your love is my curse

MINECRAFT STORY MODE JUMPSCARE

lengthy hc stuff under read more <3 a lot of it is also based on my own little bit of rewriting of mcsm's story bcz lets be real its not The Greatest, but it is a fun story nonetheless and i wanna play with it,,

i'm not sure if it was ever established that they canonically live in the city where endercon takes place or they live somewhere on the outskirts of it, but for my personal hc, i imagine they live on the outskirts of endercon's city :]

axel and jesse are both orphans who grew up together, though while axel was born in their hometown, jesse just showed up out of nowhere with reuben. jesse's earliest memory is meeting his bestie by a water fall, but beyond that, he doesn't really remember anything about his own past.

the two of them met olivia when they found her getting bullied by adrien and his friends. they both stood up for her and soon after that, they all ended up being friends - she didn't hail from their hometown either, having actually moved there and was considered an outsider by most people (adrien and his friends especially), so jesse related to her a lot right off the bat

i wanna write more regarding the threes relationship with the order, petra and the ocelots, specifically lukas, but i think i'll wait until i draw them (which might take weeks. or months. we'll see..)

some character centric (cz the other one is backstory centric) hcs:

jesse thinks he's the same height as olivia. he's not. he's the shortest out of the entire group. he denies this reality with all his (tiny) being.

while jesse uses he/him pronouns he's not actually comfortable being referred to solely as a man. he doesn't have a label for it but he feels like he's a lot more flexible than that. he's honestly pretty okay with any pronouns, axel has used they/them and she/her for him in the past, which he really liked

olivia is #1 woman enjoyer worlds biggest lesbian. i loved the idea of her having a small crush on petra, and a BIG puppy crush on ellegard (which died into a normal admiration for an idol after the wither arc). i want to give olivia a girlfriend in s2,, i also think i want to make her transfem, because transfem olivia is so good and she reminds me of some of my transfem friends,,

axel never gives me the vibes that he'd care about romance or anything like that, so i thought of him being aromantic, maybe even asexual? i think he has a very queerplatonic relationship with his friends, specifically jesse and petra :] i also love the idea of him using he/they pronouns. axel's fine with being called a man, but they kinda wanna get silly with it sometimes, yakno?

again i wanna write so much more but this has already taken me like, 30 minutes?? soo i'll just end that here for now hsgjhsgse

Randomly generating Ultimate Talents for the DRDT cast and ranking them on how fitting they are (DR1 Edition):

Teruko Tawaki - Ultimate Affluent Progeny

3/10: Ironic that the canonically homeless character gets the “Ultimate Rich Kid” talent. Honestly, unless she has a Byakuya-esque upbringing, having that much money would solve practically all of Teruko’s problems.

Xander Matthews - Ultimate Programmer

8/10: Honestly, he may be a bit loud and overbearing for a programmer, but I could easily imagine him as a hacktavist of sorts.

Eden Tobisa - Ultimate Detective

9/10: Just imagine Eden in an adorable little detective outfit!

Hu Jing - Ultimate Fanfiction Author

6/10: Can’t really picture it.

J Moreno - Ultimate Fashionista

10/10: Fitting with both their backstory and their current self.

Veronika Grebenschikova - Ultimate Gambler

10/10: It’s the Yumeko Jabami energy.

David Chiem - Ultimate Lucky Student

10/10: Have you seen how many David/Teruko talentswaps there are?

Arturo Giles - Ultimate Soldier

6/10: He’d kill for a celebrity, so I can probably see it.

Levi Fontana - Ultimate Novelist

6/10: He’d probably write some REALLY dark stuff, but I just don’t think he has much “writer” energy. On the other hand, HuVi being a writing couple is a heartwarming concept.

Ace Markey - Ultimate Martial Artist

8/10: Worst nightmare: Ace Markey, but he actually fights back. He’d most likely be more of a crackhead scrapper compared to the controlled and zen style of Sakura.

Min Jeung- Ultimate Moral Compass

10/10: Literally the same talent.

Whit Young - Ultimate Clairvoyant

10/10: Whit’s whole thing about “intuition” owes well to the Ultimate Clairvoyant, and I can use this opportunity to give him trauma, regarding him receiving visions that he is quick to deny and block out.

Charles Cuevas - Ultimate Biker Gang Leader

8/10: The concept of a rebellious Charles is cool, and could put a contrast between him and Affluent Progeny Teruko.

Arei Nageishi - Ultimate Swimmer

10/10: A cutesy athletic talent is right up Arei’s alley.

Nico Hakobyan - Ultimate Pop Sensation

7/10: They certainly have the adorable appearance and scandal-causing secret, perhaps the socially-awkward personality could be part of their charm (either that or they would mask to an insane degree).

Rose Lacroix - Ultimate Baseball Player

8/10: The concept of Rose using her crazy analytical skills to perfectly hit the ball is a perfect image.

Oh! I forgot to respond! Anything would be cool for you to share. I love your headcanons for Scarecrow so anything like that?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I'm more shy about sharing Hugo headcanons, because we get very little canon information about pre-crisis Hugo (the Hugo I base my version on). With characters like Jonathan, who got an actual backstory, hobbies outside their gimmicks and what not, you have something to build your own headcanons around. You can come up with something, that wasn't in the original text, but that makes sense given what we know about the character. The headcanons are plausible and connected to canon, even if by a very, very thin thread. No such luck with Hugo. Because we know nothing about him, nearly every headcanon feels like it was pulled out of nowhere. It's not based on anything, because there's nothing to base it on. Coming up with headcanons for Hugo doesn't feel like expanding on an existing character, it feels like coming up with an OC.

So I'm a little shy to share the headcanons that are ”out there” to me (i.e. things with no canon basis), but I guess I can scrap together something lol xDDD I'm sure we all remember the iconic quote ”I am a model of mental health!” from Gotham Knights #8-11 ”Transference.” Even if you haven't read the story, you have surely seen this panel floating around:

And I like it. It's a funny line, but then there's also this exchange from Batman #356 ”The Double Life of Hugo Strange”:

Of course these are two different continuities, one pre- and one post-crisis, but it's still interesting how differently two people can write, what is supposed to be, the same character. The attitudes the different versions hold toward their mental health are like night and day. Usually in moments like this, I would simply pick one of them for my own verse, but this time I loved them both so much, that I just couldn't choose and so for a while I wondered how I could somehow have them both. I solved it by deciding that over time, Hugo's attitude toward the subject would change. It goes from ”I am a model of mental health!” to ”Does it matter?” In my verse, he begins to struggle with his mental health around his twenties. Back in the day, I used to headcanon he didn't start having symptoms until in his fifties, around the time we meet him in my verse, but I figured it works much better, if it started at a younger age. So, he has manic episodes. In his twenties, they weren't very severe yet. He did have a couple short hospital stays a few times when it all started, but symptoms really cleared up after finding the right medication. The hospital stays, however short they were, were not easy for him, though.

At first, he would try to deny there was anything wrong and that bringing him to the hospital was a mistake. The doctors would disagree, though, and after a week or two on medication, Hugo too would start to see that the way he had been acting wasn't normal. This is all very difficult for him, because he's a high achiever, a perfectionist. He needs to be the smartest, the strongest, the most powerful. He needs to be in peak psychical and mental condition at all times. He had a lot of great goals in life that he wanted to accomplish and ending up at a psychiatric ward most certainly wasn't one of them. It was a huge blow to his self-esteem. It really shook the mental imagine he had of himself. I'm sure he thought that mental illness is something that happens other people, people below him and so this was a bit of an identity crisis. I don't think he ever even thought about the pain the actual symptoms had cost him, all he ever thought about, was the pain to his ego brought on by the stigma of mental illness. I think another element that made his stays difficult, was that he was in med school at the time. It felt wrong to be the patient. This is not the position he had been studying for years to reach. I can just imagine young Hugo screaming at his psychiatrist: ”I am a model of mental health!”

Over time, however, especially after the medication proves so effective that Hugo can almost forget that he ever had episodes in his life, he would begin to accept the diagnosis, but only as a thing of the past. Something that he beat. He would still not be open about the diagnosis. If anybody ever asked him where he had been during those hospital stays, he would think of some convenient lie. Regardless, I think it is his own experience with mental illness combined with his general interest in the human mind that inspires him to specialize in psychiatry. I also think that he's stance on mental illness and mentally ill people would also soften. It has to, really. If he thinks mental illness only happens to those below him, does that mean he himself has now sunken somehow? Become less because of this? No, that can not be, he has to be the best, so clearly mental illness can in fact happen to anyone. Even the best of us. (I am now going to talk about how his illness developed and affected him later in life and for this, you need to keep in mind, that my verse is build upon pre-crisis continuity, so before deciding he wants to be Batman, he was a ”regular” criminal mastermind, only after money and power. He is sent to jail once Batman caught him and it is only years later, that he ends up in Arkham.)

In his late forties, when Bruce has become Batman and Hugo is arrested for the first time, his symptoms would start breaking through his medication. In these stressful situations his episodes would become more severe and start lasting longer. Since Batman was the first person to expose him and bring him down, he makes it his next goal to destroy him. It's really the only thing he can do. There simply cannot exist a person better than him, because he has to be the best. Also, he cannot let someone who humiliated him so live to tell the tale. And on a more practical level, he simply can no longer pull any larger jobs in Gotham City with Batman around, so getting rid of him becomes a necessity. It's during these fruitless struggles to beat Batman, that he starts experiencing psychotic symptoms for the first time. Around this time he also discovers Batman's identity and dons on the cape and cowl. At this point, he is about 50 and is admitted to Arkham for the first time. Ending up in prison was bad enough. His license to practice medicine was taken away, he was exposed to the world as a criminal and a heinous person, but it was still only prison. Prison couldn't take a way his believability among other criminals. Arkham is different, though. Ending up in the city worst ”nuthouse” not only made him lose respect and status among criminals, but also in his own eyes. It was an incredibly hard blow to his ego. Twice as hard as ending up at a psychiatric ward in his twenties.

At this point, he had been a psychiatrist for many years. If it was difficult for him to be the patient in med school, imagine how difficult it is for him now, especially when he now finds himself the patient in the exact field he specialized in.

And just as in his twenties, he would have to re-think his opinions on mental illness, and once again, the re-thinking comes from necessity. After the new medication helps him see things clearly again, there is no denying the fact he had been experiencing psychotic symptoms. What kind of a psychiatrist would he be, if he still tried to deny it when it was all so clear? He really came up against a wall here. His only options were to lie down and die or accept it and move on, to ask the world, to ask himself: ”Does it matter?”

Lone Star Season 4 Thoughts: I love Season 4...mostly

With the prospect of season 5 filming beginning so soon, I've been thinking a lot about season 4 lately. I felt like rambling out some of my thoughts on here.

First, perhaps an unpopular opinion (?) but I love season 4. Sure, it has its flaws, but to me, the good far outweighs the bad. For one thing, I personally don't mind Gabriel's death. It's not what I would have chosen myself if I were writing the finale, and I think it could have benefited from a 3-5 episode arc rather than being squeezed into two already very busy episodes, but I appreciate a lot of what came with it and the potential it provides for season 5. Rafa's acting in the finale was incredible and the aftermath of Gabriel dying resulted in one of my top 10 Tarlos scenes of all time (the scene of them deciding to postpone the wedding at the beginning of 4x18) and one of my top 10 non-Tarlos scenes of all time (the Owen and Carlos scene). Season 4 also gave us the incredible soulmates scene, Lou II, lots of other excellent Tarlos scenes/episodes (4x02, 4x04, 4x08, 4x12, 4x16-18), some new love interests I really liked (Asha, Joe, and Trevor...NOT Kendra), a true showcase of Rafa's talent as an actor along with (finally!) the screen time he deserves, a Marjan storyline that wasn't perfect but had a lot of good stuff to enjoy, and a mention of the Tarlos wedding in every single episode. I enjoyed watching every episode (with the possible exception of 4x03...but even there I can find things to enjoy).

As far as the whole Iris/secret marriage storyline goes, yeah, it's not great. But I can still find a lot to appreciate within it. I love Iris, I love her friendship with Carlos (Rafa and Lyndsy sold me on their friendship with a single hospital scene in 4x03!), and I think it added fascinating elements to Carlos' backstory...like the fact that he was so lost and upset after his family's reaction to his coming out that he married a woman to try to be the man he believed they wanted and needed him to be. For the parts I don't like as much and that--let's face it, don't make much sense--I'm able to look past them or make up head canons to explain them away. (And the talented fic writers of this fandom have done a great service to help that process along...there are many great ones, but particular shout out to Where All This Love Comes From @carlos-in-glasses, which managed to make better sense of Carlos' backstory than I ever imagined possible...if you haven't read it yet, I suggest you do so ASAP). I certainly don't blame anyone who can't do this...that storyline was a mess, I can't deny that! But for me, there's enough to appreciate that it doesn't mess with my enjoyment of the season.

Aside from the secret marriage thing, I think the worst storyline of the season was the Owen/FBI storyline. The sad thing is that this one could have been ok had it been executed better. The biggest issues here were (1) too much Owen off on his own time, which is never good--Owen is at his best when he's in storylines with the other main characters--and (2) they completely failed to stick the landing. BADLY. If you're going to do a white supremacist storyline, you need to commit! Instead, they tried to throw in so many twists that they ended up trying to make us feel sympathy for and see the white supremacist gang members as victims. Yeah, not going to work for me when, in a previous episode, you told us they were literal Nazis! But ultimately I don't really care all that much about a solo Owen storyline to begin with, so it didn't affect my enjoyment of the season as a whole.

All of that said, the thing that irritated me the most about season 4 was the 8 week deadline for the wedding. The ridiculous Lone Star timeline has always been a bit of a thorn in my side, but it really got out of hand in season 4. What bothers me most is the fact that the whole 8 weeks thing is both so completely ridiculous and so completely unnecessary! It is clearly there only to slightly raise the stakes for the first few episodes of the season. It's "Oh no, they have to get married in 8 weeks, which means Carlos has to hurry up and get divorced from Iris to make the deadline, only now Iris has gone missing and she hasn't signed the divorce papers yet so they won't be able to get married!" The exact same thing could have been accomplished with an even slightly more realistic deadline--say 4 months. A 4 month deadline would have still been an incredibly short amount of time to plan a wedding and it would have still required urgency in the divorce process. And yeah, 4 months would have still been a bit unbelievable, but it would have been the ordinary tv show timeline kind of unbelievable, and it would have fit far better with the other markers of time in season 4, like the fact that it's explicitly stated that it's January in the beginning of the season and May at the end.

To make matters worse, the urgency for Iris to sign the papers--once again, the whole reason for the 8 week deadline-- isn't really even addressed after 4x02 because once Iris goes missing, her safety is the main concern. Then, once they wrap that storyline up, it is literally never mentioned again. I spent the entire season waiting for it to become an issue, but it never does. The writers essentially forget about it and spend the entire rest of the season providing dates and stating that amounts of time have passed that add up to way more than 8 weeks. It's just so RIDICULOUS and it means NOTHING!

Ok, whew, got that out. Probably no one is still reading at this point, but if you are, thank you for reading my essay and I love you 💜

You asked for it, so it begins.

First Question! Lets start with the obvious. Mihli Mihgo. What was it like stepping from one world to the next? Was she lost? Was it horror? Was there wonder in seeing a new world? I can only imagine there were a lot of feelings. Does she ever want to go back, or has she found home here?

It was in short, very traumatic. Where she comes from she was a hero, much like a Warrior of Light. But right now she's not even sure if she managed to save her people, or if they were simply left defenseless without her.

When Mihli arrived in Eorzea, she washed up on the shores of La Nocea with out any recollection of who she was, or where she came from. Luckily, she was found by Sea's character, Ashely Hawke, who brought her home to Shiro, an employed Doctor for Firelight Trading Company. As his house was already full with one stray (one of my other characters - Poki Mewri), he sent Mihli to live with a colleague in Ishgard, Lysander Ervaut under the idea that through his research, Lysander might be able to help Mihli regain her memories.

In return Mihli would live under his roof, but would provide some basic domestic chores (such as cleaning, fetching parcels and groceries, and cooking) to pay her board while he investigated her case.

As a man who fought in the Dragon Song War... he also has some hellacious trauma centered around dragons. And Mihli... just happens to have a small dragonet she's adopted as her daughter named Sasavi. While it was tricky at first, Lysander (though he'd outright deny it verbally) warmed up to Savi pretty quickly.

In hindsight, putting a feral street raised cat and a baby dragon in a Noble Dragon Traumatized Isghardian's home... It's safe to say these three had a bit of a rough start.

But it wasn't without a bit of proper etiquette training. Mihli spent her first few months with her nose stuck in many various books learning first and foremost about Isghard's History and her customs, but also about much of Eorzea so that she could better blend in with the populace. (IE: See the picture above: No, Mihli, you shouldn't go out in public with holes in your clothing...)

They were also able to acquire a small bit of fantasia, which when taking a singular sip helped her look less Mithran (left) and more Miqo'te (right). Naturally she retained the majority of her appearance, but as you can see some qualities like her ears and tail, were more altered than say her facial features.

I've been pretty loose in Mihli's history in this post and earlier posts. I had some Lore drawn up for her that I've currently put on hold due to Dawntrail bringing with it a FFXI-based Alliance Raid. I kind of want to see what they do with that lore before I concrete her backstory. Mostly whether or not Vana'diel is simply a completely different timeline of the source, or if Vana'diel is it's own shard. Or even... something else entirely.

Originally I was writing it as if it were it's own shard. But we'll see what happens and after that I'll probably be a lot more in depth about writing her character publically.

Currently, Lysander has helped Mihli regain her memories and she is currently struggling between the ideas of both worlds. I have referenced it in a few places like this, but ultimately I don't think Mihli wants to go back to Vana'diel permanently. In fact I think she may even be a smidge apprehensive about going back short term. Not because she doesn't miss Vana'diel or it's residents (lord knows she misses her adopted Mom something fierce). But because she's afraid of the unknown. What if a lot of people did die because she failed them? Would she be better off not knowing? Can she live with the idea of not knowing long term?

These are all questions I intend to play with during Dawntrail for her writing. Especially since, like I said before, the Alliance Raid will help me fill in some of the blanks of her canon. ...Since XI will be fully canon in some way at that point. Ultimately though, Mihli has come to love Eorzea. In truth she is more at home in this universe than she was in Vana'diel. There are so many friendships and bonds that I don't think she would ever be able to go back to Vana'diel long term. Given the choice, I think Mihli would pick Eorzea in every timeline.

Mihli is also extremely inquisitive, curious, and adventurous. She has a lust for adventure and a thirst for knowledge. Equal parts bookworm and adventurer, exploring Eorzea and meeting people from all walks of life and cultures has been an incredible experience for her. Also seeing where things line up with both universes has been a delight for her. After all Vana'diel and Eorzea share similar if not the same races like the Mamool Ja. There have been several instances where a friend or colleague of hers will insist something is called what Eorzean's call it and in turn Mihli will absolutely insist on the Vana'diel terminology. Its very cute.

If you're interested in more about Mihli's character or past I've touched on it lightly here when talking about Sasavi. I should really talk about her more, but until Dawntrail I kinda wanna play it cool.

I am excited to blend her story better into the canon lore!

This week’s chapter of Prism has me reeling. I honestly cannot wrap my head around how the two of you manage to craft the stories of these three heartbreakingly lost boys in such compelling ways. I’m absolutely flabbergasted with each new update.

Going into this week’s chapter I imagined that one of two things might happen for Billy:

1) I was so scared that he would OD or

2) he would wake up and go absolutely nuclear, try to kill Eddie (or maybe even Steve, or both of them!) and get himself sent to prison for his trouble

I’m so happy/sad that my #2 prediction was closer to Billy’s reality than #1. Happy he didn’t OD and die, of course, but so so so sad about the way he tried to kill Eddie and nearly killed Steve.

I actually adore Billy as a character (in canon and/or any other universes). He’s such a complex character in a multitude of ways - and sure, he’s a problematic human in canon but that’s kind of the point of having an antagonist.

I’m so in love with Prism (and you! And Az!) and I’m just beside myself with admiration for the way you’re crafting their stories and building this world. I have no idea how I’m going to survive this six week break.

Final question/thought. Potentially a spoiler so most likely you won’t be able to answer, but when they were all at the club, there was a mention of Eddie’s ‘other name.’ Now that we know he killed Jack - is his other name JACK?!? I haven’t been able to sleep thinking about it. Again, not really expecting an answer but wanted to throw it out there.

So much great stuff in this chapter and I know I’m going to have to re-read the entirety of Part 1 before part 2 launches. Can’t wait!

This was beautiful to read, thank you!!! So happy you've enjoyed Prism and the way we've written the three boys and their own unique experiences with childhood trauma. Something that started off as just a dark little fic idea about Billy selling Steve to Eddie for drugs has become something so much grander and more ambitious and we couldn't be more proud of it, so thank you.

And no, our intention was never to kill off Billy at the end of Part One! We knew it would be much more interesting to keep him in the story, and we also thought it would be lazy writing, and a waste, to kill him off when we'd put so much time into writing him and his backstory. Though of course I can't say what'll happen in the next part!!!

Oh my god and SUCH a great question, asking if Eddie's other name is actually Jack, that is so insightful of you!!! I won't confirm or deny at the moment, you'll have to see what happens, but that is such a great theory, thank you for sharing!!

honestly so over the moon you loved the chapter and have loved Prism so far, this was SUCH a lovely ask to get!! 💕💕💕

(SORRY FOR THE QUESTIONS IN ADVANCE, FORGIVE ME I AM FANGIRLING OVER YOU) (ALSO YOUR STORIES ON BTS ARE REALLY GOOD)

What would have happened if Spider escalated it after he said Quaritch isn't his father?

Do you think you would ever write headcanons of the recoms?

Do you think Spider could escape (I'm not asking you as the author, I'm asking you as if you were only a viewer and someone else had written the story)

Do you think we will ever have a chapter (or more) where it is in someone else's POV like Lyle, Quaritch, etc.?

Do you think Quaritch genuinely loves his kid?

Why do you think Lyle wainfleet acts like he has "join custody" as you wrote in the newest chapter?

Also and finally do you think the recoms could grow to love/like Spider eventually? (Also who do you think, if we could, out of the recoms, would help Spider escape?)

(I love questions, so its the opposite really and tyyyy 😭😭 You are the perfect fit for this account then, since I'm going to try to incorporate a bit of both fandoms!)

If Spider escalated it again? I don't think he could escalate it further really.. denying Q was his dad was about the worst and most painful thing he could say. I guess he could have kept repeating it and saying he hated him or tried to physically attack him, but I don't know that it would have done worse damage than was already done. For sure Q would have stayed on his rage spiral, which meant going after the Sullys and who knows what else after that!

I do probably plan to develop the recoms, or some of them anyway, but because I'm winging the fic it's hard to know right now lol. There will likely be some backstory snippets in Custody as I come up with stuff, but no full blown head cannons I imagine? We shall see though. Definitely no POV jumping, I don't think.

Do I think Spider can escape as a reader? Yeah, because it's a story, and he's the protagonist and on balance protagonists who make escape attempts succeed more than they should. But if we were talking a real-life scenario I'd say it's a lot less likely!

As I've done all Spider-POV so far it'll almost definitely stay that way. It also leaves questions over other character's motivations etc, which can be more interesting than just knowing!

I know that Quaritch thinks he genuinely loves his kid. So from his perspective 100%. As an outsider, I'd say you don't kidnap your kid unless there was some kind of emergency in which kidnapping your kid would save their life (or similar). He's not exactly putting Spider first here. That's not loving your kid. So it's a big no from me and a big yes from Quaritch, you can decide who you want to believe!

I'm riffing off the movie/other fics, but this guy loves Quaritch, looks up to him, worships him a bit. And I'll probably develop their back story in the fic, but he's also the right-hand-man/closest friend.. so Wainfleet is in a dynamic where he thinks very much of the 'us' (him and Q) more than he thinks about 'me'. And also, he's teasing Spider: he thinks he's puppy-cute and he enjoys antagonising him, so he's playing up some of that joint custody vibe for that reason too.

It really depends where the fic goes and I honestly only know where the chap I'm writing goes as it's outlined lol. So yeah, I think it's kind of canon now that they have to grow to have a soft spot for him if he spends a long period of time with them.. but who knows if that will happen! As for escaping.. right this second... oof.. I mean, none of them, but if I have to pick someone it would be Wainfleet... but only in the very specific scenario where he would be doing it 'for Quaritch' - like if Q lost it and was trying to kill Spider, I could see Wainfleet getting him out of there, but it would ultimately be for Q because he would know Q would come to his senses and be torn apart if he'd killed Spider. Hope that makes sense. I do not think that scenario would be likely to happen though, as Q is not likely to lose it to a point of trying to kill Spider (anyone else.. yes!)

Tyyyyyy <3

Mini au ideas.

These are some ideas I just developed and i just want to put out. I am not going to write these ideas out but if you have any asks or want some headcanons for these ideas I will be glad to give them to you.

1. Puppy Becky au: This is like my au where Lexiconians are anthropomorphic mice, but with canines instead. For Steven/Two Brains, it is raising a child that has canine behaviors and instincts. Bob is still a monkey in this au. Becky is like her canon self yet she does tend to get more distracted easily, especially if someone throws a ball or frisbee or if she sees a squirrels. She chases cats, except Priscilla because she scares her a bit. She tends to speak in a fast paced manner sometimes for instance, “omygoshicantbelievethenewprincesstriannabookisout”. She also gets very excited and is more friendly with the villains than in canon. Don’t worry, Dr. Two Brains does not forget he has a child, it is very difficult to forget when you wind up committing your first cheese crime at the grocery store and your alien canine child crashes into you excitedly and asks in a hastily manner why you look and smell different now. As for puppy Becky, I imagine her looking like a wolf/german shepherd mix.

2. A Normal Girl With A Great Vocabulary Au: This au is where Becky is a normal earth girl with an amazing vocabulary. She does live with her villain scientist dad. Bob is a pet mouse that was genetically modified in a lab to live as long as a human. He was rescued by Steven and Becky ended up taking care of him. His full name is Bob Huggy Face. Amazo Guy is the main hero of Fair City with Kid Math as his protege. Kid Math, aka Rex is the adopted child of the Botsford family. Becky secretly helps teach Kid Math how to be a hero from her dad’s book and sometimes aids and helps Amazo Guy and Kid Math in their hero duties. These two are the only heroes that understand and realize her dad needs help and don’t treat him like a criminal like most of the public. This also includes an amazing cheese ship but with oblivious romantic feelings from both of these dudes. Two Brains talks about how attractive Amazo Guy is but when asked if he loves the guy, he immediately denies it being possible because he is a villain while Amazo Guy is a hero. When Dr. Two Brains goes to jail, his old friend Alex Guyson (Amazo Guy) takes Becky in until Two Brains gets out. Becky knows Alex is Amazo Guy and finds out Kid Math’s secret identity in the “Two Brains Forgets” version of this au. Dr. Two Brains does not know Alex is Amazo Guy, yeah awkward relationship between them, and due to Steven’s oblivious nature, he does not realize when Alex tries to flirt with him. He thinks Alex is just being friendly with him. 

3. Bob is fused with Steven AU: This idea stems from what if Bob and Steven became fused instead of Steven and Squeaky. Squeaky is fused with a different person (not Becky). Steven and Bob have to share equal control of their new human/alien monkey body. They have a ponytail and a monkey tail. Becky has to cover up in her hero life why Captain Huggy Face looks different now. He still goes by that cover. There is no exposed monkey brain, but Bob and Steven take turns when one of them wants to talk. They both care for and are protective of Becky. Huggy’s outfit is altered to fit Steven’s body, instead of the helmet. He now wears a red eye mask. This fusion accident is what reveals to Steven that his daughter and monkey are aliens. As for the unfortunate soul fused to Squeaky, I am thinking either Tubing or Doohickey are the options. I still want to include the tragic scientist turned villain backstory in this au. 

🪐 & 👀

‘Imagine Your S/I Was Canon…’ Self-Ship Asks

Thank you, Lee!

🪐: What would be your most popular AU and why?

I already mentioned here that I think that soulmate AUs would be popular since my ship canon is so much the opposite of that. Aside from that, I think the most popular would either realistically be a Realism/No Powers AU just because it seems popular in the fandom, but I love imagining myself with powers so I don't know if I'll dwell on it too much myself when making selfship stuff.

But Crossover AUs, oh man, those would open up so many possibilities for crossing over with other things! I've got ideas of what Pokémon teams we'd have if we were trainers, what Pokémon we ourselves would be in the PMD universe, and what species we'd be in a Sonic AU! I was thinking of making another slideshow post about them sometime once I have enough. I need to think of more verses to port Laurelton into, it makes my brain so happy to think about...

And fun fact, I'm actually joining a Pathfinder campaign with some friends based on Dungeon Meshi and I'm basing my character on my S/I and writing Laurel into her backstory! It's gonna be so much fun~

👀: How does your ship with your F/O influence both of your characterisations and the world? Would there be any interesting metas written about your dynamic?

Would it ever! Our character arcs are super intertwined and have major implications for the themes of the show. Not to mention, the people shipping Wednesday and Enid would have a field day drawing parallels.

In actual canon, Laurel doesn't really have an arc so much as she has one mask that's traded out for another mask at the end. I don't think either of them are truly who she is. "Marilyn" is obviously a persona she puts on, but I think there's tiny bits of evidence that parts of that character are who she'd want to be in more peaceful circumstances, like her love of her plants being a part of her even without needing to keep up an act. And then everything she does while not pretending to be that person is in service to a cause that she had no say in being indoctrinated into as a child, not to mention likely informed by the horrific trauma she experienced when she lost her entire family.

All the ingredients are already there for her to have a crisis of faith when her plans end in failure to avenge her family and the scorn of the ancestor she'd been raised to worship. My S/I just adds that final push: someone that she can't deny that she misses and feels bad for having used. And, in turn, her reevaluation of herself and rejection of what she'd been raised to believe proves to my S/I that nobody is inherently a monster and everyone has the capacity to change, something my S/I desperately needs affirmed after believing my powers and intrusive thoughts make me a ticking time bomb that nothing can defuse.

There'd be so much meta about all the themes at work there:

How our union blurs the lines between our social classes that start out being treated by the narrative as immutable and hereditary—I'm actually considering making her temporarily gaining powers from saving my S/I a permanent change to strengthen that theme.

How the buildup to our relationship demonstrates the importance of rehabilitative justice, how we should hold people accountable for their actions while also not deeming their character irredeemable.

How the fact that we become family and bridge the Addams and Gates Families represents a brighter future of coexistence, contrasting the past where Crackstone slaughtered outcasts and Goody had to sacrifice her own humanity to stop him.

How her beginning her redemption and saving my S/I specifically during my most destructive meltdown shows that people are still worthy of love and support even when they're at their worst.

So yeah. So much meta potential, and I'm sure I'll think of even more the moment I hit post and regret not adding them skjdkdshfdsfdsf

Hi :)

While the Volturi have a presence in the books and films, it’s undeniable that they don’t get nearly enough spotlight as characters like Bella and the Cullens.

So how exactly did you get to the comfort level that you are at now to write such intricate and exquisite headcanons/plot lines about these characters?

Is it the fact that a lot about them is left up to our imagination? Because at the same time, it’s still easy to discern when fan-written content is too “out of character.” You write so well.

Good morning dear Anonymous, waking up to this question had me excited for the day a head; so thank you!

When I first got back into Twilight about a year ago now I did not think I would get so invested in the "Villains" so to speak; it came as a surprise. While I have multiple criticisms towards Stephenie Meyer I cannot deny that she has created an exceptionally interesting universe when it comes to vampires. She has so many good ideas and small nuggets of lore that just do not realise their potential in my opinion. One of those is The Volturi.

This coven is filled with vampires that are hundreds if not thousands of years old, there is so much potential for rich storytelling there it feels like a treasure trove. It is a treat to think about all the things they have seen, experienced and influenced through out history, from antiquity to now. The fact that it's members are from all over the world and different time periods is so fun to think about when writing. They're ages paired with their personalities can create very complex characters with so many layers of quirks, habits, mannerisms and backstories.

When I write I do look to canon as a framework, but my intent with this blog has always been to add more meat to the bone, flesh out the characters and their stories. I think it is unjust to portray The Volturi as a gang of brainwashed vampires led by a Queer Coded Mad Man, an Angry Power Hungry Sadist™ and a Depressed Unfeeling Husk of a Man. That is not compelling storytelling in my humble opinion. Give me nuanced characters that have trapped themselves with shackles of responsibility as they try to keep order in a world that is hellbent on throwing itself into chaos.

To me The Volturi is not as villainous as perhaps the author or purists want to claim, in truth all vampires; vegetarian or otherwise can have the lifestyles they do because of their strict laws.

Now as to why I feel so comfortable writing for The Volturi at this point in time; I have somewhat adopted this group of vampires. For those who do not know, I dabble in multiple creative outlets; painting, art, design and writing. Because of that my imagination tends to run wild, a lot. My personal and work life incorporates these topics, but this blog with my writing and aesthetics is for pure selfish enjoyment. At this point I have written so many small bits and pieces of lore for almost all the characters, that it just comes very naturally.

There are many tales that can be told about the ruling coven in Volterra, it is an honour that I am able to author some of them.

(And thank you so much for your compliments! Whenever someone speaks well of my writing it makes my heart swell, Volterran-Wine is in fact quite a sensitive person.)

Gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss: Mrs Coulter, misogyny and the His Dark Materials TV show

The show went hard on misogyny as a vital part of Mrs Coulter’s backstory, and I want to talk about how they did it, and why, and how it might have been done better. This is quite long (when is anything I write not, let’s be real) so it’s under the cut. Read on for thoughts on women, power and fictional villainy.

As a quick disclaimer, though: I’ve enjoyed the show a lot! I’m so glad they made it! Ruth Wilson is mesmerising as Mrs Coulter! There’s so much to appreciate about the show overall, including many aspects of Mrs Coulter’s portrayal. But the HDM team have also made gender politics and misogyny very explicit themes of the show – particularly season two, particularly season two, episode five – and I think it’s fair to critique that.

Let’s be clear: Mrs Coulter is a villain. She murders kids by tearing out their souls. She kills and tortures friends and foes alike without a second thought. She abuses her daughter. She upholds and advances a totalitarian regime. She’s a Bad Person, as confirmed by God himself with the unforgettable line: “You are a cesspit of moral filth.” She’s fucking terrible, but, in life as in art, many of us are fascinated by how such awful people are made. What drives someone to commit atrocities? I am keen to see such questions examined in fiction, because I don’t think exploring a character necessarily means excusing their actions, and because it’s interesting (I mean, of course I find her fascinating, I’ve written a novel’s worth of fic about her). However, after a few snarky comments (“What sort of woman raised Father Graves, do you think?”) and some subtler commentary on sexuality, gender and power (her unsettling MacPhail with the key in the bra in S1E2), S2E5 drew a weird line between sexism in Mrs Coulter’s professional and academic life and her vast and senseless institutionalised child murder, and the longer I’ve sat with that the more I’m like: what the fuck?

Look, Mrs Coulter doesn’t tear apart children to search for sin inside them and poison Boreal and break a witch’s fingers because she’s experienced sexism in the workplace and in her education. That’s… a very odd thing to imply. We have to remember that there are lots of women in Lyra’s world, all of whom will also have experienced sexism, misogyny and other forms of marginalisation (many in more expansive and pernicious ways than Mrs Coulter, who’s a woman, yes, but also white, wealthy, highly educated and very thin and beautiful), and none of them are running arctic torture stations. She will have experienced misogyny, absolutely, and that will have affected her in various ways that inform how she approaches her work, but to imply that being denied a doctorate is the reason she became a sadistic killer is frankly bizarre. Here are a few of the lines from that episode with my commentary:

“Do you know who I could have been in this world?” What does this mean? If she’d been roughly the same person in our world, the answer is: Margaret Thatcher, which is probably a step down for Marisa, all things considered, because the Magisterium is far more autocratic than any recent Tory government and would be a much easier institutional environment in which to enact her cruelty. What we’re supposed to think, clearly, is that she’d have been a different person: a scientist and a mother, and she’s had this realisation because she saw a woman with a baby and a laptop and had a three-minute conversation with Mary. This doesn’t make sense. We live in our world! It’s less repressive than Lyra’s world but it’s hardly a gender utopia. If Mrs Coulter had chosen the scientist-and-mother life (which, as I’ll revisit later, she could have done in her world but chose not to because of her megalomaniac tendencies), she’d still have been affected by misogyny here too. Our world is not kind to young mothers, nor young women embroiled in scandals, nor is the world teeming with female physicists. It might be a little better, sure, but it’s hardly as if those gendered challenges would have been solved.  

“What do you mean she runs a department?” This is just the show forgetting its own canon. Marisa, you ran a massive government organisation (the GOB), including a huge murder science research initiative in the Arctic. That’s a much bigger undertaking and much more impressive than running a university department in our world. Pull yourself together.

“But because I was a woman, I was denied a doctorate by the Magisterium.” This is the show flagrantly ignoring the source material to make a clumsy political point. In the books, there are women with doctorates (notably Hannah Relf, also a major player in the new Book of Dust trilogy) and at least one women’s college full of female scholars. Now, would that women’s college likely be underfunded and disrespected compared to the men’s colleges? Almost certainly. But saying that is different than saying “I couldn’t get my doctorate!” when women in Lyra’s world can. The show knew what point they wanted to make, and were willing to ignore canon to do so, which is frustrating. Also, given that there are female academics and scientists in Lyra’s world, and that Mrs Coulter is a member of St Sophia’s college, it’s clear that she could have lived that life if she so desired. But she didn’t want that, because being a scientist and academic at St Sophia’s imbues her with no real power, and that’s what she craves.

I’m not opposed, in theory, to exploring Mrs Coulter and misogyny in more depth, but I think doing so through an examination of the sexual politics of her life would have made a lot more narrative sense and been much more powerful. It’s better evidenced in the text – her using her sexuality to manipulate people and taking lovers for political sway is entirely canon, as is her backstory where genuine love and lust blew up her life – and it links much more closely with the most shocking of her villainy, which involves cutting out children’s dæmons to stop them developing “troublesome thoughts and feelings,” referencing sexual and romantic desire (and what Lyra and Will do to save Dust is clearly a big ‘fuck you’ to those aims). She even says this to MacPhail in TAS, “If you thought for one moment that I would release my daughter into the care - the care! - of a body of men with a feverish obsession with sexuality, men with dirty fingernails, reeking of ancient sweat, men whose furtive imaginations would crawl over her body like cockroaches - if you thought I would expose my child to that, my Lord President, you are more stupid than you take me for.” Don’t get me wrong, she’d have been a villain regardless, but I do believe that there’s a much stronger link between her sexual and romantic experiences and her murder work than between professional and academic stifling and child murder. It would have been a lot more interesting and a lot less tenuous.

However, the show is trying to be family-friendly, and digging into why this terrible, cruel woman might want to cut the ability for desire and love (and other non-sexual adult feelings, I’m sure) out of people could get dark. We know that the show doesn’t want to go there, because they’ve actively toned down her weaponising her sexuality: in the books, she has an established sexual relationship with Boreal, whereas the show made it seem like she’s been stringing him along all this time, and made it about potentially ‘sharing a life’ together rather than fucking, which was clearly the arrangement in the books. Also, I think Ruth Wilson said she and Ariyon Bakare filmed a “steamy scene” together, and given that only a single chaste kiss between them aired it must have been cut. I think they deliberately minimised the sexual elements of the text, particularly regarding Mrs Coulter (the mountain scene with Asriel, which I did still love, was also a lot less horny than in the book) and replaced that with another gender issue, that of professional sexism, as if the two are interchangeable, which they are not. This is a shame, both for Mrs Coulter’s character and also for the story as a whole, because the characters’ relationships with sex and desire are an important part of the books! (If this minimised sexuality approach means that they don’t use the TAS scene where Asriel threatens to gag her and she tries to goad him into doing it, I’ll scream). Overall, I think they missed the mark here, which is a shame because I also think it could have been done well, if they’d been bolder and darker and more thoughtful.

Why might this happen? Why might the show take this approach? Why might it be latched onto by viewers? Personally, I think the conversations we have about women and power are very simplistic, which leaves us in a tight spot when we see women seizing power for themselves (even in fiction) and weaponising that against others, not just other women but people of all genders, because we struggle to move past ‘women have overall been denied power, so them taking it ‘back’ is good,’ even if that immediately becomes a hot mess of white, corporate feminism and results in the ongoing oppression of many people. I think we are so hungry for representations of powerful women that we – producers and viewers alike – struggle to see them as bad, because it’s uncomfortable to be so intoxicated by Mrs Coulter effortlessly dominating the men around her, subverting systems designed to marginalise her for her own benefit, and generally being aggressive and intelligent and ruthless, and then realise that you are entranced by someone who is, objectively, a terrible, terrible person. It can be hard to realise that if you channelled the energy of someone who mesmerises you, you’d be the villain. So instead of sitting with that (more on this below), a lot of legwork goes into reworking her villainy into, somehow, a just act, a result of oppression, as her taking back power that has been denied to her, rather than grappling with the fact that for anyone to desire power in such a merciless way, even if they have to overcome marginalisation to get it, is really, really dangerous.

The joy, of course, is that Mrs Coulter is not real! She’s not real! Adoring fictional characters does not mean condoning their (imaginary) decisions, nor do stories exist for each person in them to fit neatly into a good or bad box so you know who you’re allowed to love. Furthermore, fiction can be a fabulous tool for exploring and interrogating the parts of yourself that, if left to bloom unexamined, might perpetuate beliefs or behaviour that cause harm to others. Mrs Coulter doesn’t need to be a feminist or taking down the patriarchy or a righteous powerful woman to illuminate things about gender, power and feminism for those reading and watching. In fact, it’s important that we explore what happens when women (most commonly white, wealthy women, as she is) continue to perpetuate brutal systems under the guise of sticking it to ‘men,’ because it happens all the time in the real world, and it’s a serious issue. Finding characters like Mrs Coulter so cool and compelling doesn’t make you a bad person, but it might tell you something about yourself – not that you want to be a villain or kill kids or whatever, but something about how you relate to your gender or women or men or power – and that knowledge can be useful! We all have better and worse impulses, and finding art that helps us make sense of ourselves, both the good and bad parts, is a gift that we should relish.

Anyway, tl;dr, Mrs Coulter doesn’t need to be sympathetic or understandable or redeemable to be brilliant – but you wouldn’t know that from how she’s been portrayed in the new adaptation.

VERY important emmy and bernice update!!! (contains major spoilers!!)

tales from harrow county being bernice and emmy centered all along and giving us backstory about just how close they were...well, it's everything i had hoped it would be and more. let's break this down!!

i thought bernice and emmy had been writing to each other, but turns out bernice has been writing to people who have come in contact with emmy on her travels, trying to find out if she's even alive because for some strange reason, emmy hasn't contacted her in a while. bernice is very worried and still in love with emmy and wants her to come home.

georgia, bernice's girlfriend, finds the letters addressed to emmy, and it gets awkward as bernice recounts the last time she saw her ex witchy girlfriend. upon hearing bernice talk about emmy, georgia remarks that bernice loved emmy and what's fascinating is bernice doesn't deny it at all. not only that but bernice's actions regarding emmy also speak volumes; as she goes on to reveal that she went to some great lengths to protect now-human emmy.

despite growing up in harrow county, georgia doesn't remember emmy for some reason. now that's because after emmy and her tearfully parted ways, bernice did a ritual that would remove the memory of what emmy was from the minds of the townspeople, for some that meant removing the memory of emmy altogether. but it wasn't just a memory-wipe spell, it was also a cure for a broken heart.

love and magic are two totally different things.

turns out the ghostly choir and the disappearance of priscilla back in death's choir was all a trap, one to lure bernice down to the underground, where a cult of haint and fairy folk dwell. they capture both bernice and georgia who in turn, find priscilla. they force bernice to undo the spell she placed over the townspeople. hoping they'll pray for emmy to return.

curiously, bernice asks georgia what she's remembered about emmy, and georgia says she didn't know both of them that well back then, but she remembers how people talked about bernice and emmy. she envied them because despite those rumors, and even if they weren't true, they were living their lives and didn't care what anyone thought...they weren't afraid like she had been, to which bernice replied; they were always afraid.

and there we have it: bernice and emmy were in a secret relationship with each other.

suddenly all their hand-holding, *married couple energy* fights and lingering eye contact wasn't just my imagination after all.

EMBER IS FREAKIN' CANON BABYYYY!!!!

and now...for emmy to return to harrow!!

Do you like the backstory for rick? Idk I kinda preferred it when Rick's past was a complete mystery and i dont really care about diane at all. I didn't expect the writers to actually write a canon for him either but I guess they realised how much the audience wanted one for him

Ajdjdjeidjs ack, I'll be honest I'm not... keen on it.

(Bolly-quinn actually puts it into words well how I feel about Rick's backstory here)

I liked the mystery element of his backstory! I know it's always exciting to have things in canon, but like... it being open to interpretation was something I always appreciated.

And... ugh, hoo boy. I'm torn. I mean, I love that Rick is completely different from what dudebros and like- "high iq" redditors present him as. He's a man who loved his wife and daughter, loved them so much he would rather give up travelling the multiverse, becoming a genius scientist, just to stay with them. He was vulnerable, soft, and caring. He wasn't nihilistic and reckless and selfish and some "alpha male who wouldn't let anything tie him down". He was ridiculously romantic, optimistic, sweet and loving, and maybe even kind.

And I don't give a shit.

I don't! I don't care. This might sound incredibly cruel and unfair, but I don't care that Rick lost his family.

Ok- let me explain.

I'm... disappointed. I'm disappointed that losing Beth and Diane is all it was that made Rick into the complete and utter monster he is today (or the start of the series anyway). I don't mean to undermine his loss and grief- at all! It's just... for him to go on a (seemingly decades long) killing spree, slaughtering any version of himself he seemed to come across... christ. Maybe in his eyes, they were all as bad as that One. Which is understandable. I'm very lucky to have not experienced that kind of loss. I haven't had to Grieve the way Rick did. Maybe I just don't get it, because I've never felt it. That's fair.

It just felt... god, I don't want to say excessive. I know, people process grief in different ways, and for some it manifests in unhealthy ways, some lash out at the world, fixate on trying to find an explanation, to find justice, etc. And I like how Rick was an absolute inconsolable wreck at first. Something like that, it needs time to process and overcome before you can start moving again.

I just- I don't know. Something rubbed me the wrong way about it all.

It's like- it's not that I wanted Rick to have spent all that time partying or something. It's just- argh, i don't know! Maybe someone else can put it into better words lol.

I hate that he immediately jumped into not giving a single shit about other people (save birdperson and squanchy!). Like- when he blew up those aliens who gave him whatever it was he needed. Ah- ok, they probably weren't exactly innocent or anything, but still. I think it was just I felt if we ever saw Rick's backstory, I'd want it to be a slow decline into who he is, show him gradually losing so much of his morality and becoming so jaded. Idk i guess i just wanted it to be like, a series of significant (and lesser but still important) events that lead to him going down that path rather than- this ONE thing that just apparently completely ruined him? And yeah ik ik it was a BIG thing, but like- i guess i was expecting.... more? Maybe something like idk Rick trying to save all the other Beths and Dianes and failing, idk, just... something more.

I actually would have preferred it if Diane lived. I dont know, I just- man I really hate the dead wife/daughter turns ordinary man into callous asshole trope. I agree, it's hard to really care all that much for Diane, and for a while I couldn't understand why. I thought, idk, is it internalised misogyny? Do I just not like Diane because I want to ship Rick with someone else?

I think I get it now. Diane, for all her significance in Rick's backstory, just... isn't a character. She's just- the motivation Rick needed to kick off the story. You could replace her with literally anybody else Rick could have loved and it wouldn't feel any different. She just doesn't feel special. She's no more unique than any other Dead Wife. We get nothing, literally nothing of her. I kept thinking, why? Why does this just not hit that hard? Rick's had emotional moments with Beth, with Birdperson, even with Summer and Jerry. And then I got it- it doesn't feel earned. It felt like how you feel when you see side characters or extras in the background of an action movie die. Maybe some faint sadness, but mainly nothing. We as an audience get nothing from Diane, we don't know her, don't get to see how she matters to Rick, don't get to see her relationship with Rick, we don't get any chance to connect with her character. So when she dies and Rick gets his montage of seeking revenge, it doesn't feel earned. It feels more like I'm being told about how this guy suffered than really seeing it (which i believe, may have been the writers intention actually...). It's kind of like a feeling of "damn that sucks bro... and?". There's no real heavy emotional response that I could really get from it...

I actually would have preferred if Rick and Diane broke up, divorced. I feel like that would offer so much more for them BOTH as chatacters. Instead of their relationship being happy and sunshine and rainbows until a Big Bad came in and took that away, I'd prefer it if Rick's downfall was just... his fault. (Actually His fault.) If his marriage fell apart because he couldn't make it work. If he estranged his daughter because he couldn't properly handle fatherhood, despite loving her. If he was flawed, terribly flawed, because of his own misjudgement and shortcomings. I guess my biggest problem, is that this is presented as someone having the perfect life, which is then taken away as a result of someone Else. It's too easy to then say, oh, it's not his fault he's like that! He had his heart broken, his life ruined! He lost himself in a revenge spree, poor thing... I'd have rathered if it was just a little bit more... realistic? If Rick had been the root cause of his own problems. If he'd experienced tragedy, but also been the cause of much more. I just wish there'd been more of a balance? It just felt so rushed. And not because of the montage- it just like Rick became completely apathetic way too fast. I just hate hate HATE the "he was a good guy with the perfect little life until tragedy struck and he was never the same". Rick never made the effort to improve his life, to do better, to be better. He's actively a cruel, callous, unkind person (complex, yes, but these are traits no one can deny he harbours). He's done far worse than was done to him, and that will never be justifiable to me... it just all feels so very cliche and out of place, and out of everything, this was the one thing I had hoped they wouldn't do.

I think the writers are aware of this, strangely enough. I mean, Rick even calls it his "crybaby backstory". I think they didn't want to leave it open any longer, and just got it out of the way. I don't think they really want to elaborate on it anymore. From what I predict, they want to focus on the here and now of Rick (and Morty, haha), and the development of who Rick is NOW, instead of who he WAS. I think they kind of just went, here's your gut-punch, your tragic backstory, now leave it alone. Diane is dead, Rick had a hard past, the series is about moving on and change. Now can we PLEASE get back to the sci-fi shenanigans?

(There was something I LOVED about the backstory though, and that was the soundtrack! Like the music for the Battle of Bloodridge, it fucking SLAPPPEDDDD. I can't imagine making synthwave emotional, but it actually kind of worked! The swell of the music actually did a lot more for getting a reaction out of me than the content lmaooo. It kind of reminded me of Kurzegast's "optimistic nihilism" for some reason... I actually liked the Bloodridge track so much, it got me a little into synthwave, which i never listened to before! The music producers this season have just KILLED IT!)

Rant about Mystreet Season 6

Now I love Aphmau’s channel and series, have since I was 10, but this last season of Mystreet and parts of season 5 could have been so much better. This is meant to be no “attack” or “jab” at Jess and Jason’s writing, these are merely opinions from a long-time fan. I am gonna go on a bit of a rant about the parts I personally feel could have been MUCH improved on. I would like to preface this with saying that I really do not enjoy this season and therefore do not re watch it a lot. Its also 4:40 am my time so this might turn into a sleep deprived ramble but anyways, here we go...

SPOILERS FOR SEASON 5/6 OF APHMAUS MYSTREET 

Kawaii Chan/ Nana

I adore Nana. She has consistently been my favourite female character for all 6 seasons of the show and in diaries but holy she has done wrong this past season. Getting almost killed and then not having any involvement what so ever. The majority of her screen time, especially near the fight with the demon warlock, just felt like the writers forgot she was there and wanted to give Moeka lines. Her involvement with Zane was the only moments she seemed to have. Speaking of her and Zane... While I love them as a couple, I also despise the fact that Nana only ever got development or a backstory when it came time to ship her with Zane. I wish she could have been more explored earlier on aside from being the “annoying, shippy, meifwa girl”. She got the short end of the stick recently and I hate it.

Aaron 

I have really never liked Aaron. From him being a high school senior dating a freshman to him literally murdering people, I never liked him. This season really didn't help that. Aaron ended lives, we see him kill Blaze and is he punished at all for it ? No. Yes, he was blinded and lost his memory but that wasn't as a reprimand for his crime of I don’t know MURDER. Aaron and Irene’s constant interactions make zero sense to me. One man cant be brought back to life by God twice. I get a bad sense that through-out season 6, we are meant to be supporting or sympathising with Aaron but I just cant. We are treated to numerous flashbacks to Aaron’s past, inter-cut with scenes of him committing various horrid actions. His father raised and treated him horribly but that is no excuse for murder. The ending of season 6 seemed almost hopeful for Aaron with the “hope” of him and Aphmau reuniting and I honestly don’t feel it is 100% earned. 

Ultima/ Werewolf 

This point isn't so much a critique on season 6 specifically but on the series as a whole. Aaron and his family being werewolves, being descendants of the ultima werewolf no less, came out of no where. Werewolves being introduced into the main plot could have been cool but instead the majority of it came off being rather cringey, specially in Phoenix Drop High. Anytime a werewolf would call Aphmau or Aaron “Alpha”, I could feel my skin crawl. The dealing of almost species based discrimination in season 6 was down right awful and Im not even talking about Aphmau wanting to be turned. The whole ordeal with the restaurant denying the werewolf pack service was over and dealt with as soon as it happened, The werewolves being hunted in season 6 because of the possibility they were an ultima and Katelyns reaction to Aaron being a werewolf seemed to come out of no-where. The idea of discrimination based on something someone can not control in a minecraft story could have been a way to teach younger kids a great life lesson but the majority of story lines involving werewolves were so half-assed, you cant even make a successful anecdote out of them. 

MCD/MS Connection

In the last season of MS, they really tried to shoe-horn in this connection with MCD which honestly creates nothing but plot-holes. A MS/MCD connection could have been a really cool concept and piece to see but its so rushed and forced, it just comes across as awkward and last minute. If the writers really did want to merge the two series or at least have them canonically exist in the same universe, they should have been setting it up from the first season. Overall, the two series are so vastly different from their environment to the characters that a complete mash up of the two would be so jarring. Just imagine Zane from MS meeting Zane from MCD or all of the MCD characters in a world without Wyvern, common use of ships, lords, and being introduced to the technology. A series combining the two would be fun and it would be fun seeing the characters interact and meet each other but it would need to be well thought out instead of just saying “and now here’s Irene and the demon warlock” which is what season 6 did. 

Dante/ Laurence

The Laurence curse strikes again but this time, its not just him. Since season 2, there has been a “tendency” to forget Laurence in the shows events. He was absent throughout Season 2 and again for Seasons 4,5 and 6. Dante, however, was very present in the first 3 straight seasons of the show. No one expected for him to disappear out of the blue ;) like that. Laurence disappearing could make sense, maybe Sebastian was booked up at the time or other personal reasons but Kestin voiced Zane and Eric throughout the show. Season 5 of the show I will cut some slack for forgetting them, It already barely made sense for how characters like Kai or Nate were there, but forgetting Laurence in Season 2 seemed odd. Dante and Laurence not only could have helped the “gang” but they could’ve provided some great entertainment and story lines but instead we got Ein ... again.

Ein

Eins rant will be shorter as while his character in season 4 did not leave much of an impact on me, his story could have been written leagues better. Eins story line and subsequent death was insanely fast. We got the spotting at the end of season 5 and a poorly done B plot throughout season 6. Ein is a fairly good villain with some decent potential, he could have been much more utilised. Ein served only to kill Aphmau then die. His character got walked all over. Literally. He caused such shit in season 4 and his death was a simple *stomp*. Are you kidding ? Everything could have been just ... better. Not only in regards to Ein but for the entire season. 

Closing Thoughts 

Overall the season was not good, in my opinion. Mystreet works much better as a episodic show like a slice of life anime, as a story driven series like a shounen it does not. If the rumours about a season 7 are true, I really hope it is at least a bit better than this one. It as a whole was a mess. To reiterate, this is meant as no attack on the writers or BluJay Studios but as a critique on this particular season. I love Aphmau and the Mystreet series but this was its low point. Thank you for sitting through my incoherent rantings about a minecraft show. :) have a great day/night !!

Hey, I just had a thought, and since you write SQH so well, I wanted to know what you think and how you might write this. So, I headcannon SY as very sick in his last life but also from a wealthy family so he has plenty of money to spare. So since we know Airplane was writing for money, what if after the first few chapters that Airplane posted, before too much had to be sacrificed for papaya for money, SY sent a comment or something that basically said, you were doing so good, the hell is this? Are you trying to write for money? Because I will pay you to keep your writing the way it was. And since SQH had said before that he hadn't wanted to sacrifice so much of his story for money, he takes SY up on it. I mean, at first, he was sarcastic back to SY since he didn't think SY would actually follow through. But they work something out and SY basically is Airplanes patron, with the caveat that they never meet. So they still eventually transmigrate but into more of how Airplane wanted his story to be. What do you think?

Thanks! I think that’s an interesting concept and a fun setup! How I would go about it would totally depend on the main character and the main relationship(s) of the fic, and what I wanted to explore with those characters and that relationship. It sounds like either Airplane or Shen Yuan would be the MC here and that Cucumberplane friendship at least would be present. 

There’s really lots of different fics present in that premise! 

Just the backstory itself might make a fun one shot. Like, a couple thousand words about these two assholes somehow manage to form a genuine human connection over stallion novels on the internet? I think that could be funny and oddly sweet. With some fun themes about how wish fulfillment and past resentments come out in stories and our perceptions of them. 

But I could also see Shen Yuan deciding not to engage in a real relationship with Airplane at all. Like, not just them not meeting in person, but maybe Shen Yuan decides to back off because he doesn’t want to “take over” Airplane’s creative process? Denying them a potential friendship? Maybe he’s partly embarrassed over the fact that he basically “keeps” an artist, except he’s the patron of the author of tropey web-novels. (Shen Yuan: “No offense, Airplane, but I would rather tell my parents I’m paying for an expensive new drug addiction.” Airplane: “Little bit of offense taken, but also, haha, I get it.”) 

So, going into the transmigration, the way I’d approach it would definitely depend on the relationships I wanted to explore. If it was about LBH and SY, it would probably be about Shen Yuan unable to cope with knowing Luo Binghe is destined to be a bitter and alone “man who has everything”. And Shen Yuan (idk whether he’s SQQ in this one) clumsily trying to lead Luo Binghe away from that sad ending of trusting no one, despite the harsh world. 

I am assuming that MBJ and SQH would not be the forefront of this idea because I don’t think their situation would change that much? 

The relationship popping out at me here is Cucumberplane (which I could see being done platonically or romantically) and the question is whether or not you want to give them the same canonical transmigration time difference. I would personally find it a little difficult to pull off a romance with the decades-long difference if they weren’t actually friends before transmigration, otherwise I imagine Airplane would have moved on from that acquaintance-ship. 30-40 years is a long time to be without someone. 

I guess whatever the situation, if the focus was SY and Airplane’s relationship, then it would be the two of them versus Airplane’s depressing worldview. Like, yeah, it was kind of interesting to read, but do the two of them really want to live that sort of story? And you could do some fun stuff with two shut-ins actually engaging with a fantasy world and trying to discover for themselves what the best parts of life are. That is, if they have any ability to manipulate the plot when they arrive, and it’s not just “mission objective: survive” time for them.