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xenoblademisadventures · 2 years

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Ok, I reached the point where the entire party gets access to mechs. I'm enjoying the game so far. I wanna go back to the desert since I rushed the exploration a little (because I wanted to get more access to the game's mechanics). Anyways, so far the plot's left me with a million questions, I'm going to list them. Pls don't spoilers. I expect some of these questions to go unanswered and others to be related to plot twists.

1. Where did the names "Agnus" and "Keves" come from? Like, in-universe. Alrest already had a name to describe all of its countries and while Bionis/Mechonis didn't, I assume some compromise between those two names would exist.

2. How tf did Melia and Nia get into power? With Melia's case, she ended the series as queen of the bird ppl, but there were never any ambitions to govern anyone else. In Nia's case, she was at best the former Blade of the former mayor of Torigoth, which would put even Pandoria and Brighid in more valid places than her to take the throne of all of Alrest.

3. So, why are Melia and Nia acting antithetical to the themes of both of their games? 1 had a lot about ppl chosing their own fate and 2 had a lot about passing the torch between generations. I assume there will be an explanation.

4. So, everyone in the party is based off someone Melia or Nia knew. The Keves gang share personality traits with the 1 gang while the Agnus gang shares visual similarities with characters from 2. Are they, like, reincarnations or something? I assume there's a particular reason for this, especially with Eunie getting a flashback from Melia's life.

5. How tf did Melia give birth to Machina (but Nopon are incompatable)?

6. I was under the assumption that Blades were infertile, so how the tf did Nia give birth to anyone?

7. How much time passed exactly? The oldest bird person in 1 was 300 and Melia was 88, she doesn't appear that old in 3, so I'm guessing 100 years approximately. Especially if the average lifespan is, like, 7 or something, that's good enough for a multi-generational conflict.

8. How do the Alphabet Soup Power Rangers fit into this exactly? Where did they come from? I assume they're also working with Agnus. Why are Melia and Nia working with them?

9. So, are we going to be reintroduced to old characters other than Melia and Nia later down the line. Like, from 1, all of the High Entia and Machina should still be there while all the Blades from 2 should still be alive. Are they going to show up in The City tm? If 3 takes place less than 100 years later, that would give child characters like Juju, Rex, and Tora a chance of returning. I hope Juju returns as the final boss. I said this about 2 and I'll say it again about 3. Juju final boss prediction.

10. I wanna know what happened to the Aegises. I mostly just want to see the 3 designers fix Pyra's character design.

11. Since when was green hair introduced to Keves's genetic pool?

12. How did Agnus get access to mechs? The Keves mechs are obviously mechon, but 2 didn't have any mech titans.

13. What happened to the Blade Cycle? Do Blades still turn into titans? My guess is that maybe they don't resonate in the new world, but the first thing we see happen there is Rex reawakening Pyra and Mythra.

14. What's Alvis been up to? This doesn't look like what either he or Shulk intended. War isn't very "hand in hand." Also, even if he knew about Alrest, I can only assume he was not expecting for Alrest and Bionis to be recreated at the exact same time.

15. I'm getting some birth visuals from the game so far. There are the test tube babies, but the mechs come from Egg. I hope the characters have to react to a live birth later in the game lmao.

16. All of the Agnus characters appear to be based on Blades and all the Keves characters would be ether based. From what I can tell, the Flame Clocks are collecting ether from corpses to power new life. Effectively meaning everyone is reincarnating repeatedly and rapidly while being harvested for their energy. Not too differently from Zanza's system in 1. A similar death and rebirth system exists in 2 and Amalthus uses it to harvest energy. So, what about the Alrest human characters? They aren't tied to a cycle or ether, so what are they up to?

17. So Noah can just summon the Lucky Seven? Also I already forgot the origin explained, but is it the fucking True Monado or something? I think it's the Monado.

18. The Ouroboroses kinda look like the Ghosts in X. Is X going to be part of this hodgepodge?

19. Why do the mechs have titties?

20. The Moebius theme slaps so fucking hard. Not a question. Simply a fact.

#xenoblade chronicles 3 #xenoblade spoilers #xenoblade 2 spoilers

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birinboom · 1 month

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🛼 🔪 🍅 🪲 🧩

Ooh, a second ask! Thank you so much! 💖💖💖

🛼 ⇢ describe your latest wip with five emojis

❗🐦🪭🌉😻

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

Oh dear, which one to pick… I’ve researched plant poison, I’ve researched which weapon is better (between a long bow and a crossbow) if the intent is to injure but NOT kill, I’ve researched whether a metal ship stranded in a desert would get colder the further you get into the hull and by how much, I’ve researched how much rust on a gun renders it unusable, I’ve researched male infertility to the point I got ads for fertility centers. Most of my fics don’t call for super outrageous research topics…

🍅 ⇢ give yourself some constructive criticism on your own writing

Try to expand your vocabulary, it would add some new flavor. Reading more would help with this.

Vary the length of your sentences, you have a habit of droning on and on (like now!) or making all your sentences the same length.

🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here

“When pressed about why he didn’t want to marry any of the court ladies, Jing Yuan just laughed, stating with a smile that he had neither the time nor the energy for that kind of courtship. But the emperor saw the slight downturn of the corners of his lips. He saw through the facade of his best and oldest friend.”

Yup I started working on the Apothecary Diaries AU 😶 Guess the emojis above make more sense now…

(Also, this is what took me so long to reply, I needed to actually write those 50 words)

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

Lack of proper tagging. I have some subjects and kinks that are traumatic to me, and I either have to be in the right headspace to read about them or I skip them altogether. Nothing’s worse than reading a fic and out of nowhere getting slapped in the face with a subject I didn’t want to face that day because the author thinks it’s no big deal 😅

If a fic has such poor grammar that it’s practically unreadable. Like lack of any punctuation, or sentences that end up confusing. The last one can happen in a scene where there are two or more characters who use the same pronouns and names aren’t used. If I read ‘he did, he said, he thinks, he laughed, etc. etc.’ it becomes difficult to figure out which he does what. I’m guilty of doing this too, because it’s so obvious to the writer who does what. But as a reader it can become nearly incomprehensible.

When it’s very clear (to me at least) that the writer didn’t research something. I once read the first few paragraphs of a fic (gonna try to make this generic) where the reader went berry picking at a berry farm and proceeded to absolutely mangle the plants. And the owner thought it was cute! Like, oi, that’s your income being broken here! I would’ve felt better about the whole thing if it was a plot point, the reader doesn’t know what they’re doing, farmer comes over to help - and to save his bushes - and romance ensues. And maybe that is where the fic went and I would’ve found out if I continued reading, but… that and a dose of ‘he would not fucking SAY that!’ meant that I stopped reading.

Writer's Truth or Dare Ask Game

#ask #ask game #akumicchi #precious moots 🐸

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zmeu-ra · 2 years

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“Victory Garden” is the only way Silvaze can persist in any meaningful way

So I've been torturing myself for like a month researching Silver and Blaze's dynamic. I love these two together but MAN their canon relationship is totally jumbled up by the lore gods. It doesn’t work. Trust me, I’ve tried to reconcile it, and it’s just WACK.

As we know, it all started in Sonic '06. Despite kickstarting the relationship in the first place, the lore doesn’t make any sense. Blaze sacrifices herself and seals Iblis in her soul, only for Silver and co to erase Iblis from existence... so what was the point? And then there's the confusion surrounding Blaze's location: did she get sealed in the Sol dimension and become a princess? Was she already a princess and was just going back? Or was she sent somewhere else? We've gotten various interpretations from the creators at Sonic Team, no one can agree. It’s hilariously sad that this kerfuffle both established and ruined Silvaze.

When do Silver and Blaze next meet? It's Colors (but only on DS lol) with everything reset so they don't remember each other. There’s no way the writers were accepting the debris of 06, but they didn’t want to completely write it off, so they left it vague. The two have barely a wink and a nudge at their lost past. It's hardly anything.

There's literally nothing of them together in Generations, leaving us with Team Sonic Racing. I'm not sure if it’s canon or not, but we do get a look at Silvaze's dynamic. The two have some cute competitive voice lines, and Silver's apprehension to race is what starts Blaze on her own investigation. Again, cute but not much substance. They’re still strangled by that weird old past of theirs, binding them even when they don’t have much to do with each other. The fans and devs know about their connection, but they don’t. It feels so unnatural.

And that's LITERALLY it for Silvaze’s relationship in the games. One of the most enduring Sonic ships, and there’s barely any canon support for it lol. So that leaves us with the IDW comic series. Here Sonic sees the two discussing their plans after the Angel Island battle, and that's it. Nice?

But I just reread the bonus comic “Victory Garden” by Evan Stanley and Gigi Dutreix. On my first reading I saw it as little more than a nice moment between the two, but if my meta interpretation is correct, then guys this comic is so important to the future of Silvaze.

Alright recap: Blaze finds Silver’s fighting with this garden. He’s so excited to grow plants, but no matter what he does they don’t grow.

Blaze figures that the soil is too tarnished, broken down into unhealthy dust by the chemicals from weapons and explosives. She burns down the tiny plants Silver’s been working toward so far, but only to use the ashes to fertilize the soil again.

DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR? BECAUSE IT SHOULD!

Victory Garden is a new start to Silver and Blaze’s relationship. Their 06 foundation was too unstable, too marred by chaos and darkness and plot holes. It made these two destined for cosmic failure. And now that they’re separated, they are from such different places across time and space that getting them meaningful interactions is difficult without a huge focus shift away from Sonic (Flynn has said so on Bumblekast). You can’t build a faithful, sensible relationship on such unstable soil.

This comic takes Silver and Blaze’s old relationship, steps that frankly weren’t working, and immolates them down for a fresh start. Forget Iblis, forget Crisis City, and start anew. Fans can cling onto 06 if they want, but it’s time for the canon (at least IDW) to move on and stop retreading and dancing around infertile soil. This is a new beginning.

Whether or not Sonic Team decides to actually do anything with it, whatever. THIS is where Silver and Blaze begin now. Maybe it’s the complexity of this relationship, the fact that it seemed to be fated to never be, is what makes it so appealing?

#sonic #silvaze #silver the hedgehog #blaze the cat #it's really not that complex but i needed to make myself like a visual guide #this is how i'm gonna write them from now on #sorry 06 you're sorta cool but we're never gonna get anywhere with your insanity #analysis #sonic the hedgehog #idw

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iaintyourbro · 3 years

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The Unknown Journey Continues

Part 1

I know it's been a while... but I've been going down a rabbit hole with @starlight-samurai regarding time loops, Jenova, Minerva, and more fun. So I figured I'd try to put it into one post to get the insanity out of my head. Everything in here is based on things we've found by either going through more obscure Ultimanias, learning more about Dirge of Cerberus and trying to decipher what the hell Jenova is by putting together various sources - including other Square Enix games - and how they handled freakishly similar scenarios.

Did you know there is a companion mobile game for it that was out on the good old flip phones? Did you know there was an online mode in Dirge of Cerberus only available in Japan, but had story elements that were not in the main game?

The sad part is, there's still so much to go through...

(I've also had various discussions with @ourfinalheaven, Manu, who doesn't have Tumblr, so here is her Twitter. and Somebody's Nightmare (here is her Twitter). So I wanted to tag them here, as it's much more fun to discuss these ideas as a group, since it'll only help you build on and strengthen your own ideas.)

Please be aware, there will be Spoilers for FFVII - Almost all Compilation titles, Xenogears, and NieR Automata throughout this.

So let's go on a journey where we explore what actually already exists in the compilation - including the idea of the whispers and timeloops - how Minerva may play into everything, and what exactly Jenova is capable of doing.

I asked Sesi if he'd ever played any of the NieR games, because he'd said something that made me wonder if they were going to take a similar approach. As a very, very quick high level summary: NieR Automata deals with a time loop type of idea. The androids will be rebooted and repeat the same things over and over again. This is broken when 2B is killed by A2 because she becomes infected with a virus. That being said, you have the option after Ending E to either erase all of your data and end the cycle OR you can try again. The Pods have a discussion, and one asks, "But won't they just do the same thing again?" and the other replies with "Maybe. But it could also be different this time."

Here's Sesi's message back to me when I asked him about this (cleaned up a bit since we were having a casual conversation over Discord):

Maybe I could just guess based comparatively on the Dirge storyline, because that was sort of SE's first flirtation with “robots and androids” since they’re all programmed and locked behind like task managers and shit that can shut them down. The story of the online mode for DoC that came out in Japan, we never got to see it, you’re basically an Android OC and you have to get to “the end of the level” and then essentially die, and a new one takes its place. This keeps happening until Weiss is essentially freed from being able to be task managed by the guys who are suppose to be able to control them and I know from tons of years with Square games that they’re verrrrry bad at differentiating their narratives they tend to just keep “ripping themselves off” so is it anything close to that?

Cuz if so I think I kinda know what you’re saying and yeah, I agree, I think with CC bringing in its poetic symbolism and LOVELESS, and DoC bringing back the cyclic nature of the lore, whispers, premonitions and future visions, proto-Materia and the perversion of this next cycle since the planet can no longer cleanse and protect itself and its will is weakening lesser and lesser to the point where it’s fate is “in a true sense of jeopardy This time essentially it’s all tied in together and sort of played as though it's a fated track; a cycle of events and something has hitched it, thus the whispers manifesting and Sephiroth's higher implied control over his destiny. Of course, even all that is just their new red herring game, but it’s definitely a part of the lore they want to play with, in order to go back and reMAKE the OG with the comp inserted from inception. Also gut punch a lot.

Time Loops

I was somewhat surprised to find out that this concept is NOT new to FFVII's universe. It's discussed in Dirge of Cerberus... probably one of the least played and least understood of the compilation. (Trying to sell a third person shooter with terrible controls to a market of mostly people used to turn-based combat wasn't going to go well.)

On top of it, we didn't even get all of it, since online mode was never released outside of Japan, and the Dirge of Cerberus Lost Episode was on Amp'd Mobile and Verizon flip phones back in 2006. Were you around for the cell phones in 2006? I had the ones on the list, and how somebody could play a game on those blows my mind.

Square has a tendency to reuse themes from their other titles. Probably one of the most blatant is the similarities between Xenogears and Final Fantasy VII. They were both being developed at the same time and a lot of ideas that didn't make it into FFVII ended up in Xenogears.

NieR

So how does this work? In NieR (both Replicant and Automata), you play the same path multiple times. Each time, it's slightly different depending on what side quests you did your first and second playthrough, but there's also other subtle differences throughout the story. In Automata, you get to play as 2B your first playthrough and 9S for your second. They follow the same path, but you get it from his perspective the second time and it reveals a bit more of what is going on. However, even with some slight differences, the main plot points stay the same and the ending result it also the same.

Then on your third playthrough, you wake up in the Bunker, and you're getting ready to go on a new mission. This time, though, 2B is killed and shit hits the fan. Things get crazy, you play as a new character: A2. In the end, pretty much everyone "dies", but you can choose to "reboot" and try again. You also can say you are done and let them all rest and delete your save data (the game gives you the option for both Automata and Replicant, and with Replicant, it actually leads to a new ending).

The striking thing for me is... There are certain events that will always happen, no matter what.

Fixed Points in Time

It's been years since I've watched Doctor Who, but there was something that stuck with me, and that was the fixed points in time. You can read about all of them here, but here's the basics:

Now, of course Doctor Who goes into this with much more detail and it's a recurring theme. However, as you read through that page, you'll probably find many aspects that have been used in various JRPGs that you've played. And Doctor Who most likely pulled some of the idea from classic Science Fiction novels. Each story puts its own spin on it.

How does this relate to FFVII Remake? Well, when they say that the major plot points will stay the same, it reminds me of this. No matter what, Cloud must fall into the Sector 5 Church, the Sector 7 Plate must be dropped, Aerith and Zack both must die, and Meteor has to be summoned, to name a few. So, with a time loop, those things would still have to take place in order to prevent a complete collapse of reality (at least in how Doctor Who uses it).

Therefore, the Whispers are ensuring that the Will of the Planet is followed.

One of the major themes in FFVII is that of loss. People die and they do not come back. Yes, other FF games do allow this to happen (FFX, FFXIII, FFXV), but VII is not those games. It was written with that idea in mind, that once a person dies, they, just like in real life, are dead and cannot be brought back.

I've previously written that I think they'll make us believe we are able to change fate, but we will eventually be slammed with the reality that we can't. That is because the planet has determined that certain events are fixed points.

Xenogears

Xenogears takes a bit of a different approach to the loop idea. Instead of repeating the same time period over and over, it has the characters reincarnated, and the same outcome happens each time: Elly dies. However, each time it's different. After all, they're in various time periods, in some cases thousands of years apart.

In all of the lives of Fei (who will have a different name in each time period) and Elly (who is always Elly/Elhaym), Elly will end up dying trying to protect Fei and the others. In one life, she is a religious figure at a totally not Catholic church, in another she's the wife of a scientist who was working to create children from nanomachines due to mass infertility issues. But she is ALWAYS with Fei, even if his name changes.

In her Mother Elhaym time, this is when Lacan (Fei) finally snaps. Though he's not fully aware of his past lives, he becomes aware, the anger consumes him, and he becomes Grahf. Fei is then reborn into the time period you play the game in.

There's a lot to unpack with this, so I won't go into it. Grahf wants to destroy God (Deus) because he thinks if he does, then it'll stop the suffering (his suffering).

If you do want to read more about Grahf, you can do so here, but it probably won't make much sense unless you've played Xenogears up to that point... Since it's much later in the game that this is all explained.

Lacan's desire was to stop the cycle of Elly always sacrificing herself for his sake. Though Grahf is not a perfect existence - he's not fully "The Contact", he sacrifices himself in order to let Fei move forward, and hopefully stop the cycle, by destroying the Deus system. (Elly also tries to sacrifice herself here, but Fei goes after her and stops her.)

Now, some people may think I'm saying that Cloud or somebody is going to do this in order to save Aerith or Zack (or his village or mom), but in FFVII if they do the loop method, I don't think Cloud, Tifa, Barret, and the others are aware of it. Most likely, it's only 'Sephiroth' and Aerith who are aware of it.

How this Could Be used for Final Fantasy VII

I'm stressing could because there's so many different possibilities on how they use this (if they are using this), so please, don't take this as fact. This is based on speculation based on what we know.

A time loop is a great way to explain away the differences in the story that we've seen: Biggs being alive, Wedge living for longer than he should have, etc. Since these are not major plot changes, they can simply say that this time it'll be slightly different... but your fixed points (major plot points) will remain the same.

It's a way to pull in some of the more obscure themes from Dirge of Cerberus and also play with the LOVELESS lore.

It could all simply be a big red herring and it's really just a remake of OG, but with the compilation tied together nicely... since it works much better when it's combined and not in 50 different games, books, movies, etc.

I don't think it's a "sequel" per say, not in the way I generally perceive a sequel. It's more of a loop of the same thing. The question is, when is the loop started and what will cause it to end? When will the planet (if it even is the planet) determine that it's good enough to begin moving forward?

JENOVA, Sephiroth, Genesis, and Minerva - Oh My!

Let's be real... Genesis isn't exactly the most popular character in the FFVII Compilation... but what if they make him one of the most important to the story? //Ducks as various fruits and vegetable are thrown in my direction//

I think what Genesis is probably most known for is his love of LOVELESS. He has the entire thing memorized and randomly says lines from it throughout Crisis Core. LOVELESS lore is still something I'm trying to grasp, so I am not going to comment much on it. Once I understand it more, I'll update this.

...And then this happens. The secret ending for Dirge of Cerberus, where Genesis picks up Weiss. Weiss, who has now been introduced along with Nero in FFVII INTERmission and is an optional ridiculously hard boss in the Shinra battle simulator in chapter 17 of the main story. There is some lore associated with the battle sim - so if you don't plan on beating it or you just can't, you can look up the pre-battle and post-battle cut scenes on YouTube. They're very short, but interesting. (I beat this asshole last night - it's a hell of a fight.)

....To Be Continued because apparently Tumblr won't allow more than 10 images per post now.... Next will be more on JENOVA and Sephiroth along with Minerva.

#ffvii #ffvii genesis #ff7 genesis #ff7 intergrade #ff7 intermission spoilers #FFVII intermission spoilers #FFVII Intermission #Final Fantasy VII #Dirge of Cerberus #FFVII Weiss #Xenogears #nier automata #final fantasy vii #ff7r #final fantasy 7 #timey wimey

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kyouxa · 3 years

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Diabolik lovers Chaos Lineage: Kino (Story 14)

In terms of the gameplay: The black choices lead up to a bad ending, the white choices lead up to a good ending. Please no reposting onto other sites, ask me before translating this into another language too! If you enjoy these translations, please consider supporting me on ko-fi.

Place: Outside — Cave

Yui: Nn…

(Is this place… the cave? I wonder if I was carried back here, I probably fell asleep as soon as we returned)

(Maybe I should go back to sleep once again…)

Kino: …..

Yui: Ehh… Kino-kun!?

Kino: You overslept again. Wasn’t my sleeping princess talking about getting up earlier today?

Yui: I’m really sorry, I seemed to be really tired and I slept pretty soundly as well.

(T-That really surprised me. Kino-kun was right in front of my face when I woke up)

Kino: ...Your hair is all tousled. No matter how you’d put it, it looks really awful, y’know?

Yui: I can’t help it since I just woke up, okay?

Kino: Shut it. Let me fix this messy hair of yours for you while you simply stay quiet, ’kay?

Yui: Uh… sure.

(I-I wonder, why is he using his finger to brush my hair? It’s somehow embarrassing…)

Um… where’s everyone?

Kino: They got up a while ago and started preparing themselves. You’re the only one who still slept until now.

Reiji was about to start a strategy meeting from this time forward anyway.

Are you really gonna force yourself to join us in this kind of state though? You could still sleep as things are now.

Yui: No, I’m good. I’ll participate in this meeting too.

Kino: Fine, then let’s go.

Yui: (Ah… he simply left)

(To be honest, I didn’t think Kino-kun would make me feel better as easy as he did just now though)

(And having him stroke my hair was really nice too…)

I mean, I obviously have to worry about the strategy meeting from now on first!

(Gosh, just what was I thinking a second ago…)

*time passed*

Yui: Umm, good morning, everyone!

Laito: Did you finally get up, Bitch-chan? Seems as if you slept really comfortably.

I was about to mess around with you if you were still sleeping... doing all kinds of things... you know?♪

Ayato: Shut up, pervert.

Yui: Ahaha...

(I was so worried about coming here, but I guess I totally forgot that everyone’s memories already returned to them)

Kanato: Aren’t there any sweets available here? I can’t stand this anymore. I want to go home as soon as possible.

Yui: I-I’m sorry Kanato-kun. You have to be a little more patient.

Subaru: Fuck, what kind of a punishment game is it to sleep in the same space as these guys!?

I can’t sleep calmly because I don’t have my casket with me here.

Yui: I’m really sorry about that...

(Why am I even apologizing in the first place...)

Kino: Hey, you. Did you really use to live with these selfish guys?

Yui: I’m also questioning my personal experiences so far...

Reiji: Be quiet. If everyone has prepared themselves, we shall start holding another strategy meeting.

The topic of this discussion… shall be how we possibly could get out of this place, right?

Yui: ….. !

(I can finally face this problem together with everyone in the Sakamaki family)

(Maybe we can finally find an opening to get out of here like this… !)

Reiji: As Kino and others already mentioned, if this truly is a space which is completely isolated from the outside world...

The number of people who can do such impressive tricks are limited.

Subaru: Then who did this?

Shu: ...Our father, obviously.

Ayato: Ngh… that old geezer!?

Kino: ...As expected, they all think so.

Yui: Kino-kun…

Reiji: No, it is way too early to conclude that this might be our fathers doing after all.

However, it can be inferred that our father or someone with equivalent power created this space.

Kanato: What is it that you are talking about?

Reiji: This might be a simple guess, but we could easily judge this by the names of the supreme ruler and Eve.

Subaru: Tch, the nerve to do this shitty thing again...

Laito: Hey, if we try something out, we might actually achieve something.

If we can live up to their expectations, do you think we could get out?

Reiji: Well, that could be the case indeed.

Yui: But what should we do in order to live up to their expectations then?

Kino: It’s about fighting for the supreme leader, so why don’t we kill each other until there’s only one of us standing?

Yui: Kino-kun!

Kino: And if we don’t do that, why doesn’t the sleeping beauty herself choose her prince to be with?

Yui: A-Are you being serious about this right now… ?

Reiji: Let us return to that. As Kino already said, killing each other appears to be infertile.

But does anyone else have something else in mind?

Monologue

After that, Reiji-san and the others tried finding a solution for us to return back to the real world, but in the end they didn’t get to any conclusion.

In the meantime, time is the only thing that’s progressing.

As things were now, we were only going around circles, and therefore decided to interrupt this discussion to take a break.

Place: Outside — Cave

Yui: (Ah… speaking of which, Kino-kun was gone before I even noticed it)

(I wonder where he went?)

Reiji: You. Where do you think you are going?

Yui: Ah ... well, it looks like Kino-kun isn’t there, so I wanted to go out a little and look for him.

Reiji: Make sure not to go too far. There is still a possibility that someone from another family might be wandering around outside.

The others’ memories have not returned yet. Which means, they will aim for you if they spot you.

Yui: Yes, I know... I’ll be careful.

(He’s right. Everyone else’s memories are still weird)

(In that case, I have to be really cautious...)

Place: Outside — Cave entrance

Yui: (Kino-kun, where did you go? I really hope you’re somewhere nearby)

Ah… Kino-kun!

Kino: What? Why are you here too?

Yui: When I noticed you weren’t there anymore, I started to get worried. Why did you come here anyway?

Kino: ...I was wondering if I could see any shooting stars if I go outside.

But, this is a fake space. It has a fake night sky… which obviously means there won’t be any shooting stars falling down.

Yui: I see...

(Since everything is covered with trees, even the night sky can hardly be seen)

(But despite that, he still came here to try and see the stars. I wonder what he thought about?)

(After all, Kino-kun’s profile still looks somewhat lonely to me…)

Kino: If you’ve got anything to say to me, why not say it to my face instead of staring at me like that?

Yui: Ah, s-sorry! To be honest, I’d really like to see the stars too.

By the way, what did you say before to me? The stars always guided you, if I recall correctly?

Kino: Yeah, I did say that. What about it?

Yui: That sentence felt really important when you said it, so I kept thinking about it all the time. And I simply wondered what you mean by that.

...But if you don’t want to talk about it, I’m obviously not forcing you to say anything.

Kino: Nah… it doesn’t matter. It’s not like I have anything to hide from you anymore.

...When I was still a child, my father, Karlheinz, abandoned me in the demon worlds hinterland.

I don’t remember much of that time back then, but I do know that I was left behind there. Left on a cursed plot of land which was fully covered in the smell of rotten fruits.

Yui: A cursed place… in the demon world...

Kino: I was trying my best to keep walking despite tripping over rotten mud and being left in darkness. But even if I ended up in another place, there was nobody there.

I was so lonely I eventually started believing that I’d end up dying like this.

And in that moment… I saw a shooting star falling down for the first time. It was like an affirmation for my whole life to continue.

Yui: ….. !

Kino: My father… I desperately continued to think about why Karlheinz would’ve abandoned me as he did.

But I’m still certain there must’ve been a reason. Because at that time, the stars saving me felt as if it was fate.

I’m more than convinced that there must’ve been a reason why I was chosen for that.

Yui: Is that why you believe you’re the most suitable one for gaining his powers… ?

Kino: Exactly. With those powers in my hands, even those other stupid guys would have to realise that it was my destiny to get them.

Until now, nobody has ever acknowledged my existence so far.

But I’ll be recognized. Once I’ll have absolute power, no one will be able to go against me anymore.

Yui: (The stars guided him… and the stars gave him affirmation一)

(I see. The reason why Kino-kun is so particularly interested in gaining his power is...)

Choices

1) Someone recognizing him (white)♡♡♡

2) Proof of being alive (black)

一 Someone recognizing him ♡

Yui: (Kino-kun, I’m sure he just wants someone to recognize him. His existence in general一)

(But this is really sad thinking about it…)

Kino: What’s with the depressed face now?

Yui: It’s nothing... I just thought about it for a moment.

Even if you might not be able to show off your power, I’m sure there are people who will recognize you, Kino-kun.

Kino: Hah? I don’t need this kind of thing. You’re simply saying this half-minded stuff to pity myself again.

Yui: I do believe in that though. And so would Yuri-san.

一 Proof of being alive

Yui: (I think he wants proof that he’s being alive)

(After all, I’ve heard him talking about being strongly oppressed by others several times before)

Was there anyone around you that you could’ve possibly put trust in?

Kino: Well, that might be true.

Yui: But only Yuri-san is this kind of special person, right?

end Choices

Kino: Eh… Yuri… why do you know Yuri’s name?

Yui: Ah… ! Um, err…

(I know I should’ve kept silent about that, but it accidentally slipped out of my mouth…)

(But now that I’ve already said it, there’s no point in hiding it anymore)

I might’ve heard you sleep-talking and saying that name while doing so.

Kino: What, so that’s it? Is listening to other people talk in their sleep one of your hobbies or something?

Yui: I’m really sorry…

Kino: It’s true that Yuri and I’ve been together for a really long time already. We’ve always been close to each other after all.

Which is why I’m sure Yuri’s still undoubtedly waiting for my return.

Yui: ...Nn. I see… that’s probably true...

Kino: ….. ? What’s wrong?

Yui: Nothing, let’s just try our best to go back to the real world as soon as possible.

Kino: Yeah, you’re right.

Yui: (So he does think Yuri-san’s waiting for his return as well. Why did my chest hurt so much when I heard him say this right now though?)

(I should at least try to act happy for Kino-kun to be able to return to someone as important as her)

Kino: After all of this is over, you’ll also be able to live with your beloved Sakamaki guys again. Aren’t you happy about that too?

Yui: Yes, I am… I want to go home soon too.

Kino: ...Nn.

Well, remember once you returned home. I’ll come and get rid of all of you.

Yui: T-That’s not something I want to remember...

Kino: ….. !

Yui: What’s wrong?

Kino: ...Someone is heading towards this way.

Yui: Eh… ?

*someone walks up*

Yui: ….. ! Carla-san…

Kou: So you really were in a place like this. No wonder it was so quiet when we went to Scarlet’s mansion.

Azusa: Eve… we’ve been… looking for you.

Yui: Kou-kun, Azusa-kun…

Carla: Obediently hand over Eve to me. Someone like you is simply not fit for the tasks of a supreme ruler.

Kino: ...So they really did end up finding us, hm? It would’ve been easy if it was only Kou and Azusa, but Carla is here with them too.

Yui: (What should we do? Everyone is still inside the cave… !)

Kino: It’s alright. We know Carla can’t remember anything about being a founder, which should make things somehow manageable.

Yui: Why?

Kino: Because he doesn’t remember being a founder, he wouldn’t know he has any sort of great power to begin with.

Even if he’s a founder, he doesn’t know anything about how strong his powers are, which means there is something we can do after all.

Yui: (Is he reaching into his pocket? What on earth is he about to do?)

*Kino’s pocket rushles*

Carla: Just what is it that you are hiding? You will not be able to escape from me with a little trick you might have up your sleeves.

Kino: I know that already. So 一 I’ll do this instead!

Carla: Kch… !

Kou: Ngh… ! What was that… !?

Azusa: My body… it won’t move...

Yui: (Why did Carla-san’s and the others’ state change so quickly all of the sudden… ?)

Carla: You… what did you do… !?

Kino: Now we’ve earned a little time!

While we still can, run!

Yui: A-Alright!

*they start running*

Yui: But, Kino-kun! What did you do to them!?

Kino: It’s a talisman with magical power. It’s an item that can suppress any devil’s power for a certain period of time!

Well, it’s a one time only item, so that’s it.

Yui: These kinds of things exist!?

Kino: I’m the only one who has things like this here, right? Seems as if I accidentally brought it with me alongside my smartphone.

But that doesn’t matter right now, we have to let the others know about this as soon as possible first… !

Yui: Ah, everyone! You’ve come outside...

Reiji: What is it you are making this much noise for? It is almost as if you encountered an enemy raid.

Yui: It’s Carla-san! He came here with Kou-kun and Azusa-kun!

Kino: Carla and the others are unable to move right now. We have to make a run for it while we still can!

Kanato: And where exactly do you expect us to run?

Kino: I know a place where nobody should expect us to be!

Subaru: Doesn’t that sound kinda sloppy? Does a place like that even exist here!?

Laito: I don’t think Carla came here with the plan to aim for us though.

Shu: Yes. It’s obvious that they’re merely suspicious of their absent brothers being accompanied by other guys.

Ayato: Then what are we supposed to do?

Kino: Even so, we still need a place to hide ourselves in...

There’s no other choice than that!

*Kino leaves*

Yui: Kino-kun, where are you going!?

Kino: It’s fine, just follow me!

Yui: Kino-kun…

(Let’s follow him. I believe in Kino-kun一!)

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lunasilvermorny · 3 years

Text

Maria Black - Harry Potter OC

Introduction:

This is my HP OC that I created a long time ago, when I was around 12-13 y.o. (so, you know... it’s been a while!)

Over the years I’ve developed her story more and more, changed it as I got older and basically kept the headcanon alive for years - but I never wrote about her. Everything I had I kept inside my head, and all the potential stories remained as nothing but a day-dream.

Until today! (or a few days ago, when I came up with the idea.)

It’s time to document this headcanon, even if it’s not going anywhere serious other than some stories and drawings.

I can’t emphasize it enough - I made most of it during the mid/late 2000′s, waaaay before the Cursed Child. So please don’t associate any part of my HC with this terrible excuse of a canon. JKR already proved that her judgement is questionable, so for me the only thing that is canon are the books and my headcanon relates to them and nothing else!

Anyway, let’s dive in!

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Bonus drawing from baby-OP:

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General plot:

Maria is the daughter of the Bellatrix and Rodolphus Lestrange and was born a few months before they were sent to Azkaban. Her aunt Narcissa took her in and she was raised by the Malfoy family.

When she was about 5/6 y.o., she went to Azkaban to see her mother. (in the headcanon, her father died in Azkaban). She got scared by the Dementors and when she tried to find the exit, she came upon Sirius’ cell. This encounter changed her life and made her realize that her family is one of the “bad guys”, and she’s decided to leave the first chance she gets.

The day she left to Hogwarts was the last day she spent with her family.

Since it’s a HP OC-insert kind of headcanon, she befriended Harry, Ron and Hermione and was practically the 4th member of this friend group. So most of the plot of the headcanon correlates with the plots of the books, so I’m going to focus more on the individual parts that doesn’t relate the regular plot.

Before she got to Hogwarts she asked to be referred to as Maria Black and not Maria Lestrange. In the future she’d also legally change her name.

Because she’s decided to never go back to the Malfoys ever again, she was basically homeless for the first two summers away from Hogwarts. She mostly relied on magic (around other wizards, so no one will know she’s a minor using magic) and some friends that let her stay with them every once in a while.

(The is a LOT more, so if you’re interested, keep reading ^^ )

After the 3rd year was over, one of her friends that was an exchange student from Beauxbatons, invited her to spend the summer at his house in France. The reason he wanted her to come over was because his father was a coach for the French junior-league Quidditch team and wanted him to let her into the team, so in the future she’d be able to become a professional player. He knew that she plans on filing for Emancipation of minors, that will strip all the legal rights from her family and free her from them - but for that she needed a sufficient income. Her friend’s father was glad to help and after she showed him her skills, he let her into the team. When she was 15, she got into the professional league. (I based this part of the HC on the fact that Viktor Krum was also a student, when he became a Quidditch star.)

Sirius was the most important figure in her life and became like a father figure to her. Through him, she also felt that Harry and her (although not by blood) were related.

For a long time, the ending of the headcanon was that Maria killed herself after Sirius was murdered, but in recent years I’ve reversed this decision and kept her alive for the duration of the book and beyond that.

During her 6th year, after her mother already escaped Azkaban, she was forced to hide in Hogwarts (she wasn’t allowed to keep her role in the Quidditch team anymore), because Bellatrix made it clear that she’s going to kidnap Maria and force her to join Voldemort’s side.

She was able to avoid this fate only up to the plot of the 7th book, that’s when she was finally captured and held hostage in an attempt to force Harry’s hands and save her. However, before she was kidnapped, Maria asked from the Order and Hermione that if she’s ever to fall captive, to prevent Harry from saving her at all cost, since it’s an obvious trap.

Frustrated by the fact that the trap hasn’t worked combined with Maria’s general resistance, Bellatrix tortured her daughter for the entire duration of her incarceration, mostly by using the Cruciatus curse on her over and over again. At a near-dead state, Bellatrix used the Imperius curse on her to try and make her fight on Voldemort’s side at the Battle of Hogwarts, but Maria was too weak and wasn’t much of use to her in the end.

After the fight, Maria was in a coma for a few months and even after she woke up, she had a very long recovery period. The worst expression of it manifested in her PTSD from the Cruciatus curse that caused her to scream in agony almost every time she went to sleep. At some cases she was in such bad shape that no one was able to wake her up.

After a partial recovery, she returned to her pending career as a Quiddich player.

Her relationship with Fred Weasley:

Maria was fairly popular and had dated a few people (in a non-serious way, due to her age), but her first love was Fred Weasley. They’ve started dating in secret when she was in her 5th year.

During the 6th year, she has prepared him for the possibility of the kidnapping and asked him not to come rescue her if it ever happened.

In the summer after her 6th year, to reassure her that they will both survive the war, Fred gave her a ring and told her that after it’s all over, they’ll get married. (It wasn’t a proposal per se, but an attempt to give her hope when she was sure she’s going to die.)

Maria wasn’t aware that Fred died since she almost met the same fate herself at the Battle of Hogwarts, and found out about it from George after she woke up from the coma.

Her relationship with Neville Longbottom:

At the beginning, no one knew she’s Bellatrix’s daughter. People were suspicious of her during year 3 (after all, she is Maria Black) because they thought she was assisting Sirius (and at some point there were rumors that she was his secret child), but it wasn’t until year 5 that the news about her being Bellatrix’s daughter has spread out by Malfoy.

Maria considered Neville a close friend and was afraid of his reaction once he finds out, but even though he had to get over the initial shock, he told her that he knows that she’s nothing like her mother, that she has proven she’s on their side and that he’s not going to judge her over something that is out of her control.

After the Battle of Hogwarts, during her recovery, she’s met Neville’s parents and also spent time with them while she was admitted. The fact that she was tortured by Bellatrix too was a bonding factor and made her and Neville even closer.

After a few years, Neville and Maria have started dating, but their future together in unknown.

PTSD and irreversible damage:

I mentioned that due to the torture she experienced, Maria suffered from PTSD, caused primarily by the Cruciatus curse. She would have recurrent nightmares that caused her to scream and cry in agony, as her body turned and twitched, as if she was under the curse.

In most cases people were able to wake her up, but in more severe cases, she was able to stay in that state for hours. The worst case was a day and a half without a break. She was taken to the hospital by apparition, but the snap switch in location has severely worsen the situation and she was taken to the ER (or a magical equivalent of an ER), where she was under treatment for days until the outburst finally got under control. She was in a coma for two months after that and had to go through the long recovery once more.

In addition to that, Maria also suffered an irreversible damage in her reproduction system. Bellatrix knew she doesn’t share her purist views, so to make sure she doesn’t “taint” the family legacy with a mixed-blood offspring, she completely destroyed the system, to a point that it was almost impossible to reconstruct, even with magic. Maria went through many treatments, but was eventually considered infertile.

Her relationship with the Weasley family:

Maria was accepted as one of the family back when she was still in Hogwarts.

Even though her relationship with Fred was a secret - Molly, George and Ginny knew about it. After Fred’s death, Molly has told Maria that she still views her as a daughter and said she’s always welcome at their house.

She usually spent the holidays with them and came to visit Molly and Arthur almost every weekend. She usually brought game-tickets to anyone that was interested, especially when she’s started playing for the biggest teams. (Nothing will make me do the proper research of all the Quidditch teams, so let’s just suspend our disbelief just a bit more, because I don’t have a specific name.)

Her relationship with the Malfoy family:

During the year she was Bellatrix’s prisoner, she was held captive at the Malfoys’ mansion. Even though Bellatrix showed nothing but cruelty to her, Narcissa secretly tried to help her, mostly by giving her food during starvation punishments, clean her room and at extreme circumstances - heal her wounds.

Even though she hasn’t set her free, Maria appreciated the fact that Narcissa risked herself by helping her, so after she heard about Lucius’s death, she agreed for a reconciliation.

Although there were some push-backs (especially from Ron), she accepted an invitation for dinner at the Malfoys’ mansion, where she reconnected with both Narcissa and Draco.

After that she came to visit every now and then, although not as frequently as she visited the Weasleys.

Maria and Harry:

As I mentioned before, Maria is basically an OC inserted into the main plot, so she’s best friends with Harry, Ron and Hermione.

Harry and Maria always had a sort of sibling connection, that was reinforced by their connection with Sirius. After his death, they referred to each other as the only family they’ve got left. (Even though Maria technically had Tonks, but that’s a story for another time.)

Maria and Ron:

Their friendship was a bit more complicated. Although not romantic in nature, they had a mutual crush on each other at a certain point (but nothing came out of it), and they always had a certain tension afterwards.

They also have very different personalities and got into many conflicts. Ron usually accused Maria of being a fake friend, because she was very friendly in nature and had many friend-groups other than the main three characters. Maria in return accused him of being too judgemental and had a hard time taking him seriously.

However, with all the flaws, they also had many things in common - their love of Quidditch, their disregard to the rules and in general they had a lot of fun hanging out with each other.

Maria and Hermione:

Probably have the rockiest friendship out of the three main characters. They are almost opposites, aside for their academic approach. Maria is more reckless and easy going, and she usually can’t handle Hermione’s stiffness.

Maria was especially sensitive to any criticism of Sirius, and they had many fights over it during their 5th year.

But even though their friendship wasn’t ideal, when it came to real struggles, they were there to support each other, especially emotionally.

Her special connection to Sirius:

Sirius was the catalyst that made her realize that she was born to a dark wizards family. She’s met him only once (before the events of the 3rd book), but it was a strong enough impact that affected her entire world view.

She put Sirius on a high pedestal and saw him as a parental figure. He was the first in the family to openly rebel and she followed his footsteps when she left the Malfoys’ household. This is also the reason why it meant so much to her that she was sorted into Gryffindor and not Slytherin.

During the 3rd year, everyone suspected that she helped sneak Sirius into the castle and was covering for him, since she refused to accept the accusations against him. She didn’t have any proof that he’s innocent and Sirius never told her that he is, but she was determined that he’s a good guy.

After Sirius escaped, he hasn’t kept in touch with her as much as with Harry, but it didn’t discourage her. She had a feeling that he’s hesitant to accept her because she’s still Bellatrix’s daughter and never resented him for it. However, after his death, Lupin told her that Sirius was very proud of her and had greats hopes for her - he just didn’t know how to show it.

Dobby:

Since she grew up with the Malfoys, she has known Dobby her entire life. They were pretty friendly toward each other, but they were instructed not to talk with each other.

Once, she tried to give Dobby clothes to set him free, but because she wasn’t technically a Malfoy, it didn’t work. After that, Lucius forbid Dobby from ever interacting with her again.

AUs:

Did you really think I don’t have like 200 different AUs for this headcanon? Of course I have! I’ve been building this headcanon since I was a literal child!

My favorite AU is the one where Fred didn’t die in the Battle of Hogwarts, and he and Maria got to be together after all. They usually get married (although there is a variation where she broke up with him instead), and in one AU in particular, healers are able to restore her fertility and they have a child together.

Maybe in the future I will make more posts about these AUs.

HPHM

Since Luna is very close with the Weasleys too, in most AUs Maria gets to meet Luna and the two become friends. Luna is also Maria’s private healer, since Maria gets injured a lot during Quidditch games.

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There is so much more!!

But I will leave something for future posts :)

#my art #drawing #my headcanon #hp headcanon #harry potter #harry potter hc #harry potter oc #oc #original character #hp oc #maria black

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leonawriter · 3 years

Text

On Writing Fankids

Writing this because I now have two different fankids for the same pairing, in vastly different ways, and they’re very different people. So.

I don’t know how many points I’m going to make, and I don’t know how useful this is going to be, since Disclaimer: I’m not an expert on real children or medical practices, but I am trying to put effort in.

Most of this is composed of questions, because I don’t know who your fankid (or, OC-fankid) is, and the point is to make you think rather than just put ideas into your head by telling you what’s right and what’s wrong.

1 - How did they come to exist?

This is the FIRST question you should be asking when coming up with a fankid. What they look like and how cute they are is all well and good, but when you’re thinking of actually writing a story, that won’t help you.

If the parents are a cis male and cis female couple, then it’s easy to assume how they had a kid. That said, that’s not always necessarily the case, as some people may be infertile, or may simply choose to adopt. However, the answer to this becomes more complicated when fans get to wanting to give a gay couple children, as this usually means they want to give them biological children.

In the event of pairings where the parents are canonically not reproductively compatible (which includes gay, lesbian, nonbinary, and so on) there are still options, which include: a trans parent, which involves being able to write a trans person and not just overlooking how this would change their story; surrogacy, in which someone else carries the child to term for those who can’t, and the related idea of a sperm donor.

In going into other biological options, there’s also the question of “how believable and realistic do you want this to be? how scientific? how much fantasy or sci-fi do you want here?” and if the answer is “I have fantasy and/or sci-fi in my setting” then you can use that.

That said, please don’t rule out the possibility of adoption. Adoption is the most common way for queer parents in the real world to get kids, and just because a kid isn’t biological doesn’t make them any less their parent’s child. Even/especially in a fantasy setting! And knowing if a kid was adopted, that’ll extend into how they see themself, as well as who the parent is and why they chose to adopt.

Related to that, if a kid is adopted, how aware of that are they? How were they adopted? Are they a canon character that was adopted, or an entirely new character? If they were too young to remember the adoption, how do their parents (or parent, if there was only one person adopting them) explain? If they were old enough, how do they see the person who took them in? How do they see their adopted siblings, if any exist, or any future siblings? What about any prospective additional parents, if they originally only had one, or if their parent/s is/are polyamorous?

2 - How good are their parents at parenting?

Yes, you want your favourite pairing to be great parents, but no matter what people are going to have their own idiosyncrasies. How do the parents deal when the kid throws a tantrum?

What if the child shows signs of being neurodivergent, are the parents any good at spotting those signs, and whether they are or not, how do they handle the difference from what they might have been expecting?

My advice here is to pay attention to the pairing in their normal canon and how they deal with situations and also how they handle children in canon, as well as then going to further sources that show what parenting is really like. Your fankid is going to be a baby, they’re going to be a screaming toddler, they’re going to have a personality and wants and they’re going to frustrate their parents a lot. If you want to put the effort in to write the family well, ask someone you know who has kids, even.

3 - What are their circumstances during their childhood?

The fun one about this is that depending on the context the child was created in, the answer can be different for children of the same pairing!

In my case, I have Satoko and Fumiya. Satoko’s childhood (outside of her parents’ control) was traumatising, and left her as a quiet kid, despite how much she’s shown love later on. Fumiya, on the other hand, grows up in a loving environment from the start, and because of that he’s much more comfortable and confident, despite everything else that happens and so on.

This is where the child starts to develop their own personality. Think about how in the real world, children are shaped by their surroundings and the way that they grow up. Does your fankid learn that they can trust the people around them? How much attention are they given? Is that attention positive, negative, stifling? Do they feel neglected, or coddled? How easy is it for them to find food, or their favourite food? Are they surrounded by children of their own age, or mostly living around adults? Is their living situation, no matter whether their parents love them and take care of them or not, a dangerous one, and how aware of that are they?

Also important is the question of whether they even have both of their parents, or either of them. Maybe the situation here is complicated. Maybe they’re an orphan (sorry, parent pairing). Maybe they’re separated from their family, and they have to fend for themself. Maybe their parents are separated for any given reason.

Any one of these things is also going to affect their mindset while growing up from being a baby through being a toddler, a pre-teen, and a teenager. If you want them to feel like a fully rounded out person, you have to think of them as such.

4 - What do they look like?

I’m well aware that this is the first thing that most people go with when creating fankids. I’m just saying that it’s not the most important thing you should be thinking of.

Making a fankid shouldn’t be a mix-and-match game when you’re making biological kids. When you’re coming up with an adopted kid even less so. They aren’t a paper doll. Some children may look like a mix between their parents, while others will take on attributes from previous generations... although when looking at fictional characters you don’t own the IP of, assuming what genes a fankid’s grandparent might have passed on gets tricky. For this I’m focusing mostly on biological kids, but it should help for adopted as well in some parts.

One good rule of thumb here is to look at how genes actually work.

If nothing else, a simple starting idea would be to look at the general population and say “what is the most common eye colour here” and “what is the most common hair colour” and if your fankid is from that area, that’s probably the most dominant gene, over others.

When creating my own fankids mentioned above, my idea went that blue is an eye colour that tends to be dominant, and red hair tends to come through even just by making dark hair lighter.

That said, hair and eye colour aren’t all you should be thinking about!

Other things that should be thinking about are: how tall are they? what shape are their eyes? Does the structure of their face take more after one parent than the other, no matter their eye/hair colour? Do they have any markings on their body (moles, birthmarks, etc), and if so are they shared with other family members? Are their features they share with family members who aren’t their parents (i.e, a sister, an uncle, a great-grandparent)?

As they grow up, do they get taller or stay shorter than their parents? In terms of their body, do they become muscular, or not, and if so, why? Do they become fat, or thin?

Does their health impact on the way that their body looks? This can mean both disability in terms of walking around with a cane, using a wheelchair, or any number of other things.

Do they change their body in any way? Do they choose to add tattoos, or is something done to them in some other way? Do they have any scars? Would they want to share those scars with other people, or would they choose to hide them away?

5 - How canon affects them, and how they affect canon.

Whether or not your fankid grows up before, during, or after canon events makes a difference. If it’s “before/during” then you’re going to have to think of the consequences of that on both them and their parents, but also everyone else. This isn’t just “add in a kid, aren’t they cute” this is an entire new character, with the capability to become a loose cannon and change canon events.

Things can change. That’s something you’ve got to think about, and accept, the moment you want to add this new character into things. Are you willing to change things, and if so, how far?

The kinds of changes can generally be divided into two categories: internal, and external.

Internal changes are the ways that the characters change mentally and emotionally in response to a child (their child, even) being present. In one of my stories, I change very little on an external level, but the focus is on the internal side of things, as the father of this child faces the idea that he might have lost his son, and how that makes him feel when going into a dangerous situation he may not come back from. Other characters might not see any difference, but the internal conflict is there.

External changes are the big ones, where the child being present - and, by extension, the child’s backstory and its knock-on effects - affect the present, and cause things to change in visible ways. This can mean anything from “the pairing’s child has wandered into a dangerous area filled with plot, and needs to be rescued” to “the plot has found the child” or even just “the parents have relationship issues to sort out, and that changes the plot.”

Things to think of here are - aside from “how old is this kid” as you might have come up with a kid that by this point is an adult as far as I know - how active is this kid? Are they happy to stay put and not affect things, or dot hey have insatiable curiosity and the need to do something? Do they stumble into the plot without being aware of it, do they go seek it out, or does it find them? How much danger does this put them in? If it does put them in danger, how do they deal with that, and how do their parents (or single parent) deal with that? If no danger at all, do they have fun, or are they stressed?

6 - Interactions with the rest of the cast.

Honestly, my main point here is, not everyone is going to react to a kid the same way. Just because they’re cute doesn’t mean everyone’s going to like them! And no, that doesn’t mean they’re evil. And sometimes, even the “evil” characters might handle kids better than some “good” characters. In fact, some “good” characters might do so badly with kids that they make them cry, and that doesn’t make them any less “good.” It just makes them bad at handling kids.

Otherwise, how does the kid fare with the other members of the cast, in general and specifically?

Is there anyone that they like in particular? If so, why? Did that person look nice, did they give them their favourite food? Did they do something special? What did they do to become friends?

Likewise, is there anyone they dislike in particular? What did they do to deserve that? Were they mean on purpose, or did they become disliked by means of an accident or miscommunication? Is it that this person raises their voice and the kid doesn’t like raised voices, or they don’t talk loudly enough?

Depending on the situation with the child’s parents, they might prefer people who are positive toward their parents, or who are negative toward their parents. Because let’s not forget those who don’t like being compared, and those who have parents who aren’t any good. For instance, is the child’s parent a villain in their setting? Are they thought of as a villain? Are they a criminal, or on the side of the law, and regardless of which that is, does the child agree with them, and how does that affect their relationships with others who agree or disagree with that parent?

If your fankid, for example, was mistreated by a certain set of people when they were younger, then how does that relate to later on in life, or the canon cast? My Satoko’s backstory involves medical abuse, which makes her wary of doctors scientists, and things that would remind her (even subconsciously) of that setting. Two of the characters in the cast are medically trained. Her interactions with them are going to be affected by that, even if she grows to like and trust them.

In conclusion: a fan kid can be a fun five minute thing, but if you only put five minutes’ thought into their design, their backstory, and their personality, then you’re only going to get the same view of them as a sketch compared to the time it takes to fully line and colour a work of art.

If you want to write them, or create a full comic with them, you have to ask yourself questions about who they are, and also who you want them to be. If you want them to be a fully rounded person, then you have to put the time into it. And, really, that if this kid starts acting in ways you don’t expect, but that work, just... listen to that.

#fandom stuff #fankids #Writing tips #with minor appearances from Fumiya and Satoko

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lizzybeth1986 · 4 years

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Given the ongoing pursuit of racial justice in America, do you think Pixelberry should rewrite their older books to reflect better treatment of POC, instead of just releasing/halting their newer books for the same reason? Open Heart is being put on hold for that very reason. If PB wants to claim they’re fighting for racial equality, they need to reflect that in ALL of their books. IF PIXELBERRY IS SERIOUS ABOUT THE FIGHT FOR RACIAL EQUALITY, THEY NEED TO SHOW IT!

Ideally...they should. It's obvious that they do go back, revisit and restructure certain things in their older books from time to time (the mess that is TRR 2.0 notwithstanding, this seems to be the norm in most cases - you'll see certain free scenes made into diamond ones as a way to strike balance between LIs etc), so there is a chance that they'd go back and perhaps look through stuff that made it to the drawing board despite being very disturbing on several levels. If they do attempt that there's plenty I'd want to see changed - the way Rowan Thorn's story is structured in TCaTF Book 2 for instance, the incredible disservice done to Xanthe in ACOR, our first scene with Cliff and the way Dallas' story wraps up especially in BSC, how Leah is introduced and all of her treatment in LH Book 1, the way they wrote Teja and the way they wrote out Victoria in RCD, how Sloane in PM and Luke in D&D are given more story in the romances not involving the MC than where they do, how Kiara is treated TRR3 onwards, a LOT of things in Hana's overall story...you see where I'm going here. Forget even adding on to those stories - there's an immense amount of mess they'd have to wade through to even rectify these things...and forgive me but I have my doubts how truly committed PB may be to actually learning.

The statement they made about letting money and data become more important and how they as a company became "complacent" is, well, promising...but I find that it also doesn't adequately address the inherent bias that made this situation what it is now. It wasn't just neglect. It wasn't just giving more attention to certain LIs over others. A lot of what was done to characters of colour in the books involved an active attempt to write them a particular way. Some of the "consequences" black and certain brown characters had to face for "non-positive" actions would require more planning, structuring and headspace to execute than simply just...not writing them. Neglecting a character involves not that much work but...selling them off? (Xanthe) ending their LI positions and potentially killing them off? (Raf) Placing them in positions of near-death/death (optionally) twice? (Lily) Making them a practicing Muslim who doesn't drink then failing to remember that in subsequent scenes? (Ahmed, and well...alright you can attribute at least this one to neglect) Forcing an infertility storyline on them just to ignore it afterwards? (Hana) Making an LI "undesirable" for most players of a game by giving the lowest points for interactions with them, then seeking to write them out of the story for important plot points? (Shane) THIS convoluted sequence of events that I needed two separate playthroughs to completely unravel?? (Kiara) Not to mention how a lot of things are slipped into optional dialogue and diamond scenes where not many can see them. Mere neglect doesn't account for writing of that level, and I honestly think they need to fully accept the gravity of THOSE biases as a company and involve more writers of colour and LGBTQ-identifying writers in the rooms, before they can move forward. At least IMO.

Tldr... you're right, they have a LOT to wade through before they can even begin to set this right again.

#ask me #ask lizzy #tw: racism #tw: racism from pixelberry

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theikoshq-archive · 3 years

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LUPERCALIA.

the exact origins of this pagan festival are uncertain, but it was thought that in ancient times LUPERCALIA took place to honor the she-wolf who raised romulus and remus, the founder of rome, and please the roman fertility god LUPERCUS

while traditionally held from february 13th to 15th, it is not to be confused with the later christian tradition celebrating saint valentine — it was not a celebration of pure and courtly love, but instead an intense, sexually-charged, and even perhaps bloody one filled with animal sacrifice and naked ritual

most notable to the festival was the random matchmaking ; during lupercalia, it is said that the men randomly chose a woman’s name from a jar to be coupled with them for the duration of the festival in the hopes of warding off evil spirits and infertility

NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 2021.

this would, in all likelihood, not be something in your mind in the modern day. a celebration that died out ages ago, lupercalia hardly finds a place in the memory of any contemporary new yorker.

however — that doesn’t stop a beautifully sealed red envelope from showing up on your doorstep, delicate filigree addressed to you specifically and bearing a striking resemblance to an invite long since pushed into the back of your mind

and you think back to the gala, that hedonistic mischief filled night, and the mysterious benefactors behind it. it was well done, lavish and over the top, and idly you recall being asked if you’d be interested in any future events. it hadn’t seemed like a big deal at the time, because it was an exciting evening and what's the harm, who wouldn’t want another night of magic, it wasn’t like you had to foot any bill — so you’d agreed, put down your name without much thought, and moved on with your life. it wasn’t until now, months later, you feel a spark of recognition

the origins of the sender are not any more clear than they were the first time around ; the invite claims you’re paired to go on some sort of quasi-date with another member, claims it’s so everyone who said they were interested in more events can get to know each other in a more intimate setting than the gala, but otherwise is void of much more explanation. a little off-putting maybe, but the reality of it stares up at you from a perfumed piece of parchment — you’ve already been matched. what are you supposed to do now, be the asshole that stands them up ?

OOC.

the event will take place IC at any time between FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12TH, and SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 14TH — though, your muses will have received the notice in the mail sometime before this, as well as the contact information for their partners

OOC, the event will start on SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13TH. we’ll give you until the following TUESDAY to plot, plan, and start threads with your writing partners, but we’d like for your starters to be posted by then ! feel free to take as long as you need with the actual completion of the threads, though !

we’ve chosen an event of this kind to promote our anti-bubble rping stance. we want to create and uphold an environment where everyone plots with as many people as possible, that’s why we think randomly paired events like this could have a positive influence on the climate we have here

on another note, especially if your character is in a relationship or aromantic / asexual, there is absolutely no obligation to make the thread romantic in nature. although valentine’s day and lupercalia definitely were, we’re not forcing you to have threads that are similar in nature when you’re not comfortable with such things for whatever reason. the pairings and locations are meant to work more as a framework or jumping point — feel free to make it as platonic, or even antagonistic, as you want, have your pair ditch the location they’re at completely midway through, etc. make the thread your own !

finally, please post any event content under #theikosevent002, including showing off any outfits if you so wish, and any event starters under #theikoseventstarter !

PAIRINGS + LOCATIONS.

minni / helena + new york science centre

parker / shepherd + tour at the museum of modern art

miranda / lucie + area 53 laser tag

percy / yujin + chambers pottery

alex / prim + 5 bar karaoke lounge

rosalie / omar + salsa classes at baila society

harley / devon + tour at the red hook winery

henry / amelie + indoor picnic at the botanical gardens

taeil / kenji + central park zoo

ash / jane + fine dining at coeurs affamés

cass / damien + cozymeal cooking classes

phineas / levi + frames bowling lounge

poppy / chris + hayden planetarium

zelda / stella + go karting at naskart

alice / mackenzie + new york aquarium

mingyu / zak + ice skating at rockefeller centre

willow / forest + pier 25 mini golf

hadrian / hana + board games night at winners corner

katherine / hajun + escape the room nyc

hunter / felipe + two-bit’s retro arcade

astar / azim + murder mystery at the metropolitan museum of art

mei / ara + rock climbing at the central rock gym

#theikosevent #theikosevent002

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mikereads · 4 years

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Things I would love to see in S4.

For starters no time jump. pick up basically where we left off maybe around the time Eddie picks up Chris from camp or right after.

1. Hen deciding whether or not she wants to become a nurse/doctor.

2. Buck being the first person Maddie tells she’s pregnant. Having her tell him alone (without Chim).

3. Maddie dealing with her trauma with Doug she’s happy and shes going to be a new mother of course she’s happier than she’s ever been but maybe it also brings back bad memories. Maybe at one point in her marriage they tried to have kids but couldn’t and even though Maddie was sad maybe a small part of her was happy she wasn’t introducing a child into the world like that. Maybe she had a miscarriage from the stress and his abuse, Maybe Doug was infertile and that’s why they couldn’t have kids but he still blamed her nonetheless and we could see the consequences of that. I don’t know I’m spitballing.

Basically I hope Maddie being pregnant shines light on her past and possibly her relationship with her mom/ parents as she gets ready to become one.

.Maddie and Chim learning how to be parents, reading books going to classes etc.

Buck and Albert being excited to be uncles. Having everyone at the 118 be the baby unofficial official uncles and aunts. Bobby and Athena are the grandparents of course.

4. A Buck begins/ A Maddie begins I mean its about time especially for Buck way overdue. We need to meet their parents at least in a flash back.

5. May in college and hopefully we see her either become a nurse or E.M.T etc. If she chooses to be a nurse I think it would be cool to see her in nursing school and to get a glimpse of what it’s like before you get the job. Plus her being a main character.

Seeing Athena deal with her daughter choosing this route she would be proud but maybe also worried after everything she’s been through.

6. Michael continuing to get treatment but also see him date the doctor and have it be somewhat serious not a one time thing. To see him have a talk with Athena and the kids after it starts to become serious.

7.More of Chims younger brother Howie (edit: Albert). where is he is, he okay???

For awhile there was a theory he would become a firefighter for another unit or another responder and I love that.

8.Hen and Karen adopting and how her possibly wanting to change fields may affect that and not just financially but day to day.

9. Chris and Denny play date they may be too old to be called that but you get my point.

10. Friendship dynamics we need more of.

. Maddie & Athena

. Eddie & Hen

. Buck & Josh

. Buck & Howie

. Maddie & May, I swear I may need to rewatch but I think May asked Maddie a question while they were taking a picture and we never saw a follow up scene. I think Maddie asked her something about college so maybe she had a question regarding career wise. Maddie was a nurse so it would make sense and fit the theory that May becomes a nurse/ responder. (the jobs the show is based around). Out of all types of careers doctors and nurses are the job we see the less of so it would be interesting to have a character that’s already there let us see that side of things in the 911 universe. Whether that be May or Hen.

. I want to see Josh happy he doesn’t need a LI for that but if they decide to give him one of those plots (which they foreshadowed when Maddie said everyone has a match) let it be a happy storyline not one where he is used or abused. I would personally like to see him and Buck date but whoever the person be let it be a nice one pls.

11. More of the Buckley-Diaz dynamic please. Everything we got was great but we need more (yes im greedy)

.Have Buck and Eddie pick up Chris from summer camp.

. Have Buck and Eddie take Chris to a ball game.

. Have them take Chris to a ice skating show (like the one in s3 where the guy got his finger cut off).

.Take him to the carnival again but this time with all of them or like Eddie suggested the Zoo.

Basically just let them do things like a family until even more so. I also really want a scene where Eddie and Buck hug Chris together with either one of them being on different sides.

12, This is unlikely but I would like to learn more about Karen I love her but outside of being Hen’s wife and the few details we got about their past we don’t know much about her. How did her and Hen meet? Has she always lived in L.A? Who are her parents, does she have siblings? What is her job? It may not make sense but I think it would be cool if somehow the events or person their helping could somehow tie into her job and maybe that’s how we could learn more about her.

I would also love to see more family unit scenes between Hen,Karen and Denny let them do more things together. Maybe Hen gets free tickets to a concert from a rescue she did or to an ice show etc... Basically just more of them and more of Karen pls.

Maybe some direct ties to 911:Lone star we got a little hint in Lone star but I would love to see it on 911.

Maybe Eddie and Judd are friends and met while Eddie lived in Texas. Judd mentioned the friend he heard the story about Chim from.

Comment below in the notes what you would like to see/ possible theories how they could connect the two shows

Edit:sorry for typos and mistakes (jeez, I should have checked over this post before posting).

#911 fox #Buddie #bathena #madney #may grant #evan buckley #maddie buckley #eddie diaz #karen x h #hen wilson #911 lone star

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rallamajoop · 3 years

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So, I've spent the last couple of months getting myself hooked on the Witcher franchise.

Believe me, no-one is more surprised than I am – especially when I made it through The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt mostly on the strength of the gameplay, but largely underwhelmed by the plot.

So you can imagine my surprise when I gave the Blood and Wine expansion a chance, and it hooked me, grabbed me right in the id and delivered on almost everything the base game lacked. I fell for Regis, I agonised over the endings, I have a million theories about the villains, I just... yes.

And then I tried the novels, and my god, I think I may love them even more than Blood and Wine.... but let’s start back at the beginning.

Up until earlier this year, I knew The Witcher mostly as that game that infamously gave you collectible cards for getting all the female NPCs to sleep with you – not a great first impression. I tried the Netflix series, but bounced off it quickly. And then youtube randomly recommended me Joseph Anderson's ridiculously long videos analysing the first two games... and found myself intrigued. The complex morality, twisted fairy tale mythology, the promise of decisions with real consequences and sidequests that only deepened the world and themes... that could actually be worth a play. Nothing may have come of this, but then The Witcher 3 was on sale on Steam, and I thought, what the hell?

Over 100 hours of gameplay later, I came away disappointed. Witcher 3 may have something to recommend everywhere except its overarching plot, which... honestly, just calling it a “plot” may be giving it too much credit, when so much of the main quest feel like meaningless fetch quests for NPCs who may be able to help you find some other NPC who can tell you about the real plot, which is mostly happening to other people. Very little can really change or build organically (tension included) since the open-world structure means the player may be doing it in any order. Then, at the end, you fight a generic dark-elf final boss, who’s had less presence or dialogue than many NPCs you can meet in in utterly optional side quests, then you avert the apocalypse somehow – which I knew might be imminent mostly because it kept coming up on the loading screens (you know, between other such sage advice as "sorceresses are infertile" and "Geralt can use his crossbow underwater"). How do you fill a game up with so much unnecessary padding and still leave the core conflict feeling so underdeveloped?

Don’t get me wrong: there is some amazing material scattered through various subplots along the way, but the setup and payoff in this thing is a disaster.

Still, the Steam sale had included the game’s two expansion packs, and the core gameplay was addictive enough that I gave them a chance – starting with Blood and Wine – and fell head over heels in love.

Everything about the expansion benefits from its smaller scope, delivering something shorter and tighter, with some great twists and surprises, no clear villain, and some truly agonising decisions towards the end once you realise you're not going to be able to save everyone. While the main game left me going eh, whatever, maybe I’ll youtube the other endings at some point, hardly I finished Blood and Wine once before I was reloading a save from the last obvious decision point and replaying the final chapter again (twice, in the same evening) because I so desperately wanted to see what else could have happened. Plus, Blood and Wine included Regis (Geralt's ridiculously mild-mannered uber-powerful-vampire BFF), whom I adored, and whose presence works wonders to tie the story and the mythology together.

(No, he doesn’t look like much, but his voice actor is perfect and his attitude to life and his friendship with Geralt only got me more the longer I spent with him.)

The base game’s inability to pull its plot together was all the greater shame considering how many genuinely brilliant characters you meet along the way (YENNEFER! Dijkstra, Thaler, Phillipa, the Bloody Baron, the Crones – the list goes on), but there were none I fell for the way I fell for Regis (and yes, I ship him with Geralt something awful, so help me).

(If you're curious, I found the a lot of the same strengths in the other expansion pack, Hearts of Stone, but felt it ended weakly, and was frustrated by how hard it pushed Geralt to romance Shani, who did nothing for me. Look, game, my Geralt already has Yennefer and his vampire boyfriend, there is no room for Shani in his busy schedule!)

Curious about the backstory (though certainly also tempted by the promise of more Regis), I gave the novels a try... and fell in love all over again. The first book (by far the weakest) is a bit of an introductory hurdle, but the second quickly sucked me in with its wit and humour, then ended with a series of magnificent gut-punches that ensured I was well and truly hooked – and hooked I remained, through the five more novels that followed.

This is not a series I can say much more about without also telling you how the ending broke my heart – suffice to say that it's not for nothing that so few of Geralt's companions from the last three books ever appear in the games, or that the world thinks Geralt and Yennefer are dead before Witcher 1 (they aren't, even ignoring the games, but whether they ever see Ciri or any of their surviving friends again is left hanging). But the games, for all their flaws, certainly do their bit to offer happier endings, and having got this far, I found myself almost immediately buying that one last prequel novel I'd skipped (Season of Storms), because I just wanted to spent more time in this world, with these characters (even knowing so many faves from the later novels wouldn't be present). And I think that's the sincerest rec I can give the series: I earnestly cannot remember the last time any fantasy novel series sucked me in nearly so hard. I’m left comparing its characters and world-building to Discworld, and that’s about as high as my literary compliments go.

I could ramble on for ages about everything that does and doesn't work about the games, and their convoluted relationship with their source material (so much of the story is woefully under-explained without the books as context, so much expands on leftover plot points that the books never properly resolved – while so much more contradicts the books in wildly irreconcilable ways). I have as much to say about all the great and fascinating things in the books that didn't make it into the games. And I probably will at some point, given what an absolute sucker I am for all that kind of analysis, but that's fodder for other posts (and competing for priority with half a dozen different Geralt/Regis fic I seem to have already started. Or possibly Geralt/Yennefer, or Geralt/Yennefer/Regis, or even Geralt/Dandelion – look, dude is shippable, I don’t know what to tell you).

In the meantime... I may have already started rereading the novels from the beginning again. And Blood and Wine ain’t gonna replay itself.

#The Witcher #Blood and Wine #The Wild Hunt #Witcher Novels #Emiel Regis #Geralt of Rivia #do they have a ship name?#geregis #regeralt #?#look #even if it's just for tumblr tags #they could really use a ship name

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urban-witch101 · 3 years

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"Hey Urban, why in the FUCK were we robbed of a Suit!AU for the reader?"

A couple things actually! This is a long one, so buckle up.

1. The left suit would've made no sense considering how poor the reader is. Yes she looks fine as hell, but it makes more sense for her to wear a dress that was once her mother's for the sake of money. Her mom's dress is also a way to help her grieve, as it feels like she's taking a piece of her with her to an intimidating social event. I also wanted to show that she's not a little kid anymore and that she's growing up and doing what needs to be done despite what she wants for herself.

2. The right suit makes no sense for the sake of plot. The story originally was going to have the readers secrets be known to the school (and thus her family would still be alive) by the ballroom scene, but considering how guarded did she is it wouldn't have made a lick of sense in the grand scheme of things. It also meant that her extended family would have actually claimed her instead of rejecting her, which means a completely different entire plot line than the one I used.

It was originally supposed to be that the reader was a direct, claimed heir to her family name just like Togami. However, that would have meant that she would have about as little character development as Byakuya would have had at that point - spoiled, egocentric, and a whole lotta daddy issues. There would have been no conflict between the two, and the only reason for them to know each other and be together in the first place meant she'd be one of his arranged pairings (which also doesn't work due to her infertility).

If I hadn't changed the story line so that she was a black sheep, then we'd have two conflicting spoiled brats versus a rich asshole who is slowly humbled and a stubborn loner who learns to open up.

3. Why does the reader have short hair in some of these? If the first story line of her family name being pushed on to her in the public eye survived, then I would have had the reader rebel subtly. Very much a, "Fine. But I'm doing it MY way." She would have cut her hair into a pixie and worn a suit as a way to rebel against her family in the ball scene without making them look foolish - different but sophisticated is very much this reader's style.

However that haircut would have opened its own can of worms. The amount of hair that the reader has could not have grown back in just the span of one year, therefore when she woke up on her desk she would have immediately known that something was wrong in the beginning of the game. I went with the earrings instead as subtle evidence that The Mastermind and everyone else would have easily missed instead of something as obvious as her hair.

4. Togami memes. Enough said.

That's all! Have a good day.

#byakuya togami x reader #byakuya x reader #danganronpa trigger happy havoc #danganronpa fanfiction #fanfiction #backstory #danganronpa

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