#Like of the divergent kind

[arcshuttle]

Opportunist may be our inner negotiator and can, in the right context, be great at talking us out of a pickle, but he also carries so so much of our neurodivergency by being so so tonedeaf in the worst possible situations. I love him.

#I just thought about how each of the voices would handle losing someone in the group #and all I could come up with for Opportunist was just loads of denial followed by a massive m e l t d o w n #Like of the divergent kind #It just made so much sense to me #And now I'm here just realizing why I could relate to his dumbass actions so well #Like obviously he was going to try sweet talking the unforgiving spirit breaking our leg #He hadn't caught onto the “unforgiving” part yet and tbh I wouldn't have either in his shoes #slay the princess #stp #voice of the opportunist

[bakuhatsufallinlove]

Let's talk about Jump GIGA

Jump GIGA covers, 2016-2024. Volumes are published (left to right per row) as Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn releases, with 2018 and 2019 briefly breaking the pattern by having three Winter and three Summer volumes each. 2023 has an Early Spring volume in addition to the standard four.

So, people have pointed out that the 2024 Spring cover is, uh, not like other covers.

But I've only seen comparisons to other MHA GIGA covers and MHA Weekly Shonen Jump covers. Out of curiosity for what GIGA's typical marketing aesthetics might be, I put together a comparison between all of Jump GIGA's covers to date.

And, um. Some things stand out, to say the least.

First, let me clarify what Jump GIGA even is: it is a seasonal magazine from Shonen Jump, published separate from Weekly Shonen Jump. SJ is an absolutely massive brand and they have a number of magazines serialized outside of the most well-known weekly magazine.

The content of Jump GIGA is primarily made up of one-shots and spin-offs. From the beginning, a lot of the appeal has been the cool cover illustrations which showcase special merchandise that comes with the purchase of GIGA. Usually the cover also promotes big things going on related to the WSJ series, like movie events, new games, or special figurines for sale.

The marketing aesthetic has been clear from the start: the cover consists of one core illustration and a number of ads surrounding it. Most often you get a cover illustration of a protagonist, and then ads and merch for other series, e.g. Food Wars protagonist cover with One Piece film promotion and Haikyuu!! merch.

The purpose of this marketing direction is pretty obvious. Spin-offs and one-shots are not likely to generate a ton of interest consistently, so they lure people in with the cool covers and tempting limited edition merchandise of the series they already know and love. In this way, highlighting one series with the cover and different series with the merch makes sense, because maybe somebody doesn't care about Food Wars, but they definitely want those Haikyuu!! stickers, stuff like that.

Starting from 2020's Autumn volume, you can see a shift. For the first time, basically all of the merchandise is for the cover series. The Demon Slayer manga had already ended five months earlier in May, but a two-chapter spin-off was scheduled for release in WSJ during October. This GIGA was released exactly one day before the second chapter was published and it capitalizes on the hype.

After this point, only MHA and Jujutsu Kaisen dominate the cover and the merch in quite this way, with Black Clover getting attention last volume as a way to highlight the fact that it actually switched syndication from WSJ to GIGA.

Anyway, most commonly the cover illustration is a solo shot of a core cast member (usually but not always the protagonist), and if it's not a solo, it's a big cast illustration.

Only a few covers focus on two characters, and usually it's a crossover as opposed to characters from same series sharing the limelight.

Here we've got Food Wars' protagonist with the main characters from Dr. Stone and Act-Age.

The two covers most similar to the Izuku & Kacchan cover are 2022 Winter and 2023 Autumn.

Winter depicts the main trio of Blue Box in a seasonally-appropriate aesthetic. Not gonna lie, this one kinda makes me laugh--Blue Box is a romance and sports manga, and even though Christmas has a romantic air to it in Japan, instead of depicting any sort of like, hesitant but hopeful romantic energy between the heterosexual couple that actually get together later in the series, they focus primarily on the two girls being cute with the guy is a wee footnote? I mean, all right.

Meanwhile, Autumn depicts one of the protagonists with the series antagonist with a typical cool action style. I'm not very familiar with JJK, but I hear these two have got Some Drama going on, so, there's that.

The merch itself has also evolved over the years. Stickers and posters were present early on, but they have since expanded to decorative folders and now acrylic stands and coasters. 2021 Summer sees the first time the cover illustration is marketed as merch, with the Jujutsu Kaisen cover included as a decorative folder.

Right after that, the Kacchan cover of 2021 Autumn is included as a poster alongside earlier covers featuring Todoroki and Izuku.

2023 Summer's cover is a huge, wrap-around MHA cast illustration and it was published three days after chapter 396 came out, strategically timed to highlight the big shift in the final battle as Ochako vs Toga ends and All Might vs. AFO begins. Merch includes a decorative folder of the wrap-around cover and character motif stickers.

And then we get this!?

A duo cover illustration where the cover art itself has been merchandised to hell and back!?!?

Acrylic stand and pin set!?

Double-sided coaster showing bkdk greatest hits!? With volume 29's river scene cover!?

There's also a double-sided poster featuring the Spring cover with the ninth popularity poll art and a decorative bag with the anniversary art. The cover art itself is plastered all over the volume, front, back, and spine, apparently a total of 19 times.

I honestly don't know what to say about this. It feels wild that this is actually what the cover is. Obviously it is a huge marketing push in anticipation of season 7, and Izuku and Katsuki are the most popular characters, but. it just feels... unique.

In the course of Jump GIGA's publication, this direction is kind of unprecedented. Genuinely no one could have expected this. This seems to be the first time there's been this much merch for a cover. And it was a solid fucking move, marketing-wise--it's sold out basically everywhere, everyone is talking about it. And even people who don't follow the series or ship these two can't help but comment on how strikingly romantic it looks!?

I don't know how much say Horikoshi had in what the cover was, but damn it sure feels like he drew this with immense affection. I kind of wonder if he personally pushed for it to be these two, rather than the typical solo shot, cast shot, or even a protagonist vs. antagonist shot.

I'm KO'd, man. idek if this post is useful to anybody I'm just on my hands and knees here.

Everybody knows what we're all here for, and it's these cute boys finally getting their happy ending.

#bkdk #i'm losing it #idek how to go on #they're so beautiful #I was trying to be all thoughtful and intellectual about what kind of marketing game GIGA plays in SJ's arsenal of branding #but #this is just such a divergence from their typical approach #why are there basically no other duo covers #did the other mangaka just not particularly push for it #did other duos just not serve as attention-grabbing enough #there's nothing else like it #what am I supposed to do with this knowledge

[sholmeser]

conversations on a walk to nowhere

#ok so i had already completely drafted this comic before i finished replaying thh and #i forgor that. byakuya kinda gets over his family dying before they leave the school #but ummm thats kind of stupid so consider this the smallest divergence of all canon divergences #i think he deserves to Talk about his Feelings. #anyways this took me 8.5 hours this is why i dont like to finish comics #danganronpa #danganronpa trigger happy havoc #togami byakuya #byakuya togami #naegi makoto #makoto naegi #the others are there but it would be a disservice to tag them so i wont #naegami #myart

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

somewhat satisfied with this... pretty butterfly man...

#didnt want to diverge too drastically from his canon palette #but butterflies never retain their caterpillar colors so. blue-green & pink howdy supremacy #and a lot of butteflies have black bodies/legs and also dark gradients on arms/hands Absolutely Fucks #so he gets fancy black gradients! and cool wings! #his wings were a Bitch to do ngl #also fluff... butterfly fluff... #in my mind the back of his hindwings have big ol eyespots on em & smaller ones on the forewings #which you can kind of see #scribble salad #welcome home #welcome home puppet show #howdy pillar #yassified howdy <3 #i didnt have to make him pink. but i did. for all of our sakes. #pink/teal is The color combo no i dont take criticism. im right. #its like the bad bitch version of red/blue #WAIT IMPORTANT QUESTION. googling if butterfly fluff is soft #probably... ive always been too scared of hurting them to pet the ones ive caught/held #theyre not as sturdy as moths or bees. both of which are very soft and i wish they were dog-sized #so i could have a honeybee pet. #GETTING OFF TOPIC ONCE AGAIN #howdy Is very sturdy tho! so it'd be totally safe to- #actually yknow what im gonna stop right there

[leol]

logan 2017 movie canon divergent au kinda.. kurt deus ex machina, everybody lives, happy family = profit

#never read the comics so im purely going off of movie(ish) canon kind of so ermm use ur imagination idk #this isnt movie kurt tho since i didnt really care for movie kurt and idk what happened to him sooo..hes whatever kurt u want him 2 be #movie divergence w established comic friendship if you will #basically an au where logan and kurt somehow miraculously run into each other and nothing bad happens<3 #LIKE A STONE BY AUDIOSLAVE is definitely their song for this au...i was listening to it on loop the whole time while drawing this #laura gets another dad 2 electric boogaloo #x men #xmen #x men comics #kurt wagner #nightcrawler #logan howlett #wolverine #james logan howlett #logurt #nightwolves #was gonna draw more for this au but nah nvm probably not..*throws this out from my drafts and makes yall fetch*

[oceanwithouthermoon]

kaido thinks hes kubosais designated third wheel, when actually theyve been trying to worm him into the polycule for months

#meow posting one of their fav ships no one else likes again #someone tell me to shut the fuck up #tbh i think this situation technically would work better with established kubokai instead but- #um saiki is a telepath. LOL idk how he wouldnt know #conveniently is wearing his germanium ring at all times ?? erm dumb #canon divergence where hes powerless for a little longer and that happens to be when kubokai starts dating and this happens? mmm yea maybe #i have a fake dating kubosai wip where saikis 'powerless' for longer and he thinks kubokai r crushing on each other #it's complicated and also was never written beyond one chapter (which happens to be a big argument) but its similar to this kind of ? idk #no straight up powerless au though i honestly dislike those erm sorry #saiki k #tdlosk #the disastrous life of saiki k. #saiki kusuo #kuboyasu aren #kaido shun #kubosai #saikai #kubokai #kubosaikai #meows post

[heterophobiclanwangji]

my favorite bingqiu fic idea i’ll never get around to writing is a no transmigration au where shen yuan was born as shen jiu’s older twin brother who died at the qiu estate, but shen jiu somehow managed to capture his soul so some of shen jiu’s rocky cultivation is that he’s trying to further his own cultivation while also preserving/repairing shen yuan’s soul. shen yuan finally reforms when shen jiu and liu qingge are in the spirit caves before sha hualing’s invasion, so he would be 15/16 at the same time that binghe is 15. so he’s shen jiu’s older brother AND his twin AND much younger than he is AND insists on calling binghe his luo-shixiong to shen jiu’s increasing dismay

#scum villain #svss #bingqiu #shen jiu #shen qingqiu #shen yuan #luo binghe #for clarification the idea is that it's a canon divergence from pidw #so like in pidw timeline the confrontation between lqg and sj goes poorly lqg dies and sy's soul dissipates #whereas here it goes well lqg is alive and sy is resurrected #sy has no knowledge of what happened in the intervening years. this will become a conflict #sy is deep in his gremlin era and also obviously traumatized/not the spoiled young master the peak lords assumed of sj #that combined with saving lqg from his qi deviation bridges some of the gap between sj and the other lords #though im not sure what kind of impact it would have on the tension between sj and yqy #sj used an extreme method to capture and nurture sy's soul which would raise a lot of uncomfortable questions #so anyone who is not a peak lord is led to believe sy is his estranged younger brother or illegitimate son #meanwhile sy has an innate fondness for lbh and doesn't understand sj's hatred for him. this will become a conflict almost immediately #lbh is nervous about sy at first but sy is savvy and nice to him and lbh quickly latches onto his sticky shidi #the immortal alliance conference plays out basically the same way with the addition of sj rationalizes it as protecting his brother from lbh #sy does NOT witness this and has no idea about lbh being a demon or sj's part in his 'death' #and spends the next three years sincerely mourning lbh. this will become a conflict later #so overall sj is still a terrible person but there's room to explore that and let him grow #like forcing him to confront the fact that he's repeating the actions of people he hated and maybe understanding that lbh (and even sy) #would be justified to hate him and not forgive him for everything he's done #though i think sy eventually would and sj and lbh would have a painful reconciliation #for spice you can throw in sy accidentally freeing tlj as per scum villain canon #and maybe the sowers accusation still happens with the added element of sy/sj identity confusion #& the appearance of qht pushes the sy identity reveal #sy is more willing to tell qht the truth about her brother than sj was in pidw #possibly this reopening of old wounds sours the sy/lbh reunion

[regicidal-defenestration]

Whilst the return of Doctor Who in 2005 brought lots of good things, including, for sure, the return of Doctor Who, I think it did untold damage to Big Finish audio stories

#like 'they got worse' is not an accurate statement - the quality imo took a gradual downwards turn but there were bad stories pre 2005 and #good ones post #however they seem to have gotten; for lack of a better word; more normal? more. 'regular fans and new people are watching this on the bbc #quick hide the scherzo before they get scared off' kind of thing #Time Works is ultimately a fairly good episode but it doesn't do anything. interesting (it was supposed to be in the Divergent Universe but #they stopped that when DW came back to TV). it feels like someone made a DW TV episode then rubbed out the visuals #compare that to Chimes of Midnight (2002); Zagreus and Scherzo (2003); Natural History of Fear and Caerdroia (2004) which are Proper Good! #this post brought about because I started listening to Master (2003) and I'm having actual fun they're doing Interesting Things #anyway yeah #doctor who

[greenerteacups]

Is Harry a horocrux/ parselmouth ?

What, in canon?

#in lionheart? i mean... uh #his scar has been hurting? i uh... not to spoil anything but like #do you remember the canonical reason harry's scar hurts? #like there's a LOT going on with harry's bond with voldemort and it's a lot of layered pieces #between lily's blood sacrifice and the horcruxes and the horcrux shard and the resurrection potion and the twin cores and the prophecy #there are like 14 operative enchantments affecting harry and tom's connection at any given point. it gets kind of nuts. #but as far as i recall. there isn't an alternative explanation for that. #TLDR: lionheart is a canon rewrite that diverges from a very specific point. i'm not hacking around in the guts of the thing #you just haven't seen lionheart!harry around snakes! #i get a lot of these types of 'what's going to happen in lionheart' questions and candidly speaking i don't get it at all #like surely you'd rather read about it in the story than just dig it up in some random lore post on the author's blog? #i usually just leave them be but this one got to me because of how it has 0 context #'is harry a horcrux?' man who are you? hermione granger's google search circa 1998? #lionheart spoilers

[pennamepersona]

WHAT DO YOU MEAN KAZUMA'S FUCKING DEAD????

#tgaa #dgs #tgaa spoilers #dgs spoilers #ace attorney #i know i shouldn't be surprised given how quickly mia gets fridged #but!! i didn't think they'd do it to kazuma!!! #and absolutely NONE of the shit I've seen about tgaa prepared me to think he was gonna die #like?? i don't think there's spirit channeling in this one?? #is he fr just GONE????? #but I've seen so many posts with his headband in them....... #do we really only get one case with him??????? #like I'll give it's a good fucking case #shu takumi really out here absolutely flexing #taking everything he did in the trilogy and crafting an exquisite first case #fr it's amazing and playing it after bouncing off dual destinies really.......... #well it makes it even more painfully obvious that takumi didn't write dd or soj #getting new takumi written narrative is such a treat #and makes everything post aa4 just. such a shame #there's a tiny part of me holding out for some kind of canon divergence au thing #where takumi just writes an alt aa5 that actually picks up where aa4 left off #anyway back to how good dgs is #I'm in agony i liked kazuma #can't believe i got so blindsided by his death #what's even the point

[lord-squiggletits]

Okay another instance of "fuck canon" that's not just Pharma-related, but Ambulon related. I keep thinking of Luna-1 where Ambulon called Pharma "Doctor DJD" and I feel like that's such a total "he would not fucking say that" moment. Obv JRO controls the characterization so what's in the comics is canon/right, I just think that it doesn't make sense for someone in Ambulon's position with his backstory to be that petty towards Pharma?

Ambulon's a Decepticon traitor, he's on the DJD's List. Moreover, he's stationed on Messatine which is the DJD's home planet and is (was?) still an active battle front until very recently.

Proof that Messatine being the DJD's territory is common knowledge: not only First Aid, who's stationed at Delphi, but also at least three Autobots on the Lost Light, know that the DJD make Messatine their home. And this is long before Pharma does his monologue to Ratchet about his t-cog blackmail with Tarn.

Proof that Delphi/the nucleon mines were in an active warzone at least until Pharma started his plague: Pharma wouldn't have had any t-cogs to harvest if there wasn't a continuous stream of soldiers/war-dead coming in to use as his supply.

So then, Ambulon knew fully well that he and all of the rest of them were right next to the DJD's home base, and as an ex-Decepticon he knows he would be on the list. Probably not very high on the list, since Ambulon was a mere MTO who got turned into a failed combiner experiment, but he IS on the list; just because the DJD only proceed through the list in order of importance, doesn't mean that Ambulon wouldn't know that they'd come for him eventually.

And this is a really fucking neat idea to play around with! We don't ever get a canon/explicit explanation for why Prowl decided to station those three medics on Delphi, especially one who's an ex-Con on an execution list. Did Ambulon have a choice? Or was he told to go there with no argument? Either way, I think Ambulon deserves some major kudos, because he must have ball (bearings) of steel to be an ex-Con in DJD territory without constantly being on the verge of a mental breakdown or panic attack. I could honestly write a whole post on the question of "why were these three stationed on Messatine" in itself, but that's for another time.

The point I'm trying to make here is basically that Ambulon of all people should've been sympathetic to the circumstances that drove Pharma to do what he did: they were ALL stationed in the DJD's territory and they knew it, they ALL knew that the DJD's playbook is horrific torturous murder, they ALL knew that Ambulon was a former Decepticon. It wouldn't take a genius for everyone at Delphi to piece together the fact that the DJD would come for Ambulon eventually if either he wasn't evacuated or Delphi as a whole wasn't evacuated. But I mean, this is wartime, right? Every soldier is risking their life, everyone could die at any moment. They can't close down Delphi or evacuate all of the personnel in an active war front battling over a mine just because a medic or three might feel unsafe. Nowhere in war is safe. If High Command let everyone abandon their posts who was afraid of being killed, nothing would ever get done because war comes with inherent risk of death that all soldiers accept by participating, as well as accepting the obligation to follow orders on threat of punishment. (Almost as if Pharma couldn't have just evacuated or run away like Ratchet suggested, but JRO clearly isn't a military expert so I'll digress/chalk it up to "wasn't plot relevant to bring up".)

We got all of like, two pages that showed Pharma and Ambulon's working relationship, and the best we have besides that is JRO's word of god that Pharma and Ambulon had 'mutual reluctant respect' for each other. It's highly unlikely that the two were best buddies regardless, but I don't think you need to be friends with someone like Pharma, while sharing the same situation as him, to be a little more sympathetic to him? Like I get that Ambulon would be offended by the idea of his boss trying to frame him for murder to cover up his own murders, but the "Doctor DJD" line always seemed weirdly callous and petty to me. "Doctor DJD" implies that Pharma was some sort of willing collaborator or servant to the DJD which clearly wasn't the case. And I find it hard to believe that Ambulon, who knows exactly what kind of people the DJD are, would have an opinion of Pharma that was just "oh he should've tried harder/been less of a coward and resisted." Hell, Ambulon's reaction to Sonic and Boom showing up at Delphi asking for refuge was to instantly take pity on them and offer them shelter immediately; if he feels protective/sympathetic towards literal random nobody Decepticon soldiers, shouldn't he have at least as much feeling (if not more) for another Autobot who he worked with and supposedly had respect for?

Assuming that Ambulon got the full details of Pharma's blackmail deal. I mean, there's no reason to assume that Ratchet would've lied to First Aid and Ambulon about what Pharma told him (unless??? conspiracy theory!!!!) , so Ambulon should've heard about the t-cog deal and how it was the only reason the DJD didn't raze Delphi to the ground so long ago. Then again, maybe Pharma's story got explained to him and First Aid via Ratchet's extremely judgemental take on events, so who knows how much of Pharma's side of the story Ambulon would've actually known.

But wouldn't it be so much more interesting if, instead of sneering at Pharma as "Doctor DJD", Ambulon had a more conflicted perspective of Pharma's face-heel turn? Would he wonder how it is that someone who he had such respect for could've been so despicable? Or, more sympathetically, would Ambulon ever wonder if Tarn threatening Delphi was his fault for being there? Would Ambulon wonder what he would've done in Pharma's position, being forced to bargain to postpone his own horrific execution? Would he be angry at Prowl or the higher-ups for stationing them all in such a dangerous post to begin with?

I mean, the answer is that Ambulon was a tertiary cast member at best, to the point that half of his appearances on the Lost Light literally are shown in retrospect after he died, so there would've been no room to explore this in the plot, and Ambulon and Pharma were way lower priority compared to other, more important protagonists. I just think it would be interesting to explore these questions in other metas and fan works.

And yes, I do think Ambulon would not fucking say that ("Doctor DJD") regardless of what canon actually says lmao.

#squiggposting #pharma apologism #i mean it's not really pharma apologism. only a little. but this is mostly about ambulon #g1 idw #meta #long post #come on JRO you can't tell me that pharma and ambulon had mutual respect for each other #and then expect that to mesh with ambulon calling pharma doctor djd so callously later #SURE ambulon could just be that disgusted by pharma's actions but. given the context delphi was in? #it would be weird if ambulon's own fear of the DJD/sympathy for its victims didn't inform his perspective #i just think that like. the watsonian explanation of 'ambulon just hates pharma for what he did' is way less satisfying #than the obvious doylist explanation of 'JRO didn't plan for all of the implications and wasn't gonna flesh out these rando side characters #so in this case i feel like it's better to diverge from canon and explore the implications that it didn't address #than to just accept canon's overly simplified depiction of ambulon just unilaterally hating pharma #however i do think it's IC of first aid to hate pharma and not care about the circumstances. he seems like that kind of hotheaded person

[atopvisenyashill]

In a Rhaenys as queen, given that her cousins would have permanent places at court due to them being dragon riders, do you think l think Aemma would be encouraged to try her hand at one? Dreamfyre is in Arryn colors.

Great question.

I think especially after Balerion has died, Rhaenys would approach Aemma about having her own dragon. It would be a way of reaching out emotionally to her cousins and depending on how Rhaenys comes to her throne, that would be needed; even in a perfect scenario where Aemon outlives his father and passes the throne to Rhaenys in peace, I think Rhaenys would still want to reach out to her cousins. It's not just that they're family that was raised together (before Jaehaerys completely cleaves this relationship in two) but making sure that a competing branch feels loyal to you is important; there's a reason why Alysanne attempts to get Aerea back to court and why Jaehaerys refuses to give Rhaena her own seat after all! I can see Rhaenys looking at how Aerea specifically was handled and decide that Jae and Aly misstepped there and that the key to getting Viserys, Aemma, and whatever children they have loyal to her is if she gives them just enough freedom that they don't chafe under Rhaenys' rule the way Aerea and Rhaena did. All three of them - Viserys, Aemma, and Rhaenyra - having dragons is risky as hell (it's where Viserys as King imo missteps compared to Jaehaerys the most - not having such an iron hand over who gets to ride a dragon so that there aren't so many riding around who don't like your heir is such a silly mistake) but with Balerion dead and Syrax/Rhaenyra so young, it's not a terrible idea to offer it to Aemma. Especially since neither Rhaenys nor Aemma have very many children to grab up the dragons.

[I know in book canon it's Laenor who would technically be ruling but I feel fairly certain here that Rhaenys would be Queen Regent for a while, and Corlys would be Hand, kind of similar to Alyssa/Rogar/Jaehaerys or the way I think Cersei wanted things to go with her/Jaime/Joffrey&Tommen].

I don't know that Aemma would take the opportunity but I do think the offer of it would go a long way to make her feel both loyal to Rhaenys and to encourage a kinship between Laena, Laenor, and Rhaenyra. Aemma has Targaryen blood and I think the offer despite her not being a born Targaryen would really touch her, perhaps make her feel emotionally close to her mother. I can see, for example, after several years, that Aemma has had so many miscarriages, hasn't been able to have a son, is so incredibly young yet creeping up on 30 and feels like she's old because her child bearing years are passing her by, that Aemma might take her up on the offer as a way of feeling better about her own "deficiencies." Maybe she can't birth a son, maybe most of her daughters die in the cradle, maybe her husband couldn't win the throne, but SHE can be a dragon rider and HIS dragon is long dead now. Dreamfyre would be such a great choice too, with Rhaena's status as being the widow queen of Maegor, the wife of poor dead Aegon the Uncrowned; a gentle sort of dragon that has already bonded with a widow and mother, bonding again with another mother but this one sickly, unsure of herself, but ready to figure out who she can be outside of child birth.

It doesn't inherently butterfly effect away her death but Viserys probably isn't impregnating her so often because Rhaenys has two children, Rhaenyra and Laenor are probably betrothed from a young age, I'm sure everyone's being picky about Laena's husband specifically because if Laenor dies/can't have kids there's precedent for Laena to become Queen Regent for her own son instead of the line of succession going straight to Viserys, so there's not a huge need to have their own son, because Rhaenyra will be Queen Consort one day. To be honest, I think it's even possible that if she's not having as many miscarriages, she gets some freedom and stability from not worrying about the line of succession, and then Rhaenyra & Laenor are betrothed and Aemma is perhaps feeling herself a bit in her bond with Dreamfyre, she might even get healthier, perhaps healthy enough to carry a child to term. We do see that the dragon bond can help settle someone who is a bit unsure of themselves - Quicksilver and Aenys, for example, but even Rhaena and Dreamfyre have a similar type of ~growing into their own together~ thing that may apply to Aemma. And there's a lot of reasons for why Rhaenys would want Aemma to be confident, the same way she'd want Rhaenyra to be (and I do mean confident and not like, hiding behind extreme violence to make up for feeling unsafe and unstable) - having a strong, educated, compassionate Queen Consort is just a good thing, as we see from Alysanne. Plus this helps head off potentially fertility problems with Rhaenyra/Laenor - if Rhaenyra feels close enough to Rhaenys that she can go to her good mother or her still living actual mother and say "I don't know how to get Laenor into my bed" or even "Laenor comes to my bed but nothing is happening, we keep having problems, are we even doing this right" that makes their marriage and Laenor's ascension so much easier to handle.

There is one little risk with this and it's Aemma's son. If she manages to have a son that lives, she may expect him to be given the chance to claim a dragon and that could become a problem. It might not! Especially if, idk, he's young enough that he can marry one of Laena's kids or one of Rhaenyra and Laenor's kids, or born early enough that he can just marry Laena, and they can keep that dragon in the family. But as we see with Daemon, with Aemond, even with Maegor, and what Jaehaerys (erroneously) believed could happen with Dreamfyre/Rhaena and Aerea, a second son having a dragon can be dangerous if he's not kept close and under control.

#i love how we're always throwing dreamfyre at like ~feminine characters who deserve to murder the men around around aldjsflk #THAT'S RHAENA THE LESBIAN'S INFLUENCE!!!! #but helaena alicent aemma daella.....on a role here ladjkflkdsj #aemma arryn #i do not tag her consistently lol #aemma targaryen #dreamfyre #rhaenys velaryon #canon divergent au #riana one #asks #this is just blocks of text sorry i'm too lazy to kind of pare it down into a less rambling answer #i am not feeling being a person this week.

[joycrispy]

Sometimes ADHD likes to throw you a curveball, and in my latest "I do not control the hyperfixation" development: I was suddenly possessed, at FOUR IN THE MORNING, to buy myself a tamagotchi out of literally nowhere, and now all I want to do is play with it and look at tamagotchi content.

...I also bought a second tamagotchi. Oops.

#about me #apparently I came in at just the right time however #in a few months Bandai is re-releasing the Tamagotchi Connection; and those are apparently a fan favorite #I never had one! as a kid I had an original tamagotchi and a tamagotchi angel (maybe an Ocean? I'm not sure) #the Connection series came out when I was kind of over virtual pets #so I'm seriously considering getting one to experience them for the first time #the one I bought last week is a rereleased original; just like I remember #...and I also bought a Nano; but that's shipping from Japan so it won't be here until late June #.......I cannot stress enough that prior to that moment at 4 am the other day I hadn't thought about Tamagotchi in like 15 years #these neuros sure do be divergent #I am in serious danger of reactivating my digimon phase I can feel it #(if you didn't know: digimon was originally just Tamagotchi but marketed at boys. the anime and all that came later!)

[loveletterworm]

Cool game where you pick up flashlights off the ground in the dark until you're holding too many flashlights at which point trying to pick up more will make an unfitting cartoon boing sound effect that I had laying around in my downloads folder

#With this process now mostly defeated I must begin to consider my next enemy: #Making an entire roguelike level generation system for some reason despite being stupid. #I don't know why I thought that would be a good idea. I kind of assumed someone else would have written down how this is done. #But it's weirdly difficult to find. #mypost #i think i might make the player sprite randomized as well or maybe just change it #(other than just making it not be a placeholder drawn in 2 seconds.) #because i don't think the little cat thing is very fitting. #i thought making the player a little pudding animal in scary world would be funny and distract from the vaguely derivative concept* #(* it may be diverging into being less derivative) #but i feel like it just kind of looks weird now. it could at least be a different animal... #This just isn't cat behavior. #(you can barely see the sprite because it's dark though so maybe you have no idea what im talking about LOL)

[orionsangel86]

You know a fic is good when you are super invested in the story and get addicted to reading it even at really inappropriate times because the plot is compelling and you have to know what happens next but it’s also super smutty so suddenly you find yourself reading a super intense explicit description of rimming during your lunch hour in your office with your colleague munching on their salad in the seat across from you and you are just like okay then

#right in front of their salad #i didn't even blush #pro level fanfic reader #100k+ well written multichapter complete fic #canon divergence #the kind of fic you can sink into with a sigh like sinking into a comfy chair at the end of a long day #a rare diamond of a fanfic #fanfiction #dreamling #yes it was dreamling #the sandman #i adore fanfiction writers

[novelconcepts]

(don’t care if it hurts) i wanna have control

“You’ve got ink?” Van’s injecting so much scandal into three words, one would think it was the worst thing Taissa’s ever done. “Taissa Turner! Inked. Why, I never—"

Only the light in her eyes gives away the joke. Tai pushes at her shoulder, laughing.

“It’s been a long twenty years.”

(somewhat prompted by @americanhooligans: Taivan reconnecting and being startled by brand-new tattoos)

M; 4778 words

Eighteen comes back with all the zeal of a goddamn tetherball, in the grand scheme of things. You never see it coming until it’s too late. Taissa’d like to think she’s too mature for eighteen to come around and wallop her upside the head, but what is maturity, anyway? Just another mask. Just another game to play. And, when all is said and done, when your marriage dissolves and your family walks away, when your job crumbles to ash and you find yourself entrenched in old habits… Maturity goes the way of the dinosaurs, doesn’t it? And all you’re left with is a single realization: Van Palmer’s hands haven’t changed in twenty fucking years. Van Palmer hasn’t changed in twenty fucking years.

#fanfiction #yellowjackets #yj fic #yj fanfic #taivan #taissa turner #van palmer #i'm aware that title choice makes it sound like a different kind of fic #but this was just my deeply self-indulgent desire to see more tattoos on my unhinged lesbian soulmates #put! ink! on! those! gays! #anyway this is the hottest version of them yet i will not be taking critique #(i promise i am also writing the things i meant to write. this just. uh. happened first.) #literally the only canon divergence here is that we've seen a lack of shoulder tattoo on taissa. but like. she deserves one.