has been years, maybe you have no insight on my life at all, here’s the abridged version: I was in a long distance relationship with my ex for on and off of 10 years. We broke up when I was in college. It is a relationship that had a huge impact on my life, and who I am as a person. My next relationship was with a guy who literally lifted me up and gave me the freedom and support to rediscover myself. We broke up eventually, but he is still very dear to me, and I’m forever grateful to him. The next relationship was with my current boyfriend, and we had to deal with a pretty rough time distance wise, due to my mom not approving of him (absolutely 100% not his fault), but also his mom not approving of me. 

In regards to my long distance relationship, even though we were both in the same state I closed the distance on my long distance relationship 4 years ago. We moved into a house together with my brother and his girlfriend at the time. We celebrated our 5th anniversary together in November 2022. My family is very comfortable with him (even my mom, although she still complains about his race), and I’ve gotten a lot closer to his family, too. 

I joined a sorority after my toxic relationship breakup, and it became a foundation for me to get back up again. I graduated college with a bachelor’s degree in psychological science. I’m working on a master’s degree now, and I’m considering a doctorate. 

My long distance relationships have had an immense impact on who I am as a person. I have zero regrets. I am happier than I have ever been, in a relationship with someone I trust, who loves me as I am, and who keeps me grounded. I have gone through a toxic relationship that destroyed me, mind, body, and soul,  and financially (hah!), and overcome trauma. I adopted a dog, am still addicted to books, manga/manhua/manhwa, anime, and Korean dramas, andddd...

I think that’s it. I wonder if I should just keep this Tumblr going for those still going through long distance relationships. Maybe I’ll just turn it into a personal space for me. 

How has everyone been? 

#ldr #confessions #long distance relationship #my journey #personal #me #update #long time no see #tumblr #long distance #relationship #confession #life update #I'm old now

[phoenixglacier]

Archon Quest Chapter I: Rewritten

(Part of my Genshin Impact Headcanons (things that blatantly go against canon but I’m pretending at true) series.)

Hi guys I really hated the Liyue Archon quest, but I don’t want to because Liyue really doesn’t deserve that. So I mixed it up a little to fix the main problems I had with it.

In this post:

Ningguang is the Geo Archon and Liyue’s Archon. She is “Morax”, with “Ningguang” as her modern name. Details such as Morax being of the original Seven and writing contracts with all adepti applies to Ningguang.

Zhongli is only an adeptus, not the archon, at any point. His original and official name is “Rex Lapis”, with “Zhongli” as the name that he’s using as a mortal.

Mainly, I wanted to remove Zhongli from the position of Liyue’s Archon entirely, because I his character is much more likeable that way (to me).

I’ll be marking parts that are the same as the original version with a *.

So, here’s how I would have the storyline play out in the game with my version of the Liyue Archon quest:

Traveller goes to Liyue Harbour as instructed by Venti*. They aren’t told that there’s any time limit, Morax simply governs the people directly rather than descending once a year. However, few ever get the honour of seeing Lord Morax (Ningguang), and her decrees are mainly spread by her direct underlings and the Qixing (Keqing and others).

When Traveller arrives, they set to work asking the ordinary citizens about Lord Morax and how to meet her. The citizens tell her the same spiel* about how the Qixing control Liyue. Here, the conversation/argument between the citizens is brought up about whether the Qixing should be given any credit compared to the Adepti. They eventually direct Traveller to Yujin Terrace*, because they can pray to the Adepti there.

At Yujing Terrace, there are people milling about, but they have not gathered for a specific event. They walk around and pray and act like normal NPCs.

Traveller makes wishes at the altars as per in-game and talks to some people which gives her insight on what the Liyue people tend to wish for. As she heads to the last altar, the cutscene triggers.

In the cutscene, we see the body of the Dragon Rex Lapis fall from the sky*, but the crowd isn’t originally crowded around the body, rather they move towards the body after they see it fall.

(For this part, basically Rex Lapis is declared dead*, and I’ve chosen to introduce Ganyu here arbitrarily) Ganyu appears suddenly from the sky, attracting the camera view and the attention. She jumps towards the body, and declares that this is the Mighty Adeptus Rex Lapis, and that he has been murdered. She declares that “Lady Ningguang will not forgive the culprit.”

The millelith begin securing the area accordingly, and Paimon panics*. We could have the sneaking quest again, but alternatively we could just skip straight to the next cutscene: while Traveller tries to escape, Childe grabs their hand and tells them “Come with me.”

(Childe had been in the area of Yujing Terrace earlier, but Traveller didn’t have the chance to talk to him yet because he was near the last altar, where the cutscene would trigger when they got close.)

Once they’ve escaped, the same conversation* happens where Childe tells them he’s a Fatui, Traveller prepares to fight him, Childe convinces them that they need his help, gives them the Sigil of Permission for Jueyan Karst, etc. Childe has to convince them that they’re a suspect a little more compared to the original, and amps up the blame on the Qixing*.

Traveller’s Jueyan Karst journey is the same*. However, the dialogue is a little different: the Adepti question why Ningguang sent a mortal to deliver the message to them, then they ask why she didn’t send a message at all. They are more enraged than ever over the death of Rex Lapis, whom they consider to be a friend and ally rather than the one they owe loyalty to.

After that’s done, Traveller returns and Childe introduces them to Zhongli*. It’s similar, but Zhongli explains that he has been instructed with the honour of carrying out the funeral for Rex Lapis, and as such will get to meet Lady Ningguang. If Traveller helps him out, he’ll bring them with him to meet her. Traveller agrees*. Childe is still funding*.

While the whole shopping fiasco with Zhongli could go exactly the same*, I think it’s more fun to merge Yanfei’s quest into it. Yanfei offers her services after Zhongli has trouble obtaining specific materials, and throughout the quest they can run into similar legal/scammy/bargaining scenarios. When Yanfei parts ways with us, she admits that she’s an adeptus but points out that the city needs legal advisors like her more than they need adepti*.

(Adding Yanfei’s quest here would be great because we would be introduced to Liyue’s culture of contracts early on, helping us understand Liyue better and hitting all the significant people anyway. It would also make a nice contrast with Zhongli’s cluelessness, and show the difference between adepti who are stuck in traditional ways vs adepti who were able to adapt.)

Zhongli brings Traveller to dinner, where they’re finally personally approached by Ganyu and invited to the Jade Chamber*. Zhongli says that it seems we don’t need his help after all since we’ve gotten the invitation by ourselves, but asks us to come to the funeral later anyway. Paimon assumes we won’t see Zhongli again until the funeral.

We meet Keqing on our way to the Jade Chamber*. She doesn’t ask us not to side with the Adepti exactly, but instead scold us a little for getting the Adepti involed at all. She says that “The Adepti live so far away from Liyue Harbour that they would never have known if you hadn’t told them.” Traveller also asks her how she knows that the adepti know, since we haven’t seen them since, and Keqing responds that Ningguang must trust the Qixing with this information, since they run Liyue with her.

In the Jade Chamber: (I can’t actually remember much of the dialogue from the original version...) but it should be similar-ish. The scene would probably be extra flashy to emphasise that she’s an Archon at first, then as she insists on being casual the filtering gets casual too. Ningguang tells her how much she trusts her, some of the history of Liyue (them coming together to protect Liyue during the war), and how the Adepti are angry with her about Rex Lapis’ death. She talks about the Fatui and how they’ve been trying to get a foothold here. She notes that she admires how Mondstadt has prevented them from having a hand in their running, but having a Harbringer in their city makes it difficult to push back against them. Ningguang asks Traveller what they think about Keqing, then sighs and says that she is very capable but very young. She mentions Yanfei, and explains that she is unique because she is half-adeptus and also very young. Traveller asks whether she thinks there’s no way for the rest of the Adepti to adapt to modern Liyue, and about Rex Lapis, and Ningguang skirts around those topics.

Traveller gets the information of the second Fatui base from Ningguang’s wall*. After that, actually going to the location is probably in Part 4.

When Part 4 starts, Traveller goes to the base, raids it, and finds the Sigils of Permission*. They are then caught by Childe. In the dialogue that follows, Paimon and Traveller accuse Childe of several things, including goading him that his plan of using Zhongli didn’t work. Childe laughs and reveals what we think is his whole plan: summon an Ancient God to attack all of Liyue Harbour. He says that leaving Traveller to babysit Zhongli was just to distract them, since he knew they would meddle with him otherwise. He also says that Morax, the Qixing and the Adepti are fighting each other now, and don’t have time to do anything except argue.

Traveller fights him*. The fight is pretty much the same, with him triggering his delusion and using Foul Legacy and being introduced as Tartaglia*. After he finishes fighting Traveller in Foul Legacy, he regrets it a little and says that he got carried away, but since Traveller is on the ground (conscious but) he begins the summoning for Osial.

(All of that can still take place in the Golden House with just an extra “Follow Childe” quest or by placing the Fatui base nearby and having Traveller follow a trail to there. I did think it would be cool if the base was in the Guyun Stone Forest instead, exactly where Osial was summoned. So after the summoning, Paimon yells at Traveller to teleport a distance away)

Cutscene where Traveller meets up with Ningguang, the Qixing, and the Adepti*. Paimon expresses surprise that they’re not fighting each other, they say that they’ve put aside their argument until Osial has been stopped, so on*. The fight and strategy would be almost identical, with Ningguang creating the platform and ballistas, and Traveller fighting the Fatui with the blessings of the Adepti.

This next cutscene is crucial. Instead of one of Osial’s attacks destroying the platform, one of the Fatui’s portals opens up behind Ningguang. Childe launches out from it and takes her Gnosis out of her body the same as with Venti. Ningguang’s concentration is broken and she nearly faints, which causes the whole platform to start breaking. Then Zhongli crashes in, catching Ningguang from her fall and immediately attempting to fight Childe. Childe is confused (“Zhongli-xiansheng..?”) and shocked, but Zhongli doesn’t try reasoning with him or saying anything at all, instead trying to fight him immediately. Childe is excited to engage in the fight, while Zhongli gets hurt immediately and is confused at why he’s so weak. However, the fight doesn’t last more than a few seconds, as Childe starts to run and Ningguang (weak and collapsing) tells Zhongli that they have to focus on protecting Liyue first, and the other Adepti go “This aura... Rex Lapis?”

They drop the Jade Chamber on Osial to defeat him*. Now comes the part where they explain everything that has been going on. The Adepti and the Qixing alike demand answers, the Adepti especially expressing that Zhongli has to be Rex Lapis. Ningguang explains most of it:

Some time back, Rex Lapis came to her saying that he wants to die. He’s tired from losing all of his old friends and working endlessly. “While I understand that it is the terms of my contract to serve you and Liyue, is there any way for this contract to end?”

(Zhongli notes that his experience with Yanfei showed him that contracts are much more complicated than they used to be)

Ningguang had agreed, because she thinks that Liyue is much safer than it was when she had signed those contracts with them, and if that was what Rex Lapis wished then so be it. However, she also thought it was too big of a decision to just not make use of.

The plan was that Rex Lapis would fake a very public death. After doing so (killing his original body) the rest of him would go into a human body where he will die at whatever human lifespan he made it to. This would allow Rex Lapis to live as a mortal under the name Zhongli for what to him was a very short amount of time. But because most of him was killed, he lost almost all of his power, reducing him to really just a mortal (still really strong, just weak in comparison to how he used to be as a Dragon and an Adeptus), which he unfortunately only realised the implications of when he couldn’t protect Ningguang from Childe.

The Adepti get angry and teary at Zhongli, saying that they really thought he was dead and scolding both of them for keeping it a secret. We get a few more emotional lines.

The plan was that Rex Lapis would fake a very public death. Ningguang would use this to stir up the people and sow distrust towards the Fatui, using it to drive them out. From her reports of Zhongli, she eventually guessed that Childe was planning to attack her at some point of the funeral shenanigans, which she was prepared for and planning to make use of. In short, she was hoping to get rid of the Fatui by using Rex Lapis’ death as a cover/excuse/catalyst.

But the Osial situation was beyond her expectations, and she wasn’t prepared for that. She doesn’t explain exactly what the Gnosis is to the people present, merely saying that it is important, and Keqing quips that Ningguang looks like hell right now. This launches into the Adepti vs Qixing conversation*.

The Adepti accuse Ningguang of not trusting them and trying to cut them out in favour of these mortals. The Qixing retort that the Adepti were only useful today because they needed to fight, even arguing that Cloud Retainer’s technology could only be put to use in the form of weaponry and nothing else. Madame Ping mediates the most*. Ningguang tells the Adepti that it wasn’t that she doesn’t trust them, but that she didn’t want them to have to get involved when they had already distanced themselves and were living peaceful lives in seclusion. She takes the Qixing’s side, but tries to explain to the Adepti why. The scene ends similarly to the original*. As they leave, the Adepti tell the Qixing and other humans to call them whenever Liyue needs their help.

That’s the end of the dramatic scene. At the funeral, things go pretty much the same*. Traveller hears people talking about the Fatui being the cause of everything* (Ningguang milked the Osial situation completely*). The Fatui are also blamed for Rex Lapis’ death. If the millelith still does make a speech, it would be that Lady Ningguang is cracking down on getting the Fatui out, which is met with positive reactions. Ningguang gives a speech at the funeral which honours Rex Lapis and reminds the people to work together for a new future of Liyue, but it would be less dramatic than the original.

When we talk to Zhongli, he explains some things: When he turned human, Ningguang gave him some money and a job and asked him to practice being human because she intended to give him an allowance to live on in the future. With the limited knowledge he had from never being a human before and the intense studying from a few books on funerals, Zhongli did his best. (He’d also accidentally fallen in love with a Fatui Harbringer oops). Traveller asks him what he’ll do now since he has some years left before his human body dies and he replies that he has absolutely no idea. After some thought, he mentions “I wonder whether Childe will forgive me...”

Traveller probably talks to Ganyu instead of Ningguang for the final ending (the part where they tell them about Inazuma*).

End.

Okay um so some notes about why I made Zhongli not-the-archon:

I was really frustrated that he seemed to not care about the mess he was making in Liyue at all. By making him a normal adeptus, it’s much more acceptable for him to walk away from all his duties because the responsibility doesn’t fall solely to him. Not only is Liyue not falling apart because their main Archon is still there, but he doesn’t bear the actual main responsibility at all.

Zhongli’s cluelessness when it comes to mora doesn’t make any sense if he was supposedly managing the whole country until last year. Plus, Liyue even trades with all other countries, so it’s not like he’s never had to be worried about losing money. By making this the first time he’s really experienced human society, his unbalanced knowledge and behaviour can seem more cute than incompetant. Even his rigidness towards his contracts and the details of the funeral can be explained because he’s probably also been living in seclusion like everyone else.

In the original story, Zhongli stood by while everyone else fought Osial, even though he still had his Gnosis, even though Liyue and all his Adepti’s lives were on the line. In this version, it was possible for Zhongli to interfere in the fight while still losing, because he was already a mortal. It makes him far more compelling because he actually tried to help.

The contract with Signora. We don’t know (yet) what the terms are, so for the the contract is just very annoying. It only serves to convince me that the Gnoses can’t actually be that important. Anyway, dramatic gnosis-stealing scene is what I prefer. At least we can have sympathy for the character - I can’t admire Zhongli for whatever smart decision he made because I don’t know what it is.

Overall, if you change Zhongli to a normal Adeptus, almost all of his existing dialogue reads much better without needing any changes, because the explanation is satisfactory.

Why make Ningguang Morax, then?

Ningguang is already introduced as if she is a god. People tell folktales of her, she displays complex high-level magic that we haven’t even seen Zhongli do (that platform and ballistas), she lives in a literal floating island in the sky that she built, etc. She’s also already running Liyue and doing well at it and has a strong sense of responsibility towards it. It makes sense for her to be the Archon.

Why not Keqing? First of all, Keqing’s elemental and physical abilities aren’t portrayed as particularly special (all of this is based on story bits, not the game mechanics). While she seems capable, the game doesn’t originally give her enough buildup and credit, and she’s portrayed as younger and more stubborn. But most importantly, Keqing is the key person on the Qixing side of the argument, so she needs to remain a Qixing.

Why add Yanfei’s quest in the middle:

The Liyue Archon quest went way too fast without getting us close to Liyue itself. Zhongli’s quest is meant to get us close to them, but he only brings us to people and spouts trivia. Yanfei’s quest embodies the “Contracts” aspect of Liyue so well and it would be really useful to go through that quest before we had to fight to defend Liyue.

If you compare Liyue to Mondstadt and Inazuma, you’ll see that you automatically get close to Mondstadt because it takes a long time to level in the early days of playing. Meanwhile, Inazuma requires you to complete Yoimiya’s quest (which shows the culture of “Eternity” in Inazuma) and Ayaka’s quest (which shows the people whp want to escape the “Eternity” in Inazuma, although Yoimiya’s quest is more important). Liyue doesn’t require any quests in between at all, yet players don’t neccessarily spend time there idly, so it’s hard to get to know Liyue.

Alternatively, Yanfei’s quest could just be a required quest between the parts instead of being integrated into the main Archon Quest itself.

Thanks for reading the Geo Archon Ningguang version of the Liyue Archon Quest.

#phoenixglacier’s words #phoenixglacier writes #genshin impact headcanons #genshin impact #Morax #Ningguang #Zhongli #Geo Archon Ningguang #...I think I’ll post an abridged version after this

[ratcandy]

CoGR Abridged/Summarized

Hello hello! My name is Clam, otherwise known as Squeakyclam on Ao3, and this is a heavily summarized/shortened version of my HK fic Camouflage of Great Renown. For anyone somehow finding this that doesn't know what it's about, CoGR focuses on Zote and his story through the game and what preceded it. He recounts his entire life up until the end of what's known in canon, and this includes a whole lot of angst, growth, realizations, and Trauma Revelations.

Oh, and he's a nosk. Zote is a nosk. Yep.

I've had a few requests for a summary, as the work is super long and reading through 130k+ words of Zote dialogue may not be for everyone, hehehe so I've compiled all the important plot points and wrote them out here in order of his story, rather than the plotline CoGR goes through specifically (in which big events in his history are revealed later on).

If I had to recommend reading the fic for anything, it'd be the... impact, I suppose? 'Cause reading the summarized events here will NOT be anything like reading it in CoGR. Seeing as the fic is all in Zote's pov and he actually has to force himself to admit all of this aloud. But I digress!!

Here's a summary of Zote's life according to CoGR.

THIS IS A VERY, VERY LONG POST DESPITE BEING A SUMMARY. I'm sorry, CoGR just has a lot happening! T/W for mentions of death.

A lot more heavy stuff happens in CoGR, but in this summary I do my best to step around those subjects. If you think more T/Ws should be added, let me know, and I'll put them here

Nosks were a species that inhabited Deepnest, specifically living in a den towards the nest's depths. It split off into lots of tunnels and caverns that each nosk lived in. "Society" there was very hostile and unwelcoming, as nosks valued brute strength over just about anything else. Caring for another nosk - be it kin or otherwise - was considered weak. "Burdens" to the den, such as nosks that were badly wounded, would/could not hunt, or were simply getting too old would be killed off. Death in and of itself was very common and hardly anyone would bat an eye at it.

Think the Mantis Tribe but largely feral and without a shred of decency of morals.

Runt donning mask of citizen was born into the nosk den alongside his brother, who would become hunter donning hide of tiktik.

(Before anyone asks, these are just the naming conventions that nosks have. No one but the nosk superiors - the leaders of the den - are granted actual names.)

A third egg was among them, but the brother broke it open and ate the younger sibling not long after hatching.

The two were born under a superior (their mother) and her chosen mate (their father). They were expected to grow up strong and eventually overtake their mother and become superiors. Or, one of them would, maybe.

The runt (Zote) was immediately scorned by the mother, as he was extremely frail and useless, and she just about killed him off right after he hatched - but his father stepped in, and the runt was left alive.

Zote grew up to be a weak nosk who could barely defend himself in a den full of beasts that would gladly kill him if doing so wouldn't be a direct offense to a superior. His brother was cruel to him, his father berated him constantly, and his mother was hardly in the picture at all. Only ever watching him distastefully from afar.

His father did, however, train him, if only sparingly. The least he could do to keep Zote alive. (Doing so would be a death wish were any other nosks to find out about it...)

However, an elder in the den - hunter donning mask of weaver - gained Zote's attention as she told him fantastical stories from outside the den. This elder had spent a good portion of her life among the Weavers, initially being sent to learn about them (to make them easier to hunt) but growing interested in their culture and choosing to stay. Until she did something to get her chased out.

At any rate, she told the stories from the Weavers to Zote, alongside news of what was happening outside of Deepnest. This caused the runt to become obsessed with the idea of being a knight, as the stories just sounded!! So amazing and heroic and awesome and!!! :D Yea!! He wanted to be just like that!

To the point where he even carved a sword out of the shellwood... with the den elder's help. He named it Life-Ender eventually.

At some point, however, his father found out about all this. His father figured that the only way to eliminate this problem - as wishing to be something heroic that saved lives or whatever was SO unnosk-like (and would get him killed) - was to kill the den elder.

Before she died, the elder told Zote to run away from the den, and not to return no matter what. The idiot did not run, and because of this, he witnessed the Den Elder's death at the hands of his father and some other nosks.

Man! this does, however, cause Zote to be more... "open" about his ideas. By this I mean he begins carrying Life-Ender around instead of hiding it in his nest. what do you mean it's a comfort item what! no he's just rebelliously showing off how much he wants to be a knight. totally. 100% /s

well, anyway, not long after this, the idiot's father dies at the claws of his mother. Zote unfortunately witnesses this as well. When he tries to run, his mother catches him, nearly killing him as well. Luckily(?), this attempt is thwarted by Zote's brother, who was very distraught over their father's death. The brother swears to kill the mother before storming off. Zote runs into hiding (still in the nosk den), and begins devising his plan so to get the hell out of there.

Of the few times that Zote leaves his nest after his father's death, 90% of them ended with him getting pummeled by his brother. The latter was livid, blaming the father's death on Zote and frequently bursting into fits of emotional rage. Rage is great for nosks, other emotions not so much.

On one occasion in particular, the brother goes too far, nearly killing Zote. In the scuffle, Life-Ender is shattered, and that sends Zote into a blind anger (mixed with survival instinct as he's About to Die). Zote then kills his brother.

A crowd had gathered around them during the fight. In that crowd was Zote's mother, who looked to him approvingly after he'd killed off his brother. This terrified Zote, so he gathered the pieces of Life-Ender and fled the den forever.

Stopping at the hot spring in Deepnest, he made a disguise for himself based on the vessels that nosks would often capture. He made a new name for himself, took on an entirely new identity, and decided to abandon the idea that he was ever a nosk. He would just go to the City, be knighted by the King (who he'd heard of from the stories the Den Elder would tell him), and live out his life as a knight. Just like he always wanted. Not as a nosk. because he's not that.

The events that follow now are just very short summaries of things that happen throughout cogr.

- He breaks a statue in the Queen's station on accident after a bug finds him there. as a nosk. oops

- He obliterates the entire uoma population /j and burns himself in the process

- He repairs Life-Ender originally using mushrooms in the Fungal Wastes. Fungal adhesion is real I checked I swear

- He makes it to the City of Tears! and while there, he

Gets caught by Hegemol who mistakes him as a vessel

Drowns in the City's gutters

Purchases a cloth to wrap around Life-Ender

Hears the Pale King talk one (1) time and immediately decides he hates him

- While leaving the City, he finds a grub. That grub never really gets named, but as he frequented calling the little thing "Fiend," and the grub eventually began responding to that title, he just considers it a name for them now.

- Zote travels with the grub throughout the Crossroads until he drops them off with the Grubfather, being rewarded for reuniting them but overall feelings pretty :( about it.

- He then goes to the. So you know the houses that are underneath the Gruzz Mother's lil arena? Yea that place. he goes there and "guards" it, becoming that place's self-proclaimed knight.

- then he starts being paranoid about the grub and returns to the grubfather only to see all the grubs have been stolen. he presumes Fiend is dead from this point on (and dodges around ever using the word).

- Then he goes back to the lil town place only to see everyone's infected :(

- We then spend TEN CHAPTERS!! in Greenpath. In which he

eats a plant and dies

Stands in No Eyes's tomb.

Visits the Lake of Unn (and nothing bad happens)

Sees a nosk at the entrance to Fog Canyon and proceeds to have a panic attack

Kills everything

Gets caught by the Vengefly king

Gets saved!

has a breakdown

Yells at Ghost and then Leaves

- Canon starts!

- He stops in Dirtmouth, listens to Elderbug talk, gets told the Myth of the Great old Nosks who are now all Extinct. The news that nosks are now extinct freaks Zote out a little, but he absolutely refuses to return to Deepnest. He doesn't need to make sure. It's fine.

- In an effort to convince himself not to go to Deepnest, he goes to the City again, thinking it can't possibly be all that ba-- oh no everyone's dead!

- he inadvertently steals a map marker from Ghost and decides to use that as a pin for his cloak

- Zote returns to Deepnest. He's very upset with himself for this, but he just has to know if all the nosks are actually extinct now.

The answer is yes

but before that he gets caught by dirtcarvers and put in a web and has to be saved. this makes him angry

Upon seeing all the dead nosks once he gets to the den, and noticing that the last nosk was mimicking Ghost (evidenced by the mask left behind) before it died, he decides that he's gotta Kill Everything again

- more specifically we're going to the Colosseum now.

- Zote's fear of water evaporates as he goes through the secret passage in the King's Station to get to Kingdom's Edge. He only found it because he saw Ghost go that way

- While at the Kingdom's Edge, he gets caught by the Fools, who he stupidly challenges and then immediately gets caught by.

- sits in dumb baby jail for a while. mean to tiso

- Then the colosseum battle happens! He does not win he then gets dropped down into kingdom's edge with little regard toward whether he's dead or alive

- He grabs a Fool's helmet before leaving, going back to Dirtmouth, and intending to bury that thing

- this goes wrong as he bumps into Bretta. He then sits and talks with her for God Only Knows how Long, spacing out while doing so, and not even noticing when she eventually gets up and leaves him.

- He buries the helmet, shuts himself away in his house, and gets stuck repeating his precepts to himself. At the end of CoGR it is revealed that he hasn't been talking to anyone, and is instead talking to himself endlessly as no one is left to listen to him

and that's it! that's cogr. yeah

#clamtalk #cogr #camouflage of great renown #zote #hollow knight #fanfiction #nosk zote #nosk #uh #yeah #long post #VERY long ramble #I guESs? #it is a very long post anyway #cogr summary #so i can find it again later #anyway. now to wait for someone to show up in my dms and be like ''wait that didn't happen/that's wrong!'' because memory of my own fic? #nonexistent #yea. that's all #thanks for coming

[a-person-who-is-not-you]

Some Dark Academia/DA adjacent media for people who don’t like the popular books/movies/plays

Rope directed by Alfred Hitchcock- Two college boys murder their classmate and invite his family, friends, and their former teacher for dinner. has intellectual murder, critique of classicism, homoeroticism, two mlm lead actors, cool camerawork

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov- cw child abuse/rape, the story of a professor who becomes sexually interested in a young girl and the slow destruction of both of their lives. unreliable intellectual narrator, beautifully written and has the EXACT opposite message that people think it does, emotionally difficult to read but worth it

Miss Julie- the woman of the house falls in love with a servant, but neither is as they seem. play by August Strindberg, also a 2014 movie that’s really good. Deals with ideas of class, romance, inherent good. Really good play. cw: animal death, suicide

Man and Superman- a romance dealing with the superiority of women. Play by George Bernard Shaw, it’s really long but worth it. Definitely comedic but discusses feminism, philosophy, politics, and has a really beautiful love story. There are audio versions of it. If you don’t want to read/listen to the whole thing, there is an abridged version called Don Juan in Hell which is just the fourth act

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Pierce- a man is about to be executed, but escapes and tries to flee. short story, also a Twilight Zone episode. Southern gothic with discussions about guilt, the post war atmosphere of the south, unreliable narrator

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner- poem mentioned in Frankenstein, about a sailor who commits a horrible act and has to suffer for it. Great imagery and fun tragedy stuff

Never the Sinner- two college friends attempt to commit the perfect crime as an intellectual excercise, and everything that follows after they get caught. play by John Logan, about the Leopold and Loeb case. Explicit lgbt relationship, discussions of philosophy, class critique, murder. Courtroom drama as well. Very similar to Rope

Rebecca- novel by Daphne du Maurier, films by Alfred Hitchcock and a more recent one by Netflix. About a poor woman who marries a rich man who lives in the English countryside, and falls into a world still controlled by his former wife, who died a year earlier. Homoeroticism, esp in the Hitchcock film, class critique, moral ambiguity

The Monster Variations by Daniel Kraus- more of a coming of age story akin to the Goldfinch, not a whole lot of academia stuff but very good. It’s a story about three boys growing up and it’s really creepy and sad and dangerous. Scowler by Daniel Kraus is also really good

Casefile True Crime: Silk Road- podcast summarising a real case of a man who creates a drug website on the deep web and the story of how he was caught.

Ghost Flower by Michelle Jaffe- a runaway who looks exactly like a missing heiress is hired to impersonate her by family in order to claim their fortune. Amazing murder mystery with a lot of great characters, twists, and reveals, her other books are really good too.

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones- four men kill an elk on the elder’s section of the reservation and years later must pay the price. Not exactly DA but amazing horror novel wit great tension and characters.

The Oedipus Cycle by Sophocles- three plays about Oedipus and his family, and the hubris. Great Greek plays for someone new to Greek theatre, and while you probably already know the twist from Oedipus you might not be familiar with Antigone.

The Oresteia Trilogy by Aeschylus- the story of Agamemnon and his family when he returns from Troy. More great Greek plays, and definitely more morality questions than SOME popular DA books about the Greeks are willing to provide (not naming any names but y’all who hate Agamemnon are getting biased info).

Literally any other Shakespeare play but MacBeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and Othello- please, for the love of god, check out some of the less well known shakespeare plays I’m begging you. The Henriad is GREAT and def worth reading, Titus Andronicus is very funny and gory and good, my personal favourite is Measure for Measure and the adaptation Off the Rails by Randy Reinholz. I’m so tired of only seeing Shakespeare memes of the most popular plays and I IMPLORE you to check out some of the other ones, there are great movie versions of most of them (this listing exempts the Two Noble Kinsmen, never mention that play to me again)

I know most of these can’t strictly be called DA, but they give the same vibes to me. Also I know this list is pretty eurocentric, so if anyone has suggestions that are less so please let me know! We need more diverse stories in this genre. I’ll also probably add to this list as time goes on because I have a lot of media that works for me in the way that some of the more popular books/movies don’t. Thanks for reading!

#dark academia #the goldfinch #donna tartt #gothic literature #horror literature #the secret history #if we were villains #shakespeare #classics

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Season Zero: The Yo-yo Crimes of Jounouchi Pt 2

OK, last we left off, we were in a different Youtube video. This one I grabbed off of 2 different videos (you’ll see their watermark in the corner change) and it makes me appreciate the quality that our other episodes have been, honestly. A little bit of compression going on in these, just to give you even more of that nostalgic feel of watching a bootleg anime from the 90′s your brother got from his weird high school friend’s Napster account.

Because this is done with subtitles on, it takes more caps to cover it. Part of why I rewrite the dialogue in these recaps is to help abridge stuff, and so consider yourself warned...there’s a lot of caps in this one. For most of you, that’s probably not much of a problem. But I’m just letting you know because...I sure wasn’t expecting it to be over 40 caps for half an episode, and I’ll probably just type less to make up for that. (Tumblr keeps Erasing All My Words anyway, so this is for the best, but that’s a tech issue I already went into in another post.)

(read more under the cut)

So, to start off, Yugioh and co. walk up to a bar like a really weird version of a bar joke and are like “do you know where we can find the yo-yo gang?” And, much like a video game npc, the bartender was like “I know EXACTLY what you’re talking about, and I heard every part of their intimate conversation. Let me give you all the details, children.”

Hey, PS, there’s an entire Wikipedia entry about the bar joke. And that is wild. Apparently the first bar joke was from Ancient Sumeria, and Wikipedia was like “Here is the Sumerian joke, but we Do Not Get it. Please don’t try to get it.”

The joke being: "A dog walked into a tavern and said, 'I can't see a thing. I'll open this one'."

Damn. I can’t believe the Sumerians were onto meme humor before we ever invented memes. They were in the Galaxy brain over there in the land before time, holy crap. Depositing their memes knowing that 7,000 years later mankind would look at the world’s first joke and be like “I don’t get it!” while all the millennials and zoomers with our MB of nonsense memes on our phones are like “No. I get it.” Good on you Sumerians, that is freakin the best joke ever made. 7000 years to get to the punch line of confusing the hell out of all us. Bless.

They promptly tell Miho that everything was resolved and that she should go to bed and she was like “Cool!” and exited stage left. Bye, I guess. Anzu also went home, but she didn’t have to be tricked into doing it, she just went the hell to bed.

(PS, I just realized that if I want to write less...I should probably not look up Wikipedia articles about the world’s first ever bar joke. But y’all, habits die so freakin hard, and I just feel like it’s very pertinent to this Yugioh recap, although I know it’s really not.)

Yuugi and Honda decide to visit the warehouse and harass Jounouchi. In the context of the show, they’re going out of their way to pull their best friend out of society’s systemic downward pull of a life of crime and most likely turning into exactly like his Father. But, the way that it’s storyboarded makes it look a lot like these kids just show up out of the corner and this gang was like “Damn it, again? OMG small children, please leave us alone!”

Honda hands over the symbolism sash, to which Jounouchi symbolically says “Nyeh.”

And Honda didn’t take it very well.

After tending to his kidneys for a little while, Honda decided to go back at it again at the Krispy Cream and do some sort of insane parkour over this completely ordinary fence.

Ah, the very first instance of real duel law where you duel over a relationship. In later seasons duel law is invoked for things like Mai’s marriage and the right to date Tea (and then just kind of forgetting you ever won the right to date Tea twice). But to think the very first time was Honda dueling for the right of Jounouchi to be part of nerd gang because Jounouchi had fallen to the dark side yo-yo gang across the street run by some 40 year old man with blue hair.

How many times is Honda gonna fight with a broom? Like are they just magnetized to his location? where are they even coming from?

Freakin janitor powers over here, put him in a Final Fantasy style RPG. I want to see what his limit break would be.

Not like it matters, because Hirotani very quickly explains why these yo-yo’s are at all a threat.

Which honestly shouldn’t be...so lethal? Seems like the weight is all you need, not really the spikes. But it’s at least stronger than Honda’s janitor stuff.

Unfortunate for Honda that he just destroyed an antique.

So with lightning reflexes, Yuugi does what he does most:

The death yo-yo ricochets back and does this little itty bitty scrape to this guy’s face and he’s real bothered by it. Although it’s like...well dude, you’re a 50 year old high schooler, I don’t think people will notice the scrape compared to everything else falling apart in your life.

And so then the Yugioh Season Zero team was like “oh shoot is it time to torture Yuugi???” and they got hella excited.

Like I thought it was just Yuugi’s class that were a bunch of disturbing criminal disasters, but I guess it’s the whole city. Like...was Yuugi’s class the good school?

I mean, it can’t be, there’s no way...

but like...is there a good school in this universe? How does anyone survive till graduation? If you so much as disgrace a yo-yo, you will get the torture treatment that I sure did expect in Yakuza games, but not so much in Yugioh, tbh.

Just a reminder: This is the third time we’ve beat up Yuugi this episode. Within the first meeting of Yuugi and Hirotani, he beat the tar out of Yuugi within eye shot of Jounouchi. So like...Jounouchi was reallllllllllllllllly lax on that deal, right? Like...he took his toot sweet time to realize “yeah this just ain’t ever gonna happen.”

And then the yo-yo wars begin.

Just like Solid Snake crawling through the radiation chamber.

Hirotani throws his Fyper-yoyo, Jounouchi intercepts with his Eireboy, and Hirotani’s completely terrible yo-yo just flies off the string again because Hirotani should have just sticked to using his fists. No wonder they wanted to recruit Jounouchi so badly, their yo-yo game is so off.

We never get a door to darkness in this episode, dipping our enemies into mind horrors. Instead, we get home-alone style traps. But, this makes sense. Not only do the show makers have to make Yuugi avoid solving problems with magic in front of Jounouchi, they also have to make it Jounouchi’s choice to leave Hirotani behind. If Yuugi did it for him in like...some sort of duel law situation...then that sort of leaves out Jounouchi’s choice in the equation.

Not like this ever really comes up in later seasons, since who even follows through with duel law and marries Mai? But like, it does feel like Season Zero calls out the later Seasons a bit in this regard. Honda got beat up because he tried to win Jounouchi back by force (or game, I guess.) That was just another form of coercion on the heels of Hirotani’s. What Jounouchi actually needed was to make his own decision to leave.

...most other anime I’d be like “I’m sure that’s just a translation error” but not this one.

So Yuugi runs to the roof where Jounouchi will never see this.

My audible sigh reading this line about fight club roof.

These stupid gang members went into Yuugi’s native territory, not just a fight club roof, but on a warehouse? They were dead before they arrived.

This was like maybe 3 frames of animation in just rapid succession, it was pretty silly and good.

Reminder that like 4 minutes ago, Yuugi was about to get like executed on a meat hook.

Speaking of getting executed on a meathook:

Hope you like the idea of glass in your eyes, because this anime’s got it.

They chase Yuugi around, in a sequence that was done mostly to conserve frames, so you rarely saw the ground until this shot:

Lots of falling down this episode, but unlike Tea, who fell from a warehouse ceiling once and just kind of rubbed her ass after and was like “ah damn it.” these guys won’t come out of it virtually unscathed.

Also, Honda is here now:

Jumping off of his symbolic sash trapeze, he decides to do in Hirotani for good.

Hey so like...walk the dog is a fairly gentle walk that a yo-yo does slowly on the ground right?

Just pointing out how sensitive Hirotani’s fingies are.

And he...didn’t appear to be dead, so I don’t have to add to the bodycount...but it’s gonna be a real long road for recovery.

And now, with the gang back together Jounouchi is back at school knee deep in make up assignments he’ll probably completely ignore since we know that in a years time, these fools are going to be trapped on Pegasus’ island, and at that point school will be just that place you talk about when you try to remember why you’re friends with Bakura.

---hey aren’t those chairs attached to the desks?

Because...holy crap, Anzu.

Honestly this is what you see before you die, but I guess Jounouchi died off screen after the episode ended, so I don’t have to add him to the deathcount (again). RIP.

Alright! That took like...8 tries to get Tumblr to save this one, but it managed! (well...I guess “managed” isn’t the word you’d use for a typing program that takes 8 tries to save)

Next time, we’ll be back to S5, for an arc I’ve heard is kind of boring. We’ll see. If it truly is, I can condense episodes into fewer posts. Or maybe it’s a secret gem? I guess we shall see.

And if you just got here this is a link to read all the Season Zero recaps from the start:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yuugi-muto/chrono

(there’s also a link to read all the Yugioh posts we wrote from the start in chrono order but straight up, this file won’t freakin save, and I just can’t even will myself to look up that link again. It’s on the home page of this blog on the right.)

#YGO #yugioh #yu gi oh #Yuugi Muto #Jounouchi #Honda #Anzu #Miho #yo yo gang #Hirotani #Yuugi and the gang do serious property damage

[ponds-of-ink]

To counter @calcium-cat’s OSD angst posts, I’ll try some FNAF fluff posts. And I guess what better way to start off than to explain that one part of Scrap’s Solo no one apparently has thought to ask me about: The makeshift Scrap Baby plush and why mean ol’ Scraptrap had it in the first place.

*It all started thanks to Henry wanted to fill up the claw machines with prizes themed to the restaurant. And, being one to support more local businesses (probably), he hired an old friend who could sew toys.

*All four Salvages had their plush equivalents. Yes, even Molten Freddy. These little guys were advertised as “spooky secrets” that could pop up. And, if anyone was interested, they could try and get one.

*Scraptrap didn’t know about this until he snuck into that main pizzeria one night. Well, I say “snuck”, but really he just got lost because everything was so dark.

*Anyway, he stumbled across the still-on claw machine and wanted to try after so many years. Whether or not he got to play a claw machine earlier in life is up to you.

*It took several tries (and many Faz-Tokens that were scattered on the floor), but he did get something. To his surprise, it was Scrap Baby’s little proto-plushie.

*”We have toys of ourselves now? Huh. I didn’t even think we were advertised.”

*He carried it back to his sleeping quarters and left it nearby his hammock… bed… thing. His mind didn’t think anything of the little thing as first.

*But then, when his heart softened to the idea of returning to a proper father-daughter bond, his attitude changed.

*He no longer saw the plushie as just a meager doll he randomly won. To him, it was the closest thing to he could get to really talking to Elizabeth without sounding “unprofessional“ about it.

*Why? Because, if he tried to express his growing emotions of desperation and wanting to become a better father to Scrap Baby, then it’d warp their reputations as murderous animatronics. Hers, especially. And he didn’t want that future conflict to happen.

*So, he settled for acting all cold and snarky in public while absolutely gushing about how proud he is when he reaches his room.

*”You almost had him, you clever girl!” or “I wish I had your cunning mind when I was younger.” Stuff like that…

*Until the self-doubt starts. Then, he’s doing full-on Helga from Hey Arnold-type rambles. Not in the same relationship kind, but the dramatic pining is definitely there.

*Side note: Henry is secretly watching all this with popcorn bucket in hand. This new development is strangely more entertaining than any old soap opera for him.

*Anyway, Scraptrap gets so attached to the thing that he starts building a little makeshift corner for it to “sleep” in. He grabs leftover items from the prize corner and uses them to make a mini-room.

*Again, he has an excuse. This time it’s the more…selfish?… reason of “Well, I’m not five years old so I’m not going to snuggle this doll in my bed. That’d be dumb.”

*It’s all strung up with star-shaped Christmas tree lights, the bed is a printed cardboard box on a ratty table… That kind of thing.

*To be honest, he’s hoping the actual Scrap Baby has a better room than what he’s made. It‘s… not his best work.

*His schedule is basically: Get up, say hello and goodbye to the doll, go to “work” with Scrap Baby and the gang, return to room and practice stuff, talk to his “little Liz” about his day, go to bed. Sometimes, for obvious reasons, parts three and four are swapped.

But yeah, that’s the abridged notes version of Scraptrap’s little… descent into a weird coping mechanism? Misadventures with a plush toy? Whatever you want to call it lol. I’m dead sure this isn’t canon by any means to the main game, but the table in SB’s making me think that wasn’t his first time doing something like it…

#scraptrap #fnaf fluff #hopefully #fnaf headcanons #fnaf 6 #pizzeria simulator #scrap baby plush #not the one in Help Wanted #btw #this one looks like a real rag doll

[beacon-lamp]

Thoughts on dreams response?

so i read the 19 page paper and then watched dream’s response video.  don’t really know what the discourse surrounding his response is bc ✨i don’t care enough to go purposefully looking for it ✨

my overall thoughts on the Entire Situation under the cut because i talk A Lot:

first and foremost, the math in the paper is Incredibly Thorough.  dream gave the Abridged Version in his video bc i doubt most people read the entire thing.  but if you read the paper, you’ll see the author point out what calculations the mods did wrong and, more importantly, why they were wrong and how they fixed it.  you’ll also notice that they mentioned several times that the results the author calculated did match some of that of the mods’ calculations.  we love reproducibility.

questioning the credibility of the author is a waste of time and energy.  they’re Anonymous for a reason.  imagine getting a fucking doctorate in statistics (an additional 4-8 years of study after college in the US) and your biggest paycheck of the year comes from some dude in florida who plays minecraft for a living.  jokes aside, you can argue in circles about “oh dream bribed the expert” but the intentions of the author and purpose of the paper are clearly stated in the first couple pages.  before all the math stuff.  people were so quick to believe the stuff in the paper the volunteer mods put out.  why not believe the expert too?

there is a greater lesson here to be learned about bias.  both for and against dream.  it was Incredibly Concerning to see So Many People immediately jump to “dream cheated 100%” or “dream would never cheat he’s the best” before understanding all of the facts.  i’ll admit, even i fell into this trap before i took a step back from the situation to look at the big picture.  we all have biases, many of which we aren’t even aware of.  but it’s always important to recognize those biases and account for them as much as possible before drawing conclusions, especially those that have real world implications.  it’s also important to listen to Experts and those who Know More Than You.  sometimes you just have to shut up and listen.  you’re not going to know everything and that is Fine as long as you are open to Learning from those with credibility and knowledge.  you’re going to make mistakes and have opinions you’ll later look back on and *cringe* and all of that is fine because we are all Growing and Learning. 

aight let’s talk about the mods.  i’ve already like vented in the tags of a post from like 2 week ago and my point still stands.  statistics is Very Difficult to Do and unfortunately is an Incredibly Powerful Tool.  there is No Right Way to do stats.  the data is unbiased but the analysis and interpretation of that data can be.  once again, that’s why it’s important to account for your biases.  the mods tried.  i’ll give them credit, i really do believe they Tried.  but unfortunately trying sometimes just isn’t Good Enough.  statistics can be weaponized to push forward an agenda, whether or not the author intended it.  i know that this is “just minecraft” and it only affects “one person” but inaccurate publications or misrepresentations of data have Real Life Consequences.  one Disproven and publicly denounced paper had people Believing that vaccines cause autism, contributing to the antivax movement that is Once Again having an impact during coronatime.  the point is, the mods should’ve consulted a professional.  someone with credentials about their math.  there is no doubt in my mind that they knew the fallout that was to come.  the drama this would stir up.  there was Obvious, Documented bias against dream from the beginning.  i’m sure there were people who wanted to take him down at least a peg or two.  but once again, that’s no excuse to publish this without consulting a Credible Expert.  i’m going in circles now you get the point, academic integrity is Very Important.  also News Outlets have reported on this, overall shedding a pretty negative light on the minecraft speedrunning community as a whole, which also harms the mods too in my opinion.

finally, let’s talk about dream.  if you don’t like him, that’s fine.  it’s Okay to Not Like Someone.  to Stop Watching their content.  to Stop Supporting Them.  dream responded incredibly immaturely to this entire situation, as we have seen him do Multiple Times before.  personally, i don’t believe the excuse “i acted without thinking and i’m sorry” cuts it anymore, given his 14M subscriber count and 1M+ twitter followers.  he is a grown adult and should learn to conduct himself better publicly.  i have friends his age and this behavior in a professional setting, which for him twitter is because social media/ content creator is quite literally his job, would be Completely Unacceptable.  it’s perfectly valid to be angry and yell about it to his friends, hell i’d be Furious.  but he should know better than to tweet impulsively.  feel free to draw your own conclusions on him as a CC and public figure.  please do.  i know “cancel culture” has deviated from it’s Original Meaning (much like the term “stan” has too) but hold content creators accountable for their actions.  do not blindly defend him.  at the same time, acknowledge that he is a young adult who is still growing and learning.  these two ideas can and should coexist.  however, ***do not accept apologies that are not yours to accept***.  shut up and listen to others who know more than you about a particular thing.  think for yourselves.  draw your own conclusions but always be willing to Grow if/when you Learn New Information.

the world is Complicated.  i’m sorry.  i wish it were easier too.

in conclusion, i can’t believe *this* is the first time i’ve used statistics knowledge outside of an academic setting and in the Real World.  2020 is fucking wack.  if you’ve made it this far, thank you for coming to my incoherent ted talk.  no one is going to read this whole thing and i’ve accepted that.

#anon #so apparently i had a lot to say #in classic Beacon Lamp Fashion it's rambly and kinda coherent but also probably repetitive bc im not good at writing #also no one is going to read this and thats ok #discourse #discourse tw #Anonymous #also didn't proofread it before publishing so

[aknosde]

Fátima I’ll have you know that I wasn’t actually going to drop all of this but then you told me to and I can’t fucking resist you. This is really long I’m sorry. Percy Jackson tiktok au:

This au is like 99% fluff. The only thing that keeps it from being 100% is that I’m maintaining Percy’s history of child abuse, Annabeth's tenuous relationship with her parents, Leo’s mom’s death, The death of Carter and Sadie’s parents, as well as Hazel’s issues (minus the dying), but these things don’t actually come into play.

As you can deduce above, the characters are Percy, Carter, Sadie, Hazel, Annabeth, and Leo. For the sake of my sanity, they are all sophomores in high school.

Character Histories

Percy and Hazel met when he was five and she was four. Hazel’s mom brought her into Sweet on America while Percy was hanging around Sally. They quickly became inseparable, had playdates most weekends until they could control their own schedules, and at around 8/9 years old they started referring to each other as siblings.

Percy: *standing, having a serious conversation with another child at the park*

Hazel: *climbing him*

Percy: WHy are you doing this? The jungle gym is right over there?

Hazel: *continues to climb him*

Percy: You’re a gremlin *pats her affectionately*

      Annabeth and Leo met when they started middle school. Annabeth’s relationship with her father and stepmother has reached a nice area, not perfect, but good, and she doesn’t really talk with her birth mother. Leo’s mom died when he was in fourth grade, he’s fostered by a middle class family, and goes to private school with Annabeth on an academic scholarship.

Leo: –so the problem is that this formula doesn’t work with the diameter of a cylinder but I need...

Annabeth: speak english please

*fifteen minutes later* Annabeth: I think I’ll put vertical supports her, although triangular would be more stable, but according to the building codes...

Leo: I beg of you,,,

     Cater and Sadie’s history stays much the same, they were raised separately until Julius died, except he died during a cave in on one of his digs, and Ruby died in a construction accident. (She was walking by when the supports failed) They started living with Amos in eighth grade. Yes, Amos still has a baboon, an alligator, and an indoor basketball court.

Carter: And so that’s why Amos named his baboon Kufu.

Sadie: You are literally the most annoying person alive, can I have your fries?

    Carter and Percy met on the subway when they were ten, going to a day camp in the summer while Julius was giving some lectures in the city. They were inseparable for the week, and then didn’t speak to each other for four years.

Hazel’s mom has a few mental illnesses that developed when Hazel was around 10, she’s still present in Hazel’s life, and they live together, but she’s not always all there. Once Gabe is out of the picture Hazel spends a lot of time at the Jacksons’ apartment, enough where she keeps a toothbrush there.

As for Gabe, he remains his normal abusive self. Things come to a climax when Percy is 11/12 after Gabe throws a bottle at him. There’s no reasonable excuse for this, and Sally comes home while Percy’s still crying. Gabe’s dealt with swiftly, but Percy has some scarring on the left side of his face.

Also quick note: in this au Percy is 1/2 black, 1/4 moreno, and 1/4 native american. (Moreno and native from Sally and black from his dad)

Their Accounts

So as in the post that got this all started, Percy’s account is largely Ancient Greek and Roman mythology and history. He also does some stuff for indigenous mythology, but he’s super into the greek and roman stuff. (Insert this meme (it’s the thirteenth one down)) He also does skateboarding and some light gymnastics/parkour/acrobatics.

    Hazel is a gymnast. She’s also just super nice and supportive so she makes those motivational videos, but mostly it’s gym stuff and her and Percy hanging out. She’s not quite as popular but she doesn’t really care. She is also the #1 horse girl, and rates horses. Percy would tease her, but he’s also a horse girl.

    Sadie does comedy. Some if it’s scripted or little skits, but there’s a lot of her just ranting at her camera. Also her life is just weird (*cough* alligator and baboon *cough*) so people just like to see what she’s doing. Also a theatre kid™, sorry, I don’t make the rules.

    Carter gives detailed accounts of every Egyptian myth he thinks is cool (all of them), but he makes more comedic abridged versions too. He’s also known to make videos laying out archeological digs. About a quarter of his videos feature Sadie insulting him in the background.

  Leoooooo! He has a lot of comedy, the first video of his to do well was a situational comedy, he always has a sarcastic comment or a bad joke. Most of his stuff now is for robotics. He’s on the robotics team at his and Annabeth’s school, but he does a lot of stuff on the side just making crazy cool contraptions. He has a series of him going scrounging for parts because he doesn’t exactly have the money for a lot of his stuff. Also skateboards occasionally.

 Annabeth’s account in verging on booktok. Every time she reads a book she reviews it, and if it’s popular she’ll record herself reading it and put the best clips together. She’s still really into architecture, she talks about it often, shows some of her sketches, and has a series where her followers can pick videos in New York and she’ll go and critique them. Also has some lifestyle videos about staying organized, but only for school stuff because otherwise she’s pretty messy.

Prequel Stuff

Carter and Percy reconnect when they start duetting each other’s mythology busting videos. They have two series together, one on parallels between Greek and Egyptian myths (called Percy and Carter’s Mythological Mashup) and another about hellenistic culture, specifically about Egypt during the Ptolemaic Dynasty. (Working title: Colonizers suck,,, but the Aesthetics)

Them getting closer forms a friend group of Percy, Hazel, Sadie, and Carter, and they hang out most weekends. Their parents are all friends now.

Okay, The Actual Thing

I lied, there’s a prologue: everything starts at the very end of freshman year when Percy posts a video of him, Hazel, Carter, and Sadie at central park. (caption yet to be determined). It ends up on Leo’s fyp and his though process goes something like ‘oh, it’s a bunch of pretty people who aren’t white.’ He follows Percy and forgets about it.

 So Leo’s life is going pretty normal, Percy’s videos pop up on his following and for you pages. Nothing really happens until Percy makes a video detailing a type of ancient greek technology (im thinking torsion catapult but its not set in stone). Leo thinks it sounds really cool, so he makes it and duets Percy’s video

From there, their friendship develops. Leo keeps making models and prototypes of ancient tech for some of Percy’s videos, and eventually he starts doing his own research. And in turn, Percy duets Leos videos and talks about the historical significance of certain mechanisms or their origins. By now, they’re mutuals and talk pretty often. 

 Annabeth also follows Percy after one of his videos appears on her fyp, but much later then Leo. In fact, he’s on her page because she follows Leo. She’s with Leo when this happens, and asks him about Percy and checks his profile before following him. He follows her back the next day. 

The first time they interact beyond liking each others videos is when Annabeth takes part in one of those ‘creators are struggling like you’ with her ADHD and dyslexia, which Percy continues from her.

 One day Percy and Leo (quite literally) run into each other, and as they’re mutuals and do text, they decide they might as well hang out in person, thus Leo is indicted into Percy’s friend group.

Leo eventually brings Annabeth along too

And the rest of it would be shorter 4+ panel comics and maybe a few mini arcs. I have specific videos outlined for each of them.

#i spaced this out because i can't read big blocks of text so sorry if its annoying #this is literally my comfort au #also all of the characters are queer #i don't have any percabeth plans #its purely friendship fluff #this is basically just a master post #tiktok.pj.au #long post #riordanverse #max.txt

[fletchphoenix]

He’s Helpless

so i saw @betrayedtraitor ‘s post about Donella being the ultimate mom at the varigo wedding and couldn’t resist writing some supportive Donella :)) enjoy! I’ll try to link the OG post but ya!

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

Donella was happy.

Sure, Hugo had fucked up royally and betrayed her in order to help his boyfriend open the Eternal Library and, consequently, get possessed by her old partner, but he had found his happiness. She wasn’t one for sappy shit like soulmates or changing yourself at the last minute for the one you loved in order to make them happy - she used to despise it and think it was some bullshit trope for lonely people to indulge in, but somehow her son had well and truly proved her wrong.

She’d trained him up since he was a child to be the exact model of what she was - a thief. She taught him how to defend himself from attackers if he had to, how to steal and remove any trace that he was ever there, hell, she’d even trained him that the world was cruel and unforgiving, and that any hope you had would be crushed in an instant. She taught him love was simply something that people used to build you up and make you think you had purpose before they revoked it almost immediately. She really thought he’d accepted her ideals fully.

And then Varian came along.

Of course it would’ve been Ulla’s son to change her son’s mind. He’d inherited the moonstone blue, wide and curious eyes that his mother had, and her obsession with alchemy that she’d also passed on to her son. Maybe that’s why Hugo had gotten so attached to him, having someone so similar to his age and with the same interests, of course after years of having just Donella around him who was interested in alchemy, he’d instantly connect with someone else with that very interest. 

It didn’t surprise her when Hugo had told her that he and Varian were together romantically. In fact, she had a bet going with Cyrus to see how long it was taken (which, by the way, she’d won, thank you very much) and supported the couple endlessly. They were adorable together, the pair clearly loving each other more than anything else in the universe and willing to do anything for each other.

What did surprise her was how long the proposal took. It took far too long for the pair to finally decide to propose, Donella was sure she’d turn to ash before they even decided to bring up the option to each other. So when it happened, needless to say she celebrated silently and tore into Hugo as though she were a starving animal and he was a piece of meat.

“I am very disappointed in you, Hugo. Very very disappointed.” She declared, pacing across the marble floor in the hallway, the heels of her boots clicking against it as her son gripped onto the hand of his now-fiance. They must’ve been scared, both boys shaking in each other’s arms before she turned her head to look at them. “I mean, really. You’re my son and you didn’t even propose first! I seriously can’t believe it! You seriously took so long that he had to take matters into his own hands!” 

“Oh my g-Mom, you literally had me terrified!” Hugo complained as he leant forward, frowning at Donella and kissing Varian’s forehead as Varian cackled from laughter. Donella smiled softly and subtly as they held each other, nodding in approval towards her son-in-law before turning her back to them.

“All jokes aside, I really am happy for you two. I’m just disappointed it took you so long considering how many hours I’ve sat through you gushing about Varian and how he’s the ‘only person in the world for you’.” Hugo’s face flushed at that comment, his fiance smirking as Donella chuckled. “Anyway, get back to the party.” She ushered them back in with a smile before the widest grin in her life appeared on her face and she headed back in.

It was her proudest moment for her son to come to her for advice about her vows, though she’d never expected for his original draft to be so...long. She swore he’d been going on and on about the boy’s freckles for a whole month before finally moving on to something else. It was her fault - she’d tried and tried and tried to stop the boy from talking too much when he was a child, though it was a habit he never broke out of. He made a massive deal about a lot, and though it was useful in their previous line of work, they were good, (mostly) non-thieving people, and the need for an overbearing and..very weirdly specifically detailed explanation of something was no longer a necessity. 

“You’ve been talking for 40 years about freckles, Hugo. Just-come here and let me show you how to do it.” she complained, leaning forward and taking a quill, dipping it generously in some ink before proceeding to examine the speech. Editing and crossing things out left,right and centre, she finally settled back with a sigh and looked at her son. “I know you love him, Hugo. I can tell. But seriously, some of this is just...not needed at all.”

“What do you mean?” the blonde asked cluelessly, sitting beside her and fixing his tie, “I think all of it is quite relevant.”

“You talked about how he snorts when he laughs and how many freckles he has, followed by a detailed description about their shapes, sizes and if they join together to make a constellation. That..it’s sweet but I felt like slamming my head into a wall and praying that it knocked me out completely for three days. Just...try something like this.” She began, picking up some parchment from the table and beginning to scribble down some notes, handing the sheet to her helpless son. “That can be your starting point.”

Hugo took a glance at the paper, cringing at the monotonous words on the page. “I...okay, these are truly something else. I’ll keep that in mind, thanks.” He muttered, before something flashed over his face. “Oh ma. That reminds me. Me and V have been talking and uh..we wanted to know if you want to officiate the wedding. We thought you’d be the best pick for it so...what do you think?”

Donella’s heart soared at the prospect, though her face would never reveal the true extent of her emotions. Her son was really giving her the honour of officiating the wedding after everything that had happened between them. A tear must’ve welled in her eye, as Hugo’s face shifted into a frown. “Ma, are you okay? You..you don’t have to do it.”

Hesitantly, she pulled her son into a tight embrace, the boy seeming stunned before reciprocating the hug and holding onto her. “Yes-yes I’ll do that for you, Hugo. It would be an honour.” Donella declared, her face buried in her son’s shoulder as she let a few stray tears loose.

She was so proud of him when he read out his vows without a hitch, the abridged version of the original speech was marginally better thanks to meticulous planning from their combined efforts. “Are you crying, ma’am?” Cyrus questioned as her son stood hand in hand with his husband at the altar, their fingers intertwined and looking picture perfect, almost as though they were in a dream.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Cyrus.” the woman declared as she raised a tissue to dab at her eyes while the ceremony continued in front of her. Hugo’s eyes shone with pure joy, matching his husband’s gleeful expression as they finally exchanged rings and shared a kiss with each other. She could even hear their friends, notably the Queen, King, Star princess and Firecracker (as Hugo had declared them) cheering and laughing out loud as they finally tied the knot.

And though she would later deny it, she still indulged herself in a few glasses of wine and rambled on and on about how Hugo was as a child, despite his pleas and begs for her to stop. She couldn’t help it - she was a mother after all and she was sure Ulla would’ve done the same if she were here.

Still though, as she looked at her son and the way he shared his first dance with his husband, he knew the pair were destined to be together, and that fate truly did exist as well as soulmates and all that lovey dovey shit she had been so quick to deny prior to their meeting. So as Donella leant back against the body of her once-henchman Cyrus, whose other arm was wrapped around his wife, she accepted the fact that she was content with whatever the future had to hold for the pair.

Donella was happy.

#varian #varigo #tangled varian #varian tangled #tangled hugo #varian x hugo #hugo tangled #varian and the seven kingdoms #hugo x varian #rapunzels tangled adventure #tangled the series #tangled donella #donella tangled

[duhragonball]

Bulma

Give me a character and I will answer:

Why I like them: Somewhere around 1998, Kurt Busiek took over as the writer for the Iron Man comic.   This was back when Iron Man wasn’t particularly popular and the last two attempts to reboot the guy had failed.   I read an interview in Wizard Magazine where Kurt promoted his upcoming run, and he explained the character this way: Tony Stark is a superhero, an inventor, a ladies’ man, and a billionaire.    You could have a blast writing a comic book about any one of those four things, but he’s all four.    I may have gotten those four items wrong, partly because it’s been 22 years, and partly because it was more famous when Robert Downey Junior echoed that pitch in 2012.    Take away the armor, and what is he?   A billionaire genius philanthropist.   

My point is that this is the appeal to Bulma as well.    When we first meet her, she’s an adventurer, but then we find out she invented the device that lets her locate the Dragon Balls.  And her mission is a romantic quest, so she’s like the heroine in a romance story.    Then we meet her parents, and it turns out she’s a wealthy heiress.    Well, I’m assuming Dr. Brief doesn’t plan on leaving his fortune to all of his pets, but you get the idea.  

There’s a lot of versatility to the character.   Some arcs barely make use of her, but others take full advantage.    You can plop her in almost any scenario and it works.    You want to write her at a fancy charity dinner?   She’d fit right in.   You want her teaching shop class in your high school AU?   No problem at all.   You want her to seduce a bad guy?     You want her to shoot a bad guy?    You want her to be the bad guy?   It all works.  

The main thing people dislike about Bulma is the way she treated Yamcha when they were together, and she’s kind of a jerk a lot of the time.    Fair point, but I think this adds to the character.   If she were sweet as could be and a rich, attractive polymath, she’d be downright insufferable.    Also, her attitude plays off of the compassion she shows through the series.   I can’t explain her behavior around Yamcha, but she did offer free room and board to the entire population of Namek, so I feel like that needs to be taken into consideration.

Why I don’t: In the first... hundred or so episodes of DBZ, Bulma doesn’t get a lot of chances to shine, despite all the screentime they gave her.   Early into my DBZ-watching experience, I found her to be something like a shriller version of TMNT’s April O’Neil, a sidekick whose job was to look cute and get into danger so the good guys could save her.   She really doesn’t get back into her groove until she returns to Earth, and once I saw those episodes, and her time in the original Dragon Ball, the character began to make a lot more sense.   Really, the Bulma in DBZ #1 through 108 was probably intended to demonstrate how out-of-hand the situation was.   She fixed the scouter and then it exploded.   She fixed Nappa’s spaceship and it exploded.   She fixed Kami’s spaceship and then Namek exploded.    She just couldn’t keep up with the crisis. 

Favorite episode (scene if movie):

Not exactly any one episode, but one of my favorite bits in the Red Ribbon Army Sagas is that the RRA has their own Dragon Radar, but it’s not portable, or anywhere near as precise as the one Bulma invented.    It’s Goku’s biggest advantage during that conflict, and when it breaks, there’s literally no one else who can fix it.    Those magic babies from Arale could make a new one, but I’m pretty sure they only did that by copying the design or something.   And the RRA assumes that Goku must have an entire team of scientists providing him with logistical support, and that Master Roshi must be their leader, since he’s so old.  

Also, near the end of the arc, Bulma needs to call Yamcha on the phone, but Roshi doesn’t have one, and then Turtle suggests that Bulma should just build one from scratch, since she had just finished building a robot drone a few episodes earlier.    And she’s like “Oh, yeah, I forgot I knew how to do that.”

Favorite season/movie: The Androids/Cell arc is a big deal because it has two Bulmas, and her son is in it too.   

And this is what I mean when I talk about versatility.    That Super Dragon Ball Heroes series has two Gokus and two Vegetas, and I have no idea why, because they’re exactly the same, except one pair does SSJ4 and the other does Super Saiyan Blue.   Bulma’s got more layers, so in a story like this, you can have 30-something Bulma care for an infant son and tackle logistical problems while she figures out her relationship with Vegeta, while the 50-something Bulma in the future can be this strong-yet-gentle post-apocalyptic survivalist, who hopes for a better tomorrow as she longs for her fallen friends.  

Favorite line: I’m gonna stray from the canon for a minute, because I’m having trouble coming up with something, but in DBZ Abridged, when she’s arguing with Vegeta during his training session, they just start shouting “Fuck you!” at each other.    Then she stops and says: “My room.    Ten minutes.” 

And holy shit, the delivery on that line was incredible. I knew they’d try to do something to set up their relationship, but there’s no footage to do that with, so they did it all with one line and some killer VA work.

Favorite outfit: This is a big, big wardrobe to choose from, but I’m partial to the one she wore in the Imperfect Cell Saga.

I can’t really explain the appeal, but I like this hairstyle and the clothing looks like authentic stuff you could actually buy at a store, which just makes it feel more real, even though it’s not any more detailed than her other outfits.    I’m not sure that makes any sense.    The trucker hat looks cute on her, let’s leave it there.

OTP: You know, there’s a lot of chemistry between Bulma and Yajirobe, and even though it’s kind of a rarepair, I can’t help but-- Okay, it’s her and Vegeta.   I’ll stop messing around.   

Brotp: Definitely her and Goku.  I’m imagining the set up to the DBS Broly movie going like this.

“Hey, I’m gonna invite Goku along on our trip.    That way you can fight him when you get bored.”

“Why do you keep asking him to tag along I can’t stand him.” 

“Yeah, but I like him and I paid for the resort, so I guess you gotta deal with it.” 

“...”  

Then he shows up and she sends him on some ridiculous mission to search the ocean floor for sunken treasure or something.   

Head Canon: Future Bulma does tech support in Toki Toki/Conton City, because Xenoverse is canon and the Goku Black Saga can just bugger right off because it never happened.   

She shows up from time to time to check on all the Capsule Corp tech in the city, and she drops by just to say hi to her boy, and also she has coffee with my Mary Sue OC, because Future Bulma appreciates how tough and cool my writing is.

Unpopular opinion: The Vegebul ship probably gets way too much attention.  Not that it’s a bad ship or that it doesn’t deserve the attention, but it feels like a buffet where all anyone gets is ranch dressing.    They just ignore the rest of the spread and fill an entire bowl with ranch and head back to the table to drink it.   Then they come right back and line up for another helping.  

I’m not knocking it.   I have a Vegebul calendar in my kitchen.   But it reminds me of how the “comics fandom” in the late 90′s was really just an X-Men fandom that acknowledged that other comic books hypothetically existed.

They’re gonna come after me now, aren’t they?

A wish: A lifetime supply of strawberries does sound kind of nice...

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: I hope we’re done with Bulma’s Resurrection F outfit for good.   The cowboy boots, no, we’re done with that. 

5 words to best describe them: Five would never be enough.

My nickname for them: Don’t have one.   Vegeta calls her “woman”, but I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t go over well if I started doing that.

#ask duhragonball #dragon ball #bulma #2d3dlover

[leviskokoro]

Mari in Twisted Wonderland | abridged version

ayyyy bois guess who finally decidied to write that headcanon post about my mc in twisted wonderland.

Warnings | brief mention of a suicide attempt

Prologue

As Mari stepped out the portal back home, she gave a shaky sigh. The amount of emotions racking her body was nearly overwhelming. Her stay in the Devildom was over. The faces she grew used to were gone. She was left in a place that she stopped calling home a long time ago. 

Her chocolate gaze turned to the environment around her. It seemed to be the rooftop that she stood on before she was dropped into Hell. She recalled why she was there in the first place. It was certainly fortunate that she was prevented from doing what she was going to do and was given a chance at a better life. 

She placed her bag down and sat on a bench nearby. The weather was actually quite pleasant, not a single cloud in sight. Her eyelids fluttered shut, resting for a moment. 

But when they opened, she wasn’t in the same place anymore. 

Darkness surrounded her vision. A single mirror was in front of her. 

Her eyebrows furrowed. Huh? What’s this? 

A hand reached out from the mirror. Oddly enough, it seemed to beckon to her. A strong urge to take the hand. 

And before she could understand what was going on, Mari felt her body act on its own, reaching for the hand and taking it. 

Everything that happened after was but a blur. 

When Mari came to, she found herself in a strange place filled with coffins. And in front of her was this strange creature that resembled a cat. 

The cat introduced himself as “The Great Grim” and threatened her with roasting her if she didn’t give him the clothes in the suitcase beside her. 

From one world to another. It seemed that she couldn’t catch a break. Regardless, she started running out of the room of coffins once she heard him, mentally thanking Mammon for teaching her how to run from danger. 

The place she was in turned out to be another school, seeing the classrooms and hallways. She ended up in the library, thinking it might be a good hiding spot from that strange being. 

Only to find herself wrong when she turned around to see him. 

Fortunately, this man with a crow mask saved her using his “whip of love” 

That sounded awfully familiar… 

Then, he started scolding her, thinking she was a student and that this Grim guy was her familiar. But it was only until he turned to her that he noticed that she was a girl. 

“You’re… a woman?!” 

Her eyes narrowed at him and placed her hands on her hips. “I can leave if you want me to. Just tell me where I am and I’ll be on my way.” 

He cleared his throat and apologized. “Excuse me, the teleportation magic must’ve left you disoriented. Well, it’s fine. It doesn’t make too much of a difference. I’ll explain it to you along the way, for I am gracious.”

He explained to her that she was in Night Raven College and introduced himself as Dire Crowley. It appeared that the world she was in was called Twisted Wonderland. Strange. 

As she listened to him, she wondered if she should tell him she couldn’t use magic. But then figured that it’d be rude to interrupt him. 

They finally got to the entrance ceremony. People saw her and seemed to be surprised, whispering stuff like “What’s a girl doing in here?” 

Dark Mirror was like “bro this bitch empty (of magic)” and hell broke loose especially after Grimm broke free to set everything on fire. 

Time for Mari’s first impressions of the dorm leaders so far

Riddle - Reminds her of Luke. Short and strict. 

Kalim - poor guy got his butt set on fire

Leona - he hot (not literally like Kalim tho) but grumpy 

Vil - hair goals. Probably takes better care of his hair than her mother has taken care of her in her entire lifetime. Has a pleasing color scheme as well. 

Azul - why does he talk like he’s always being overdramatic?

But also 

Riddle: collars Grim 

Azul: I want it… No. I wouldn’t ever want that cast on me

Mari, internally: kinky…?? 

Idia - Well, he wasn’t even physically there and seemed to just be using a floating tablet to talk. Might be a shut-in like Levi. 

Malleus - she felt bad for a guy she’s never met. Like damn he didn’t get invited 

So then Crowley was like “you can't stay here bc you dont have magic” 

Mari is like “understandable have a good day” 

Man, that was a quick adventure. At least she won’t have to stay for long. 

Lol sike

Dark Mirror: lol I can’t find this bitch’s home in this world

Mari tells Crowley where she’s from. He’s like “Never heard of it” and checks the library, only to find nothing in the world maps. 

He decides to let her stay in the Ramshackle Dorm. She sees it and is like “Damn, why does Literal Hell look more appealing than this place?” 

Mari’s like “I’ve been in the Devildom. Ghosts don’t scare me” when she meets the ghosts in the dorm.

Timeskip to when she and Grimm meet Ace because she doesn’t do much ngl.

She’s trying to yell at Grim to stop but can’t get close bc ow fire 

They burnt the Queen of Hearts’ statue and Crowley is like “fuck you. Go clean like 100 windows”

Mari and Grim wait for Ace but realize he’s ditching so they chase after him. 

She runs into Deuce and asks him for help but he was just “GIRL?!” 

Fortunately Grim stepped in and yelled at him to help. 

BOOM! Cauldron. 

More chaos ensued after Grim ran off and they ended up breaking the chandelier. 

Then they gotta find that magic crystal to give to Crowley or else they get expelled. Mari is just exasperated. Why did literal demons from hell give her less trouble than these people? They even tried to murder her a few times! 

Regardless, she still keeps her cool and guides them when it comes to fighting that shadow beast monster. 

Ace: How are you so calm?! 

Mari: Have you ever been to Hell?

They get the crystal, Grim eats the black rock, she’s just like “Oh he’s like Beel” 

They get the rock to Crowley, he’s like “wow i didn’t think you’d actually do it” 

Mari explained what happened and he’s like -surprised pika- then cries about something about her being a beast tamer or whatever before being like “aight you and grim are one student now and also you’re not expelled anymore.”

“But Headmaster, she’s a girl-” “shhh she’s an exception. As I am so gracious, I am giving her a place to stay while I try to find a way for her to get home.” 

“Also have this Ghost Camera lmao. You’re barely ever gonna use it in the story but have it anyway” 

And she’s like “Understandable have a good day” 

Deuce wanted to thank her but still has trouble talking to her bc girl and Ace teases him for it

She told him she wasn’t going to bite him or anything which made him relax slightly. Everyone is happy. Mari thinks that these guys might not be so bad. 

Soon enough, they went on their separate ways to their dorms. 

Happily Ever After. Lol jk there are like 4 more chapters to this story as of now. Suffering doesn’t end

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland headcanons #ace trappola #deuce spade #dire crowley