#how they're each others glorious purpose

[hansoeii]

you'll make it back.

#WHAT WAS LOKI GOING TO SAY??????? #these two will be the death of me and I can't believe that first episode gave me everything ive ever wanted #I'm back in the lokius trenches #can't stop thinking about how connected they are through their timelines #how they're each others glorious purpose #and how mobius was ready to sacrifice himself for loki #and all that in just one episode #UGH #loki #loki season 2 #loki spoilers #loki s2 spoilers #lokius #lokius fanart #loki fanart #loki season 2 fanart #loki and mobius #my art #fanart

[thespineoftherighteous]

more more more more aftg show bloopers (p 4?? I think?) whoop whoop de fuckin whoop

Neil's actor being a huge Duolingo dork and in the behind the scenes while the other actors are fooling around between takes you can often see him with his head bent and hear the little 'ping!'s coming from his phone

also during late night shoots, as it gets closer to midnight he always has a point where he's like SHIT my Duolingo streak. and then just blocks out everyone while his fingers fly over his screen

(fans make compilations of him proudly showing his Duolingo streak to the camera and the number grows as the seasons progress)

(he definitely is the kinda bitch who cares more about maintaining the streak than actually learning languages)

actually omg while we're on the topic of languages

Kevin's actor tenderly reciting his French lines to Matt's actor and Matt's actor is just smitten. and he goes "say something else, love" and Kevin's actor strokes his cheek while saying another one of his lines and Matt swoons

(then Kevin's actor turns to the camera and goes "I just told him that he's a disappointment and is going to get his ass handed to him by ravens if he doesn't do exactly as I say" and, from the ground, Matt's actor goes "hell yeah you did. talk dirty to me any day of the week you sexy, sexy man")

coach's actor is always swearing to the point where they implement a swear jar...really it's just something for the kids to jokingly rag on him about, but he goes with it, and every so often they'll empty the jar to buy the cast and crew pizza

they're filming outside at night and it's cold and in between takes Matt's Aaron's and Renee's actors are all huddled together for warmth and Matt's actor gets pulled aside to get his makeup touched up and the other two just shriek at the absence of his heat and catch up to him to tuck themselves against him again

Andrew needs to snap his fingers in one scene but everyone finds out that day that his actor doesn't know how to snap so he has a little impromptu snapping lesson and of course it turns into everyone else trying to one-up each other with their snapping abilities

Nicky's actor telling everyone what he's going to steal from set (will literally say"[about Allison's bathrobe] damn that shit soft as hell. Ive been needing a new bathrobe actually. I'm stealing this" or "I'm stealing this lighter/bandana/sunglasses/etc") but because his humor is so dry everyone thinks he's joking. until months later. when the prop department can't find shit

Renee's actress is doing something completely mundane but Neil's and Allison's actors start narrating what she's doing like they're in a nature documentary (always with Australian accents for some reason??)

"and our specimen now reclines herself vertically on a piece of furniture us humans know as 'a desk.' this clearly less-developed creature seems not to understand the purpose of such an object. but given that this is her first time outside her natural habitat (the jungle) her lack of familiarity with modern technology is to be expected"

Renee's actress: *flips them off*

"ah and here we witness one of the most common behaviors of this specimen. specialists have dubbed it 'flipping the bird,' and explain it as a nonverbal expression of affection" "oh fuck off"

photo from another cold night-shoot and it's of Matt's and Dan's actors, she's standing in front of him zipped up in his hoodie, just her head poking out and they're having a conversation with other castmates like it's the most normal thing in the world, looking the very image of the couple they play

so much glorious content from shooting the dorm sleepover scene. the most popular thing to come from it is a picture from after they wrapped where the cast and some members of the crew had moved even closer to each other amid all the blankets and are asleep on top of each other

Andrew's actor will sometimes actually eat the ice cream he's given instead of just pretending to eat it, and halfway through the scene he casually mentions that he's lactose intolerant and sends the crew into a worried frenzy

if you haven't clocked it yet, these bitches are competitive. and one day, one thing led to another, and soon a bunch of the actors are all being filmed having a plank-holding competition. Dan's actress is the first to drop and she gets booed at for it because "you're an ex-stripper where tf is that upper body strength?"

she flips them off and goes to sit on Kevin's actor, hoping to squash his plank, but instead he starts doing push ups with her on his back. she grins

(Rikos actor wins that competition btw. and Neil's actor goes on a rant about "we succumbed to the ENEMY? a RAVEN? your characters would be ashamed of you" (he also lost?))

Allison's actress pretending to do a get-ready-with-me using all the stuff on Allison's vanity

Wymack's actor falling asleep in The Dad Pose™ when they're shooting a scene on the bus. and everybody gathers in to take pictures

when Kevin and Neil get all up in each other's faces their actors will pretend like they're going to kiss each other

not really a blooper but just all the actors for the foxes and the ravens mingling together in between takes and it looks so wrong

give me all the actors constantly taking the piss out of their characters

for ex during a scene where the monsters are in the car on the way to Edens, Nicky's actor looks towards the backseat where everyone is in character and goes wow what a fun crowd we are you'd never believe we're about to hit the club

night shoots are a. struggle. for Dan's actress. and the others love to take videos of her just standing on her mark with the most spaced out expression on her face

Andrew's and Neil's actors are shooting one of their typical intense, deep scenes and after one take, as soon as "cut" is called, Andrew's actor grabs Neil's face and starts serenading him with the song that's been stuck in his head all day

Renee's actress getting scolded for sneaking snacks into her costume

when Nicky's actor messes up a line (and he's the least likely of everyone to do it) he starts spewing Spanish

Andrew's actor constantly teasing his brother and Katelyn's actress whenever they have scenes together

like the two of them will just be talking together in between takes and Andrews actor will be behind the camera recording them and saying shit like "look at that MINYARD RIZZ" (or he'll use their actual last name) "hey btw [Katelyn's actor] I taught him everything he knows"

that scene where the foxes are rushing out of the dorm to check on their destroyed cars and Matt's actor just faceplants (Neil's actor: "wow. the dedication")

in one scene or other Allison's actress is drinking an iced drink and during one take she just keeps calmly shaking the ice around in her cup until one by one everyone cracks

in one scene Allison's actress is wearing sunglasses. and in between takes she lies down and on camera you can see Kevin and Matt's actors whispering trying to figure out whether or not she's sleeping because they can't see her eyes

Aaron's actor always using Neil's actor as a pillow during car scenes because they're always next to each other and they're actually hella tight irl

the kids love to steal any props that coach's actor needs to use (pens clipboards etc) before they start rolling just so they can watch him try to subtly fidget trying to find his prop before they get to the point in the scene where he actually needs it

all the actors just taking pictures together in the most brutal settings on set.

like Neil's makeup has his face all busted and everyone wants a selfie with him. they all have a photoshoot with the trashed cars. they have another one in front of the "happy 19th birthday junior" set. Neil is tied up at The Nest while they change his hair and Jean's and Riko's actors take selfies with him. another photoshoot with Neil handcuffed in the police car. all these settings in terrible scenes and the actors are in front of them with grins and peace signs

they're terrible.

#are y'all bored yet? #aftg #aftgtv #neil josten #kevin day #aaron minyard #matt boyd #andrew minyard #dan wilds #nicky hemmick #allison reynolds #renee walker #david wymack

[piglet26]

Reylo Scenes: TROS Part 2

After a failed attempt at killing Rey and Rey slashing Ren's fighter. He's relieved he didn't kill her. She's relieved she didn't kill him. He emerges looking fucking glorious while Rey tried to stop a ship from flying off cause she thinks Chewie is on board. What the hell are they doing putting a mask on him at this point?!

In the novel from Kylo's perspective, "But his impulse to kill Key had almost ruined everything he had been planning..... but his deepest desire, the thing he wanted most (Rey) would require planning and patience."

"It didn't matter what or who was inside that transport that made desperate to prevent it's escape, he was not going to let her have it. He reached out, felt the massive machinery in his mind, yanked it towards himself."

What's interesting in this scene is Kylo Ren is pushing her and Rey ultimately pulls from anger to best him and keep chewing. That's what always been interesting about Rey is she's the Jedi, but often times she fights with anger, fear and aggression. In the novelization it's revealed that over the course of that year she's been hearing voices. It looks pretty and it's a good shot, but I kept thinking didn't we already see this? Force wise... they're pretty even. While it doesn't hit as hard as the tug-o-war in the TLJ it does serve a purpose. Rey is a Palpatine after all.

In the movie, as per usual, this next bit doesn't make any sense. Ren seems stunned and just let's Rey, Finn and Poe run off. In the novel it makes more sense.

"Kylo Ren watched the freighter rise into the sky, Rey inside it. She had beaten him again (she thought she killed her friend not really a win but you're emo) and yet, he was filled with triumph. He'd been right to push her. She had just demonstrated unbelievable, mind blowing power. Dark power. Sith Power. The scavenger was almost ready to turn. And when she did, they would both kill their light, embrace their darkness, then the star destroyer fleet and the Sith throne would be theirs."

Kylo Ren is a Reylo and is trying to make power couple goals happen and we have to appreciate that.

This is concept art from "The Rise of Skywalker" notice how their costumes mirror each other.

The chemistry between Rey and Kylo is electric whenever they share the same space, so much so that sometimes it feels like we, the audience, are intruding on a private moment between the two.

On board Ochi's ship Rey confesses she has sex dreams about Kylo Ren. Let's be honest they both do and she confesses she's had visions of her and Kylo Ren on top the Sith throne.

Next scene is them in Kijimi. Ren is looking for his future Queen who is trying to find the sithway finder or whatever. Arriving in his pretty cool ship.

In the novel per Zorii, "As the black clad man approached the squads officer snap to attention, "Supreme leader".... the man standing below with his gang od butchers was Kylo Ren himself.....The supreme leader said his voice was tight and calm, but Zorii got the feeling he was barely containing his rage. He looked around almost as if he were sniffing the air. "We have a perimeter around the city." The lieutenant began, but Kylo Ren cut him off, "We're too late, the scavenger is gone." Zorri goes onto describe Kylo Ren having a moment whipping his lightsaber out and going beast mode.

In the movie through the force it's implied that that's how Rey knows Chewie is onboard Ren's destroyer, but in the novel it's different. He interrogated Chewie forcefully (wink wink ha ha ha) to get information on Rey. Rey was able to link mind with Kylo Ren and that's how she knew Chewie was onboard. They should've shown them linking minds more.

Then Rey was in his room, or excuse me, private quarters. Anyone else surprised his room was so white and pretty, if no impersonal. Where's his bed? I saw it in the first movie I think.

"Rey. Wherever you are, you are hard to find."

I'm wondering if at this point that can connect to one another more voluntarily. Rey is always swinging first. Like always. This scene can only really be described as exposition scenes, but there is a nice aspect to it. It's nice to see what they see from one another's viewpoint when they force bond. They just see each other. The dyad is increasing in power, not only can they now touch through the force, they can fight and their spaces even blend. They were together and yet separate. Kylo Ren also seems to be very excited his girl is in quarters and wants to lock down that ship.

In their next scene, again, Kylo tells her the plot of The Rise of Skywalker while wearing that damn mask. I have questions when did Kylo Ren find out they were a dyad?! Why were denied this scene? Obviously they instinctually know they are connected, they just never knew the word to put to it, but were is the exact scene? The thing about Kylo Ren is he uses information to twist it like a knife. He's going to use the truth that they are Dyad, that she is a Palpatine and ultimately the attraction she feels for him to seduce her to the dark side. From Rey's perspective, "He extended his black gloved hand to her, she looked at it, remembered. The last time he extended a hand had been in the wreckage of Snoke's throne room. Their combined power had defeated him. It was true. That together they could do such incredible things. Suddenly, she sensed a weight at her back and along with it... Finn. His presence a bright beacon of light piercing the dark." Ren pulling some MJ Smooth Criminal moves there.

After Rey flees with her crew, in the novel it's gives Kylo Ren's reaction. Her surveys the damage left from The Falcon's engine wash. "Kylo considered it a small price to pay to encounter Rey again. To provoke her into a rage. To say the word Dyad and watch the truth of it wash over her lovely face......he hardly paid attention, he kept seeing her face. The way her lips had parted with surprise. The way her body had canted (leaned) toward him. If the Millennial falcon hadn't appeared she might have come to him. Taken his hand. Kylo really hated that ship.... he'd been so very close, but now she knew the truth. She would accept it."

Yeah, they're horny. It's the first time Kylo described her in such detail and really let us as the reader or audience know..... he wants power, but he wants Rey more. If Ren had the world in his hand it wouldn't mean as much without Rey. This is the first scene in the movie where Rey acknowledges how much she wants to be with him. Interesting, Finn again is really her solid base on the good side of the force.

Side note: Dark Rey is hot.

The lightsaber fight onboard the death star wreckage. I've heard criticism that this fight while beautiful is pointless. I disagree. It's actually a scene that pushes them forward. Rey said, "give it to me" and Ren giving this shudder like he just came in his pants. hmmhmm! Ren likes feral, passionate Rey. He's pushing her and pushing her when she's already at the edge. Interesting enough, Ben can take whatever Rey has to give. All the anger and the fury she's had to hide from everyone else she can express to him. The fight is really about their likeness and yet difference, their passion, how Rey has grown in her lightsaber fighting and fixing the end of The Force Awakens. Ren is fighting at full force capacity, he's not injured and he's not emotional.

The way he is in love

“He sent the thought directly into her mind: I know you. No one does, she shot back. But I do.” WHY WASN'T THIS IN THE MOVIE?!

They fight until Rey is exhausted and when it looks like Kylo Ren might strike the killing blow, Leia reaches out through the force before she passes. In a fit of rage Rey stabs Kylo Ren, but snaps out of it when she feels Leia's passing. She begins to heal the wound she created.

How did she heal? Oh, you know those books she had in the beginning of the movie? Those book were the sacred Jedi text from Acht-to. She smuggled them onboard the falcon. So they never were actually set fire. Turns out Yoda that they actually were useful.

Rey showing him compassion, healing him, believing in him almost doggedly is so empowering for Ben Solo to return. His parents might be gone, but he still has someone to return home to. This movie has flawed writing but sometimes almost accidentally that land on something that works. The line where she admits she wanted to take his hand is a great line. It's declaration of love for Ben, not a rejection of Kylo Ren. It's her saying, "I didn't reject you. I wanted the best version of you"

After the unconditional love offered by both parents and the selfless, sacrificial love offered by Rey...... Kylo Ren becomes Ben Solo again. We just don't see him for the next 20 minutes as Rey processes her identity crisis and then goes off to fight to Palpatine..... without a plan.

There's also something purely adolescent about Reylo. Even in TLJ, these two throw themselves into one another. Like Rey having a vision of their future together so she goes alone to an enemy ship based purely on belief in him. Now we have Ben Solo, in a moment of pure adolescent "I gotta get to my girl" just needs to be with her on exegol as she faces down Palpatine.

From Adam Driver, "and the thing that we started with for "Who is Ben, then? There's no ambiguity about what it is that he has to do. There's no more seesaw that's happening. For the first time, someone who has never had the answer now finally knows his purpose or destiny. But I don't know that he entirely is sure of what's going to happen from there, nor do I think he cares. I think it's so long as he is with her, he's on the right path. " Adam driver is a Reylo.

Ben solo is back and he's glorious. He's likeable, charismatic, he's funny and he shoots backwards like his dad. People appreciated Adam Driver in an all new way with these scenes. He doesn't say a word except "oh, but you know he's shifted from Kylo Ren to Ben Solo. His physical acting is so strong. The subtlety showed his talented and not many actors can say that.

It such a beautiful moment when finally Ben Solo and Rey connect instead. In the novel and in the film especially so because she reaches for her connection to Ben right before she's going to kill Palpatine.

He acknowledged her and Rey’s lips parted in surprise. The connection was… right. Good. Like coming home. They wasted a precious moment reveling in this new sharing. This is how it should have been all along. A true dyad.

Rey lowered the lightsaber behind her back, as if readying for a massive blow. She reached for the Force. The effort made tears sting in her eyes. [...] She raised her hand ... which was now empty. She had projected her weapon away. [...] The moment Ben felt the grip of Luke’s lightsaber in his palm, he knew it belonged to him, an extension of his very own self. He raised it slowly, relishing the feel of it. ”

It's a beautiful moment where Rey and now Ben Solo have a redo of The Last Jedi. Rey looks at Ben with such love, joy and relief. Ben looks at Rey with such confidence, determination and love. It's the "Are you with me? "Yes, I'm with" Now with them both in blue light.

Finally Ben Solo and Rey are united. These soulmates separate by so much over the course of two movies are finally as they were suppose to be. Palpatine and Skywalker standing together. What it should have been is act of love, redemption and hope defeating evil. It should have been Ben Solo confronting his demons with the woman he loves and fought to be with. It should have been is Rey belonging; a redeemed Ben was supposed to become her new home and/ fulfill her need for a family. It should have been a power couple fighting evil with the Force.

But no. Somehow the two of them coming together empowered the devil. Their power like a source of life itself. Then Ben Solo is chucked off a cliff after draining their energy. Why? Ben Solo should have faced his grandfather's and father's enemy, or his clone. Palpatine confirms all the voices he's been hearing in his head has been Palpatine. He literally made irrelevant to something he is very relevant to.

They fail together, but she succeeds alone after the spirits of the Jedi aiding her?! I hate all this. Then she dies after her energy being drained, or she clutches the lightsaber too hard, I'm not sure it's not described. It's annoying. Ben drags himself up broken ribs and all to get to Rey. He crawls to her when he realizes she's passed. It's a horrible moment where you feel how alone Ben feels.

"He could see her now, collapsed on the floor, and the pain in his chest was suddenly so much worse than that of a couple broken ribs."

Ben initially mourns her until he realizes there might be a chance to save. He heals her like she healed him. Oh also none of the films go into the fact that because of their bond they were able to learn the force, including fighting moves, from one another. "Ben poured everything into her. He found reservoirs he didn’t even know he had. He gave her his whole self"

Then Rey finally takes his hand! She's back! Ben is so relieve that she's there. In the novel, "She was glad to see him. Glad to be with him in this moment. It was the greatest gift she could have given him. His heart was full as Rey reached for his face, let her fingers linger against his cheek. And then, wonder of wonders, she leaned forward and kissed him."

Reylos! We finally get our kiss, they smile at one another, look they're so happy! Probably the happiest they've ever been. A celebration!

Anddddddd he's gone. Seriously. Rey mourns him in the novel like we never see her do in the film. "The girl who had felt alone for all those years on Jakku had been part of a dyad the whole time. And just when she'd discovered that precious connection, that incredible oneness, it was ripped away. A voice came to her through the Force, clear and strong. I will always be with you, Ben said."

It's tragic because there's so much to Ben Solo we just don't see as an audience after 3 films!!!!!! He doesn't have any lines.

This movie was edited until literally the week before the films release. The recall of the artbook, the last-minute editing, Adam Driver recording new dialogue in his closet..... I'm wondering if the original idea for TROS Reylo was, well, this. We know from the editor, they didn't know for sure if they wanted them to kiss until post-production. Much of the movie wasn't decided until post-production.

And then we get to the ending. Rey Skywalker. How are you not Rey Solo after the man you felt kinship with and the man you were in love with?! Like da fuq?!

Moving forward to this Rey 2025 movie. I'd like it to do well. I hope it does well. It probably won't unless Ben Solo returns. Reylo might be controversial (whatever) but it's currently one of the biggest draws this franchise has. Kylo Ren/Ben Solo is the most popular character out of the sequel trilogy. We deserve it and I'd pay to see it.

sigh the ending we should have gotten

This post took me like 4 days

#reylo #ben solo #star wars #finnrey #kylo ren #kylo x rey #rey skywalker #rey star wars #tros #star wars fanart #star wars reylo #kylo ren star wars #sequel trilogy #rey

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I've been dreaming of the Knight of Lightning.

He vowed to have all bend the knee to his sovereign. That had been his wish, once upon a time. Not like this—he hadn’t wanted it to be like this.

How does a moment last forever? How can a story never die?

Today is meant to be a joyous occasion.

Their friends, their Diasomnia family, gathered around for a grand party. Good food, good drink, and good company. A send-off for their seniors, a toast to their glorious futures.

This should be the happiest they've ever been.

So why?

Why has the chatter died and the celebration ceased? Why do their guests look positively disturbed? Why does Silver brandish his baton at the young master?

Why does he reject this happiness?

Why?

"What are you doing, Silver?!" Sebek angrily demands, punching a fist into a table. The cutlery laid upon it violently clatter. "I'd had enough of your crude jokes--lower your weapon at once! You're making a mockery out of the young master and Lilia-sama's celebration!"

"I'm sorry, Sebek. I'm afraid I can't do that." His aurora-colored gaze is serious and fierce.

"You cur! You DARE turn your sword against your master?!" Sebek takes a defensive step in front of Malleus, staring daggers at his friend. "You're breaking your oath of loyalty to your country, your prince--"

"Sebek..." For a moment, Silver hesitates. There is genuine hurt in his face, eyes wide and wet like those of a doe. But it is there no longer the next second, hardening into a steely shine. "Please stand down. I must do this."

"You've gone mad!!" Sebek's yell echoes in the decorated lounge. Mad, mad, mad... reverberated off the stony walls.

The first year tenses, putting a protective arm in front of Malleus. "Young master, get behind me! I will remove him from your sight."

"Do as you will, Sebek," Malleus replies coolly. His expression presents as almost disinterested, but there is no mistaking the slick of venom in his voice, the raging fire in his eyes.

"Boys!! I thought I taught you better than to brawl over trivial things like this," Lilia cries out to them--but Malleus lays a hand on his shoulder, silencing him.

Sebek produces his own wand--a baton of the same design as Silver's, green magestone embedded into its handle. He raises it to Silver, its end already crackling with an intense energy.

The impact comes, harsh and swift as a bolt of lightning.

"Rrgh...!" Silver braces against the strong blow, skidding several feet. His boots scuff the floor, marking how far he has flown.

Sebek is upon him in an instant, his baton pushing hard against Silver's. He meets the aggressive offense with a quick block and parry, pushing with shaking arms.

"I don't want to fight you!" Silver begs hoarsely.

"You think I want to?!" Sebek roars. His lungs sting, hurting with betrayal.

Silver grits his teeth and ducks--Sebek hurtles into a stone wall. The second year slides under his friend's legs and emerges on the other side, springing back onto his feet.

Sebek faces him, waving his baton in an arc.

"Listen to yourself, Silver!! Lilia-sama's magic is diminishing... Lilia-sama is leaving school and retiring?! The young master having an outburst... forcing us into a deep slumber?!"

With each declaration, he calls forth a new strike of lightning. CRASH, CRASH, CRASH!! They come down in a line, attempting to take Silver down.

He sprints, outrunning them by a hair. A curtain of smoke rises, the air smelling of ozone and destruction.

"They're the ravings of a lunatic!" Sebek shouts, summoning another wave of lightning. "Lilia-sama would never abandon us. The young master would never abuse his powers! They are..."

His everything.

Without them, what is he? What purpose does he serve? Sebek shudders at the thought.

Silver senses it--how his hand falters, his glare softens, his lower lip trembles. He calls out to him, an olive branch extended.

"I know you, Sebek. I know you're a kind person. That's why you want to put your faith in them. Believe me, I do too!" Silver pleads. "But this... This is wrong! It's twisted."

"You're dreaming!!"

"No." He shakes his head. It's you who's dreaming. I'll make you see for yourself...!!"

Silver charges, his baton clashing with Sebek's midair. They're even twin swords, crossing blades and trading blows in a deft, deadly dance.

Neither relenting.

"Open your eyes." Silver's whisper is a loud prayer. It's the moonlight in pitch black darkness, sunlight cutting through a murky swamp. "WAKE UP, SEBEK...!!"

"ACK...!"

Silver shoves with all his might, sending Sebek sprawling onto his back.

Memories spin, colliding in his head and calling forth thunder. Flashes go off. Light and sound gather, sparking a buried image and setting it into motion.

It's a tangle of ebony thorns knitting over Diasomnia. He sees himself standing among the bramble, his face crumpled with immense terror--and sadness. From somewhere in the memory comes a familiar drawl.

"Do not fear. You will no longer have to suffer. Rejoice!! This is my gift to you all: an eternal happily ever after."

Th-This is...!

Sebek bolts up, clutching his head with a groan.

He regards his dorm leader with newfound horror. "M-Malleus-sama... It can't be. Y-You...!!"

"Aaaah..." The prince draws out a sigh. He sounds like a child disappointed with a broken toy. "How unfortunate. It seems that you've been roused awake as well. Really, Silver. Not only do you defy me, but you actively recruit others to your rebellious cause."

Silver tenses, silently putting himself between Malleus and the still-dazed Sebek.

"Fufufu. No matter. Please, allow me to put you all back to rest. A sleep so deep... you have no chance of waking again!"

A black haze encases Malleus, and all Sebek can see are the bright, glimmering eyes from the darkness. Malleus dispels it with the wave of his hand and reemerges like a demon from an inky summoning circle.

Lattices of pointed vines wrap over his body, a tattered cape fluttering out behind him. His horns and tail glow with an eerie green light, skin greyed and zombie-like. But what frightens Sebek the most is the calmness in his smile.

it does not match the quiet fury in the rest of his face.

This cannot be.

"Y-Young master, wait!!" he stutters, trying to get onto his feet. "I-I beg for your forgiveness! We mean you no disrespect! If you could please just hear us out--"

"The time for talk is over." Malleus raises a hand--and with it, a wall of emerald flames erupts from the earth. "Sweet dreams, Sebek."

The ground at their feet caves into a jagged fault. Thorns creep out from below, seeking out their next victims. Sebek leaps away from them, but they do not stop advancing.

"Ready yourself!" Silver hollers. He lets loose a blast of fire magic, which whittles away at the closest thorns. "Malleus-sama won't listen to reason. We--you--have to fight!!"

"B-But...!"

He takes in the sad scene. The castle is crumbling, the party come to a sudden stop. Briar is quickly overtaking the area, covering furniture and swallowing up students.

And there is Silver and Malleus--light and darkness, mirror reflections of one another. On opposing sides. Enemies.

Sebek is trembling, finding it difficult to swallow the bitter truth.

But swallow he does.

This is a waking nightmare.

#twst #twisted wonderland #Sebek Zigvolt #disney twisted wonderland #disney twst #twst countdown #twisted wonderland countdown #twst anni #twisted wonderland anni #twisted wonderland anniversary #twst anniversary #twst imagines #twisted wonderland imagines #twst scenarios #twisted wonderland scenarios #I've been dreaming... #book 7 spoilers #Silver #Lilia Vanrouge #Malleus Draconia #Diasomnia

[hypnoneghoul]

could I ask for a possible ficlet on trans Swiss? can be any pairing you want with him, but he's been on my mind today

MULTI GHOUL PUSSY!!! and pussy drunk water ghoul heh i made it kinda cute, they're soft :3

700 words, smoking weed and pussy eating

Swiss and Rain have alway enjoyed their little date nights. Smoking weed, purring and kissing until their lips were red and swollen, nine times out of ten evolving into kissing other things until they were red and swollen, too.

Rain’s hands were roaming all around Swiss’ warm body, kneading and dimpling soft flesh, his own fingers busy being tangled in the water ghoul’s silky hair. Neither of them had a real purpose, they were focused just on each other, on feeling.

Until—like nine times out of ten—something else sparked in one of them, then the other. Scents turning sweeter and spicier at the same time, touches getting more purposeful. This time it was Rain who broke the spell with a quiet begging whine and a puppy eyed look.

“What’dya want, Bambi?” Swiss slurred, grinning down at him.

“Mmm… you smell nice.” The water ghoul nuzzled into his chest, his purring getting louder. Swiss scratched at his scalp, his own chest vibrating under Rain’s cheek.

“Do I now?” he teased.

“Mhm,” Rain hummed in confirmation and dragged his hands from the multi ghoul’s hips down to his thighs, fingers digging into them. He probably thought he wasn’t obvious at all, but Swiss knew Rain too well for his own good.

“Wanna taste, don’t you, princess?”

A shudder went through his body and a whine left his lips as he nodded, “Yeah.”

“Go on, then.” Swiss smirked and watched as Rain wiggled further down. The weed made him all loose and soft. His head swayed as if his neck wasn’t strong enough to hold it up, making the multi ghoul chuckle. “Adorable.”

Rain looked up at him again, a dopey grin on his face, then dropped his head into the crease between Swiss’ thighs like a sleepy kitten. The multi ghoul snorted out a laugh, tummy shaking with it as Rain acted like a dead starfish.

“What the fuck, princess?” he giggled. Rain hummed into his legs as a response and pawed at Swiss’ pants. He shook his head, still grinning, and with a few clumsy wiggles his pants were moved down to his knees, just enough for the water ghoul’s head to fit in between his legs.

He didn’t waste any more time. Rain took a deep breath, filling his nostrils with Swiss’ rich scent, so strong and addicting right there, and the multi ghoul could swear he saw drool leaking out of the corner of his lips. He let out a pleased hum, opened his mouth, tongue lolling out, and leaned in to press it against Swiss’ cunt.

“Oh– oh, fuck,” he moaned as he threw his head back. Rain’s mouth was sinful and while Swiss always was sensitive, weed made it all even more so. It was glorious. The water ghoul hummed against Swiss as he lapped up at him lazily and sloppily. He was in no rush and orgasms weren't the main goal here. They’d get there, of course, but it wasn’t the goal. The goal was to be, to feel, to love.

Rain dragged his tongue between Swiss’ folds, dipping into his hole, then retreating to suck his clit and make out with it. He was as pussy drunk as a ghoul can get, eyes closed as he feasted on his favorite meal, one he could never get enough of.

Once again Rain hummed in response, causing a shock to go through Swiss’ entire body at the vibration on his pussy. Rain’s face was dripping with spit and slick, but he didn’t care about the mess, he drank it all down like the finest wine. Better.

Swiss didn’t complain, he just lay limply and watched the water ghoul devouring him like a man starved through lidded eyes, whining for him, “I fucking love you, bambi.”

“Princess…” Swiss whimpered, thighs shaking. No matter how unrushed it all was, his orgasm was creeping up on him. Rain knew, even in his drunken state. He was gripping the multi ghoul’s thighs with bruising strength, feeling every single tremor.

Rain pulled away only once, panting, to mumble out an encouragement, “C’mon, soak me.”

One more hum and press of his nose against Swiss’ clit and his wish was fulfilled.

#hypnone writes #the band ghost #nameless ghouls #rain ghoul #swiss ghoul

[acearohippo]

Don't mind me, just rambling

Sometimes, I see childhood!Wei Wuxian and think "wow, the untreated ADHD is really powerful with this one". And then I see him post ressurection as mo xuanyu and go "wow, he really be suffering from that lack of oxygenated brain" and then I pause and think.

"Wait. holy crap... Did mxtx purposely make him TBI (traumatic brain injury) -coded?? Did she understand that, as he wouldn't be in his original body, the ADHD wouldn't've followed him, but mxy being legally dead for who knows how many minutes (aka, no oxygen/blood flowing to the brain) before the soul of wwx completely merged, WOULD cause a whole load of similar symptoms but with less executive dysfunction??"

Because if that was on purpose, I am blown away at the attention to detail. And if it wasn't on purpose... I'm still blown away at the difference! Not to mention, the more stable he became with support from Lan Wangji the less debilitating his symptoms were to him.

And I was already shook by Lan Wangji, Jin Zixuan, and Jiang Cheng's autism-coded personality clashes. It's not often we see (accurate) portrayals of when two (or more) neurodivergent characters clash, usually there's more emphasis on solidarity vs neurotypicals. There's no "trauma-bonding", no "coming to a truce through marriage", no "I hate socialising, you hate socialising, let's avoid it together". And it's accurate, because when stuff goes down and they need to work together, there's no hesitation because the expectation is that- well, they need to handle the shit that hit the fan. And when all is over and done with? They don't fall under the societal pressure to bond with each other, there's no need. They did their jobs, they're good.

Mxtx is just really damn good at writing complex characters with complex neuroses. I ain't even touch how you can almost always tell who's the "coded" ones in her stories and they're not all the same character archetype. It's glorious.

#the hippo speaks #mdzs #mo dao zu shi #wei wuxian #lan zhan #lan wangji #jiang cheng #jiang wanyin #jin zixuan #not mentioned but a standing ovation for best jiejie jiang yanli for accommodating not one not two but THREE neurodivergent men #in their own individual ways?? #she would've been SUCH A GREAT SECT LEADER'S WIFE ˚‧º·(˚ ˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ )‧º·˚

[comicaurora]

Happy Glorious 25th of May. Thank you for getting me into the discworld books (at least in an indirect way). They have quickly become one of my favorite series of books, even if I've only read a handful of them. As for a question, what have been your biggest takeaways or lessons from the discworld books? Whether it be how you write, how you engage with stories, or even how you look at the world.

we got another one lads

It's a little hard to boil it down! The books cover so much ground, and I read them at such a formative age it's hard to tease out how much of me is made from them.

On the most basic level, I love how angry those books are. Every POV protagonist is seething at unfairness and injustice and this is never framed as a bad thing - just something that needs to be controlled, directed, weaponized.

I like that everything is a joke, but in-universe everybody is absolutely sincere. The characters are charicatures and punchlines because of their sincerely-held beliefs and ideals. Captain Carrot is shiny and literal-minded and perfection personified and it's funny because he really is that good. Nanny Ogg is an outrageously horny and boisterous old woman and it's funny because she's having such a good time with it, especially when contrasted with her stern and serious foil Granny Weatherwax, and it's funny because the two of them know each other incredibly well and deal with each other's eccentricities with the practice of decades. The dwarves are funny because they're goofy little guys with big beards that think about nothing but gold and new songs to sing about gold, and as the books go on, the complexities of a culture that looks like that punchline become the deepest and most fascinating element of the worldbuilding in the entire Disc. The world is mounted on the back of four elephants and we made a book called the Fifth Elephant, how wacky, hey let's casually integrate the worldbuilding consequences of massive deposits of perfectly-crisped organic matter caused by the collision of a planet-sized elephant with a planet-sized planet. The discworld tells a joke and then commits to the consequences with its entire ass, and I love that.

A lot of the characters are in some way one-of-a-kind and unprecedented, or at least appear to be on the surface because nobody like them has even been publicly known, and the stories frequently explore how these unique people navigate their existence without a roadmap and trailblaze the way for the people just like them to someday follow. People who break rules by existing and make the world question what purpose those rules serve if they aren't actually unyielding principles of reality. The dwarf gender cultural revolution, the female wizard, the golem given a voice, the entire existence of Susan Sto Helit. It produces a world that feels like it's absolutely full of protagonists, like every story is one-of-a-kind and every individual person matters and has the right to choose the way they want to live, no matter what anyone else thinks. can't believe some terfs really think these books are for them as if they aren't precision-built to tell them to go fuck themselves

The cast full of protagonists makes the crossover events a delight. All these characters existing in the same universe means they can just run into each other sometimes, and they're all such absolute weirdos that their interactions never fail to be absolutely incredible. The world feels very thoroughly lived-in, to the point where the stories sometimes almost feel like they're telling themselves.

they're just really fuckin good ok

#asks #not aurora #discworld

[attonposting]

Presenting: A Mostly Complete Breakdown of the KotOR II Crew's Relationships With Each Other

(Assuming a LS Exile, a dollop of headcanon, and a lot of reading time)

Kreia

Kreia and Atton: Of all the crewmate dynamics in the game, this one's the most well-explored, with a particularly glorious smattering of high-grade explosives. What's maybe less apparent is why they hate each other. Atton's part is straightforward; his demeanor towards Kreia starts out the same abrasive, pseudo-hostile that's his default. It sours further when she talks down to him and acts like a holier-than-thou Jedi, but he'll still interact with her willingly. And it bottoms out into murderous, trapped loathing at the Telos academy, where Kreia becomes his slavemistress and he avoids her whenever possible, desperately hungry to lash out but terrified of her retribution.

Why does Kreia hate Atton so much, though? It starts out because he's an irreverent bastard, but I think it comes down to two main reasons. Number one is that he reminds her of Sion, her worst student. They're a pair of stubborn, sadistic, infatuated blockheads who took all the wrong lessons from Malachor and run about with their oversimplified conclusions causing destruction for no purpose but its own sake. Most importantly, what Atton shirks and what Kreia embraces is accountability. Kreia believes in ownership of one's choices to the point that she can't accept redemption – wanting to change, admitting you were wrong - as an honest decision. Atton? Atton doesn't believe in redemption either, but that's because he fuckin' bails rather than own up to anything. And when Kreia uncovers that, how he cowers from his own nature, her scorn is boundless.

Reason two is that Kreia would have rather traveled with the Exile alone, shaping them in isolation of other influences. Atton is the first spanner in this plan. Later on it becomes clear that the Force has designs for the Exile, and that their entourage is simply something she must contend with, but Atton still gets the short end of the stick here because he's one of the companions who wants to get close to the Exile, especially if they're a lady. And the possibility of Atton, who is a lesson in doing everything wrong, influencing the Exile? Not on her watch.

Kreia and Bao-Dur: Bao-Dur is one of the crewmates Kreia hates most, though not through any fault of his own. He defies her probing (she really doesn't like it if she learns he actually can be read, just not by her), and she also dislikes the old and powerful connection he has with the Exile, because anyone who can mold the Exile, or who they'll turn to for support, fundamentally undermines her mentorship. Bao-Dur is neutral to Kreia at first but comes to distrust her the more he overhears. Her guidance to the Exile sets off a lot of red flags, but he doesn't really feel prompted to act on it unless the Exile starts listening to her – whereupon he'll incorrectly blame his General's fall on Kreia and attempt to act in their protection.

Kreia and Mira: Kreia doesn't particularly see Mira as a threat compared to many of the others. A foolish little girl clinging to a code that will get her killed, yes. But she's not an obstacle to her plans for the Exile, being as standoffish as she is, and so Kreia leaves her to her own devices, biding her time for the day she'll be tested. Mira is very wary of Kreia without fully understanding why – looks harmless, but Mira's good at feeling people and Kreia gives her all kinds of bad vibes – so she keeps a wide berth. Any conversations they've had have been very short and very acerbic on both sides.

Kreia and Brianna: This gets really complicated if you ascribe to the 'Kreia is Arren Kae' theory, which I do. It would certainly explain why Kreia's hackles go up when Brianna joins the crew, when the connection to Atris and later her antipathy for Visas is something she makes liberal use of, and also why she's so disapproving of training Brianna to be a Jedi when she expresses very little opinion on the subject for anyone else. There might be a smidgen of an old desire to keep her out of harm's way (and even moreso, to remain free of the Force and its machinations), but Kreia refuses to allow whatever feelings remain influence her decisions – and she throws Brianna right into harm's way when she uses her at the rebuilt Enclave and drops her off at a freshly-unhinged Atris's feet. That right there kills any nascent thoughts I might have had of Kreia approaching Brianna for any constructive reason during their earlier travels. Before everything goes down, I don't see them crossing paths much – Kreia has an especial desire to keep her distance and Brianna is not one to socialize.

Kreia and Mical: There is not a lot of interaction that can happen when you've been mindwhammied into forgetting the other person exists. I don't think Mical knew Kreia was on the ship at all until the game's climax, even when he was looking right at her. Kreia has an interesting opinion on Mical, though. She definitely disdains his idealism and softheartedness, but I think she does respect him in a backhanded way – he's the only one who managed to figure out what was happening, and actually forced her hand in order to keep the game afoot. I certainly read a sort of admiration in “you were a wasted pawn of the Republic,” and that's more than anyone else on the crew gets out of Kreia.

Kreia and Visas: So Kreia resents Visas, a lot. She did not want the Exile to have to face Nihilus, and Visas's arrival locked that very dangerous confrontation in stone. She adapts her plans quite successfully, because she's nothing if not resourceful, but Kreia's attempts to prey on Brianna's distrust and inflame her jealousy have nothing to do with any threat Visas presents. I think it also comes back to her scorn for both weakness and redemption; if Visas was weak enough to have her will crushed, she doesn't deserve to be lifted up, and the Exile only wastes their limited energy on a pity project. On her end, Visas is a remarkably mellow individual, but Kreia is the one person on the ship she does not trust. The others are clear presences through the Force, even drawn towards the Exile's alignment as they are. When she looks at Kreia, her sight is... blurred. Difficult to see. And her Master had spoken of his own Master, a Darth Traya...

Kreia and Canderous: I doubt Kreia sees Canderous as anything more than one of Revan's creatures, broken upon their charisma and following their orders in vain. She's generally pretty uninterested in any of the crewmates beyond their potential uses, but her treatment of Canderous is especially dismissive in that she doesn't even care if he sees her for what she is. I find her general scorn of the Mandalorians interesting, given that they do espouse a lot of the philosophy she shares in-game – they have a sink-or-swim ideology that eschews aid and forces each member to survive on their own merits, always seeking adversity to become strong lest they dull their edge, without falling into the Sith trap of self-destruction through infighting. I guess they're not subtle enough for her tastes. Canderous hates her for the same reason Atton does – she didn't even try to hide the fact that she was manipulating him, just nailed him to the wall on day one. Even if she hadn't been so blatant, I doubt Canderous has much trust for Jedi-types lying around after the plot twist of the first game. Revanchists, he's totally game to hang out and swap war stories, but Kreia's more of the 'preachy old crone in robes' breed of Jedi and he remembers what happened the last time he trusted those.

Kreia and T3-M4: Oh boy, but Kreia does not like the metal cinnamon roll. She's got issues with her students having attachments to people that aren't her, and she already dislikes droids for their immunity to mental alteration and probing. Which is actually intensely hypocritical of her, since she otherwise praises things that are dead to the Force and can defy its will – but I suppose it's less laudable when the Force in question is her own. Same as how Kreia praises focusing on practical skills rather than the Force, yet apart from her persuasion has few of her own, which is why these droids can defy her so. Add in that it's T3's navicomputer lock that's preventing Kreia from discovering where Revan has gone, and it's no surprise she blasts him in the cut content. For T3's part, he's never liked the old woman – she's very rude, yes, but more important is the question of how exactly Kreia got on the ship in the first place. How and when, I don't know, but she definitely hijacked T3's ship at some point and interrupted his Very Important Mission. Even if their goals ended up being aligned, T3 has issues with people who think they don't have to ask for his permission.

Kreia and HK-47: For this one, we're back to Kreia's refusal to view droids as people. In her eyes, HK-47 is yet another one of the tools Revan lavished their time on in a meaningless sidetrack from their true potential. Unlike T3, though, HK doesn't present an ongoing obstacle, just a blunt instrument and an irritating reminder of her former student's proclivities. HK, for his part, frequently occupies his processors with potential scenarios where he could terminate the old-model meatbag without compromising his Master's integrity. The unusually strong Force bond presents an altogether new challenge for his assassination protocols and he's eager to overcome fresh obstacles – for purely hypothetical purposes, of course.

Atton

Atton and Bao-Dur: They tolerate each other, which is as good as things get with Atton. It's a sort of wary, untapped understanding that they've both done some shit and don't want to talk about it, and they've kind of got a personal issue with the other's war crimes (and that sure is a KotOR II sentence) but don't think it's worth it to drag it out. It could warm up into something friendlier if they ever hashed out an understanding – they have some crucial things in common and could really get each other in a way most of the crew couldn't – but it would take something big to get that talk to happen. Apart from the history, Bao-Dur thinks Atton is ridiculous and Atton thinks Bao-Dur is a stick in the mud and a gearhead, but they do trust each other to have the General's back. And that's the most important thing to both of them, so they get along all right.

Atton and Mira: They snipe at each other constantly, and get into more verbal brawls than anyone else, since they're both pretty chatty and not afraid to insert themselves into other people's business. But their relationship isn't as hostile as it looks from the outside, even if it has involved stolen equipment and at least one minor sonic charge being planted on the pilot's seat. They annoy the hell out of each other, but Atton is about as fond of Mira as he is of anyone who isn't the Exile. She's relatable without the traits that make him despise himself, and when they're on the job, the two of them often end up backing the same strategy, or spouting very unintentionally synchronized “oh, kriff no”s to someone else's, despite having no actual desire to agree with each other.* And Mira thinks Atton's an idiot, but he's a familiar kind of idiot, and he's good for a laugh (read: easy to wind up and create some on-demand performance art.)

(*For posterity's sake, group strategizing usually slices out like this: Atton, Mira, and Visas on Team Sneaky Fuckers; Brianna, Canderous, and HK-47 on Team Why Don't We Just Light The Place Up; and Mical and very occasionally Bao-Dur on Team I Am Very Concerned You Would Suggest That. Kreia would be a Sneaky Fucker but refuses to provide positive reinforcement to any of these cretins. Poor T3's contributions go nearly unnoticed due to half the crew not understanding Binary. G0-T0 vacillates between Sneaky Fuckery and systemic elimination of all obstacles depending on the situation, and for Hanharr, do you even have to ask?)

Atton and Brianna: They openly hate each other. Brianna thinks Atton is undisciplined and uncouth, Atton thinks the Handmaiden's a self-righteous bitch. The reason they really loathe each other instead of the usual 'just thinks that person is really annoying' is because they don't trust each other to have the Exile's best interests at heart – Atton thinks she's a spy and Brianna thinks he's a slimy, lying opportunist, and if she learns who he really is, that's going to get five times worse. Both of them have fantasized about kicking the other's ass at length, but Brianna has too much discipline to start a fight and Atton's worried that he might not come out on top. Killing her would be easy, but an honorable duel with a crazy Echani ice queen who spends every waking hour boxing air in her skivvies? No thanks.

Atton and Mical: Atton despises Mical on principle. Everything Mical does infuriates him, no matter how innocuous. Mical needs help in a firefight? Useless fop, don't know why we let him tag along. Mical heals Atton afterwards? Pushy asshole thinks he's better than me. Mical asks Atton to pass him the salt at breakfast? Get it yourself, you needy bastard. Mical looks in the Exile's direction? Die in a fire, Blondie. He drags him endlessly, coming up with a stream of excuses to hate him when the reality of it is that Atton's pissed that Mical is a better person than him in every single way, and has decided to react to that by resenting his existence rather than, y'know, trying to improve himself at all.

On the other side, Mical dislikes Atton - it would be very strange if he didn't - but he's patient and diplomatic, rarely rising to the bait and occasionally extending olive branches (which only serve to make Atton angrier and more unreasonable.) He wants Atton to work out his issues, because that in turn would be best for the Exile who cares for all of them, and also because he hopes that it might get him to improve his behavior. Of course, it'd be much simpler to drop Atton off on the next planet, but unfortunately he's already ruled out the possibility.

Atton and Visas: They don't interact much. Visas doesn't have any particular feelings about Atton; she trusts him because his feelings towards the Exile are clear and that's the only metric that matters to her. Atton doesn't care that she was Sith, it becomes obvious by like three days in that she's not a threat and the Handmaiden's full of it – it's her servility that creeps him out. It's that Jedi tendency to act like drones instead of people. He doesn't know what to do with that (he does, knows a lot about how to crack open their shells, but not in any way he wants to remember), so he keeps his distance. The sad thing about this is that they do have some big things in common; they're ex-Sith who lost all hope in the galaxy only to have it restored by the Exile, who they'd gladly die for because they don't value their own lives and because the Exile is so much greater than they could ever be. But I can't realistically see Atton taking his walls down for that conversation to happen. Visas can talk about her feelings but keeps to herself; Atton reacts to emotional honesty like a wet cat.

Atton and Canderous: Pretty hostile. Atton's not as overt about it as Bao-Dur (since his hate congealed in a different direction), but he has any veteran's grudge against the Mandalorians and doesn't love the idea of them reorganizing. Canderous has a thick hide when it comes to trading jabs, but he's less tolerant of anyone shit-talking his people and their honor, and you can bet Atton has made plenty of snipes from the relative safety of the Exile's favor. Atton eventually ends up crawling to the Exile to bail him out after Canderous calls him out on his bullshit and challenges him to throw hands, because he could kick Atton's ass in a brawl and Atton fully knows this but will not admit it.

Atton and T3-M4: T3-M4 has done nothing wrong in his life, ever, and Atton is proof that there is no fairness in the galaxy. T3 retaliates by inconveniencing Atton in endlessly small ways – colliding with him while he's carrying food, tweaking his laundry cycle to singe his clothes, constantly changing the astrogation system's access codes. And, of course, baiting him into pazaak only to crush him with his superior logic matrices. Atton brought all of this on himself and T3 would strongly consider stopping if Atton would only apologize and admit he has been very rude and mean. He doesn't.

Atton and HK-47: A flaming mess. Atton distrusts T3-M4, who is a cinnamon roll with a shock arm; now take his irrational hatred of droids, add in psychotic programming and an expressed desire to murder everyone on board, and you can be sure he's sleeping with his door locked. This is made worse because while HK-47 also hates Atton, he's very interested in his past as a fellow assassin and Jedi-hunter – irritated that Atton seems to have fallen prey to that insidious meatbag disease known as 'regret', but he has no desire to respect those boundaries and is highly curious about comparing their tactics and K-D ratios. Mostly because HK wants to express his clear superiority over his meatbag imitators, but also because there may be an opportunity to refine his craft. (If we're dealing with a DS Atton, they still hate each other, but it's because Atton is as disgusted by the idea of a droid doing his job as HK is of him. But you can expect a lot more open debate of torture tactics at the breakfast table.)

Bao-Dur

Bao-Dur and Mira: They don't have an awful lot in common, but they interact well enough. It's part because Bao-Dur is the king of the garage and Mira spends plenty of time in there, and part because Mira likes to poke people to see how they'll react (and at first, she really wants to know if the beefcake Zabrak does talk or if he just tinkers in the droid bay all day looking like a snack.) Bao-Dur's a wallflower but he can sass back with the best of them when prodded, and he's gotten involved with Mira's maintenance more than once - enough for Mira to grudgingly respect that damn, she runs a tight ship with her equipment but this guy knows what he's talking about.

Bao-Dur and Brianna: Unfortunately I can't really see these two coming together outside the field. They both keep to themselves in their spare time, and neither of them are the type to initiate conversations, so most of their talks have purely been strategy or reacting to situations as they happen. They're both pretty practical and goal-oriented people, so they don't clash. The one place these two intersect is Telos – Brianna is actually very impressed with Bao-Dur's work and considers him singularly skilled. If she expressed that, things might warm up a bit, though Bao-Dur definitely has some not-so-charitable thoughts about why a Jedi Master was sitting around stealing power from Telos's already strained grid instead of helping with the restoration efforts in any way.

Bao-Dur and Mical: They get on quite well. Bao-Dur's more of an introvert while Mical likes to strike up conversations, but they're the two most Republic-positive people on the Hawk and they're both appreciative of the other's work, which is a good foundation. Mical definitely has questions about Bao-Dur's extensive experience with Telos on his studies of worlds sickened by the Wars, which is a topic Bao-Dur has a direct interest in – he'd hoped to branch out before the Telos Project started going sour. They've had plenty of problem-solving brainstorming sessions, even if their musings in their respective fields tend to go way over the other's head. I was also gonna bring up that they both think the world of the Exile and find endless inspiration in their actions, but that's kind of true for everyone in KotOR II: The Simp Lords. Still, it's those two and Visas who are the least afraid about expressing it.

Bao-Dur and Visas: They go for a long time without crossing paths, but they've got plenty in common – they're fundamentally gentle people who struggle with feelings of despair and anger borne of PTSD, and they both appreciate solitude to center themselves without actually having a real desire to self-isolate. I could see them taking up a companionable silence one day on the Hawk while the others are off adventuring, and in time coming to meditate or simply exist together. They've both got a planet's worth of trauma on their shoulders and they could forge a strong connection if one of them ever reached out.

Bao-Dur and Canderous: Bad, bad, bad. Bao-Dur's deal is self-explanatory – he hates the Mandalorians with an all-consuming fervor, to the point where he's uncomfortable with himself, and Mandalore's presence on the ship just drags it all out into the open. And Canderous doesn't understand this, or the depths of Bao-Dur's PTSD; he sees a skilled warrior who was instrumental in his people's defeat, which he's been taught not to personally resent. So, y'know, there's nothing stopping him from dropping by and striking up a chat between two old warriors. And he figures out real quick that Bao-Dur's the type that holds a grudge, but I don't think he can really grasp just how deep it goes. In Canderous's world, if you've got a problem, you brawl it out. Bao-Dur could only begin to find common ground with a Mandalorian if he was shown some remorse, which just isn't going to happen. Now make it not just any Mandalorian but their leader, this symbol for everything he despises, who loudly intends to reunite his scattered thugs and murderers for the next great war? Yeah. It's bad.

Bao-Dur and T3-M4: They have a rocky start, since T3 really doesn't like that suggestion of a memory wipe. But Bao-Dur's not going to press if this mouthy Astromech is that opposed to it, and if I had to peg one guy on the KotOR II Hawk who sees droids as fully-fledged people, it's gonna be him every time. The Remote talks up Bao-Dur enough for T3 to trust him with some maintenance, and it leads to a gorgeous heat sink on his processors and the smoothest treads of his life. It doesn't take long for Bao-Dur to become T3's favorite, second to the Exile. T3 repeatedly rants to Bao-Dur about all the incredibly annoying and illogical things the organics on this ship get up to. Bao-Dur chuckles, agrees with everything, and never breathes a word of it to anyone else.

Bao-Dur and HK-47: HK-47 is a one-of-a-kind piece of machinery, but Bao-Dur could really do without the cutting remarks. If he has to hear 'Insincere Placation' one more time, he's kicking him out of the garage. And if it's not the disparaging comments about his skills as a mechanic, it's the frankly disturbing homicidal musings. Bao-Dur wonders if programming a droid to be this single-mindedly murderous constitutes abuse. HK, for his part, does come to respect Bao-Dur's skills, and has very good reason to fear self-proclaimed mechanics after a low-repair amnesiac Revan did unspeakable things with a hydrospanner. But his friendly musings about the laudable efficiency of the slaughter at Malachor V and the truly impressive galactic implications of all that death did not produce the enlightening discussion he'd hoped for.

Mira

Mira and Brianna: Mira first saw the Handmaiden from afar when she was stalking the Exile on Nar Shaddaa. They meet properly when Mira's poking around the ship, and okay, yeah, Mira sees why this girl fought like a dancer with that electrostaff – she spends all her time training. Like, does she even know what fun is? An intervention is necessary. In her efforts to get the Handmaiden out of her shell, Mira drags her out of the cargo hold for anything she can think of – the latest gossip on the Ebon Hawk, girl talk, drinks, blaster practice, an improvised dartboard with a picture of Kreia taped over it. Brianna really doesn't know what to do with this attention at first, and she's very put off. But Mira refuses to let her be awkward, and... even if all these customs are foreign to her, she finds she does enjoy being sought out? By the end of the game, those two are tight-knit. Mira's eventually the one who teaches Brianna how sarcasm works, something which Brianna wields with terrifying precision.

Mira and Mical: Mira's decent enough to the guy, but with a distinctly condescending flair. The Disciple is like a pet, maybe – cute, harmless, and doesn't do anything useful as far as she can tell. Well, that's not strictly true, because he's good for getting Atton to act like a ronto in heat, but she doubts the Exile keeps him on for that. They've squabbled before on missions when Mical had an issue with laying out a minefield on civilian turf (they were just flashbangs and stunners, dammit, what does he take her for?) or thought talking to a bunch of crime kingpins would work. Still, he's nice to look at if you can tune him out.

Mira and Visas: Mira tries to draw this one out of her shell, too, but with much less success. It's part because Brianna really hates Visas and Mira doesn't get their Jedi crap enough to work out whatever this spat is, so Girls' Night dies before it ever has a chance to become tradition. The other half is because Visas barely reacts to anything Mira does – she'll never refuse her company, but she seems indifferent to everything Mira tries to engage her with. It makes Mira sad, and also really uncomfortable, and she eventually gives up for fear that she's just dragging around someone who doesn't know how to say no to her. (This wasn't strictly the case. Visas is terrible at enforcing boundaries, but she generally didn't mind – just didn't really understand what was expected of her. Aimless chatter is a luxury she had to relearn. On the whole, just being on this ship that teemed with life and determination instead of draining them was often enough for her, and she spent many hours feeling and observing the others from afar.) But Mira doesn't stop watching Visas, and she's relieved when other members of the crew, and of course their fearless leader, connect with her in their own ways.

Mira and Canderous: Man, this one gets complex. Mira loves to pretend that she's over her past, and she's super not. The Mandalorians are the only family she remembered. It was screwed up on a lot of levels and she understands that better now than she did then, but... she knew who she was when she was one of them. Dreamed of being one for real someday, before Malachor ended everything. So finding the hidden enclave on Dxun stirred up a lot of mixed feelings. She keeps her distance from Canderous, but she's drawn to him anyway. It's Mandalore, a legend brought to life, of course she's curious – that's normal, right? And maybe one day he offhandedly comments that she handled something like a Mandalorian, and it means the world to her and she's not prepared for it, at all, and she tries to play it cool but ends up spilling that she halfway was one. And they swap stories for a long time after that. She doesn't take him up on his offer of returning to Dxun with him, but she feels a sense of completion, maybe closure, that it was made. Canderous obfuscates it, because no one will accuse him of going soft, but he's fond of that girl. She's got real fight in her.

Mira and T3-M4: For a while, they don't really interact, but Mira's eagle eye eventually catches that many of the inconvenient accidents on board the Hawk coincide with a little Astromech whirring by moments before disaster. Which is concerning, but also really funny, given that the usual butt of the joke is either Atton or HK-47. So she does what she does best and gets involved – either she gets a piece of the action or she's busting his operation. T3 promptly pops out eight pieces of weaponry she didn't realize a utility droid could have mounts for, wheels her over to a holoscreen, leverages her right back with the secret stash she keeps under the docking ramp panel, and recruits her wholesale. Everyone those two dislike proceeds to have a very frustrating week. She doesn't understand Binary, so they can only ever talk when T3 plugs himself in and types, but damn, Mira thought she had a mouth but that droid is sassy. Scrappy little fucker runs the ship from the shadows - she's staying on his good side.

Mira and HK-47: Mira tries very hard to pretend that HK doesn't unnerve the hell out of her. She's seen those things in action and she's not entirely convinced this one isn't a plant that's going to drill them in the back once some unknown trigger is tripped. HK-47 is deeply offended by the accusation – less that he would murder them all if he could, and more that Mira can't recognize how his abundance of personality and far more intimidating looks set him apart from his mass-produced copycats.

Brianna

Brianna and Mical: In-game, they can't ever interact, but I like to imagine that all six of the Lost Jedi come along with the Exile. These two have an awkward start – she's a soldier trained not to question while he's a historian who does nothing but. Mical has some questions about Atris that'll get Brianna's hackles up, and she'll want nothing to do with him for a while after that. But as she travels with the Exile, she'll come to realize that he's right; Atris's actions run counter to her spoken principles, and the Exile is a truer expression of the Jedi teachings despite having been cast from the Order. They'll coalesce most post-game, when Brianna sets aside her single-minded dedication to combat to become an archivist. Mical has plenty of interest in helping her with Atris's salvaged collection and disseminating the information within.

Brianna and Visas: Visas is demure and respectful – Brianna bites her head off every time she speaks up. It's a mess. Brianna's been raised with an incredibly black-and-white, fear-based set of views on the Jedi. There's no redemption for Sith in Atris's academy, only punishment and execution. The Exile skated by Atris's conditioning with their Force magnetism, and to a lesser extent, their similarities to Yusanis – Visas is not so lucky. Brianna's jealousy isn't strictly romantic in nature, though. The way I see it, it has more to do with her deep-seated feelings of abandonment and never being good enough no matter how hard she works. She thought she and the Exile were forging something special, that the Exile saw something in her that no one else had (and maybe that was even true, maybe she does have potential), and then they went off to gallivant with a Sith. She feels cheapened, replaced – maybe even scorned, if the Exile sees her the same way, as something broken and wrong to be fixed. And she can justify it to herself with what Atris taught her instead of actually confronting her own feelings. So it becomes a mantra: Visas is a Sith, she cannot be trusted, and all the time the Exile spends with her is time for her to sink her hooks into their mind.

I would like to think, on a LS run (as a mirror to what happens on a DS one), when Kreia tricks Brianna into despair and she subsequently discovers Atris's corruption, that Brianna has an epiphany – that she was watching for enemies in the wrong places, and that Atris's teachings had blinded her to what was evident in Visas's stance, if only she'd been able to accept what she saw. And by the time they band together on Malachor, they've buried the hatchet. Visas accepts this heartfelt apology readily – she never held a grudge even when Brianna was snarling at her daily. Post-game they become quite close. They understand plenty about what it means to dedicate yourself to someone out of desperation and out of inspiration, and they more than anyone else on the crew share the Exile lifting them up and setting them free. And they share their strengths – Brianna passes on her knowledge of combat now that she's ready to set it aside, and at her behest, Visas spends the time to teach her to see through the Force so that she'll never be blinded to others' hearts again.

Brianna and Canderous: Brianna's wary of Mandalore and disagrees stridently with him on philosophy – they agree on fealty and discipline, but discussing the purpose of combat has led to some raised voices and a few worried (or popcorn-crunching) eavesdroppers. But they do respect each other as fellow warriors. They've sparred a few times, even if Canderous refused to remove his raiment in a minor bit of tradition-crossroads. Canderous even lost a round or two, which he is damn impressed by but privately worries about for weeks later. He's getting old.

Brianna and T3-M4: Brianna largely ignores T3-M4. This is probably a good thing, since T3 holds a grudge from when she stole the Ebon Hawk and delivered him to Atris, where he had a very unpleasant time of things. He was not happy to see her board the ship yet again, and kept a close optic on her for a while. Eventually he decided she was unlikely to repeat offend, and she at least doesn't make a mess of the ship like some organics, but the beeps and boops he uses to address her are not especially polite ones.

Brianna and HK-47: Brianna cannot fathom why the Exile reactivated the assassin droid, and once it starts talking, she really doesn't understand why they keep it around. This is mostly because it's clearly a psychotic tool of war, the kind of single-mindedly bloodthirsty creation Atris always accused the Exile of being, and its company is... unbefitting for the hero she's come to know. But also, and she stubbornly refuses to admit this to herself, she's frustrated that the Exile thinks they need more firepower on the battlefield. Isn't she good enough for them?

Mical

Mical and Visas: They get along very well. They start interacting early on, when Visas first joins the crew and has all kinds of old untreated injuries that need tending. After the medbay visits taper off, the meditation visits start. Mical's curious about Sith philosophy and techniques and Visas is pretty much the most tailor-fitted discussion partner the galaxy could have possibly given him on those topics. Visas is dubious of Mical's own views, particularly that he clings to them when he's seen so many things that undermine them and readily admits this, but over her travels with the Exile comes to appreciate his steadfast optimism more. They're both very gentle people and Mical could do wonders in shoring up Visas's lost faith – a favor Visas pays back in full when Kreia betrays the team and leaves Mical to the horrifying realization that the Force is decaying around the Exile. She feels his distress and seeks him out, invites him to meditate together as he so often approached her, and repeats the words he always insisted upon – no matter how fraught it seems, there is always hope.

Mical and Canderous: When Mandalore joins the team, Mical's immediate concern is the Exile's mental health. Bao-Dur has clearly been doing poorly since Dxun and it's hardly a secret the Exile shares much of the same trauma. He keeps to the background and watches carefully, his own few interactions with the man being brusque and dismissive. Carth is... concerned, to say the least, when Mical reports of a new Mandalore; it gets interesting when Mical's next transmission contains some footage. Much like the player, it doesn't take Carth long to pick up on the fact that Mandalore's voice is just Canderous's through some filters. This is how poor Mical ends up as the go-between between two old frenemies, passing notes back and forth like he's stuck at the middle desk. That said, he's greatly relieved that their Mandalorian contact is on the up and up; he would not question the Exile's decisions, but did worry about what might come of them until it became clear this was all the work of the Force.

Mical and T3-M4: They first met when Mical requested to see the records of the Exile's trial. T3-M4 was wary of the request, but organics who are actually courteous to utility droids are a rarity, and Mical eventually won him over without having to fetch the Exile for proof. Once T3 finds out that Mical has connections with Carth Onasi, they're fast friends and occasional coworkers, though there's a bit of friction involved because you know Carth would have told him to fish for any information on Revan's whereabouts, and T3 can't talk, as much as he'd like to reunite his old (and new!) friends.

Mical and HK-47: Of all the unfortunate meatbags HK-47 must share the ship with, it is the Republic one who clearly has the least merit. He has tried to convince his Master why a bit of target practice is necessary to keep his assassination protocols from degrading in the monotony of hyperspace travel, but for some reason truly unparseable to his processors, he has repeatedly been denied on this front. On Mical's part, HK-47 is a firm reminder of Darth Revan's character whenever his musings about their war strategy start becoming too favorable.

Visas

Visas and Canderous: It's so wild to me that I would have never known anything was here at all, if those legends over at TSLRCM hadn't brought back all of those Visas-Canderous interactions on the Ravager. Like, Visas forcing him to keep on fighting after a gravely wounded Canderous tells them to leave him behind, that he's not useful anymore... Hello?? My girl came full circle???

I don't know how much these two coincided before the end of the game, because they are exceptionally different people. Visas tends to hang in the background, and I doubt Canderous spared the Miraluka in the aft dorm that much thought beyond “damn, they make Sith different than they used to.” But there are no words to express how Visas felt when destiny called them back to Telos and not a single one of the crew balked in the face of her Master – and nowhere did that sentiment land harder than Canderous, who mustered an army to stop a second Katarr and walked with her to face her nightmare in person. (It wasn't for a lack of will on the others' part, and I suspect many of them were strident about wanting to join. In a lot of cases, the two-party restriction comes down to game mechanics; here, it's that Nihilus would have straight-up eaten anyone else. Visas was the only Force-Sensitive he wouldn't, the Exile was the only one he couldn't.) She's well aware it wasn't a personal favor, but the reasons pale in the reality of it; she had believed nothing could stand before her Master, and together, Canderous and the Exile proved her wrong. And Canderous is forced to reassess Visas afterwards, once he's done licking his wounds and kicking himself for a lapse in resolve so bad a Sith had to haul him up and tell him to get moving. Which is where he got it wrong; a Sith she is not, but that girl's got beskar in her, especially if she survived that long as that thing's apprentice.

Visas and T3-M4: At first, T3-M4 is quite cross about being overloaded via the Force and the attempt on his new Master's life. But the immediate request of termination is... concerning, and observing the following chain of events leads T3 to suspect that she'd been given orders that went against her core motivators, something T3 is distressingly familiar with. He observes Visas for a bit longer – he developed a number of protocols regarding Sith in his formative months - but soon deems them irrelevant once he's mapped her behavioral patterns and found them quite agreeable, if perhaps more cloistered than strictly recommended.

His initial diagnostic of conflicting orders seems correct, and T3 enacts a policy of friendliness in simpatico. Whenever ship maintenance takes him towards the aft dormitory, he brings her little things like Atton's share of dessert or interesting lightsaber parts from Bao-Dur's workshop. Visas is at first convinced that the Exile has simply programmed the droid to attend to her in their doomed quest to save her, but at some point she comments on it and discovers they genuinely have no idea what she's talking about. She does not know what to do with this information, but is immensely moved by the little droid. As a being without presence in the Force, Visas sometimes has difficulty perceiving his movements; when she admitted this, T3 developed a policy of emitting a low-volume sound pattern in her presence.

Visas and HK-47: HK was very excited when a Sith joined the crew - still irritated that his Master didn't simply dispatch the assassin like any being in possession of functioning logic circuits, but hoping that perhaps this was his chance to witness and partake in some real carnage. He ends up despairing when Visas ends up just as soft as the rest of them. She even eventually retracts her statement that all life exists for the purpose of being systemically extinguished! The Exile is a truly distressing influence.

Canderous

Canderous and T3-M4: Canderous affectionately calls T3-M4 a hunk of junk. T3-M4 affectionately calls him an obsolete model propped up with bulky life support mods. The little trash can's grown a spine since he last saw him – that, and Revan clearly taught him some creative curses while they were out on the edge of space. Canderous will never admit this and will lie through his teeth if accused, but he misses the old crew dearly – now more than ever that he's back on the Ebon Hawk. Having the droids around is an old, comfortable bit of nostalgia.

Canderous and HK-47: Canderous might be the only non-Revan meatbag HK-47 actually likes. It's mutual – HK's a fine soldier and an unreal shot with a scoped rifle, even if he's looking a little worse for wear these days. HK frequently seeks out Canderous to complain about the inconsistent and highly inefficient moral codes so many of these meatbags seem to possess. “Jedi,” Canderous agrees. He'd think a bunch of war veterans, particularly the type with a history of blowing up planets, would spend a little less time plucking loth cats out of trees and take a little more initiative with the armies of people trying to kill them, but he figures you can't take the Jedi out of the Revanchist. At least they're not boring.

T3-M4

T3-M4 and HK-47: Revan's two old droids are not friends. It's like a cat and a dog (or maybe a kitten and a grizzled bobcat) fighting over their Master's affection, except their Master left for milk a while ago and the only thing left to squabble about is who was more useful. Mutual accusations of obsoletion abound. T3 is very smug that HK spent a chunk of Revan's travels deactivated while he was present all along; HK, who is incredibly pissy that he was not involved in the grand plan and the game of cover-your-tracks that followed, never fails to point out that somehow, T3 failed so immensely that Revan saw fit to dismiss them both and carry on without backup, and that he at least does not have such a blatant error in judgment on his record. Add in that T3's tenure of the ship has involved hijackings and total crew pacification by a Sith warship, an Echani saboteur, and a band of slavers, and it's wholly understandable that this new Master decided they needed a more reliable droid.

It frequently comes down to HK-47 threatening the jumped-up Astromech with termination while T3-M4 smugly dangles the metaphorical car keys in his face.

G0-T0

I'm putting the crimeball in his own category because G0-T0 has remarkably one-note relationships with everyone and there isn't enough to say. It's really simple; they don't want him around and he doesn't want to deal with them. The only one worth any note is Mira, who he has identified as a reliable agent and a potential asset when it comes to delegating side jobs. She's proven capable of bringing in targets alive, which is a directive he's had some trouble with in the past. Mira's wary of having a major Exchange boss a few doors down from where she lays her head, but less on principle and more that she'll get caught in some conflicting-employers spat. And she wouldn't say no to some credits as long as the job didn't go against her sensibilities.

There's another exception with HK-47, because some of the restored content implies he and G0-T0 had a history – but personally I do not know what to make of this, because their timelines do not line up and it doesn't come up later, leaving me to think it was a dropped plotline like Kreia zapping T3 or Kaevee and the holocrons. I'd like to do something with this, but there isn't enough for me to go on. About as much as I can say is that HK-47 is quite cross at this comically rotund intruder for bobbing onto his base of operations and attempting to dictate orders when any being in possession of optics can tell his Master is clearly the one in charge, and for not having the decency to invade his ship without a fail-deadly detonator baked into his circuitry. But really, anyone who had employed so many of his sub-standard clones and established the galactic reputation of HK units as bounty hunters was going to fall pretty hard on HK-47's shitlist.

Bao-Dur has strongly considered 'accidentally' damaging some vital components when G0-T0 seeks him out for maintenance. The Remote is a very enthusiastic ball-shaped devil on his shoulder.

Unfortunately, I can't comment on Hanharr since I've never played with him, even on the one time I forced myself into a Dark Side run. But the vibe I get is pretty similar to the above; nearly all of the crew would stay well away, with HK being the only one actually enthused at the prospect of having him around. But I don't know Hanharr well enough to tell if that could even be mutual or if he's just furious with everything.

#if there's any dynamics i missed or you think work differently #let me know! #kotor #kotor 2 #kotor ii #kreia #atton rand #bao-dur #mira #brianna #the handmaiden #mical #the disciple #visas marr #canderous ordo #t3-m4 #hk-47

[princeescaluswords]

Thank God someone else who isn’t caught up in shipping Loki and Mobius or Loki and Sylvie you earned a follow

Here's the thing that I want to ask the legion of Lokius shippers who were disappointed by the series or, worse yet, accuse it of queerbaiting.

What was the show about?

I don't mean 'what did you want the show to be about' but what was the show actually about. What story did it seek to tell?

I know, and I suspect you do as well.

It was about Loki coming to terms with who he was, what he had done, and, in a very important quote, "what sort of god I want to be." In the beginning, Loki looked to his father, his brother, and his mother for definition, and when they didn't give him the identity he wanted, he reacted violently. He worked with Thanos the Mad Titan to get the power to force others to love him, and we all saw how that ended. He stooped to being a sycophant to the Grandmaster. None of them were ever able to make him feel the way he wanted to feel.

Then he encounters the TVA, including Mobius and Sylvie, and sees that there are infinite Lokis; suddenly, defining himself seems not only unimportant but foolish. He is who he is. Then he meets He Who Remains, and he begins to see that -- and this is a crucial line when he shouts it at the Enchantress -- there are things bigger than his own identity.

The second season of the show and his attempt to forge himself a new home within the TVA, with the people he's met and befriended there, and begins to paradoxically establish his own sense of self-worth through his relationships with them. Not just one of them, but all of them. It wasn't about a specific relationship; it was about all of them.

Loki and Sylvie kissed ONCE in 12 episodes, and then she punted him through a time door, so the point wasn't the culmination of their romance, but the possibility of seeing himself as worthy of regard in the guise of seeing another Loki, and confronting his violent and selfish instincts by confronting the same instincts in a version of himself he loved. Mobius started out confronting Loki with the enormity of his failures and trying to manipulate him into assisting the TVA and evolved into a close friendship when they're willing to work with and believe in each other in a way Loki had never achieved before, not even with Thor.

Loki was never going to go on dates or settle down in glorious domesticity with jet-skis and stepsons. He was always going to achieve his 'glorious purpose': finding something greater than himself to value and to sacrifice for. To find something worthy of guarding.

Shipping is fun, but in this show? It was extraneous. A plot line with a romantic focus simply would not fit in with the themes with which the show grappled. So, take a deep breath, write your Lokius fanfiction, but dial it down a notch on your screams of betrayal and injustice. You look foolish.

#loki laufeyson #loki series #mobius m mobius #sylvie laufeydottir

[ilyfynn]

mmu nation i enlist your help in giving me something to do instead of listening in biology. yes i am a halex stan and these are all secretly an excuse to write more halex. 19k is not enough. behold: my first ever poll

more info about each below (proper infodump) (I know I say that I dislike all of them but just choose)

the below all contain halex

modern murder - so I took one look at an extracurricular GCSE class (mine) and went HOW FUN WOULD IT BE IF I MADE THEM MURDER EACH OTHER because they are So Mean and I don't like it. so i jiggled the dynamics around a bit and ended up changing all the characters so now I'm left with a murder au. I planned it across a while but did most of it at 1am, and especially considering I only really write shipping fanfic idk how it is for a murder. however I plan to write all of these someday so as I actually Came Up with an idea I will persevere if needs be

flower shop au - now this was entirely an excuse to write a flower shop au because it would be so freaking cute if alex sent hazel flowers like. LIKE. can you see my 2am vision here. but ofc it's mmu so I had to mysterify it and ngl the mystery I made is kinda trash but. CAN YOU SEE MY "i-planned-this-all-in-one-go-at-12am" VISION????? overall I don't mind this au but I think there isn't much purpose to it so that's why I dislike it somewhat

5+1 - alex-centric halex au. honestly an excuse to make him fall in love again because oblivious alex for the WIN. I probably will write this one first if this poll ends up being of no use because it's plain Pining and I love that

time loop x hanahaki - now this one is one to have an excuse to make myself cry. I really like making characters die, and I really like halex, so I try to make it work whilst being realistic. unfortunately the plan for this one only exists vaguely in my head and my mind and I have disagreements about how well it would work when executed, especially since the scene I've chosen requires a lot of thinking behind the scenes (I suck at that)

do a songfic: I am notoriously good at coming up with songfics that seem really good to me but are really just awfully executed. I'm thinking message in a bottle by Taylor

come up with another one - fake dating au????? I'm thinking that because probably the most impressive and glorious fanfic I've ever read was a fake dating. love love LOVE it. though it would have to be a very long and well thought out one because I'd want to make it Perfect. additionally it would take aaaaaaaaaages to plan but when I do write it I want it to be the peak of my experience in the hyperfixation (it won't because I'll probably have thought of a better au by then)

in conclusion I dislike most of these but will write them anyways. please excuse how I hate my writing too, ARGH I need to work on that. thank you for reading I infodumped very heavily here (I pin the blame on a looooong day)

#murder most unladylike #mmu #halexander #alexander x hazel #hazel wong #alexander arcady #hazel x alexander

[darklinaforever]

"For Sylki is obvious: toxic, toxic and they're basically the same person"

Is it crazy how people can be so off base ? I don't know in what aspect Sylki, who actually bring out the best in each other is supposed to be toxic… ?!

This word is used so much today without people seeming to understand the definition, that's when same crazy…

Oh and the delusion of Sylki being the same person, is, I already explained, completely false.

The series and the creators have been very clear on this subject, yet people persist in saying the opposite which annoys me deeply.

Here is my post where I dismantle this idea of ​​Sylki being the same person :

In it there is even passages which roughly explains how Sylki is a good relationship :

Then I forgot to specify it in this post, but as much as Sylvie helps Loki to accept and love himself, the opposite is also true with Sylvie who opens up much more to the fact than her basic identity is that of a Loki when they are both facing death in episode 4 (while wondering what it really means to be a Loki). Essentially, she no longer internally denies this part of herself, without ceasing to be the person that she chose to be : Sylvie.

I would like to understand how this relationship is toxic ?! Once again, I'm tired of seeing people use this term loosely, simply because they don't like a fictional relationship. Is the Sylki relationship complicated ? Yes. Undeniably. But complicated doesn’t mean toxic.

It's like people who insist on saying that the Sylki romance is not the center / driving force of the plot… :

"I just wanna talk about the show without seeing 16379490405 posts about how “uwu he loves him/her so much, he/she is his new glorious purpose 🥹”. Like. That is SO NOT the point of the show, guys."

When it is in fact the case, the series shows it the contrary, and the creators confirm it.

Loki is in love with Sylvie and their romantic relationship is the fucking center / driving force of the plot, confirmed again by the creators themselves. The Sylki romance is the heart of the story, whether you like it or not. (Most of the interviews from season 1 and 2 will confirm this. Even if I am of the opinion that in season 2 they actually put this relationship aside, with the character of Sylvie... Probably because negative reviews about it in recent years)

Also... Sylvie was literally compared to Loki's new glorious purpose in season 1, in a fucking dialogue from episode 5, and yet the antis or the neutrals still make fun of the pro-Sylki for daring to say, that indeed, Sylvie was in some way Loki's new glorious purpose. As if films were being made when it was literally in a dialogue from season 1 ?!

I mean, Loki absolutely wants to return to the TVA, and we spectators know that it is to find Sylvie. (The last thing he did before ending up there, was literally trying to confess his feelings to Sylvie...) Much more than bringing down the Time-Keepers... Like he said later, he would go where she goes.

Even though the other Lokis don't know why our Loki want to return to the TVA so badly, when one of them asks if Loki wants to return in it because he left his glorious purpose there... and Loki replies that is something like that... What do you think that means ?!

Loki's glorious purpose in season 1 was simply Sylvie, whether you like it or not. Damn, once again it’s literally in the dialogue ! What ?! You think Loki just wants to return to the TVA to bring down the Time-Keepers and have his own time stream to control ? When Loki says that in truth he has no idea what he will do and that he and Sylvie could figure it out together ?!

This dialogue on Loki's glorious purpose is even essentially paralleled with the suggestion that Sylvie's only good memory is Loki... Personal questions that they are asked in the same episode to which they respond vaguely and to which only the viewer can understand the answer...

But no, I imagine that all these people who think they are more intelligent think that the only good memory of Sylvie is something off-screen never mentioned, and that Loki's glorious purpose is only to play the hero and become king...

Also, I don't see why I should moderate my comments and clarify that all of this is my interpretation to avoid offending people.

They do not hesitate to assert their opinion as the right one in a condescending and or downright rude manner.

I understand that everyone is free to have their opinion on a fictional story, but after a while, that doesn't mean that every opinion is really valid in the canon story, especially when there is nothing to support it. I'm tired of seeing antis and neutrals shaming people who really understand the story being told and its messages.

Because yes, once again whether you like it or not, Sylki is not the same person, incest / autocest / selfcest. Sylki is a romance, which is the very heart of the story of the series, and yes, in season 1, Sylvie was associated with Loki's glorious purpose. All this, I maintain, are facts, and not fucking interpretation.

And probably the thing that annoys me the most is everyone who dares to put their clearly denigrating opinions in the tag dedicated to Sylki, instead of the anti one. Honestly, don't you have anything else to do ?! Do you think you are mature ? Clever ? You are just pathetic.

#sylki #pro sylki #sylvie x loki #loki x sylvie #sylvie and loki #loki and sylvie #loki odinson #loki laufeyson #sylvie laufeydottir #sylvie #loki #loki series #loki show #loki disney+ #loki s1 #loki season 1 #loki season one #loki s2 #loki season 2 #loki season two #loki mcu #mcu loki #loki marvel #marvel loki #mcu #marvel #mcu marvel #marvel mcu #disney + #disney

[thespineoftherighteous]

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the upper classmen being a mirror to each monster? That's not an idea I've seen before and I am Intrigued.

oooh anon this is such a scrumptious delicious concept thanks for asking. but also I definitely wasn't the first one to come up with this..there was a post I saw last year? the year before? that broke the parallels down really well. I'll try to find it

anyway so I think the basis of it is that each of the upperclassmen mirror one of the monsters in regards to the main issues they struggle with. more than that though they represent what it's like to find a way to live through those problems, that overcoming them can be done, because they're more developed, more matured than the monsters. and, because by the end of the series all the monsters have grown a lot from where they were at the beginning, you can see them at a point (or getting to a point) in life not unlike where their respective upperclassman is.

there's Matt and Aaron: both of them struggled hugely with drug addiction (influenced by their parents), both of them were at a point where shit could've gone downhill fast and both of them were forced out of it by the same person. although Matt technically got clean after Aaron, he seemed to get mentally healthier much faster (which makes sense given the difference in relationships, support, goals, etc of their situations). Matt immediately sees it as a chance given to him to start over; Aaron, perhaps because he still had something as equally consuming as drugs- Andrew and his deals- doesn't seem to evolve in that way until close to the end of the series. you can also see how they resemble each other in how they don't respond to provoking shit as much as the rest of the team (they're like the chill ones of their respective groups, with different vibes) but they will rise to violence if someone they care about is threatened.

Allison and Nicky are an easy one to see, I think. both of them had families who wanted them to be a certain way, who would rather kick them out than accept them as they were. the difference between them is that Allison has accepted it with a "fuck them" attitude while Nicky (as far as mid-trk) still reaches out, still wants to have a relationship with them. he still desperately craves that love and acceptance so much that he almost voluntarily keeps getting hurt, in a way that Allison has already decided isn't worth it.

there's Renee and Andrew: both deadly protective, these are the goalies, the protectors, the ones watching everyone's backs; both had unfathomably awful childhoods and both cover up/protect themselves from said childhoods in particular ways. Renee is on relatively good terms with the universe while Andrew, as in control as he makes himself out to be, is searching for something he thinks he could never have..for purpose, and for the nothing that he finds in Neil. with these two, it's never that Andrew's boundaries and distrust of others are things he needs to grow out of but that Renee represents a different response- she becomes the kindness she was never shown, he holds a knife to anything that could hurt him again.

Dan and Kevin: they're the ones that could've done everything right but still would've had circumstances work against them. they might be good but, according to others, they're not good enough, always dismissed, always overshadowed. the stark difference between them is that Kevin believes in the 2 on his face (until he doesn't) and Dan never does. the doubt bounces off Dan while Kevin absorbs it like sponge until someone like Andrew wrings it out of him. Kevin puts his full weight on his support (until he doesn't); Dan's never had that support to begin with so she only knows how to live without it. Dan knows her worth and will project it in bright orange writing, Kevin was taught his worth in finite numbers, so long as his feet stay on the court, and he's never certain of it (until he is). the glorious thing about this, though, is that you can literally see on page when Kevin overcomes this. it takes every fucking ounce of his strength but he gets the tattoo. he walks out with his stick in his left hand. he beats Riko, in ever way. it's magnificent. (I digress)

and then there's Seth and Neil. I think they could be interchangeable with Dan and Kevin actually but I like this one better. I don't think they necessarily mirror each other as cleanly as the others and I don't want to force it for sake of having everyone neatly paired off. but shit... they're the end and the beginning, respectively. Neil is the first success story, the embodiment of what Wymack's team stands for, Seth is an example of why that's what it stands for. Neil has no life, Seth has no use for his. Seth falls victim to the fate Neil spent years of his life running away from.

all that being said. it's not to say that the upperclassmen have completely healed from their pasts and don't have plenty issues of their own. I think anyone can see that *all* of the foxes have room to grow. it's just that they're a lot more developed in where they're at in life. and I think the monsters are not all at the same place in their healing because that's not something that's linear and it's not always as easily seen as a tattoo on the face. I think Kevin and Neil, for example, are at a more adjusted place by the end of tkm (Neil more so) but you can see all of them heading in better directions.

it's also not to say that to Heal™ the monsters have to be exactly where the upperclassmen are. that's also not how it works. but it is working. and (hot take? maybe?) I think that's something Nora does well. she lets them grow. their growth isn't always on page or in the definitive shape of a queen tattoo or finished by the end of the series but it is certainly there.

#AKSHDJAKAJSJA CAN YOU TELL I GOT DISTRACTED WITH THE KEVIN ONE #just went off like alSO my boy can do THIS and he's so good at THAT and he's so so super special #anyway anon this took me two hours to write because i was thinking very much and i just read it over and its kind of shit but i hope you #dont hate this #aftg #all for the game #tfc #the foxhole court #mine aftg

[animebw]

Short Reflection: Princess Jellyfish

Let's be honest: we're all a little weird. Nobody fits perfectly into the role society expects from them, and pursuing that ideal is often a losing game for a booby prize. As a certified genderfluid Aspergers' gremlin, I've been painfully aware all my life of how impossible "fitting in" can be when society's view of normal is far out of reach. But I've also been aware of how rewarding it can be to find your own version of normal out on the margins, finding a happiness all your own that doesn't need anyone else's approval to be real. And above all else, Princess Jellyfish is a celebration of exactly that kind of next-to-normalcy. It's a love letter to all of us who fell short of the scripts we were given but found something far more worthwhile along the way, all the freaks and weirdos and washouts who came into our own by leaven the beaten trail behind and charting our own quirky course through this wonderfully strange world we call home.

Our setting is Amamizuku, a boarding house for women who've slipped through the cracks of society. Chinese history nuts, train otaku, doll obsessives, women who've "failed" to live up to their expected role of finding a husband and becoming a doting wife. But that suits them all just fine: they've found their own kind of family among each other. A bizarre, constantly broke family prone to fits of geeky infodumping about their preferred hyperfixations, but a family nonetheless. All except for the youngest among them: Tsukimi, a girl still coping with the death of her mother and struggling with crippling self-doubt. Her mother always told her that all girls grow up to be princesses, but every time she sees her geeky, chubby, socially awkward uberdork self in the mirror, she sees the furthest thing from a princess she can imagine. And as happy as she is among her new friends, part of her still feels inadequate for not living up to the ideal of femininity she thinks she's supposed to fulfill.

That all changes when someone who does embody that ideal of femininity waltzes into her life. The only catch? It's actually a guy! Kuranosuke is a politician's son who's taken to cross-dressing as a way of distancing himself from his stifling family and social role, staking his own identity as a glorious drag queen in defiance of what someone like him is expected to be. And when he puts on the makeup and dresses and boob pads, he's a more womanly woman than most actual women around him. A chance encounter brings his life and Tsukimi's crashing together, and when it becomes clear that Amamizuku may be in jeapordy due to an urban development project his father is invested in, he decides to partner with her and all the boarding house girls to find some way to save it, preserving the community they've carved out for themselves in defiance of a world that wants to drag them back into "normal" society. Provided his little secret doesn't get out, of course.

It's a wonderfully quirky little show, bursting with the kind of lived-in detail that shoujo anime so often excel at. Amamizuku is a wonderfully realized community of oddball losers, and while some of the characters walk the line between amusing and annoying at times, you really come to adore all of them for their eccentricities. Tsukimi in particular is absolutely adorable, a perfect bundle of nerves and anxiety brought to life by Kana Hanazawa's stammering brilliance. She takes you through the whole gamut of emotions from quiet sadness to freaking out to hyperfixated intensity without ever missing a beat. And seeing her play off Kuranosuke as they help each other understand their own hang-ups a little better really put a smile on my face. Neither of them fit the image of what a man and woman are supposed to be, and in that mutual defiance (albeit far more purposeful on Kuranosuke's part), they're able to see the best in each other that they're not always able to see themselves.

But its in the moments where the woman of Amamizuku crash up against "normal" society that Princess Jellyfish really shines. This show is deeply interested in the connections between the marginal and the mainstream, what it means to be "normal" and what so-called normalcy takes for granted in trying to impose a universal standard. There's a great moment where Kuranosuke's giving the women glow-ups so they look trendy and fashionable in order to infiltrate a board meeting about the redevelopment, and she says, "I won't tell you to change your personal style or fit yourself into their boxes. But if you want to take on this shallow world, you have to fight on terms that shallow people understand." It's such a great summation of the pointlessness of our image-focused culture, how a little lip gloss and Coco Chanel can transform someone's perception from a layabout spinster to a glamorous socialite without changing the person at their core. And in playing with those expectations, Princess Jellyfish is able to draw out a much deeper, more honest beauty from its characters, a beauty that shines just as brightly in a pearl necklace or ratty tracksuit.

The one sour note throughout the show is a subplot involving Kuranosuke's older brother Shuu, a much more politically-minded and traditionally masculine man who gets involved with the woman in charge of pushing the landscape development. She drugs Shuu and takes pictures to make it look like they had sex when he was drunk, blackmailing him in order to get closer to his father and influence his support of her project. It's a deeply disturbing event, and it's really unclear whether or not Princess Jellyfish realizes how messed up it is. Like, this woman essentially makes Shuu think she assaulted him when he was blackout drunk, and it's clear he walks away from the encounter feeling violated (He even says out loud that he was taken advantage of!). But the show pretty much puts all that messiness aside for the sake of fast-tracking a romantic subplot between them that, I'm sorry, is just the most forced thing in the world even without the not-actually-rape hanging in the background. It feels grossly nonchalant about such a serious subject, and while it far from ruins the show, it makes every scene involving them a chore to sit through.

Perhaps that all comes to a much more satisfying conclusion later in the manga. Sadly, this eleven-episode adaptation comes nowhere near close to an ending for any of the threads it sets up, leaving a distinct sense of anticlimax when all is said and done. But hey, if Kimi ni Todoke can somehow wrangle a sequel over a decade later, perhaps there's still hope for a second season of Princess Jellyfish yet. Until then, though, we'll have to remain content with this unfinished but still incredibly enjoyable taste of life on the wrong (but actually right) side of the tracks. And I give it a score of:

7/10

And now to re-watch Kimi ni Todoke and continue reveling in the joys of 2010-era shoujo anime. See you next time!

#anime #tabw #the anime binge-watcher #princess jellyfish #kuragehime #1011 aniwatch

[stupid-lemon-eater]

Okay, I can’t take it any more, I give in. Please explain Guardian to me. I’ve tried looking at the Wikipedia page but it provided no answers. All I can tell is that there are these two guys, and one is a police officer and the other a university professor but they’re both also magical immortals or something? And maybe one of them is the eponymous guardian of the other? If that’s the case, I totally can’t tell which is which. Please help, every day I see gifsets and each one leaves me more confused than the last. I thought The Untamed was bad, but this…

ehehehehe :D

so

we're gonna need a readmore for this lol

guardian was based on a bl book and was obviously censored - i'll provide an explanation of the show rather than the book, but pls know the most significant censoring (other than the obvious) was the change of everything from ghosts, demons, etc to aliens

you get this big animated infodump at the beginning with no warning and it's glorious

for backstory, there's three races on haixing - the haixingians (effectively humans), the yashou (alien race #1, can transform into plants or animals depending on type [main animals are snakes and crows, with one noticeable exception in my beloved catboy da qing]), and the dixingren (alien race #2, can have basically any powers that you want for plot related purposes, have to remain underground due to a treaty that was written 10,000 years ago)

zhao yunlan (the one with the facial hair) is the chief of the special investigations division (sid), which is kinda like torchwood but less and also more competent? depends on how you look at it. he's the titular guardian, because he's in charge of keeping haixing safe by catching the dixing criminals who come to the surface (in the book he also gets a cool whip which is called the guardian order - at one point he mentions that when he was given it he thought he was gonna be the first male sailor moon, bless him). smart and smartass. likes being one step ahead of you without you knowing. permanently exasperated with existence. in absolute love with shen wei.

shen wei (the one with the eyes, you know the one) is hei pao shi, or the black cloaked envoy - he's the dixingian envoy also tasked with ensuring all dixingren who unlawfully cross into haixing are punished back in dixing. university professor who teaches biology. worst liar in the entire world. wears sleeve garters and an ass chain to kill me personally. absolutely devoted to zhao yunlan.

they will send you absolutely insane and you will thank them for it. they're on levels of eye contact never before seen. together they Are the gaslight/gatekeep/girlboss mansplain/manipulate/malewife couple of your dreams/nightmares.

shen wei has been around for the aforementioned 10,000 years - zhao yunlan is his own special case ;)

there are 7 members of the sid and they will all send you various levels of feral

da qing - aforementioned beloved cat boy. zhao yunlan's cat but also brother but also father but also son. best dynamic. they ran out of budget to be able to have him transform into his cat form like 5 episodes in (their budget got majorly cut partway through), so instead it's just a guy in overalls acting like a cat. i lvoe him.

zhu hong - a snake yashou. my absolute wife. has amazing fashion.

lin jing - resident scientist. stresses himself out a lot. makes me laugh. still stumble over saying jin ling when referring to him

wang zheng - ghost lady! she's very sweet. her backstory is wack lol

sang zan - ghost lady's ghost husband. part of the wack backstory. sid's illiterate librarian <3

xiao guo - baby boy. baby. the babiest of boys you will ever see. precious little beanpole. genuinely the sweetest character you'll ever see in your life. levels of earnestness you wouldn't expect someone to pull off, but he absolutely does.

chu shuzhi - dixingren. has magical strings and a magical puppet. you can pinpoint the moment he falls in love with xiao guo down to the millisecond, and i screamed when i watched it.

throughout the plot they're tasked with collecting the four hallows, holy tools that have a lot of power, because the resident Big Bad (and their minions) want them to take over the world and so on and so forth (they're fun and dumb)

this show will tear your heart out and you will thank it, and then you will rewatch it while sobbing the whole way through because gahhh!

if you want to watch it, the show has unfortunately been taken off youtube, however you can watch it here or download it with subs here :D pls note that the theme song is an absolute banger and you will scream-sing along to it for most of the show

if anyone who reads this thinks i've missed anything important without spoilers, pls add it on!

tldr: "guardian is about making u insane in the best way" - mirf

#guardian #poorpoorpitifulme #this made my day

[vacantgodling]

1, 6, 7, 43, 52 for the polycule asks!

thank you both for asking and for making all of these amazing ask games! i'm actually gonna be answering these for the main group of polycule ocs i have: the kiddos from celestial weddings

for the uninitiated; that wip is literally an excuse to make a giant poly with different wedding customs. there is technically a deeper plot but idc about it PFFFF i really just love them <3 most of the way i'll be answering these questions will actually be how they operate once the "main journey" of the story is over and once they settle into poly-dom lmao. BUT onto the questions tho:

1. How many members are in the polycule? How are they related to each other? Feel free to draw a flow chart!

so there are 9 (nine) members total of the polycule! they are:

celestial ruler, dagmar (he/they/she)

lilliabet (she/they)

izul (they/them)

vigustav (he/him)

muu (they/he/she)

zhujen (she/her)

almine (he/she)

rhohanen (they/he)

aenlin (he/they)

sorry this is a bit hard to read but it’s so hard to put everything into words LOL. they’re all in love tho

6. Where do each of the members land on the "solo poly" to "entwined poly" spectrum? & 7. Where do each of the members land on the "free agent" to "community oriented" spectrum?

due to the nature of being lovers to the celestial ruler/the celestial ruler and they oversee all the spheres etc, all of them are on the entwined side of poly; they make decisions as a group and everyone views each other as family/lovers/etc. this ties directly into 7 because all of them are community oriented. in general all of the spheres place a lot of value of a certain form of connectedness, for the sheer purpose of being able to have successful celestial unions to better guide all of the spheres. while all their cultures are different, they're all supposed to come together

43. Have cultural dynamics played a part in how the polycule operates?

so, in the unnamed universe of celestial weddings, each of the 8 spheres are all ruled under one celestial ruler, who has a council of 'lovers' made up of one chosen member from a royal family in each sphere (or culture).

here's the super long, fancy explanation i wrote awhile ago:

this land was created eons ago by a being known as THE CELESTIAL RULER. through the power of the stars, sacred magic, and the love and support of eight other stars, the eight realms or STAR-SPHERES were created. each sphere resembled the star that the ruler made it for, and each sphere was named for that very star: DATTENMAOW, MUKHIRU, VUKTER, DENJAI, GUANAI, ZALI, AERONWEN, and LESEDI.

once the land was made, the celestial ruler breathed life into it. the grasses began to sprout and trees began to bloom. animals of all shapes and colors rose from the ground. the land looked so inviting that little stars began to fall and populate the land; the first beings of the spheres.

they thanked the celestial ruler for the land’s hospitality and began to mingle. cultures began to rise, and intermix, and children were born. the land was coming to the ruler’s grand divination.

seeing that all was going according to the stars, the first celestial ruler had finished their long work of creation, they laid down to rest and eventually passed on; ascending the HEAVENLY STAIRWELL to return to the stars from whence they came. the place where they rested in the middle of the spheres became known as THE CELESTIAL CITY or THE GATEWAY TO HEAVEN. the first ruler never returned to the land they created.

BUT, their spirit was to return; to be reborn among the people of the spheres, in order to guide them in a glorious, harmonious existence; precious specks of glorious starlight. this spirit needed to be found, to be honed, and be ascended.

who better to find the spirit of the celestial ruler, than the eight lovers who inspired the land itself; and they became known as THE COUNCIL OF LOVERS, their duty to inspire and empower a ruling celestial, and find the divination of their new spirit once their current intonation passed on.

8 HOPEFULS found to possess immense amounts of starlight were plucked, one from each sphere, each to find the eight LOVERS who should stand by their side, one from the royal family of each sphere. they would be tested and judged, and their capabilities measured, until one who’s fate was written among the stars stood before the council accompanied by those who were divined to lead it with them. the hopeful who succeeded these trials would ascend.

thus, THE JOURNEY OF THE HOPEFULS was forged, and its legacy set in stone, to carry on for millennia after the first ruler was long gone

####

as the celestial ruler is a being imbued with the powerful and destructive creational power of the cosmos, a new celestial ruler must be chosen carefully. so carefully in fact, that their fate is already written among the stars themselves. the LOVERS of the previously passed celestial ruler are tasked with finding candidates who are imbued with EVER-PRESENT STARLIGHT, and each sphere will have one candidate chosen each, that has the most of it within that sphere. once 8 HOPEFULS are selected, they are whisked away to the celestial city, where each is paired with a LOVER to guide them in their training for 27 years.

after they are fully trained in the ways and rites of a ruler, they are sent sphere by sphere to woo potential lovers from the royal families of each sphere. all royal families have 8 children, or choose 8 candidates to stand in as royal children should they not have enough born, or the children that are currently in line are too young (under 20 star cycles) to be considered. the hopefuls should chose their lovers based on connection- for the celestial ruler’s fate has already been written, and as such, a hopeful should connect with the partner of their choice, and they are to be wed according to the customs of each sphere, before the hopefuls alone, as a party, move on to the next sphere.

once they travel through each of the eight spheres, they will stand before the current COUNCIL OF LOVERS and their abilities, as well as their choices in marriage will be judged. the council will look at how their journey has matured their EVER-PRESENT STARLIGHT and whosoever’s fate matches the stars will ascend and become the celestial ruler. then the lover’s council will be occupied by their wedded lovers until their time too eventually comes.

so long story short: the main overarching culture of being apart of the celestial ruler story (tm) is what influences how their polycule operates. they're guiders of the spheres first and lovers second, and there's nothing to say that they HAVE to be romantically involved. i personally as a writer like romance, so dag's cylce is full of romance; however, other rulers and lovers have been varying from just coworkers to certain lovers are married and others are single etc etc. the only thing they can't do is bear children nor have close personal relationships (basically affairs) outside of their lovers--though keeping contact with family from their homeland is encouraged.

all the spheres have a generally accepted level of polyamory but the celestial ruler is a completely different situation. one day i'll break down the worldbuilding of each individual sphere more but not today LMAO.

52. How well do the matamours get along? Do they even know each other?

well at first all of them were metamours; dag was essentially the central spoke of the relationship (as the celestial ruler) and the other 8 were those he married, one from each sphere, to ascend the celestial throne. they all didn't know each other until dag was officially crowned it was then that they all met. this is heavy asterisk for aenlin; he knew all of the others because he was originally a hopeful like dag, but knew he had no chance of becoming the celestial ruler since he's of the royal family of lesedi; being as such that he can't marry one of his siblings and he can't take over his own sphere as the second born, it kind of put him in a rock and a hard place. at least until, he realized that he was the final "correct" partner for dag and eventually accepted it. so, aside from aenlin and dag, the rest of them didn't know each other and now were tasked with essentially ruling the world together for however many centuries. there was a lot of politeness and awkwardness at first, especially from those like izul (who is generally more reserved), and almine (who can be quite intimidating) and rhohanen (a fucking brat LMAO). but as years go by, they all settle not only into their roles, but into loving dag, and then being able to get to know one another not just as strangers but eventual lovers of each other as well.

so tldr; they all start as metamours of dag, but then melt into a full blown 9 way poly lol where everyone is dating/married to each other tm.

#s: celestial weddings #worldbuilding

[we-pay-for-everything]

Your post about nace and the one sidedeness of their relationship just made me sad lmao bc it's something that's always bothered me, ace is always there for Nancy in every shape or form but the opposite is not true at all so their relationship feels incredibly unbalanced. They've shown us Nancy loves him for sure, making that deal with her grandma to save his life, almost sacrificing the town for him, going back to breaking the curse immediately even though she straight up died but like you said she's single minded and doesn't notice things and I think it's mostly a plot thing especially in s3 and 4 bc they had only 13 eps and this is a show that is served best with at least more bc look at how well plotted the s1 mystery was so they don't have a lot of time and for plot convenience they tend to do stuff like this and ace falls victim to it most bc he's the main characters love interest so she's the one who's always off doing stuff the most and it sucks bc it might make it seem like he loves her a lot more than she loves him and that's not my kind of ship, I like equally madly in love against the world couples, hopefully whatever they're cooking up for the last eps will make up for all of this. Also I wish we could've gotten the 5 seasons, 22 ep version of this show and nace it would've been glorious

Yeah... Ace's problem is that he's become the love interest. Atp we're more likely to see Nancy help George and Bess, because feminism (not to put a negative spin on it lmao), and because Ace and Nancy are purposely kept apart a lot, sometimes things are weird between them due to jealousy issues, etc. it kinda feels like Nancy is there for everyone but Ace at times. He gets pushed aside by the writers, and this season he's been isolated from everyone else.

The one-sideness of the relationship isn't even the worst thing. It's the lack of a relationship at all. Rewatching season 3 - ironically he season where they become canon - it feels like most of the time they couldn't be more distant from each other. Seasons 1 and 2 truly do a better job building up their relationship. The show relied too heavily on the draw of the friends to lovers trope and the viewers shipping it with minimum effort on the writers' parts.

They could've been a beautiful ship if the writers had bothered to mature their dynamic and not just go from friends to deadly love curse. I still like them a lot, but it's bittersweet, especially with how season 4 is shaping up.

Thanks for the ask!

#ask #nancy drew cw #cw nancy drew #nancy drew #ace [redacted] #ace nancy drew #ace x nancy #nancy x ace #thanks for the ask!