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teddy06writes · 3 years

Note

sum angst for sapnap x quackity x karl x reader if requests are open, i dont remember if they are, and if u feel up to it

sapnap x karl x quackity x reader + sleepy bois x sibling!reader

trigger warnings: yelling, swearing, character death

this is an in game au so be aware of that

premise: you’ve been on the inside, spying on Shlatt for pogtopia, you thought you had had him convinced that the spy was Tubbo (Who knew just about nothing about pogtopia) but during the festival Shlatt asks you to make a speech... after the festival, things begin to fall apart

(y/n/n)- your nickname

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“And you’re sure about this? You’re positive that it’s him and not Quackity?” Shlatt asked.

The festival was in two days, Wilbur’s plan to blow Manburg was in place, and suddenly huge evidence of things you had berried was piling up. Your entire position as Pogopia’s spy was at risk.

“I’m positive Mr. President. I caught Tuboo poking around in some tunnels, trying to talk to TommyInnt just yesterday,” You lied straight through your teeth, “The log I found behind the files proves it.”

You held up the book, truly a work of your own notes, signed in you co workers hand.

Shlatt took it, quickly skimming through the pages, “Hmmm, this is significant evidence to condemn the kid. We’ll have to do something about.”

“Maybe we should exile him, like Wilbur and Tommy.” You suggested carefully.

He considered it for a moment, a wide jagged grin spreading across his face, “Or... we could execute him,” He seemed to take pleasure in your shock, “Publicly. We have been needing a slam finish for that festival.”

“Shlatt Tubbo is just a child!”

Shlatt glared down at you, “Sorry, what was that? It almost sounded like you were trying to go against the word of the president.”

The threat chilled you to the core, and you strained to stay calm, “With all due respect Mr. President, Tubbo is only 16, and there are other ways to deal with insurgents.”

“Insurgents? As in there's multiple now?” Alex strode into the room, wrapping an arm around your shoulders as you breathed a slight sigh of relief.

“Yes, your partner here has just informed me that our dear Tubbo is a traitor,” Shlatt slammed the journal onto the desk, ignoring the glare Alex gave him when you jumped, “He’s been spying on Manburg for Pogtopia.”

Alex reached for the book, flipping to the last page and reading allowed, “If there is ever a time to strike, it would be during the Manburg festival, though it is worth noting Wilbur’s plan of destroying L’Manburg should be put off as long as possible.”

“When I caught them in the tunnels under the city, they were talking about tnt,” You said, the shake in your voice all too real, as forced tears began to prick in your eyes, “Wilbur’s going to blow it up.”

Shlatt looked at you clearly searching for something, but giving up once you fully began to cry, turning to burry your face in your boyfriends shoulder.

The president sighed, annoyed, “Get them outta here Quackity, I can’t work when there's fucking crying in my office.”

“It’s probably just the stress, sir. I’ll get them home.” Alex carefully led you out of the white house, and you were grateful, unknowing how much of the emotion was real or not.

“Oh god! Is (y/n) okay?” Karl asked as soon as Alex had gotten you to where he was decorating party island.

“Yeah, they’ll uh- they’ll be alright. Shlatt, Manburg, stress, you know?” He eased you down to sit on one of the benches, and quickly Karl moved to sit and wrap his arms around you.

“Hey, I’ve gotta get back to work. I’ll see you guys tonight.” Alex quickly pecked at your cheek, and then Karl’s lips before heading back in the direction of the white house.

“What happened?” Karl asked softly once he had gone.

You sniffled, leaning into his embrace, “Work’s stuff. The festival’s getting stressful.”

“Yeah, well I’m helping Tubbo with the last of the decorating tomorrow,” He paused, “You’re missing Wilbur and Tommy aren’t you?”

You nodded, “I miss them and Techno and Phil. I miss home.”

Your duties as a spy didn’t entail much seeing your brothers, just taking down notes of what was going on in Manburg and leaving them in a remote chest for Wilbur to collect later.

“We all miss home. But think about it this way, if you hadn’t come here, you wouldn’t’ve found me, or Alex, or Nick,” Karl said, looking out at the rest of Manburg, “We wouldn’t have this place without you or your brothers, and even Shlatt can’t change that.”

You smiled a bit at that, “Thanks Karl.”

“And! You don’t have to worry about decorations for the festival cause I’m helping Tubbo with it tomorrow!”

Though it was meant to cheer you up you felt your heart sink lower, he and Nick still didn’t know, and wouldn’t about what would be planned for the festival, but hopefully Alex would understand the burden.

“So why is there a festival?”

Nick had just arrived back in Manburg from a while’s stay in the SMP, and was very confused by the posters lining the streets.

“Shlatt wants to celebrate democracy, so he’s had Tubbo and I organize a festival.” You explained.

He cocked an eyebrow, “And what does Wilbur think of this?”

Nick was still the only one who’d found out about your allegiances to Pogtopia, only by mistake, when he’d caught you making the journey back from the cavern.

“Wilbur thinks it’s an opportunity,” You sighed, quickly scribbling down a new messege to the boys, “Techno think’s it’s a waste of time and energy, the anarchist energy’s been shining through more and more lately.”

“So who do you agree with?” He asked carefully.

“Neither, Wilbur’s gone manic, Techno is- well he’s Technoblade, and Tommy just goes along with what Wil says.” You tucked each note into an envelope, folding them between the pages of the newest set of notes.

You looked up to meet Nick’s eyes, “I’m worried about what Friday will bring. I’ve tried to throw Shlatt off my trail and it seems like it’s working I just-”

You broke off as Nick wrapped his arms around you, “Hey, it’ll be okay. And if he tries anything, I’ll be there to protect you,” He chuckled, “Hell, maybe it’ll be the only time your brothers and I agree.”

“Maybe.” You mumbled.

“Woah! Are you guys cuddling without us?” Karl feigned shock as he came into the living room with Alex.

“I would never!” You forced a laugh.

“(y/n), come on, we’ve gotta go get ready to meet Shlatt.” Alex nudged you.

You sighed, starting to snuggle back into Nick’s grip, wishing the small amount of morning calm would last, “Do we have too?”

“Yeah, you know he won’t be happy if we’re late.”

You looked at Karl and Nick, still mostly asleep, and then back at him, quietly admitting, “I’m scared today could change everything.”

He sighed, immediately shifting back down into be, “I suppose we could stay a bit longer.”

Slowly, the other boys woke up, but the room remained in silence, as if everyone could feel the coming tension, as if even moving would shatter the peace of the day.

Carefully, Karl broke the silence, “We’re gonna be okay guys. The festival is gonna be awesome. Wilbur wouldn’t do anything to ruin it for (y/n).”

“If what they found out is true, you guys could all be at risk.” Alex murmured.

Nick sighed, “I don’t care who’s bad side I get on, it’s gonna be anything to keep you all safe.”

Each of you heard a different meaning behind his words, but still none of you spoke.

“Whatever happens today, we’ll make it through, the country, may not.” You said, voice wavering, but still with a note of finality.

By midday the festival was in full swing, and surprising your older brother had actually shown up for the festivities.

“Strange seeing you here,” You laughed, nudging him, “A celebration of a government.”

“It’d be rude to turn down an invitation ta one a these,” He sighed, glancing around, “Where’s your boyfriends hanging around at, I haven’t threatened them yet today.”

You chuckled, “Q’s helping Shlatt with the last of the prep for the speeches. Sapnap’s supposedly trying to figure a way to cheat Fundy’s dunk tank and Karl’s over there.” You gestured to where he, Tubbo, Sam and Bad were running around at Party Island.

“mmm, hey, uh, your note the other day, you weren’t serious about framing the kid right?”

You sucked in a breath, tightening the grip on the sword at your side, “It was him or Al- Quackity, I couldn’t do that to him. Whatever they’re planning I’m going to stop them.”

Techno look back at the stage warily, “I’ll back you up if I can.”

Soon everyone was being called to take there seats in the audience as you, Tubbo, Alex, and Shlatt took to the stage.

“Well everyone!” Shlatt addressed the crowd, “Thank you for coming to this wonderful celebration of democracy! Things sure have gotten bet around here, I’m gonna give the mic to Tubbo, the main organizer of this event, for his speech.”

Tubbo grinned, shuffling his notecards as he took Shlatt’s spot in front of the microphone, “Hello everyone! I’m honestly so excited to be here right now!”

As Tubbo rambled on about Wilbur and Tommy’s banishment, you stood back, wishing you could’ve stood on the same side of the stage as Alex.

Looking out over the crowd gathered you tried not to let your gaze wander to Tommy and Wilbur, who you knew were perched on the top of a near by building.

“And uh yeah! To democracy!” Tubbo concluded.

You could almost here Alex chuckle as he started to turn to the chest on the side of the stage, ready to grab the materials to box the boy in.

“That was nice, hey, uh, (y/n), dear (y/n), my secretary of state, I uh, I hate to put you on the spot here, but uh, why don’t you come up and make a speech?” You blood ran cold at Shlatts words.

On the other side of the stage Alex froze as well, out in the crowd no one suspect anything, so you clasped your hands behind your back to hide the tremors and moved in front of the microphone.

“Well, uh hi guys! I honestly didn’t except to be up here making a speech today, so I’m not quite sure if this will even turn out coherent,” You laughed, out of the corner of your eye you noticed Tommy tensing, “I remember, soon after I followed my brothers to this land, we fought in a war. L’manburg’s war for independence was long and hard, and I often thought we would never see a better time, but standing here, it is very clear to me that this country has changed since the election.

“This country, since gaining it’s independence has changed my life, and it weighs on my heart that My L’manburg has a ruler such as Mr. JShlatt. We fought for this land, my brothers and I, and here we are today, with so much progress made! So, my friends, my colleges, here's to Our L’manburg!”

Everyone began to cheer, only to be cut off my Shlatt’s harsh laugh, “Oh, (y/n), it’s Manburg now remember? or did you forget while you were off conspiring with your brothers in Pogtopia?”

Tubbo pushed a still frozen Alex out of the way to grab the materials, beginning to box you in.

“S- shlatt?” You quickly turned on the emotion, turning frantically as they caged you in, “Shlatt what are you talking about?”

“Shlatt what the hell are you doing?” Alex asked.

“Oh, you didn't know? Your partners a traitor!” Shlatt laughed again.

Alex turned to you, now trapped between the throne and the mic stand, looking betrayed.

“I didn’t do anything! Shlatt! Please!” Though a few days before most of the emotion had been real, but now you were thankful for your acting skills, blubbering, “Alex! Alex look at me it wasn’t me! I didn’t do anything!”

Down in the stands Nick was halfway to standing, pushing Karl back down into his own seat.

“Or really? So that book wasn’t forged? That chest you used to pass messages? You tried to turn them against me!” Tubbo exclaimed.

“I didn’t- I- I would never betray my country!” You sobbed, forcing tears to leak from your eyes.

“Oh shut up,” Shlatt turned to the crowd, “Technoblade, front and center, get up here.”

Shakily Techno stood, quietly moving up to stand on the stage as Alex backed off the stage, looking between you and Shlatt with mixes of betrayal and shock.

“What uh, what you need me up here for Shlatt?”

“I want you to take care of them, make a public example.”

Techno coughed awkwardly, “You- you want me ta kill m’ sibling?”

“No!” You exclaimed, “Techno please...”

Shlatt glared at you, “Cut the crap (y/n)! We all know you aren’t actually this god damn emotional!”

Sapnap was fully in the isle now, sword drawn, and up on the roof You saw Wilbur clamping a hand over Tommy’s mouth to keep him to keep him from giving them away.

Sighing you wiped away the fake tears, “You have to admit, Shlatt, you believed me, you trusted me!”

Shlatt just rolled his eyes, “Techno get on it, snap too! I’ve got places to be.”

Techno slung his crossbow off his shoulder uncertainly, “(y/n)?”

All the fear from the morning came flooding back, but you shoved it down, leaning forward, to make eye contact with Shlatt, “You kill me now and nothing will change! This place will still go down hill and my brothers will still plot against you! All my secrets go down with me!”

“Shut your mouth and die already!”

Your nails dug into your palms, “Don’t make them watch Shlatt, have some mercy, if you want to kill me kill me, but don’t make my boys watch, don’t make Techno do it.”

“Get it over with!”

You leaned forward, gritting your teeth, “You heard the man, kill me.”

“(y/n), I can’t- you- yo- I-”

“Do it.” You hissed.

Time slowed, and Techno slowly raised the crossbow.

You looked out, past him, over the rolling fields of L’manburg, your home.

Niki out in the crowd wore a look of horror, hiding her face in Eret’s shoulder, who wore a simillar look for fear. Fundy wore a steely expression clearly close to breaking, Sam looked down right terrified, as Bad hid his eyes in his hands.

To your left Tubbo looked scared even though he’d put you in the cage, you were glad it was you and not him.

Shlatt wore his usual evil grin, pupil’s dilated.

Up on the roof, Tommy, your little brother looked horrified, Wilbur still holding him back with a neutral expression, Techno, now directly in front of you, was nearly in tears, your big brother, who swore to protect you, now being your end, it seemed almost poetic.

Behind him Nick was running up the isle, sword drawn, though you knew he’d be to late, Karl, lip quivering sat frozen, and Alex, his face still was filled with betrayal.

You looked up, took a deep breath and then time resumed, Techno pulled the trigger and everything went black.

{(y/n) went off with a bang}

It was cold.

Dark.

You didn’t now where you were as you drifted through a world you barley recognized.

Where was this?

How did you get there?

Vaguely you remembered a festival, your brothers, plus your boyfriends, oh how you loved them.

Your friends had been there too.

You looked back down to see L’manburg, ‘home!’ you thought happily.

You drifted towards your house, a voice in the back of your brain wondering, ‘why am I not walking?’

“What the fuck was that?” A loud voice cut through the air.

‘Nicky!’ you thought happily, following the sound.

“What the hell do you mean?”

‘Alex!’

You entered the room, finding them standing on opposite side, Karl, huddled in the corner.

“You are so fucking stupid! You know that? You let them die! They’re fucking dead because of you!”

“They were a fucking traitor! They got what was coming to them!”

“They loved you!” Nick screamed back, “They loved you and me and Karl, and their brothers! And now there gone! Because of You and Fucking Shlatt!”

What were they talking about?

“They fucking betrayed us! They betrayed Manburg! You saw the fucking acting they did! How do you know they ever loved us!”

From the corner Karl sobbed, and instinctively you moved to comfort him, but instead you passed right through.

‘what the hell?’

You had no time to dwell however because Nick shouted, “Etheir way you let them die! They’d be here if you’d interfered!”

“But I didn’t wooupdy do! They were a traitor!”

“They were trying to save their home!”

“WELL MAYBE THEY SHOULD’VE CONSIDERED THAT I WAS TRYING TO BUILD IT UP!”

“You and Shlatt never did anything but tare this place to the ground.” It was only a whisper, but Nick’s words sent Alex spinning on his heel and heading out the door.

“Fuck you! Fuck you! I am aware that my best isn’t good enough! So fuck you!”

The door slammed, and Nick only blinked a moment before Karl quietly asked, “Why did you do that?”

“What?”

“Now he’s gone too!”

Karl’s voice made your heart shatter.

“You think that’s my fault?! Clearly he didn’t give a shit about us, or them, other wise he would’ve stopped Shlatt.”

“They said we’d be okay! But we’re not!” Karl sobbed.

“I can fucking see that! God damn Karl! What did you except?”

“I-”

Before he could finish the door was slamming again.

Karl leaned back against the wall, staring straight through you whispering, “Why did you have to go (y/n/n)? You only just brought us together! We only just figured it out.”

#mcyt x reader #mcyt imagines #sapnap x reader #karl jacobs x reader #quackity x reader #sapnap x karl x quackity x reader #teddy06 writes

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creacherkeeper · 3 years

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im getting a little too in my family feels today and so INSTEAD of feeling those im just going to ramble for a second about why i fucking love paladin!aelwyn because. im. just like this i guess im coping leave me alone

cw for discussions of child abuse, maladaptive coping, drugs and alcohol, self harm, destructive tendencies, basically everything we see in canon and the implications

aelwyn is ... SO interesting to me because for as much of her interiority as we see, as much of her as we think we understand, as much as i could ramble about her character for hours, we know ALMOST NOTHING about her in actuality?? (besides ... one key thing)

(this is like 2k and probably incoherent someone please stop me)

okay. listen. almost everything we see aelwyn do in s1 is maladaptive rebellion against her parents and home life. the drinking, the drugs, the partying, perhaps some of kalvaxus (though i dont think we fully understand how much of that was forced on her as well, kalina WAS watching her when she was talking to adaine about it). you can say like, oh aelwyn is a party animal, she's impulsive, she makes risky decisions, she's bitchy and rude, and its like. okay but IS SHE ACTUALLY. because under her parents thumb she had an EXTREMELY limited amount of freedom, and usually when people are suffering from very little control over their life, they WILL act destructively over the tiny bit they can, either harming themselves or their environment or people lower than them in the pecking order, because in a way, that feels like a reclamation of autonomy. saying "you have so much power over me but can you stop me from hurting myself and destroying what you havent managed to claim yet?". its just like, kind of what human brains do and frequently has little to do with a persons actual personality or impulses, its just. desperate brains trying to control SOMETHING because autonomy is a fundamental human need and when thats taken away we get. very bad off. (this is one big reason eating disorders are SO common with abused kids.) so i think a lot of the s1 aelwyn we see is like. this is a very desperate, abused teenager "acting out" in the only way it is possibly somewhat safe for her to do so because, on a psychological level, the self destruction is weirdly the only emotional tether and its either this or just dissociate all the time (something we do see she has problems with in canon)

and yes, she did treat adaine horribly in s1. she fully did. obviously what we get in canon is what happens but a moment thats interesting to me is in episode 1 where adaine has attacked aelwyn several times, who either does nothing or just bounces it back, when she says "i never cast spells at you" and siobhan immediately retcons it and says "yes you do, all the time" (i havent gone back and watched this bit so i might be wording this wrong). obviously its an improv show and the canon is built between performers as they go, but that was interesting to me. that brennan hadnt intended for her to have fought back in that way. she definitely feeds into the emotional abuse from their parents and participates in all the toxicity there, but we know in canon that she did that because of overwhelming fear and self preservation. and that her self hatred because of it just fed back into the cycle and made her feel like she wasnt good enough to even try to break free from it. this is very common in golden child/scapegoat sibling relationships where the golden child SEES what the parents are capable of and becomes a participant in the abuse out of fear for their own standing. in any way siding with the scapegoat child not only directs abuse at themselves as well, but frequently makes things WORSE for the scapegoat because the parents will take out the challenge to their power on them even more. so, if aelwyn DID ever try to defend or help adaine when they were small, she would have VERY QUICKLY learned that made things worse for everyone. and just. sectioned that part of her brain off, as she's done with so many other things. (and i dont think im reading too much into the forest scene with the abernants to say their parents were VERY QUICK to turn abuse towards aelwyn if she stepped out of line even a little. like, you dont flinch when a hand moves unless. you know. dont need to say it just something to think about. as far as we saw in canon, she had done everything they asked of her leading up to the forest, and we DONT KNOW what happened in it but we do know brennan specifically called out how in broken spirits she was when adaine was summoned, even though they did the ritual to avoid all of the nightmare bullshit)

(the house party is literally a whole separate post but i think its fair to point out that 1) she was super under the influence when that was happening which DEFINITELY is in no way an excuse for her behavior but worth remembering when trying to analyze that 2) her losing that fight did canonically have DRASTIC consequences for her and even if she didnt know exactly how that was going to turn out, i think she knew how bad it might be. and she did not know adaine or any of the bad kids were going to be there in the first place)

all that said, it feels in some ways counterproductive to say that aelwyn is an extremely devoted and protective person (yes we're getting to the paladin shit i know i've been rambling a while) but i think that thats strangely ALL WE ACTUALLY KNOW ABOUT HER. because we've established that her self-destructive and abusive behavior in s1 is almost entirely psychologically scripted for her by her parents, we dont know how much of her villain shit in s1 was LITERALLY UNDER THREAT OF DEATH because we know at least killing the oracle was and we dont know how much of the rest of it was mandated by either her parents or kalina other than that she probably was under orders not to tell adaine the truth, and we know participating in all of this caused extreme self loathing in her that she refused to show to anybody and was too terrified to act on in any way

so, like. what does that actually leave us?

here's what we do know about aelwyn:

- of all the schools of magic, she went into abjuration

- the entire bbeg plan from season 1 hinged on aelwyn's complete faith that her level 1 sister was the most prodigious diviner in the world

- right after (?) the house party, she locked her memories where only adaine could find it with a note basically saying "theres so much bad blood between us but i know only you could find this"

- she desperately wanted to protect adaine and the fact that she was too afraid to do so made her hate herself (and her knowing that adaine now knows this is the turning point in their relationship)

- despite everything, even in the nmk forest, she still loved her parents

- the SECOND she is shown genuine love and affection and care from adaine, and adaine says whatever you do, i am here with you, all her actions from there forward are just about protecting adaine from their father, very nearly at the cost of her own life

- with what she probably thought were her last words (and would have been if adaine hadnt given her the tincture), all she wanted to communicate was how to help adaine and the bad kids, and how despite everything she had always believed in her

- at five levels of exhaustion, unconscious, she used her first spell slot after nine months of torture to build a shield around adaine

NOW we get to paladin!aelwyn. because, once everything is stripped away, the abuse and the control and the maladaption and the threats and the torture, EVERYTHING we ACTUALLY can glean about aelwyn's personality and inner core is that she's protective and devoted. and of course classes arent locked by personality, but that just screams paladin to me. its her WHOLE THING. adaine even says "wizards dont have heals, we dont care about other people" and of COURSE that isnt true for either of them, but? mechanically? aelwyn chose the wizard school that DID let her protect, and DID let her help, but i dont think, at this point, going forward, thats really going to be enough for her (and we could also talk about the parallels between them, how often adaine uses her portents to help other people)

i think a lot of the different reads on aelwyn come from this fundamental disconnect between her actions and displayed personality vs who she actually is and what she actually wants. and i think there are very different interpretations of what thats going to look like for her going forward. but i think, for a girl who's most hated characteristic about herself was her self preservation at the detriment of others, her perceived selfishness, and her fear ... isn't choosing to be braver and more selfless and more protective and shedding that self-preserving instinct for the betterment of others ... and MECHANICALLY being able to act on all those things ... the logical next step? i think its going to be a LONG TIME before aelwyn can love herself, but what other way is there to try? if adaine loves her, and adaine believes she can be better, isnt being better because she trusts adaine kind of a form of self love? saying, i dont believe in myself, but i believe in the person who believes in me, and maybe, in a roundabout way, thats the same thing. she was never able to TRY to be better before, because trying to improve even a little, even when people arent watching, when a harmful force has so much power over you and your actions ... like, the mental dissonance is honestly TOO much to even try, thats WAY more terrifying than letting yourself be bad, to the point where thats psychologically impossible for a lot of people. but now she actually has space and freedom and CHOICE and she CAN embrace the instincts she always had to shove down, she CAN be the person she knows her sister needed her to be

i dont know, i think theres an inherent love letter to yourself in wanting to be better and wanting to improve, even if you justify it by saying its for someone else. and now aelwyn actually CAN improve, and thats probably going to be extremely awkward and scary and there will be set backs and backslides for sure. but. i dont know. i think she wants to make up for lost time. because she never wanted the time to be lost in the first place. and if a protector is who she always wanted to be, whats stopping her from being that now?

#fantasy high #dimension 20 #aelwyn abernant #WHO LET ME WRITE ALL THIS #does this even. fucking. make sense. who knows.#THE BRAINROT THE BRAINROT THE BRAINROT

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islandboy1977 · 3 years

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Thoroughly enjoyed the Eternals. It’s a different type of Marvel movie. It’s mostly just a dysfunctional family arguing with each other. That’s it. That’s the entire movie. There are basically 3 large fight scenes and two very tiny ones. At 2 hours 37 minutes all of the action accounts for about 8 minutes. The rest is just sibling rivalry. I can understand why it hasn’t been getting the best reviews. This is not the typical Marvel Action film.

The film pits the Eternals against the Deviants who have returned after being extinct for 5000 years. We are introduced to these two groups. We learn who they are and why they do the things they do. The film does a great, yet slow, job of setting all this up. As the first act ends and we settle in for what could be a great ride and a truth bomb is dropped. We learn everything we know about these two groups is a complete lie. Our characters have to learn how to deal with this new truth and how how to work together again after some dark secrets are revealed.

While the Eternals and Deviants fight each other on Earth we learn that all the strings are actually being pulled by a celestial named Arishem. The Celestials are creator beings, capable of building entire galaxies from scratch, and they are sized to match, measuring their height in miles. It turns out that the Earth and thousands of other planets are actually eggs or incubators for “newborn” celestials.

The climax of the film is all about stopping “The Emergence”. The entire planet is destroyed when the celestial emerges from the core of the planet. This Celestial does reveal its head and a few fingers before being stopped. Arishem also gets close enough for the people of Earth to see him. Of course the news and social media go crazy with these two sightings. Other than those two moments the film does absolutely nothing to move the MCU forward.

Again. I see why this film doesn’t get the best reviews. It doesn’t move the story forward and there is little to no action. In true Marvel fashion this film does very well at setting up the next film/phase of the universe. There absolutely will be far reaching consequences as a result of the events from this film.

The performances are somewhat robotic but there is a good in universe for the lack of personality. Having said that, this film is very well acted. Everyone does an amazing job. There are some genuinely funny moments. The photography is breathtaking. It’s a truly beautiful film. I could nitpick about the choreography and editing of some of the action scenes. However, I have yet to make a better movie than Marvel so I don’t want to be too critical.

If you are a fan of the Marvel movies this is obviously a must see film.. However, do not go in thinking you are going to see the next avengers movie. It took 21 movies to tell the Thanos story. This is just the start of another long run. Buckle up and get comfortable.

#marvel #the eternals #marvel’s eternals #movie review #eternals review #the Eternals review

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razorblade180 · 3 years

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Overall thoughts on V8? Assuming you didn't answer this already.

I meant to do a volume wrap up review but I got incredibly busy and it fell to the waste side. The thing about me judging RWBY I have to come at it from two angles or I won’t feel like I judged it appropriately. There’s the casual, first time seeing the episodes and seeing this through the lens as a casual watcher who probably only sees the episodes once or twice. But then there’s the other side to that coin. I review these episodes, write aus, theorize, check extended lore, listen to the music, etc; that means I have to go back and watch episodes several times for any given reason and that’s when you start noticing the holes or picking up on things you didn’t before.

As a casual watcher, I’d give this an 8/10. There’s plenty of moments where characters do things that got me excited and plot points I wanted explored. This volume actually gave a decent amount of things I wanted for quite some time and some things I didn’t know I needed. Certainly there are things I don’t like in this but I’m open and curious to see where RT takes their storie because it’s their story.

Okay, now as a someone who’s had to deep dive and take a step back multiple times for a variety of reasons. 6.5/10 maybe a 7/10 if I’m being generous. A lot of my problems with this volume are problems that aren’t new to RWBY and that’s just how surface layer portions of arcs are and how a variety of choices/bonds don’t exactly make sense with what we were previously shown, or they only make sense because the writers don’t want introduce other complexities even though they should be there realistically. I’ll give a couple examples of these and yes, I’m aware what I say doesn’t bother everyone but it bothers me.

Qrow was never angry at or brought up Robyn being the reason their airship crashed in the first place because she started the fight; which aids in Clover dying.

Emerald follows Cinder, not Salem. Even if Cinder is working under Salem, why would Emerald be so willingly to complete shift to the side that actively goes against Cinder? There’s been no grand revelation to make Emerald believe Cinder doesn’t give a damn about her. Leaving made sense because she was about to get tortured. Going full turncoat right now doesn’t. No change happened. Emerald always hated being near Salem but adored Cinder no matter the crimes and the show hasn’t done anything to switch that view point.

I’m happy Whitley and Weiss had a touching sibling moment that implies they’re okay and making/made up, but there was never a conversation about the actual problem and thoughts that had them at odds in the first place. Weiss saving his and Willow’s life shouldn’t be the thing that smooths things over. It would’ve been terrible if Weiss do something to save their life. Whitley helping Penny is okay I guess because he really had no reason to contribute but did anyways. Even so, a person doing a morally correct thing doesn’t automatically warrant the conflict between him and Weiss’s resolved.

We got Cinder’s backstory; it didn’t tell us anything about how she eventually came into contact with Salem. Honestly her back story felt more in line of her main goal through the series was an absolute freedom by the means of breaking down the systems that trapped and didn’t give a damn, rather than her quest for power. Yes you can argue gaining power means it’s easier to maintain her freedom to do whatever she wants but I personally think that’s a little off the mark when you gave her a story that involves her trapped by rules and time rather than being too physically weak to gain freedom.

This show has built up that the Schnee family has suffered various types of abuse because of Jacques and uses Weiss as a medium to build towards breaking free from that. Not just overcoming but confronting the abuse by cementing it’s place below you. We don’t really get that. There will never be a moment where the siblings and mother truly get to break out of Jacques grasps emotionally and then put him in his place because he’s dead! Yeah they never have to worry about him again but even last volume they showed Winter still having turmoil and being able to get strung along by him. We don’t even really know how Whitley perceived his father. It feels so lackluster. Then they care to mention how it’s Weiss’s idea to save him like it’s an empowering moment when in actuality, it would be against her character, values of a huntress, and morality to let a person die in cell when you’re the reason they’re in a cell! Letting him die in there would just terrible. I don’t even know why he wasn’t let out in that scene! He’s a coward! He’d follow their orders to save his skin. All he has to do is shut up and walk through a portal.

Ironwood and Oscar both knew they could remove that staff to use it and Atlas wouldn’t drop immediately. Why did nobody have any kind of compromise with one another since there’s nothing stopping them from using the staff for something and then putting it back? They had this morally gray thing going on which I liked but then they decided to make Ironwood go full evil. I’ve never had to say this before but the song he got in V7 and the character they made him be in V8 just don’t connect. I got upset listening to that song recently because I liked that Ironwood.

Clover’s importance. RT tried making a character who had no more than 9 minutes in the series and one meaningful line of dialogue into the cornerstone of a side plot. Clover is such a nothing character. Vine did more than Clover. They try to make him have such a profound impact to the people around him but we never see him bond with his team; Harriet specifically. We get one scene of Clover telling Qrow the kids are fortunate to have Qrow even if he doesn’t think so. First, I doubt Clover knows Qrow decided to get drunk in a ghost town and the kids nearly died and cellar while he did it so that compliment doesn’t hold much weight for me. Second, We see nothing meaningful between the two. V7 has a time skip and just expects viewers to be on board with Clover being this influential change on Qrow without showing anything outside of a witty remark and Clover flexing his semblance. I would’ve bought it more of Qrow almost relapsed and Clover stopped him then had a real meaningful conversation.

Ruby goes against Ironwood only to then want to do a plan that’s aligned to longer term thinking than even his, talks about how everyone should be working together, but then adds a part in her video to actively antagonize and vilify Ironwood. Afterwards, she wonders where everything went wrong and doesn’t think of a plan or do anything to immediately help either kingdom until the final hour between the ultimatum being made, to everything getting destroyed. The inciting incident was disagreeing Mantle should be left in favor of Atlas but the main character didn’t do anything to help Mantle 90% of the season and hindered Atlas’s safety up until the final plan.

Yang is used to be the devil’s advocate in a bunch of situations, but she’s wrong most of the time or her lines just don’t make any sense. They weren’t doing just fine before Atlas. They almost died every step of the way. The team didn’t beat a Leviathan; silver eyes and a robot take credit for that. Why would Blake think less of Yang for wanting to go save people immediately? Blake was never mad at anyone to begin with. Yang consistently calls out people for following orders as if it’s objectively wrong, but is never called out on the fact she hasn’t followed anybody’s orders but her own and added discourse to every situation. I get RT is making her ask questions because that’s what Raven told her to do, but all she’s really doing is picking fights and disobeying every order. Yang states to Ruby they accomplished more than they expected. That’s false, getting Oscar back is correcting a mistake caused by her own plan that she didn’t even complete.

It took 6 volumes before Yang had anything to do with the Summer Rose subplot again and 7 volumes before her and Ruby had a sister to sister conversations; 5 if you wanna count Yang telling Ruby to leave at the end of volume three. The reason I bring this up is because in V8 , they treat their argument as if it’s a big deal but then have every character say it wasn’t that big a deal; but then have two circle back to that conversation later after having neither character discuss to anybody that the argument actually did weigh on them. Yang doesn’t think about Ruby until she sees her again and the closest we get with Ruby is Blake reassuring her that people need her and how Blake admires her. I like that scene but it’s not the same as Ruby actually airing out the specific point that Yang said something that Ruby found hurtful. Vol8 in general people trying to comfort others but nobody ever actually addresses what made them uncomfortable to start with. Except Ren.

This one is a nitpicking but I’ll say it anyways. Penny getting hacked only served as a purpose to go to the vault, a thing Ironwood already wanted them to do. Nobody got her because she was hacked. You can’t even say her getting hacked is the leading factor to her actually dying because Penny became a vulnerable human afterwards that can’t be rebuilt. Pietro was gone, and already stated last volume he doesn’t have the aura to build Penny again. If she died as a robot then it’s still permanent death. No core, no Pietro, and no aura; hacking her was just to create a Hound reveal situation and make them go to the vault on a different set of terms. I’m not exactly upset with this, but I don’t understand why the extra steps. The Hound was hunting her anyways. I would’ve brought some kind of value if she hurt a friend and it caused them to potentially hinder the plan later on or remove them entirely. Penny could’ve rekt Yang and it only adds value to Yang getting one shot later. I don’t know. I’m rambling.

I think I’ve wasted enough people’s time. Honestly, I do like this volume. I’ve enjoyed a bunch of it. But there’s things that legitimately make me think it’s not as good others and makes V7 even worse.

#rwby #rwby volume 8 #ask me stuff

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veliseraptor · 4 years

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I can't remember if anyone has actually asked you this. I apologise beforehand if you're repeating yourself. What are your three favourite scenes in The Untamed and why?

(Love how this took so long, mostly because I was waiting to get through all the listed moments in my rewatch. Anyway! It’s here now!)

Oh, fuck.

Okay, I couldn’t keep it to three. I tried! I did! But I couldn’t. So here is a list of just general favorite scenes with the three scratched off. I realized belatedly that most of these are just painful because I love pain I guess??? but yeah that’s just who I am and I think I have to accept that.

Under a read more because Jesus this got long.

1. The entire scene at Nightless City culminating in Wei Wuxian’s death. Like, okay, honestly, if I could expand this into basically everything between Jin Zixuan’s death and Wei Wuxian’s, I’d do that, but that feels like too much even though in my head it is all sort of...one contiguous marathon of pain. But god!!! I have a whole thing for...characters hitting their breaking point, for breaking points in general, for seeing a character I love just...crack open, and that’s what happens here.

Like. Wei Wuxian’s been cracking for a while, and there’s a number of breaking points that kind of build on each other, but this is, obviously, where the real snap happens.

And on a narrative level, too, there’s the thing that...this is the point that we as the audience have been spiraling toward since first seeing the beginning of episode one. This is where the entire long stretch of flashback has been pointing - here’s where it culminates, where it falls into place, where everything circles back to where the show started and now you know exactly how it got there.

Also I just. Love to suffer, and this entire scene is one whole long stretch of suffering.

2. The golden core reveal. Oh man, I was waiting for this conversation for, like. Ever. I knew it was coming and I knew it was going to have to happen and I just kept being like. When will it be. When will it be and then it happened and god it was beautiful. Everything about this whole scene was just tailor made to hurt me and make me love it, from the confrontation in the ancestral shrine right down to when Jiang Cheng bolts in a panic.

I hurt for everyone here. Wen Ning who has hit the end of his rope and is just fed up with everything. Jiang Cheng whose world is getting turned upside down and inside out and a whole lot of things falling into place all at once, his self-conception wrecked and his understanding of Wei Wuxian both opened and destroyed. Lan Wangji who is understanding what he missed and, I think, beating himself up about having missed it, and also the fresh understanding of just how ready Wei Wuxian is to throw himself under a bus for the people he loves. Wei Wuxian who doesn’t know any of this is happening but has just collapsed after running on fumes basically since resurrecting and is going to find out later that the biggest secret he’s been keeping and planned to keep for the rest of his life is now out.

It’s just. Lord. It’s all so painful and it’s all so good, the payoff is so good, and especial mention here of Wen Ning’s done with your shit and I’m not taking it anymore face as he brandishes Suibian at Jiang Cheng not as a weapon, exactly, but a little bit.

(He doesn’t bite but he can hurt you in other ways!)

Anyway, this isn’t actually saying anything coherent, really, except just a lot of “ahhhhh” screaming about this scene and everything in it and everyone suffering in it and just. What a moment.

3. The excruciating conversation between Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian in episode 48. Oh my god. Ohhhh my god. Okay, so, I’m always going to be a sucker for extremely painful and difficult sibling confrontations where everyone is spilling their feelings everywhere and it’s just a lot, and this was like. I remember on my first watch when this happened and I was like. Holy shit. This. This was what I needed. This!!!!

And then no real resolution after, orz. But that’s what fanfiction is for. And there’s glimpses of the possibility, for sure, I Believe.

But anyway! And on rewatch this conversation just gets better and also more painful because of the ways that while it is finally a conversation that Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng have sort of needed to have for, like, ever, it’s also one that rips open a lot of old wounds and it is also one that involves a painful amount of talking past each other.

There’s a long meta post somewhere (sorry! I never know how to find the meta I’m looking for when I want it and I’m lazy right now!) about how what Jiang Cheng needs to hear is that Wei Wuxian loves and cares about him, and what he does hear is that Wei Wuxian is, once again, cutting himself off, that it was all always about debts and obligations and nothing more. And what Wei Wuxian is trying to do is release Jiang Cheng from being tied to him by those debts and obligations, to give him freedom, with I think the idea of creating a clean slate that’s not tainted by everything that went wrong before. He thinks Jiang Cheng needs to be released, but what Jiang Cheng needs is to be held.

(Both of them do! Both of them need that! Both of them need to feel loved and cherished and these things also specifically by each other!)

And I just. I just cry a lot.

But it is also beautiful, in the way that it captures so much about their relationship and the blood and hurt and tenderness and love all tied excruciatingly together, the ways that they hurt and have hurt each other, the ways they push and pull, all of Jiang Cheng’s anger and hurt spilling out everywhere in a way that I think has been building for 16 years. It’s not closure, but it is a catharsis.

And for Wei Wuxian - I think it has to be, on some level, a relief. Even as it’s painful, even as it is exactly what he never wanted to happen, the secret is out now and he doesn’t have to hold onto it anymore. They are both - in his eyes - free.

It’s just...a wrenching conversation that hits, like, sixty of my buttons at once and gives me a whole lot of emotions.

4. asldkajsldfkj the flashback to Xiao Xingchen’s suicide in episode 39 and what comes after, just go ahead and kill me now. Like okay it’s probably obvious by now that I live in this hole called “Yi City, my Xue Yang feelings, and my XueXiao feelings,” and during this liveblog I specifically spilled several posts and screenshots worth of them, but god!!!! it’s just so much. Like, the entire Yi City arc is messy and painful as hell, it’s just like being put through an emotional wringer where I hurt for everyone in it, but this is the part that is especially excruciating because everyone in this emotional climax is suffering so much.

And, like. We knew where this would end. We knew Xiao Xingchen died, and a-Qing was just killed, and at this point Xue Yang is dying. No one is getting out of this alive - but we haven’t seen yet exactly how things closed out. And the answer is “badly. it’s badly.”

Both of these people in the very bad breakup scene are hurting. Xiao Xingchen is in agony, his life falling apart in his hands - everything he thought he knew has been a lie, he’s been tricked, played for a fool. And the hammer blows keep coming. It’s not enough that it’s Xue Yang, that Xue Yang has been fucking with him (as far as he knows), lying to him, for three years. It’s what Xue Yang reveals about what he’s done. And then it’s what Xue Yang reveals about what he’s done to Song Lan.

And on the other end - Xue Yang’s weird fake domestic life that he’s gotten attached to, Xiao Xingchen who he’s come to care about - it’s imploding, irrevocably, in front of his face. And first he tries to explain himself, sort of, but he must know it’s not going to work; and then he goes back to what he does best and lashes out. You’re going to hurt me? I’ll hurt you fifty times as much.

I think he expects a fight. Or maybe, at most, he expects Xiao Xingchen to break down, and maybe he has some vague idea that then he can say see, this is what the world is really like, now you get it and rebuild him in some kind of Xue Yang-esque image (though I don’t think he really thinks that’ll happen). He doesn’t expect Xiao Xingchen to kill himself. He doesn’t expect Xiao Xingchen to die.

And then he doesn’t expect to not be able to get him back.

It’s just. This whole arc is people destroying each other and themselves body and soul, and this is the climax of it, the breaking point. And it hurts, real bad.

And as we have established! I love to suffer.

5. Drunk Lan Wangji, take two. All of these are like. “Pain! Pain! Pain!” and here we are with some goofy antics instead. I mean, the intro to drunk!Wangji is sad in the way that it has to do with what happened to Song Lan and Xiao Xingchen (and Lan Wangji’s always feelings about those parallels ouch), but then...I mean, drunk!Wangji is just generally adorable, but here he is especially adorable.

Chicken theft! Vandalism! Trespassing! His adorable little smile when Wei Wuxian asks if he likes rabbits and he’s like. Yeah. :) :)

And then we close out with more emotions, of course. Because it’s not The Untamed without a little bit of pain thrown in there.

“I have regret,” Lan Wangji says, a confession of fault, and of course Wei Wuxian can’t receive it, or won’t - and Lan Wangji reacts to his attempt at absolution by basically doing his usual “I don’t want to talk about this” routine of just bluntly changing the subject (in this case “going to bed now goodnight.”).

Also the entire bit where he goes from hopelessly drunk to fighting off an opponent and then back to hopelessly drunk, like. Even drunk!Wangji can and will kick your ass.

And all of Wei Wuxian just like. Basically trip babysitting him? Gently trying to herd him around? The gentleness and fondness of it all?

Good. All good.

6. Qiongqi Path, take one. Emotional mauling! Terrifying evil flute Wei Wuxian! Dramatic face-off between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji! The beginning of Lan Wangji’s moral crisis! (Or, okay, not the beginning but this is definitely a major breaking point for his worldview, I think, and where his questioning really, truly begins.)

It’s just...a lot of good. Everything with Wen Qing searching for Wen Ning’s body hurts so bad. Wei Wuxian coming stalking back into the camp with vengeance on the brain is as gloriously sexy as that vibe always is on him. And the confrontation between Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian? oh man.

Juicy. And also. Ouch.

(And am I a sucker for everything about ‘former allies ending up on opposite sides and one of them saying something along the lines of ‘if I’m going to die then I’d rather it was you who killed me’ yes I sure am! I didn’t cry nearly as much on my third watch but this scene is another one of my points that I think of when I think of bits in The Untamed that make me cry.

And as we’ve established already, I just love to cry.

7. God like. All of episode 19? Is that cheating? But it’s all so good! We have suffering Wei Wuxian! Mouthing off while being tortured! The entire sequence of him grabbing the sword and that moment of choice where his life turns as he answers that question (do you want revenge?) with a resounding yes?

Lan Wangji absolutely fucking up some Wens on a desperate quest for Wei Wuxian? Teaming up with Jiang Cheng? (Do I still want to see more of that team up in that time? Yes please!!) SPOOKY FUCKING FLUTE MUSIC STARTING SIGNALING EXTREMELY OMINOUS THINGS TO COME?

Anyway it’s all very “fuck yeah, this is all quite tailored to me and my interests, thank you.”

8. Jiang Yanli coming for Jin Zixun’s life. I feel like I should just link to this analysis of this scene that really breaks it all down in detail? But god so satisfying. I mean, Jin Zixun is truly one of the most hateable characters in this show, in my opinion, and seeing Jiang Yanli step up and politely and meticulously demolish him is like. So satisfying.

The face of a woman about to murder someone. But with words.

I really wish we could’ve seen more of this Jiang Yanli, because before this point she’s all softness and gentleness and while that’s very true of her - this part of her is also there, always, and I’d love to have seen more of it.

But like. Getting it here? Stunning. Showstopping. Love it.

9. Wei Wuxian wrecks a party, but, like, sexily. I mean, he wrecks a few parties, but I’m thinking specifically of the one in episode 26 prior to Qiongqi Path, take one. Everything about that whole scene is gold top to bottom, but what really gets me going is everything from the dramatic entrance (I’m tempted to make a list of Wei Wuxian’s best dramatic entrances) onward to “sexy menacing countdown.” It’s just all so...I mean, I’ve talked about how much I love furiously angry and on the verge of losing it Wei Wuxian, and this is some prime that material.

(Pictured: the sexiest way anyone has ever said the word ‘two.’)

And just! The tension of it all, how it builds and builds and builds and even when it finally releases when Zixun caves there’s still all this lingering “oh fuck! that’s bad!” dread...it’s just very good.

And I also love it as one of those key plot turning moments where it’s like. This isn’t the irrevocable break, but it’s a big one as far as ‘no going back from this.’

And like. Not just Wei Wuxian, everyone else in this scene is excellent too. Just. Mm. Good.

10. Wei Wuxian is sexy when he’s mean and that’s just the truth. Which is to say: the very bad breakup scene between him and Lan Wangji in episode 20. I’ve read two different analyses of this scene, both brilliant (by @hunxi-guilai here, and @neuxue here), and I feel like I can’t add much to that other than to reiterate that Wei Wuxian is very sexy when he’s mean, and the layers of everything going on in this scene are. Ugh!!! So good.

(I mean, also everything that comes before, I have put myself down firmly in camp “Wei Wuxian is also sexy when he murders people, you go Wei Ying, murder people as much as you want, it’s hot.” And the hug with Jiang Cheng! (THAT HUG. IT IS SUCH A HUG.))

But the confrontation between him and Lan Wangji in particular! it is so fuckin good. Honestly just read the linked analyses, I’ve got nothing I can say better that’s not in there, just a lot of “ahhhhhhh” about it all.

BONUS MENTIONS TO: basically every time Wei Wuxian Yiling Laozus, “stay and die with me.”

#anonymous #conversating #fucking FINALLY #no idea how coherent this is but well #the sad queer cultivators show #the untamed #i am SURE i've forgotten things here #lise does meta #i mean the end of episode 50 is also prime in a lot of ways #IF I LET MYSELF KEEP GOING I'LL GO TOTALLY WILD THOUGH #love how many of these are just 'i like it when my faves suffer'

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valkyrieelysia18 · 4 years

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RWBY Rewrite: Penny Polendina

Salutations Tumblr users! Today, we tackle beloved fan favorite robot girl Penny Polendina.

Now as I stated before, I dropped RWBY after Volume 6 and didn’t really watch Volume 7. I have however heard about certain developments and one plot point made me grateful I got out earlier or I would have rage quit this Volume anyway.

They brought back Penny, with all her memories completely intact.

This destroys one of the best pieces of writing in the show. Penny’s death was meant to symbolize the death of innocence in the show and it led in to the Fall of Beacon as well as Pyrrha’s death. Up until now, the show had been treating it as if a real girl had died. Vexed Viewer on YouTube has done a video on the topic that explains this better than I could. Even if they were going to bring Penny back in some way, she shouldn’t have been exactly the same as if nothing happened. Such as her memory of Vale (and everyone she met) being completely gone or her personality being significantly changed she isn’t even the same person anymore.

So, in this post I am going to be going over her history, role in the plot, and ‘successor’ for the Atlas Arc.

Creation and History

Okay, slight can of worms, but if Doctor Polendina is black, why is his daughter one of the most obviously white characters of the cast?

Alright, there actually is a legitimate reason for that in this rewrite. Penny’s physical features are actually based on Pietro’s late wife Clara Polendina (reference to the Nutcracker ballet) who worked with her husband. The two were very much happy and in love, but Clara died in a Grimm attack before they could have children. Thus, Penny is basically the daughter Pietro never got to have with her. Clara won’t come up that much in the Rewrite, but she was close to both of her husband’s prized students Arthur Watts and Willow Schnee. Arthur would note the resemblance and bring it up during his final confrontation with the doctor (This is what you ruined my life for as well as countless others?! Clara would be ashamed.) Willow would also bring it up and notice the similarities in both Penny and her successor.

However, the Atlas military and Ironwood’s desires to build something like Penny is less heartwarming. There was the original desire of making stronger robots for mass production to protect humans that evolved into infiltration and espionage purposes. But James Ironwood would see Polendina’s plans and see an immense opportunity. A young woman who would never age or die. An individual that they would never have to worry about running away or disobeying orders. Such a person becoming a Maiden would mean that they would never have to worry about the transfer process ever again. That would explain why Penny said that it would be her job to save the world one day, but they don’t think she’s ready for it yet. She is Ironwood’s hope for the future of the Maidens. And just in case she isn’t perfected in time for the next transfer, Winter is being trained and kept in reserve. Ironwood would provide all of the materials Pietro could need, including a crystalized substance that no one knows much about other than it being a classified by the military. It’s source will be noted in a spoiler’s section in this post, but it’s the very thing finally got things to work.

But while Pietro is aware something is up and suspicious of Ironwood’s intentions, he loves his little robot daughter regardless. There will be some flashbacks involving her first days awake (showing her curiosity and determination) as well as her bidding her father good bye when she leaves for the Vytal Festival.

Vale

The only thing I’d really change about Penny in the Vale Arc is giving her more time to interact with the cast, especially Ruby. What we got was okay, but I think it would be much more impactful if Ruby got to spend more time with Penny before her death. I’d definitely like it if Penny would bring up her father during their conversations, saying she was sure that two of them would get along given how much Ruby likes weapons.

It might be also nice for Pyrrha to feel a little off by her sensing all the metal when they first meet, but not realize why or how important that is. Just bit of foreshadowing.

Pelia

So, as you might have guessed by now, Penny will stay dead in this Rewrite. With the kind of story and tone I’m working with, it’s important that there is legitimate consequences to events and actions of the characters. As such, characters who died will stay dead. They may be referenced, appear in flashbacks, haunt our characters’ dreams, perhaps having a spirit linger with unfinished business to help the main characters on their path, but there is no chance of resurrection.

Not that Pietro wasn’t thinking along the same lines as others had considering Penny is a robot. They did manage to retrieve her body and core, but when he managed to build a new body, reboot, and restart, it wasn’t Penny greeting him. Rather, it was a completely personality. And they did not recognize anything or anyone. Pietro was devastated.

Thus I introduce Pelia Polendina, or Pelly. This is reference to the Coppelia ballet that actually includes a toy inventor trying bring a doll to life that he calls a daughter, much like Pinocchio. Only instead of magic bringing a puppet to life, the inventor tries to bring Coppelia to life by stealing a human soul and putting it in the doll. Quite the dark contrast and is actually going to be a bit of foreshadowing. I will say her appearance is actually pretty similar to Penny’s redesign with longer hair, though I would picture her more similar to dishwasher 1910′s design in https://www.deviantart.com/dishwasher1910/art/penny3-0-SD-758463321 . Check them out on DeviantArt, their work is amazing.

Pelia is considerably different than Penny. Whereas Penny was bright, enthusiastic, and rather trusting; Pelly is subdued, talks very mechanically, and is significantly less naïve. While Penny longed to be a part of something greater and be with humans despite her lack of social skills, Pelly avoids most people and is afraid of what Atlas(and by extension Ironwood) wants with a robot like her. This is partly due to her finding about Penny and how the world reacted with the Fall of Beacon.

In regards to Penny, she feels rather guilty about being alive in her place though she doesn’t quite realize that’s what she is feeling. This would lead to her trying to find out everything she could on Penny to understand her emotions, learning about Ruby and the others in the process. Pietro is devastated by the loss and incredibly frustrated with her, not really considering her alive in the same way Penny was which given her personality isn’t that unreasonable to think. Pelia does care about her creator and tries to assist him in what ways she can, but his attitude towards her is not positive and as such she mostly stays out of his way.

Atlas

Pelia’s first proper appearance would be in the Atlas Arc when the group visits Doctor Polendina for weapons repairs after their meeting with Ironwood doesn’t go well and the good doctor isn’t the on the best terms with the General at present. The man is not pleased or in the mood to humor them, though he does defrost a little when Ruby shows her geeky know how on weapons. (He may have also said some rather terrible things about Pyrrha which made the group somewhat grateful JNR wasn’t there.) As the group leaves the building and goes on their way, Ruby looks up to the upstairs window as she feels she’s being watched. She doesn’t see anything, but as she turns and walks away Pelia comes into view from the window. Having recognized who the people who just visited were, Pelly sneaks out and follows the group in the secret for a while.

She finally gets revealed while the group is watching Weiss dance ballet at a Mantle Community Theater. The Atlas Arc is primarily Weiss centric and part of her Arc in proving herself as worthy of the Schnee name will have her prove herself to people of Mantle. One such instance will have her helping out at the community theatre in learning and teaching dance. It’s in which she is showing off her skills Pelia accidentally reveals herself to the group having been incredibly entranced in ballet (little show to her inspiration). Ruby at first mistakes her for Penny so she gets very emotional, only to temper down when she realizes Pelia’s not her. The situation is cleared up and the group gets more insight into the situation of Atlas as well as the strain between the General and Pietro.

Pelia has three distinct dynamics of interactions with the group: Ruby on Penny, Weiss and Winter on siblings, and Oscar on succession. With Ruby, Pelia gets to know more about Penny as a person and Ruby gets a chance to fully process her loss. Pelia’s not Penny, but she comes to appreciate her all the same. Ruby also comes up with Yang in regards to sibling interactions, but Pelia’s focus in this case is more on the Schnee siblings. She’s basically wondering what sisters act like and whether Penny would have seen her as a sister. This lets her get some ballet lessons from Weiss as well as close to Winter. Then there’s her relationship with Oscar with the two of them having to deal with their predecessors and the problems they’ve let them to deal with. The both of them come to realize through talking with each other is that they shouldn’t compare themselves to those who came before. They have their own views and ways of doing things different from their predecessors and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The only thing they can do is do things the best THEY can.

The big turning point in the Atlas Arc for Pelia is when Pietro finds out abut the Winter Maiden and what Ironwood’s original plans were. While I am majorly rewriting the Atlas Arc, I do actually like the idea of an old Winter Maiden who is on her last legs. Pietro doesn’t get all the details of course, but it gives him the idea that the magic could bring Penny back to life. Aside from the whole ‘Dead means dead’ world I’m working with, it’s also a way to show that magic that cannot bring back the dead. I know that’s very much true in the show though not directly stated, but here I want to lay the ground rules down on what magic is and is not capable of.

After being called back by Pietro and assisting him in breaking into the facility where the transfer is soon to take place, the two enter the room that was originally prepped for Winter (who is distracted with everyone else on things going wrong due to Pietro’s interference) with the old woman in the pod. Pietro has explained things and orders Pelia to get in the other pod. Pelia doesn’t move, having been conflicted during this entre plan which shows all over her face. The doctor orders again, much firmer this time. A few moments pass as she thinks it over; fear, doubt, determination all playout in her expressions. Finally, she speaks. “No.”

While Pelia may have been built to be a weapon, she still has free will. Unlike Penny who accepted her role without many doubts, Pelia rejects that her only purpose is to be someone’s tool of war. She wants to help others, but she doesn’t want to fight. I think that if you bring choice into a story as a main theme, you also have to give the characters the choice not to fight, to walk away even if they don’t actually do it. Above all, Pelia doesn’t think that sacrificing others for herself is what Penny would have wanted after having met Ruby and gotten to know what she was like.

She would tell this to Pietro, who would get furious and argue with her. this would continue until they were interrupted by Watts. Watts, with revenge on the brain, would focus on Doctor Polendina and tell Pelia to run along. I know this seems a little hypocritical for Watts to do this considering his advice to Cinder in Volume 5, but this a different situation. Spoilers for the future Atlas Arc Rewrite and future James Ironwood post, go to the next paragraph if you don’t want spoilers. You see, the villains don’t need the Winter Maiden to open the Vault for them because Ironwood already took the Relic of Creation out of the Vault years ago (and is NOT holding up Atlas). In fact, a bit of the power from the staff was used to create Penny which was the the crystalized substance. Watts knows this due to his hacking Ironwood’s system and has already retrieved the Relic and sent it on the way to Salem. This will make the results in Atlas a lot more bittersweet: our heroes will win on the people’s side of things, but lose the Relic. Back to Watts, the man is all about efficiency. While the Winter Maiden’s powers would be nice, they don’t have a vessel for it at the moment and it’s not necessary for their primary goal. Once the business side of things is taken care of, then he’ll indulge in revenge.

Pelia, while conflicted, would run and get to the group to tell them everything. She would then spend the rest of the conflicting helping to escort and treat the wounded, giving her a presence to the people of Atlas. Pietro will be arrested and will be convicted for his crimes, Watts dead but having gotten the last laugh in the end with his technological abilities exposing his teacher and those who left him out to dry.

Once everything is settled, Pelly will stay behind in Atlas as the new right hand of new Headmistress Winter Schnee. Basically, she becomes the Glynda to Winter’s Ozpin (though Winter is a much more hands on no nonsense person). She bids the group goodbye, hoping to Ruby that they will meet again.

After Atlas

I don’t have much in mind for Pelia after the Atlas Arc except for two things. Firstly, that she and Pietro do eventually reconcile and develop something of a relationship when she visits him in prison on her off days. (Jacques is not so lucky in regards to his children.)

The second is when she and Winter will meet everyone at the lowest point of the story. Ruby will have learned some pretty dark truths, including some choices her mother made that’s really made her think. Pelia will actually have a similar conversation with Ruby that she had with Oscar. In how she’s no more Penny than Ruby is Summer. She’ll remark that perhaps Ruby put her mother on a bit too much of a pedestal thanks to the way her family viewed her. When in reality Summer was just a person and people make mistakes. Right now, what choices Summer made in the past aren’t what matters. What matters is what Ruby wants to do now.

Okay, I think I started before the coronavirus stuff went crazy. I am so sorry. Not sure when I’ll get beck to this.

However, I know the next subject is going to quite the doozy...

#rwde #rwby rewrite #penny polendina #dr polendina #ruby rose #weiss schnee #Oscar Pine #winter schnee

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elk-and-thearchivist · 4 years

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So I finally watched playthroughs of Detroit: Become Human after it's been on my hit list for a while - as expected, it was absolutely fantastic.

And then I remembered @sad-1st making a really cool DBH AU and so here we have some ideas and doodles for DBH Elk, Wiki, Other, and Khera! Not necessarily the same continuity as @sad-1st 's but it is kinda based on theirs. I may change up the designs later, these are just... brainstorming doodles

I actually have... a lot of ideas, haha! Feel free to read, on, if you like.

The year is 2038. Hallownest has been transformed by the androids developed by CyberNest, the bug-like machines integrating into almost every aspect of life. However, there may be more than meets the eye in the history of CyberNest. More and more androids are becoming "deviant," causing unpredictable behavior, and a mysterious malware known only as the "Radiant Virus" has been sweeping across every kind of machine, causing corruption and violent behavior in androids.

Short version: PK is an arrogant fool and Radiance is mad in multiple ways. Elk (VS700 prototype) and Other (VS600 prototype) were designed to complement each other, part of one of the "vessel" series. Elk killed Other and became deviant, CyberNest threw them out but Other got back for repairs with Khera, but Elk thought they were being destroyed and panicked, leading to Other activating Wiki moments before they and Khera slipped back into oblivion. Wiki (Project ACV) is an AI clone of Monomon uploaded to Elk, they get their secondary body frame later.

Long version:

The Wyrm and The Radiance grew up together, both geniuses in AI and software development. CyberNest was going to be shared between them - or so Radiance thought. When they company was Barely starting out, Wyrm backstabbed Radiance and took all assets for himself. Radiance went mad, eventually converting herself into a superintelligent AI, killing her physical body, and letting herself loose on the internet to watch, to learn.

Grimm was Radiance's sibling, vanished around the same time Radiance did. He is that mysterious-sketchy-but-surprisingly helpful guy that helps out rogue androids for trades and favors. He has a neural implant, linking himself to his own superintelligent AI - the Nightmare Heart, as he calls it. Nightmare is able to control Grimm's body, and sometimes they switch off.

Radiance starts trying to assert control over Wyrm's androids - this causes corruption in memory and software. It can be spread from machine-to-machine interfacing, but what spreads is more like a backdoor for the Radiance - it makes it easier for her to influence the machine and cause what is called "the Infection." In a way, it causes deviation and then takes advantage of the instability.

Wyrm, who now goes by Pale King, realizes that this must be Radiance's doing. He eventually finds out about her state as an AI, and starts developing technology that can resist her, and then software that would have the ability to quarantine and isolate her - possibly entangling the data, corrupting both her and whichever android that got "lucky" enough to be the one to face her. He grows desperate as the Infection sweeps across Hallownest, enlisting the help of Monomon, Lurien, and Herrah. PK convinces them to undergo AI conversion to turn them into sentinel programs, a trio that, in conjunction with a vessel android's AI, should be able to contain the Radiance. Of course, the public doesn't know about this - PK pretty much rules the city and no one thinks to question him. He is untouchable by the law.

The HK series is made to be completely stable - they cannot think, they cannot speak. HK200, "Hollow", is deemed to have the most stable software, and is tasked with finding and neutralizing the Radiance.

Wiki, or Project ACV (Archival Clone Verus) is the AI clone of Monomon - the sentinel program conversion is not the same as the infinitely learning AI development of Wiki. They are designed to be able to absorb an infinite amount of data (and be able to hack into anything to acquire it). Their "body" is composed of nanomachines in thirium (void?? What do you call it in this AU) that communicate with each other and can replicate infinitely, though they need a primary memory storage unit. Immediately upon activation, they connect to the internet, to the confidential databases of CyberNest, and learn everything in an instant. Monomon shuts them off and tries to delete their memory but was unable to, only succeeding in building some firewalls - effective, but all the information is still there. Despite everything, she doesn't want to delete/destroy ACV, and keeps them stored in the assembly/disassembly room, leaving a possible backdoor for reactivation. And then, Monomon undergoes the conversion and disappears from society.

Elk and Other have linked programs designed to oppose, complement, and improve each other. They were deployed a few times, tested and upgraded more and more. For a final test, Elk had to terminate Other, causing Elk's deviancy. Other's data was corrupted, but they uploaded themself to Elk through their link, undetected. Elk was thrown into the junkyard with Other's remains - Elk's stress peaked and they more or less crashed, causing an incident that kills Khera, and Other found themself in control. They harvest parts from their own remains to replace Elk's damaged parts. They find Khera's body, and discover an ability they never knew they had: they injected some self-replicating nanomachines into her body, temporarily reviving her. After some hasty repairs, they make Khera sneak them into CyberNest to fix Elk in both software and hardware. (Other thinks they're corrupted beyond saving.) Khera agrees, taking Elk/Other to the assembly/disassembly/repair room. Khera worked on the software at the same time as the hardware, but Elk regained consciousness and panicked - they had no memory of the junkyard and thought they were being destroyed. Given that they had to be taken apart a bit for repairs, it did certainly seem that way.

Other hacks into the mainframe as a last act, looking for something that could help, and finds Wiki and activates them. Other and Khera both go under, then. Wiki emerges from the ceiling and calms Elk down, taking over the repair and assembly process and assisting Elk. Wiki ends up uploading their "core self" to Elk, and replaces Elk's thirium/void with their nano-thirium/void.

They try to stay away from the goings-on of PK and CyberNest for a while, laying low and investigating whatever they please - but they come in contact with the Radiance and all their systems shut down for a while as they quarantine and stabilize their software. With some undetected assistance from Other, they eventually wake up with corrupted memory (gradually recovered). They start looking into the Radiance, uncovering history, betrayal, how terrible PK really is.

A few possibilities, which branch infinitely, of course:

- Elk and Wiki and others, probably, help Radiance recover her sanity and she leads a movement to overthrow PK. As it turns out, she can very easily cause deviancy, without the negative effects of the Infection. Radiance could succeed, securing rights for androids, or she could fail, becoming sealed away. Resistance could fall or continue, still. Radiance could be freed, the Dreamers could be given androids bodies, PK could either die, go to jail, or vanish. Elk/Wiki then continue as part of the staff of the new CyberNest R&D, developing AI, nanotechnology, and android-support tech.

- Android deviant movement is led by Ghost. Hornet and Quirrel support, HK may or may not come around. Radiance may be contained or quelled.

- Deviants continue to live underground, getting help from Grimm. Elk and Wiki offer their aid to any deviants they find, helping them escape Hallownest.

- Bad End / closest to game canon probably: Radiance succeeds in bringing down PK's syndicate via Infection; androids are collected and destroyed, save for the few who managed to resist her, and PK vanishes. (He linked his consciousness with a computer, actually, and retreated to his mind palace to die.) An apocalyptic variation could be HK successfully containing her, but she upgrades her virus to mutate rapidly and corrupts everything independently, all electronics, all technology, everything that connected to anything her virus was in. The infection was quarantined in Hallownest, luckily, but no network tech works there anymore. Or, maybe it did spread across the world, and nothing is ever the same.

#hollow knight #dbh #dbh au #au #alternate universe #doodle #elk #scholar elk #elk art #scholar elk art #other #other art #khera #archivist #archivist art #art #my art #my content #op

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iamfallinforeverything · 4 years

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First Love (3/4)

Sorry that it took me so long, but the past few days were actually more stressful than I thought. Anyway, here it is finally. Hope you like it 🤗 Also there is def going to be a fourth part. I wanted to finish this little series with this part then it would have taken me even longer to finish that part and I didn’t wanted that

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Fandom: The Vampire Diaries, The Originals (Kol Mikaelson)

Summary: The rest of the Mikaelson family learn about your little problem with leaving the property.

Words: + 1.9k (I missed 2k by just a few words 😒)

Warnings: swearing, i can’t think of anything else tbh

Last Time:

I didn't really remember how I got into the room either. All I knew was that Elijah had helped me. And after that, it was all just a blur. Damn alcohol.

And please, don’t ask me where the stupid blanket went that Elijah put around my shoulders because I don’t have a fucking clue.

***

When I woke up, my head was pounding. I've rarely had such a headache. But I knew exactly what helped to relieve a headache. Hopefully there would be something like what I needed.

Exhausted, I stretched and looked around. Slowly the memories of yesterday came back. So my mood sank somewhere in the area of the earth's core. I had absolutely no desire for what was coming to me in the near future. Ha, especially how should I explain to my parents that I was stuck here? Hopefully someone of my ancestors had already done so. I don't know how, but maybe I got lucky.

Why were my ancestors such assholes anyway? I hadn't done anything bad to them. Yeah okay, except for asking for help and maybe I had been a little bit naughty and ungrateful once or twice for the life I had. But who hadn't sometimes?

Defeanded I finally got up. I had no choice anyway and I needed something for the headache. Besides, if I ever wanted to be free again, I had to find a way to turn the Mikaelson siblings back into humans. And somehow I would have to convince Niklaus that being human wasn't as bad as he thought.

Surprisingly, I even wore yesterday's dress. It had just changed back to its original color. My father's spells didn't last very long. In the trunk of my car there should theoretically still be my suitcase. Maybe I could bring it here with a simple bringing spell.

A small gust of wind opened all doors for the transport and a few minutes later my suitcase was in front of me. So my car was open again. Thank God. It wouldn't help me though.

Quickly I changed my dress for my favourite trousers and top, slipped into some socks and put on my favourite shoes. I combed my hair once and breathed deeply.

At some point I had to get out of this room anyway. It's best if I just get it over.

One last time I went through my hair and made my way out. I immediately heard voices from downstairs and made my way there. I had to get through it now.

Carefully I went to the room where the voices came from. Immediately everyone became quiet when they saw me. Everyone was there, even Kol. Somehow my heart became heavy when I saw his smile disappear when he looked at me, but I just pushed that feeling aside. Right now I had far worse problems than understanding this strange situation with Kol.

"What does the little witch still want here?" Niklaus asked and pointed at me with a downward hand gesture.

"She can't leave.", Elijah replied and smiled at me friendly. At least someone.

"Pardon?"

"My ancestors bound me to this property. I can't leave until I've fulfilled my promise.", I explained.

"Oh, wonderful." mumbled Finn, rolled his eyes and sighed. "I'm off. Your problem."

I rolled with my eyes. Finn was definitely someone who was extremely annoying. I'd like to turn that jerk back into a human being. Maybe then he wouldn't be such an asshole anymore.

"So now we get to entertain the little witch and help her destroy our lives?" Niklaus asked and looked at his brothers.

"She's stuck here. Either way, she's not getting out of here. We can help her find a way back out. We owe it to her.", Elijah replied.

"You and your stupid honor feeling Elijah.", Niklaus rolled his eyes. Kol was completely silent and looked apathetic to the floor.

Silently I looked back and forth between the brothers. They were wildly arguing. As if I had chosen to be stuck here. I could think of at least a thousand things I would rather do than rot here on this property. Let's be realistic. Finding the cure for vampirism was very unrealistc. How many witches had tried and failed before me? Why should I of all people be able to find such a cure?

At some point I just turned around, annoyed, and left the three of them behind. I didn't care. So I need to help myself. I left the building and wandered around in the garden. Maybe I should call my parents first before I did anything else.

I looked for a quiet place and got my cell phone from my pocket. That would be fun for sure. I sat down in the grass and dialed my mother's contact. With trembling hands I held my cell phone to my ear.

"Y/N?", my mother answered the phone.

"Mommy.", I started crying as soon as I heard her voice.

"What happened?"

"I'm stuck here. Our ancestors tied me to the property and I am too weak to break the spell. I can't leave, mom.", I cried.

"Why? What happened Y/N?"

And then I told her about yesterday. About Esther and the Mikaelson siblings. About my promise and about Maila.

"Oh Y/N... "You've really screwed yourself, my love.", was the first thing my mother said.

I laughed and wiped the tears from my cheeks.

"I know.", I replied.

"Good. I'll talk to our circle now and get back to you, okay? Don't be afraid, you are strong. You can stand up to them if you have to."

"I know, Mom. But I just want to go home."

"I know, honey, I know. I'll help you. We can do this."

"Thanks, Mom."

"See you later. Call you soon."

"See you later, Mom.”

She hung up and I took my phone from my ear and put it next to me. I took a deep breath and wiped my face. Only I could shit like that.

***

A little time passed and I was still bound to the Mikaelson property. And I hadn't really gotten any further with that either.

I had the spell that Esther cast back then. I knew what she had used and what she had bound the spell to, but it didn't really help me.

I didn't have an antidote or a removal spell.

Elijah helped me where he could. He would get me ingredients, talk to other witches, update my parents. I had made friends with him and he was the only one I trusted here. I had not seen Finn since he left on my first day here, which I was very happy about. Klaus avoided me and with Rebekah I had already made the one or other girls evening. I got along well with her, but I could not really trust her that much. She was too loyal to Klaus for that.

And Kol was a whole other situation. I could still feel this weird bond between us. It was like our souls were bound together in ways that made no sense. Why would a witch's soul be sired to a vampire's? Who would do such a thing? Besides, soul spells were terribly complicated and hard spells. They always involved a great sacrifice. Who would willingly make that sacrifice? It was stupid. Anyone who cast a soul spell was just terribly stupid.

But today was my father's birthday and I was still stuck here. I couldn't be there and they couldn't get to me. I was bound to the property and my family was kept away. They couldn't even come close. I couldn't even see them through the barrier. Fortunately, there were other ways to see my family's faces. It was already dark and I was standing outside in the garden, one of my favorite places here. I held my mobile phone up to my face. My parents smiled into their camera and showed me everyone. It was nice to see everyone, but I just wanted to go home even more.

There had to be another way. My ancestors were little beasts, but they weren't thtat cruel. There was a loophole, there always was. I just had to find it.

After my parents and I hung up, I wandered around the garden a bit, helped some sick plants and just enjoying the fresh air.

But some time later I spotted Kol. He was standing in front of a flowerbed with an old type of flower. They were my favourite flowers and I often stood in front of the field myself.

I don't know what it was, but something drew me to him. I had a strong need to be near him.

Carefully I walked towards him and just stood next to him. That was enough for me, even if it did not calm this annoying desire.

Kol sighed when I came to stand next to him. He could feel it as well as I did.

"You are so different from her.", Kol sighed without looking at me. I knew immediately that he meant Maila.

"What do you mean?", I asked.

"You look like her. Everything about you looks like her, but your personality, what makes you who you are, is so different. She was quiet, withdrawn, good. But she could also rebel, stand up for what she felt was right, fight for what she loved."

I could do that too. Kol just hadn't seen it yet because he always avoided me.

"And you are so different. I can't describe it, but your whole personality is different."

"Is that bad?"

"No. It's just...", he didn't finish, instead he turned away from me and ran a few steps towards the house.

I could feel the soul spell right away. My heart immediately grew heavy and contracted in pain.

"Stupid soul spell.", I gasped and put my hand on my chest, right where my heart was sitting.

I looked at Kol. He had a posture similar to mine. Once you gave in, it was hard to take your distance again.

"You feel that too?", Kol asked and turned to me. Just the fact that he looked at me made my heart lighten again.

"Yes. I'm pretty sure it's a soul spell. Someone has bound our souls together so we can find each other again in every life."

"In every life?"

"There is more than just this Kol.", I smiled at him.

He just sighed and came one step closer. My heart became a little lighter again.

"There was nothing like this enchantment between Maila and me. It never felt that way between us. So why is it between the two of us like that?", Kol became angry.

His whole look and nature changed. He stood up straight, stuck out his chest and pulled his eyebrows together.

"I don't know. Soul spells require great sacrifice. Not many practice these spells."

And then it looked like a light was switched on. Like someone had found the last missing piece of the puzzle

"Of course.", he muttered and shook his head.

His posture loosened again. I relaxed, as well.

And then he just disappeared. Fucking vampire speed. But this time my heart didn't hurt. Kol had a different intention this time with his disappearance.

I waited a moment for him to return. He didn't come back.

Sighing, I turned around and looked into the field of flowers in front of me. No flower was like the other and that is why I loved this kind of flower so much. Every flower was different, unique, but somehow they were similar.

I wonder what kind of "enlightenment" Kol had before he left. I would probably never learn about it anyway.

But who the hell would link our souls together? Who would bind us together? Especially why?

And then it clicked for me as well and I wanted to kick my own ass. That I didn't think of it before.

#the vampire diaries imagine #the vampire diaries #the vampire diares imagines #the originals #the originals imagine #the originals imagines #kol mikaelson #kol mikaelson imagines #kol mikaelson imagine #elijah mikaelson #elijah mikealson imagine #klaus mikaelson #klaus imagine #First Love #lills pieces

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margoshansons · 5 years

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My Power’s Turned On:

Part Three in the My Mother’s Daughter mini-series /// 01. 02.

Summary: After being sent on her first international SHIELD mission, Y/N Danvers discovers several well-kept secrets.

Notes: I may have fudged the timeline a bit, seeing as this takes place about a month before Winter Soldier, but I’m also kinda re-writing the MCU with this so...

“You joined SHIELD?!” Carol Danvers’ voice yelled through the Kree communications device. Y/N sighed, annoyance rising in her chest. “The one thing I specifically told you not to do? And you did it?”

“Yes, Mom” Y/N replied, rolling her eyes, “Look, you are the one who flies off every year to save the universe, so really you only have yourself to blame.”

Carol scoffed, “How the hell is this my fault?”

Y/N shrugged, “You set too good of an example when I was a kid. Besides, I’m twenty-five, not fifteen. I can handle my powers.”

“That’s not why I want you away from SHIELD” Carol confessed. “Look, Fury has told me something that could potentially put you and Monica in danger. I know you two can handle yourselves, but this is beyond anything Fury had ever planned for this organization.”

Y/N nodded, her annoyance fading, “I’ll be careful, I promise.” The comm shut off, with the agent promising to give her briefing to the woman who raised her after her mission.

“Mom says hi,” Y/N told Monica, collapsing into the seat of the Quadjet beside her. “She’s worried about us.”

“She’s always worried,” Monica smirked, “But I guess she has good reason to be.”

Y/N tugged on the collar of her new suit. The older ones always burned up when she went binary, hopefully, this one would last. The synthetic polymer sat tightly around her chest and inner thigh, while the more lightweight material stretched from her hips and shoulders down her limbs. She was thankful for the similarities to her mom’s suit, no doubt Fury’s idea. Camoflague was useful, especially on SHIELD missions.

“Agents Danvers and Rambeau come in” Fury’s harsh voice came over the comms, the two women affirming their presence.

“The city of Sokovia has been struggling with internal struggles for years, your job is to keep citizens safe while you try and take down the base.” Fury relayed, his neutral tone sounding out of place for the two women.

“Yes sir” Monica replied.

“Danvers” Fury addressed, his tone growing dark.

“Yes, sir?” Y/N asked, unsure why he was singling her out.

“Keep the glowing to a minimum until you get inside the base. Sokovia doesn’t need any more destruction.”

“But sir” Y/N protested, knowing she could do more good than evil with the binary. “These people need our help, if I can do some good--”

“These people are not your mission Danvers” Fury called her out, “Your mission is to take down the Hydra base, understood?”

Silence filled the jet as she met Monica’s brown orbs in confusion. “Understood Sir.” She replied resentfully, taking her place in the cockpit with Monica, ready to complete the mission.

“Target in sight” Monica replied, the small city base growing larger as they grew closer. The ship shook, sending Y/N into a flashback four years ago when a similar position revealed the existence of aliens near Earth.

“What the hell was that?” Y/N asked, scanning the controls for any idea.

Monica shook her head in confusion, “They seem to have some kind of energy tech, hold on” She veered right, taking a sharp turn before moving upward, flipping the jet to face the attackers. “It looks too similar to the Chithari to be a coincidence.”

Y/N put it together before anyone else did. “They have the Scepter.” She stood up, securing her gloves and hitting several buttons, the hatch opening up to the chilly Eastern European weather.

“Y/N, what are you doing?” Monica yelled from the cockpit.

“We can’t take them down just using our weapons, we need something stronger.” She responded.

“Danvers stand down!” Fury yelled, “That’s an order!”

Monica shut off the comms and turned to face her sister. “You sure you can do this?”

Y/N smiled, “I’ll get you an opening, when I say so, fire.”

Monica nodded, turning the comms back on. Y/N pressed a button near her ear, the protective mask crawling over her eyes as she launched from the jet, allowing herself the brief sensation of free fall before her body warmed, the binary propelling her forward. She shrieked in joy, the experience never growing old.

She pushed forward, wind flying past her as the chilly weather remained. The gunners were easy to spot, and their attempts at hitting a target smaller than the Hulk were just pitiful. Metal clashed against her unbreakable skin as she flew through the middle of the ship, her surrounding energy destroying every piece of the HYDRA owned vehicle. She stared down with pride at her work, pushing forward to continue it. The ships fell one by one with ease, and Monica had an opening.

She had done it.

Y/N smiled, her sister flying beside her as the two pushed forward. A shot of pain hit her stomach and sent her reeling, her body crashing against the snow. The energy had hit her.

It had taken her down.

What the hell was in that Scepter?

She launched upward, flying above the trees to see what she had missed.

The vantage point. They were on a hill. They had a shield.

“Monica!” Y/N called over the comms, “Don’t engage, I repeat don’t engage!”

She flew forward, her body whipping through the air as she continued to repeat her warning. “The base is covered by the same energy we’ve been experiencing. Unless you can find a way to take it down, we’re not getting inside.”

“Scan for any weak points” Fury encouraged, the slightest shake in his voice. Y/N heard Monica announce that she would.

“I’ll go into the field, see if there’s any other way inside” Y/N yelled, ignoring the protests in her ears. Gathering energy once more she slammed the ground of the base, sending soldiers flying and explosions raging.

Her fists blasted any of the other remaining ones as she fought her way through. HYDRA may have had defenses, but they were pretty poor ones if she said so herself.

It wasn't until she managed to get ahold of one of the energy spears that an idea came to her. “Monica, how fast are you able to find that weak spot?”

“I’m scanning now” Her sister replied, “There's nothing concrete, our best bet seems to be on top of the leftmost tower.”

Y/N shot upward, headed in the direction Monica had suggested. “When I tell you to, fire”

“Y/N” Monica protested, “Our firing system isn’t that accurate, if we end up missing then--”

The agent cut herself off as she realized what her sister was planning. “If this goes wrong, I am so telling Mom.”

Y/N smirked as she took her spot, her body warming as she charged up, the glass encasing her face strong enough to withstand the power inside her. The spear began to spark and Y/N kept her eye on the Quadjet. It flew closer, and closer until--

“Fire!” Y/N shouted, thrusting downward with the spear, energies colliding with the artillery, blowing a hole straight through the base.

She was in.

Finding the room with the Scepter was much easier than actually getting into the building. Y/N swore up and down that she could almost feel her energy getting stronger as she approached.

“Attention Headquarters” She whispered in her Comm as the Scepter entered her vision. “I have a visual on Loki’s Scepter.”

“The Scepter’s there?” Fury’s surprise was cut off by a scream coming from the adjacent room. Something pulled her there. Whether it was her own conscious or her curiosity, she couldn’t tell.

She stared at the glass wall before her, shock filling her system as she watched the scene unfold before her eyes. On the opposite side of the glass stood two teenagers, identical in everything except gender, chained to the wall. Y/N stood in horror as the Scepter blasted the two kids, their screams the ones she had heard earlier.

“Hey!” She tried to call through the glass, “Hey! You guys okay?” The chains fell and so did the kids. The girl collapsed into the arms of what she assumed was her brother, their furious eyes meeting hers.

“Y/N!” Monica’s voice yelled in her ear. “They know we know about the Scepter. You need to get out of there now.”

She could see what lay behind the anger in the siblings’ eyes. Fear. They were afraid of what she would do next.

Y/N’s body began to warm. Except, she wasn’t in control of it. Her eyes landed on the Scepter, finally understanding what Loki had coveted two years ago. Finally understanding why HYDRA was after.

The Scepter was an energy core. Like the Tesseract that gave her binary.

These kids had been exposed to enough energy to give them the same abilities she had. They were enhanced like her. And she couldn’t leave them behind.

She retreated back into the hall, slipping into the adjacent room. The room with the Scepter. Her body began to pulse, the yellow photons she had become familiar with surrounding her hands.

“Hands up!” The HYDRA agent announced his presence and Y/N made her decision. Grasping the Scepter, she felt their energies collide, mixing until her body was at an unholy temperature, reddening her skin and sticking her hair to the back of her neck.

She slammed the Scepter to the ground, an earthquake shaking the core of the base, rattling it, causing the glass wall to collapse behind her, killing the agents that had entered that room.

She took a look behind her and met the newly empowered eyes of the enhanced siblings. “Take care of this” She instructed, placing the Scepter back on the table before launching upward, deciding it was time to follow her Director’s orders.

“Y/N!” Monica shouted, her voice hoarse like she had been screaming for minutes. When the ringing in her ears finally stopped, she could hear what her sister had been saying for the past several minutes. “They’re firing at the civilians, what do we do?”

“You take down the gunners,” She instructed, shaking herself free of the experience she had just performed, “I’ll protect the citizens.”

She flew toward the wartorn city of Sokovia, the citizens desperately crawling for cover. Ships were decimating the city, all in an attempt to get her away from the base. She propelled through them like a knife through butter, her newfound energy coursing through her veins like nothing she had ever experienced.

She landed on her knees in the middle of the city, facing down the sniper determined to take out every man, woman, and child in the village. It should’ve taken her less than a second, just one photon blast and he would be decimated.

Instead, she was the one hit with an energy blast. The weapon left a lightning-shaped hole in her uniform, the synthetic polymer hanging on by mere threads while her tank top was exposed. She struggled up, barely avoiding a dodge from another blast. The building beside her crumbled and she ran over, holding it up, urging the citizens to escape.

She fell to her knees as another blast scraped her leg. The building couldn’t stay up forever. There were still people that needed to be saved. A blur passed her gaze and before she knew it someone gave her a verbal confirmation that the building was truly emptied. Using whatever strength she had left, she dropped the ceiling behind her, flying forward to meet the Sniper firsthand. She dodged several more blasts before using one of her own.

The man went flying, his gun disabled.

Y/N heard the sound of planes above her, and she looked up, seeing the Quadjet make an appearance. Her mask had flown off during the toppling of the base, and the citizens of Sokovia gathered around to take a look at the woman who had saved their lives.

The jet opened and Monica collided into her, the older sister squeezing Y/N so tight, she almost couldn’t breathe.

“Looks like we need to get you another suit” Monica joked, a chuckle coming from the two siblings before they embraced again.

A light touch brought Josie back to the Sokovians, and her gaze met the grateful one of the girl she had saved from HYDRA earlier.

“We wanted to thank you,” The boy said, “List told us that experimentation was the only way, now we know it is not.”

Y/N nodded, “You were trying to protect your home. Keep doing that, but know that there are better ways than just the first option someone offers you.”

The siblings went silent at that.

“Take care of this place,” She urged, “You’re its protectors now but if you ever need any help…”

She reached in the pocket of her suit and pulled out a similar pager to her mom’s. “Just hit that button. Don’t worry” She assured as confusion crossed the pair’s faces. “It uh, has international coverage.”

The girl gingerly took the pager, twirling it in her hands before stuffing it in her pocket. Y/N sent the siblings a smile before heading back into the Quinjet.

***

Wanda fingered the strange device in her hand for a few minutes, her mind still on the woman who had saved them earlier. Something in that stone had given Wanda her powers, and she suspected that if the woman’s display was anything to go by, she had obtained hers from a stone as well.

They were calling her The Commander in the streets, the woman who came from the skies. Wanda couldn’t help but be impressed by her dedication. Hardly anyone knew that Sokovia existed, let alone cared enough about its citizens to sacrifice her strength for them.

She had to smile.

“Still thinking about The Commander sestra?” Pietro teased, sending a playful look her way.

“Shut up” Wanda retorted, failing to keep the blushing smile off her face.

***

“You sure you don’t want to get another suit?” Monica asked as Maria helped put the finishing touches on the damaged fabric, the golden polymer filling the hole the sniper had left.

Y/n shook her head, “Nah, this way I always have a reminder of my first international mission on my chest.”

Monica rolled her eyes as she flipped through the book she had purchased earlier that day, “You’re such a sentimental dork.”

Y/N rolled her eyes, pulling the suit on over her singlet.

“She’s not wrong” A familiar voice rang through the house. Y/N turned around, her gaze meeting the bright one of Carol Danvers.

“MOM!” She shouted, bolting from Maria’s side to embrace her mother. Carol squeezed almost as tightly as Monica, relief flowing from her.

“About time you showed up” Maria retorted. Carol pulled away from Y/N to embrace the woman she had been missing for so long.

“Yeah, well I was going to stop by sooner, but their other mom is a bit of a pain.”

“Shut up” Maria chuckled, pulling Carol toward her.

“Gladly”

The two women smiled as they kissed for the first time in two years. Monica and Y/N linked arms at the sight, wide smiles across their face.

Hell yeah, that’s some Carol/Maria right there. They deserved to kiss onscreen and you can’t change my mind. Also, I know Wanda is like sixteen in AOU so her attraction is more of a crush than a serious thing.

If you wanna be tagged let me know and feel free to leave a request in my inbox!

Don’t forget to like, comment, and reblog! Thanks!

#danvers!reader #carol danvers imagines #carol danvers x daughter!reader #carol danvers imagine #carol danvers #marvel imagine #marvel imagines #marvel fic #aou fic #wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff x danvers!reader

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awesomecodies · 4 years

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Elle, the lost wolf. #lorwolf

Hi guys, this is my submittion for the Lorwolf Giveaway. I everyone’s having a good time and enjoy my piece of fan fiction. --- Every day in Loria, I fell lonely, scared, and lost. Everything here was never safe, never enjoyable, and never fun. There were just shadow hills and vast, barren wastelands. There is nothing that would interest my Wolfie-little-mind.

I don't know how I got to Loria, but somehow I did. After that, I have been trying my best to survive this wasteland. Yes, I have tried very hard. But nothing works according to plan. When you are a wolf, you suppose to go with packs. It's "suppose" because I am not sure. After all, I never was apart of one. One day, I woke up, and here I am.

But it's not that bad. One day, suddenly, everything changed. It feels like I was in fairyland. Suddenly trees have leaves, lakes that were holes and lines across the land some hours ago, there seems like some energy that is giving Loria this appearance. An invisible force pushed me outside the core of Loria, which now is glowing in bright white. Just a few seconds, then it's disappeared, nowhere to be found.

Loria is now a paradise of life, beauty, and harmony. The last day I was lonely, now I could see other wolves. But still, I don't have any friends yet; everyone who sees me always tries to speak with a weird tone and use a lot of weird-sounding words that I bet no one understands. After some tries, I end up giving up.

My life continues as usual, but more comfortable in some extend. I don't have to hunt for trees that still have some editable fruit tied to them; someday I eat leaves. But now, every tree has life, and the food they offer is tempting. Everything seems so bright. The so they called "Elder Wolves" rule over the land. And they say that as long as they are here, Loria will be land of unity, and bounty.

But like everything in life, nothing last forever. One day, the core of Loria lights up again, but this time it's not bright white, it's bright red with shades of black. The appearance screams "bad guy". And then there was a sound, screaming from all angles:

"I am Chaos, I am here to help this land gets better."

"Wolf-crap" Somehow I heard that, after some time I realised I was the one he said that. "How could Loria be better?"

Without answering anything, from Chaos strikes our dark-green spheres. After it hits some wolf near em, the wolves that already been slightly touched by the spheres, starting howling in rage. Their eyes began to glow green, they seem to be not as friendly anymore, they started attacking the nearby wolves. And like wolves do, the other non-infected wolves started attacking back. We can't control it, it's what wolves usually do.

The battle was lengthy and somewhat exhausting. I did get attacked, but my fundamental skills for hunting and my excellent eye-sight helped me a lot. We killed some of them, but some of us are also killed. After some of us are supposedly dead, they rise up like some source of zombies and start attacking others. Just fighting back won't help if we continue, we will perish.

The others continue to fight back, defend our motherland, Loria. But it's seem something is off, The Elder Wolves are nowhere to be found. Instead of the Elder Wolves, there are some glowing orbs of white, surveying the land. In a few minutes, all the shining orbs started to combine to 1, I felt a push, like every other non-infected wolves. We started rising and flew in rows neatly around the glowing orbs. Just then, a force field started rising from the ground, created a globe around us. The infected wolves began running, trying to pass that force field, but, how many they tried, they always are pushed out.

Then, the orbs started to transform into the Elder Wolves, but they still flying. They said they are surprised and inspired by some of the wolves that always keep fighting. They have thought of destroying the entire Loria and build them from the ground up. But after seeing how brave the wolves are, they decide otherwise.

They end up calling upon the sons and daughter of Totema, and gave them powers to protect us. Totema told that she actually has 5 sons and daughter, but one of them is missing or 5 years now. The Elder Wolves steered at Totema, then.. started casting spells on the 4 siblings. But, right then, I started feeling a sudden pulse, my heart stopped for a few seconds, then started beeping again. Right after, my eyes began to see other wolves, not just their appearance, but there insides. What their heads are thinking, what they are scared and not scared, their memories... I seem to like to have mind-reading abilities.

The other 4 wolves also seem to have super-powers as well. One got over strength, one got fortitude, one got the master of cunning, and one got over restoration. I don't know why I also been giving a super-power. They started to glow in bright white, and then, the Spirits Wolves are born. I don't glow in white,.. but still... I still got the powers. The Elder Wolves told them, but they seem to also tell me, to go and protect the other wolves.

Our story is just beginning, and we have so much to share.

And soon, we're going to be able to go to the unknown.

#Lorwolf

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idk-my-aesthetic · 5 years

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isle kingdom au

so i’ve had this idea for an AU for a little while, but i don’t wanna actually write anything for it until i’m done w/ my current descendants wips, but i also wanna talk about it lol so ig im making a post? please send me asks about it i wanna talk about it.... anyway

**tw for child abuse and semi-graphic descriptions of violence.

basically the premise of the au is that even though he tried to get it passed at first, ben never went through with pulling the vks off the isle. he kept meaning too, but it just kept being pushed to the back of his list of priorities bc he was so busy w/ being king and never happened

so bc of this, the core 4 stayed on the isle and never got off it. if you’ve read the stuff in my keep them close series u probably have a better idea of my hc of the isle, but the basics of it are that 1) most of the parents are really bad and abusive + the conditions are disgusting 2) none of the kids are really evil and 3) the vks are all kinda frenimes/rivals and will work together to keep eachother alive even if they act like they hate eachother or will even hurt eachother

so, in the ‘canon’ timeline before going to auradon the core 4 are a gang and slowly gaining power. they’re already the top of the vk gangs and are like gaining on some of the adult ones.

bc they never go to auradon, they just kinda keep doing what they already are and gain more and more power. but, as they gain power their parents start becoming afraid of them and acting like more abusive in attempts to keep the core 4 under their control

ok bare w/ me for this next bit bc it’s gonna sound real ooc for like a sec then make sense

so, as they’re gaining power and their parents are haveing more and more trouble controlling them their parents are becoming more and more violent.

im not sure on the order yet, but basically cruella, jafar, eq, and malifacent all do something like really really bad to their respective kid, so one of the other core 4 kills them bc like. yeah.

i have some vauge ideas of what each of them could have done and i don’t really know if i want to say them or even use them tbh bc they’re like.... bad, like real bad. which they kinda have to be, you know? bc like.... none of the core 4 would turn to killing if they didn’t have a real good reason, and their parents continuing the abuse that they always have woulden’t be enough, so the parents would have to do something really really bad for one of the others to justify killing them

its important to mention that none of them kill their own parent. it’s always one of the other 4, im not sure who kills who just yet, but none of them kill their own parent. They’re saved from their parents by each other and they never really have any confrontation with their parents (which will change l8r 👀👀, let me explain)

Even tho they didn’t kill their own parents, everyone kinda assumed they did in order to take their places/gain power. A handful of their friends know the real story, but it’s mostly kept under wraps and it’s like general “knowledge” that they killed their parents for power. They’re not really hiding it or anything, I mean they did still each kill one of the 4 most powerful villains so it’s not like anyone is gonna be less afraid if they knew the truth. ppl just make assumptions and never really question them and they just let ppl think what they do

So bc their parents are dead and they let everyone assume they killed their own parent they very easily climb up the ranks and end up in charge of the isle bc atp they’re seen as the most ruthless/evil/powerful

So now that they’re in charge of the isle they start like..... actually making it a livable place. Ofc at first they try to make a version of Carlos’s machine to break the barrier, but they can’t get it to work so he just modifys it to steal magic from the barrair for them to use. (Another idea stolen from my keep them close series but like I like the idea lol)

And when I say they make it a livable place I mean they start doing stuff like building water purifiers, making like safe houses, establishing some kind of working economy, taking control of the barge drop offs and how everything is distributed, fixing broken electricity, etc etc

A lot of what they do is based off of Carlos’s machines and designs, which like obvi other ppl are helping him gather materials and for and build, since he has power bc he’s like one of the ppl in charge. And he like teaches other ppl how to do what he does and fix anything that goes wrong

Evie kinda puts herself in charge of setting up like medical centers + homes for kids and stuff. Also some kinda way to grow food. B4 they’re in charge nothing can really grow but they use the magic they steal from the barrier to make stuff grow. And evie can use it to make like lots of healing items and such

Jay ends up mostly in charge of like collecting and distribution of their recourses. At first like the barge is kinda a hugeeee problem to deal with bc ppl are fighting over the like moldy food and destroyed clothes and stuff. But eventually they get it organized and have stuff sent to the respective place it should, like clothes and scrap fabric are sent to a place that repairs and sells them, parts and electronics are sent to Carlos or his helpers, etc

Other minor vks like Celia, dizzy, the sea three, Diego, etc are all in this two but this is already really long so just know they’re like helping and like pretty high ranking/highly regarded. Send me an ask with questions please

Mal is kinda regarded as the ultimate leader/queen of the isle ig even though the other 3 have basically the same amount of power. Mostly bc her job ends up being keeping the adults who dislike them inline and keeping their power as heads of the isle

Most ppl are just kinda chill w/ them being in charge, especially a lot of the ppl who were banished for minor crimes. A few of the adult villains try to fight them and end up dead lol, and anyone caught doing especially bad things, like r*pe, hurting someone they shouldn’t have, being a child abuser, etc will end up killed by mal or one of the others. They don’t kill u for like every crime obviously only the like inexcusable ones. Stuff like stealing or mental illness or w/e they basically just help you work through

They’re aren’t any like real laws ig but they deal with issues as they go and give harsh punishments if needed. It serves to keep themselves seen as strong/evil/powerful despite all the good they do and helps keep others too afraid to challenge them. Like frollo isn’t going to challenge them if Ursula tried the same thing and got killed. (The fact that she abused uma and her siblings obviously had nothing to do with that,,,,,,,,,,,)

So yeah! They basically turned the isle into a inhabitable place in the years that they spent as its leaders, and it functions as its own kinda kingdom despite its harsh and confusing laws/rules

But we ain’t done yet, lol

Basically everything I’ve just explained is.... mostly backstory? Kinda? It’s the type of thing where you slowly find out about all this stuff while they actual story goes on, but I figured it’d be less confusing to explain it first :3

So the Actual story starts a few years after when Ben originally was supposed to take the vks off the isle. He, all the other princess/princes he want to school with, the core 4, the sea 3, etc are all in their mid to early 20s.

Auradon has basically no clue what’s the deal w/ the isle. They’re only interaction w/ them is through the like goblins that bring over the trash barges, but those guys are chill and basically don’t tell the aks anything lol.

So Ben is ruling his kingdom, and the core 4 are ruling their own, both sides are doing pretty well and ignoring each other, but then! All of a sudden there’s these sudden deaths/fires/some kinda terrorist attack on the outskirts of the kingdom.

I haven’t thought through this part too much, but basically he knows that they’re is some kinda threat, but he doesn’t know excatly what it is. All he does know is that the villain that is attacking is demanding to speak to the children of malifecent, jafar, cruella devil, and the evil queen.

He basically rounds up the heroes of those respective stories bc they’re all being threatened in some way or another. The mystery villain continues to do more damage and seems basically impossible to beat, and has given them a time limit b4 they’ll go and start destroying more

They discuss their options and decide their best plan is to go to the isle and convince them core 4 to help, bringing along the heroes and some of the main aks w/ them

Obviously it doesn’t go well bc they show up and mal basically has them arrested lmao

Again I have more in-depth ideas for this part but this post is already wayyyy to long so I’m trying to hurry and finish up

The talk, vks meet their respective heroes, everything is from ak/hero POV so as they explore the isle and talk to the core 4 and other vks they slowly find out about all ^^^ that stuff up there

The core 4 are eventually agree, and they go to face the villains only to find out its their parents who have been resurrected!!!! Fuck!!!!

Idk how or why just yet lmao but I will soon

Parents are obvi pissed, core 4 face their own parents and finally get like some kinda closer or smthn idk I feel like y’all get the gist

in the end auradon agknolages the isle as its own kingdom and the core 4 as its leaders and open trade/remove the barrier so the isle can continue to grow bc it’s been struggling due to lack of recourses

And that’s like the basic outline of my au! I wanna write it eventually but tbh I’m expecting eventually to be like 3 years from now bc of how much other stuff I have so for rn I’m just gonna blog about it. Obviously there’s a lot of other stuff/plots/emotional arcs etc I didn’t talk about bc like This Post Is So Long I’m So Sorry, So please please please send me asks/questions/comments/even your own ideas!!! Please. Everything about this will be tagged with “isle kingdom au” :3

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returnofdedsec · 5 years

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I played Borderlands 3

Finally played borderlands 3. Beat the campaign as FL4K in less than a week. In a few different ways, it both delighted me and disappointed me. Spoilers galore, read at your own risk. Also this is all my own opinion, what would/is/could be better/changed is all based on my own likes, dislikes, and general feelings about the game.

1. the villains - the Calypso twins are my type of antagonists. People who think they're hot shit, who think they're untouchable, who's pride and vanity are as big as a star. They use their charm and their talent to get what they want, and when that doesn't work they turn to violence and kill everyone who gets in their way. But that's ALL they are. They're vain, and self - absorbed, and have no loyalty to each other, which COULD be an interesting plotpoint, if Borderlands ever played on it.

Troy and Tyreen are twins, born conjoined, and Troy is referenced as always being sick in his childhood. Tyreen is obviously the dominant twin, and while the relationship between two siblings is unique, the way their siblingship was explored was miniscule and narrow. It was obvious Troy had some sort of resentment towards Tyreen, because he needed her Siren powers to live (Whether men can become corrupted and weak under the power of a Siren, or if Troy simply was a piece of Tyreen that needed to be joined to her to survive is still under debate in my eyes,) but his resentment towards her is hinted at maybe. Once. Twice, probably, but that was really only shown after he absorbs Maya.

They hint at Troy maybe, MAYBE, betraying Tyreen, or at least causing their ultimate downfall because of his newfound Siren powers. Never happens. Why? Who knows.

They feel more like business partners than siblings, their relationship so watery. If Tyreen is so powerful, and Troy so miniscule in her eyes, it makes no sense for her to keep him around. Troy needs Tyreen, Tyreen doesn’t need Troy. What keeps him around? A bond between twins? It doesn’t make much sense.

If I were Gearbox, I would’ve really ramped up a sibling rivalry. Have Troy go just off the deep end with his new powers, butting heads with Tyreen full throttle, and having that rivalry dynamic utterly destroy them as they become Gods and turn the universe into their personal battleground. OR I would’ve made them so close, they really only have each other to rely on. I wanted to see Troy and Tyreen be ride or die, like a lot of siblings were. When Troy died, I was hoping for SOME real emotion from Tyreen, but found none. There was no venom, no real regret or sorrow, and even with Tyreen being a sociopath who steps on everyone who gets in her way, she didn’t even show a moment of triumph as she leeched his power away and opened the Great Vault.

I was hoping to see some venom from Tyreen, a real sociopath on the same caliber as Handsome Jack, or an unhinged and violent Troy, who dotes on his twin sister and knows his place as her weaker half. Their performances, while really fun and entertaining, only showed the evil, annoying Calypso twins. We see a bit of Troy’s assholeish-ness when he’s holding Elpis, but there was nothing really else to their performances.

TLDR; Calypso twins, while fun antagonists, left a lot lacking.

2. Sirens - There were a lot of things I didn’t expect when it came to the Sirens in BL3, and what I didn’t expect the most was Tannis becoming one. So it leaves me to two conclusions. One, when Sirens die, their powers are transferred to another person, basically just transferring that power to another woman upon death, which means theres a very slim ability pool for Sirens. Or, two, Tannis somehow leeched the power from Angel’s body to herself. Either way, I think it constrains the powers of Sirens, and keeps it in such a small funnel, when Sirens could exist anywhere within the galaxy. To have a character who was, before, just human, and turn her into a Siren, is such a weird choice. I fully believe Sirens can willingly give away their gift to someone of their choosing (Maya and Ava,) but having a character like TANNIS become a Siren is…..ridiculous. It felt like they had a wheel of female characters, and spun it and when the dial hit Tannis they went “Alright, that’s fine.”

I love Tannis. Even her weird, pseudo-sexual self from the Commander Lilith DLC, I love her. But having Tannis as another Siren, especially when she is like a full-fledged Siren with already established abilities from such an iconic character like Angel, is so….ODD. Tannis worked better as just a weird scientist, and having her as a Siren dilutes what was a unique character. And then there was the issue of Tannis having Angel’s abilities, and not an ability unique to her. It felt like they didn’t know what powers to give Tannis, so they just spun a wheel and shoehorned in Angel’s power.

If I were Gearbox, I would’ve played more on an Angel AI. In the Commander Lilith DLC, in the prototype Angel AI Core, Tannis asks you to download the information on Angel, and you see a glimpse of Angel’s eyes on the download console that flickers into view. This leads a logical conclusion of two things, in my opinion. One, that Tannis downloaded an ACTUAL Angel AI constructed from ECHO recordings, and revealed that at Carnivora. Or, two, Tannis built her own Siren technology in the form of a weapon or personal exoskeleton. It was odd that Tannis somehow either recieved Angel’s powers after her death through the universe, or they somehow transferred to her as she downloaded and recieved the data from Angel (because Angel’s whole deal was her being able to hack into and control machinery and electronics, so Tannis recieving the powers that way isn’t so far-fetched.)

TLDR; Odd choices with the Sirens all around

3. Gameplay - As always, Borderlands 3 was as fun and frenzied as I expected. I played FL4K, and did a Mr. Chew run using only the perks in that skill tree. I don’t know if it was the build I was using, or what, but Borderlands 3 felt much more chaotic and fast-paced than any of the previous BLands games, and I gave most of the Vault Hunters throughout every game a full/partial run. I found myself on the edge of my seat, and swerving with FL4K as I ran them through an area and sent an irradiated Mr. Chew out and using Torgue shotguns and sliding arounnd. It was a lot of fun, and I’m definitely gonna do other runs where I use the Meat Thief (Jabber) and Baroness (Spiderant) builds, as well as trying out every other Vault Hunter. The loot was great, and as always with a Borderlands game, I never felt like I was grinding out to beat a boss or farm for better loot. I barely did any sidequests my first run, and I never felt under - powered as I faced bosses and enemies.

It was also a welcome sight to see things like: Small enemies spawning during boss battles so you can Second Wind yourself, friendly NPCs fighting by your side so during certain parts you have a partner to revive and help you, and (I don’t know if anyone else is a collectible hunter like myself,) plenty of collectibles that immerse you in the lore of the game. The customization options were plenty fun, as well as the meaty voice acting from the current BL3 VH’s, which (in my opinion) made already charming characters more charming.

The characters, both old and new, were fantastic. For the most part, nothing has changed so drastically that there’s a giant divide between characters across games (Besides a few exceptions.) We don’t see all of the previous Vault Hunters, but the ones we do see are crafted lovingly and I loved seeing them (despites all the bullshit that happens.) For other NPCS, vital or not, I loved their personalities, loved their designs, and even the smallest NPCs dug themselves a little crevice in my heart :) Also loved the amount of LBGT characters in the game (Zane is pansexual, Lorelei is trans, FL4K is nonbinary, Hammerlock and Wainwright Jakobs are gay and in a relationship, as well as the return of Moxxi and Ellie, who i believe are both bisexual.)

TLDR; Borderlands 3 is fun and fast - paced, give it a shot and you will like it :)

All and all, this is a true - to - the - bones Borderlands game. Nothing has changed much from the other games, it’s the long - awaited third game to a beloved storyline! However, some of the story falls short, and certain parts I can’t help but be disappointed by (Not to mention during my run I ran into a number of bugs, such as NPCs getting stuck on doorways, or enemies clipping into the environment, or my bullets/melee hits not connecting despite me being RIGHT up in their business.) However, with all of the hype that followed BL3, I think it was near impossible to expect it to exceed the popularity that BL2 and TPS collected and the fans it amassed.

TLDR; BL3 is a bit flawed, a bit weird in places, but out of everything, it is crazy fun that will keep you coming back to it, again and again.

#izt #Borderlands 3 #Borderlands 3 spoilers #bl3 spoilers #long post

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playunderground · 5 years

Text

Revisiting Journey and Abzu, I Found Myself More Depressed About Our World’s Future

This is from the September edition of Play Underground’s monthly digest. In that edition, we focused on walking simulators! This edition is available for our patrons starting at $5 a month. If you aren’t a patron, $6 via Ko-fi will get you a copy.

If you like what you see here, please consider becoming a patron! Thanks for reading! ❤️- PUG! editors

As the days go by, it’s become easier and easier to lose hope. I don’t want to sound like a fatalist, but it’s true. Scientists say that climate change will be irreversible in 11 years. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it seems that human civilization will crumble by 2050. Every day the world seems to be shrieking in anguish. It has become harder and harder to ignore her cries, or to know how to help.

It’s also become more common in my present day to revisit old pieces of art and media only to find that their exaggerated, absurd, or apocalyptic scenarios are simply regular, everyday life for us now in these turbulent times. My most recent experience of this was when I revisited 2 of my favorite games, Journey and Abzu. As I returned to these games with the intent of figuring out what I wanted to write about, I found myself often struck by the distinct scenarios one finds themself in when playing these games, and how much they feel like premonitions.

Journey and Abzu were released in 2012 and 2016, respectively. While neither are old games by any means, they both were released just before the moment we are currently in where we all collectively feel that nothing could possibly get worse, and then it does. Climate change has been talked about for decades now, but the painting of an apocalyptic future scientists have warned us about has been getting less and less impressionistic since 2016. Both of these games were developed and out in the world well before this moment of maximum capacity. The conversation these games have with our current culture should theoretically be over, yet upon revisiting them, I found a representation more accurate than ever before.

Let me begin with Journey, the older sibling of the two, a game praised for its music, emotional impact, and finding power in simplicity. In this game, a player controls a robed figure in a massive desert, with the goal of traveling towards a mountain in the distance. As you travel through the desert, you find relics from a once thriving civilization. Art covers the walls of ancient buildings that depict the rise and fall of the civilization that your character belongs to, which also parallels the journey of the character. The main enemies of the game that you must avoid are massive flying automatons that are left over from a war that ended the civilization.

As I finished yet another playthrough of the game, I found myself once again moved to tears. This time however, it was for very different reasons. I could not have predicted before booting up this game again in 2019 that I would be hit with such an impact upon realizing just how much this game is a potential self portrait of humanity’s future. The desert setting certainly isn’t far off from what a world ravaged by climate catastrophe might look like. What hit home for me the most was the fact that the automatons are the last thing remaining in this world after ending the civilization. The idea of military technology being our downfall doesn’t seem so fictional when the United States military is Earth’s biggest polluter. After feeling emotionally ruined in my playthrough, I went on to replay Abzu, and then fell into another emotional sinkhole. I did not know that the rug could be pulled out from under me again.

The game Abzu follows the journey of a female diver in a vast ocean. As you play the game, you explore various underwater environments, interact with sea life, and reanimate the ocean using magical springs. The story and design of the game take inspiration from Sumerian mythology and Middle Eastern culture. In the game, there are pyramid shaped devices that are harvesting energy from the ocean. It is clear that these devices are what are upsetting the ecosystem and are what caused the destruction of this game’s civilization. As you progress through the game, it is revealed that the diver is a mechanical being whose existence actually comes from the pyramid like structures that are destroying the ocean. The diver ends up teaming up with a great white shark to bring life back to the oceans, and revitalizes the world.

While the water based setting of Abzu is in stark contrast to the desert of Journey, they both seem equally accurate as potential apocalyptic futures. As the temperatures rise and the ice caps melt, it seems like we will all be living underwater very soon. Once again like in Journey, the downfall of Abzu’s civilization is due to the machinery that was created. All that’s left of the cultures in both games are the evil machines they fashioned, mindlessly continuing the uncaring and violent mechanisms they were made for.

None of this sounds hopeful, but reality never seems to be either. I do think however it would be a disservice to both of these beautiful games if I tried to argue that the main message at their cores was pessimism towards our future. Both of these games, while dystopian in nature, carry the seeds of hope within them. Journey and Abzu are both stories of sacrifice and perseverance. In Journey, you are on an emotional ride that borders on religious experience. Your character is willing to sacrifice their life for their people, their mission, and their beliefs. One of the major points of gameplay in Journey is that you can play with another player online anonymously. While this may seem like a random or inconsequential gimmick, it actually adds a comforting reality to the story: you are not alone. You are not the last of your people. There are others, and you can help one another to bring about a better future for the both of you. Your existence in the game brings a beautiful red color back to cloth based beings that help you progress through your journey as you interact with them. There is still a future and each being in the game can help you towards a good one, anonymous or not. While all of us may feel powerless in the current state of the world, none of us have to suffer in it by ourselves. By the time you reach that mountain, you are no longer the person you once were. You and your character have been reborn, for the better.

While Journey focuses mostly on what is needed for an individual, Abzu is a great companion in that the center is much more about the collective and the environment. The sacrifice your character makes in Abzu is for the greater good of the world itself. After the diver realizes that they themselves are a member of the very civilization that is responsible for the destruction of the ocean, they forego their connection to that history for the sake of a better collective future. Your character acknowledges their sins, and decides to make right with the world rather than continue down the path history laid out for them. There is a beautiful twist that occurs as you progress through the game. At first, it seems that the great white shark is one of your major enemies. You quickly realize however that the machinery you are a part of is the actual enemy, while the shark and the other natural creatures of the ocean are your true allies and friends. As you finish the game and the credits roll, you can control the diver in a pristine and beautiful ocean while swimming alongside the great white shark. The cycle of violence is broken, and the ocean is clean and teeming with life once again. I wanted to weep at the thought of a future like that, a world without something like the Great Pacific garbage patch.

It is clear to me now that the future of our planet depends on our willingness to forego everything we once knew. In both Journey and Abzu, a hopeful and utopian future only came after the destruction of a flawed present, and the depressing period thereafter. The downfall of entire civilizations in these games also meant the ending of the violent systems that had been pushing towards calamity. We must be willing to acknowledge our wrongdoings, both as individuals and as a collective. The characters you play as are all fundamentally changed by the end of the story in these 2 games. We will all have to make sacrifices, whether they be personal, political, technological, or otherwise, and learn from our past and the cultures within it. Much of the inspiration for Journey and Abzu come from non-white, non-western, and indigenous cultures, whose practices and histories are inextricable from environmental justice and liberation. War and colonialism are massive factors of climate catastrophe both in these games and in real life.

It appears to me now that we must all go on our respective journeys, to find ourselves and what our relationship to the world and one another must be. None of us will be able to come out of it clean, for none of us live in a world that is. The end of human civilization as we currently know it might just be the only option ahead of us. Perhaps though, there is a much needed future in collapse, and glory in rebirth. I pray that we all find it, if not for our own sake then for the world that comes after we are all gone.

#digest preview #journey #abzu

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a-dakhtar · 5 years

Note

i gots you a prompt: teen wolf/avengers. Laura & Derek Hale being in new york when the chitauri invade. gO!

i hate you and the horse you rode in on, @multistarks, so here; everything you absolutely did not want with your precious Derek Hale.

previous prompt (dark souls/avengers)

> next prompt

prompt #2: fenrisúlfr

Three years after the Hale fire, three years after the death of his family, after each and every member save but two and a half burnt to death on a cold, wintry evening, Derek Hale thinks: I wonder what Kate thinks about this?

It’s the first time he’s ever actually thought of her name in his head, the first time he’s thought of her, on purpose, without flinching and shoving the thought away to the back of his mind with everything else he’s repressing.

He can’t help it though; the almost dark humour of what she and her ilk must be thinking, of how they’re reacting with the sudden knowledge that werewolves aren’t the only things out there.

Because aliens.

Naturally.

He has no idea where Laura is - they didn’t keep track off each other like that, not really - but he can find her easily enough. The bond between them is simple, that of an Alpha and her Beta, nothing less and certainly nothing more. It used to be stronger, wilder, thrumming with tension and loyalty and constant irritation - it used to be a bond of siblings, one older and the other younger, an overbearing older sister and a younger brother tripping through puberty.

Not anymore. He doesn’t deserve any more.

But it’ll tell him where his Alpha is, at the very least. And with aliens everywhere and people running and screaming and the heavy dust of debris, Derek needs it, because Laura’s not picking up her damn phone.

It doesn’t take long for the streets to grow empty, for people to have already escaped and left everything and each other behind in the search for safety. Laura’s somewhere further ahead, right towards Stark Tower, which is stupid and ridiculous because that’s where the aliens are coming from. And of course she’d be around there the one day the world gets attacked by aliens. Of course.

He growls, irritation lighting up his throat with rumbles, and trudges on. He finds a working motorcycle, ignores the stab of grief at the memory of Uncle Peter and his ridiculous motorcycle that would’ve been in the garage, ignores the further stab of agony from that pack bond, frayed and withered and half burnt and dead.

He rides it. Takes it to the heart of Manhattan. Gets off.

And immediately realises the mistake he’s made.

Everywhere around him are aliens. Everywhere around him is chaos. The bond is going crazy, pinging from every direction possible and not giving him anything to work with. Laura’s still not picking up the phone, the air is full of a whine that’s painful to his werewolf hearing and-

Derek ducks. A car goes flying past.

Holy shit, he should’ve just stayed at the apartment.

But he’s here now, and if he can’t find Laura, he’s going to make himself useful. There’s a woman and her toddler behind a counter of a destroyed coffee shop. Derek hustles them over to another building, and then to another, and on and on till he finds a police officer to hand them over to. He jumps over ruined yellow cab’s and ducks under alien laser guns, ripping the arm of one when it’s too close to just dodge and not caring if he gets captured on screen.

What would it matter anyway? If the world found out about werewolves? Even humans wouldn’t be dumb enough to get distracted from aliens.

On and on he goes, pausing only once when he comes across a guy with a gun protecting two teenage girls. The guy reeks of wolfsbane and silver, and Derek snarls even as he fights off the persistent alien refusing to die already.

Hunter guy looks at him, eyebrows furrowed, gun hand steady. Derek glares back.

“Well, fuck,” hunter guy says, lips pouting into a disgruntled moue, “You gonna try and rip my throat out? Cus if not, I’m gonna take these two and leave the rest to you.”

And then the hunter guy does just that.

Derek snarls, irritation rising in him as he swipes at aliens trying to take potshots at the retreating humans. The hunter shouts back a thanks but doesn’t stop, leaving Derek behind like the piece of shit he is.

Hunters. And they called werewolves monsters.

Above him, an arrow goes whistling across the air, exploding a minute later in the grasp of a man with a strange, horned helmet. The man falls, making a crater on the cement as if he weighed a ton, and somehow staggers back up to his feet.

Not human. A quick inhale through his nose confirms it; herbs and old magic crackling with the scent of fire, threatening to burn Derek whole.

He takes a step back, instincts screaming at him to run, to get the hell away from the man, and he turns to do just that, to leave, screw Laura, screw everythi-

-A hand, around his neck.

Derek stutters, suddenly unable to breathe.

A hand, squeezing around his neck.

His hands scrabble uselessly against it, against the iron grip crushing his windpipe. His feet struggle to remain on ground, to have something to weight bear against that isn’t the five fingered grip on his throat, and-

He whines, soft and animalistic, scared, scared in a way he’s never been, scared in a way even Kate never made him scared and-

“Fascinating,” the dark, slithering voice croons, magic weaving through the letters, sliding into the cracks of his mind. “To think Midgard would have you.”

And somewhere, somewhere far away, something tugs, worry and panic and alpha calling out for him, calling him home, and Derek-

“Oh no, no,” the man croons, holding him aloft with one hand. “Can’t have that,” and the bond sizzles and snaps and Derek howls, pained and anguished, mind splintering under the pressure of his last link breaking. “I think I’ll make you mine,” the being, the creature, the monster, purrs, “As it was meant to be, as it was foretold, as it shall be, yes, yes, mine.”

And something blue, something sharp and humming and wrong, a glow he’d never noticed, descends and-

“I have an army.”

“We have the Hulk.”

A low laugh, ensnaring for all the wrong reasons, and-

“I have Fenrir.”

And he howls, a battle cry that sharply splits the air, a split second warning for the thunder god that dares to face him, him who shall hail the death of the nine realms and bring Odin to his feet.

He howls, for the oncoming winter of three lengths, for the brethren he knows lurks within the core of this realm, for the sister who rules all of death.

He howls in the face of the terrified human, of the sharp goatee and sharper brown eyes, in the face of all the humans that dared faced it before (flash of blonde hair, of red lips, of softly whispered words of fondness and the sharpness of a knife sticking behind his back), he shall rend them (her) flesh from flesh and-

“Brother-!”

“I am not your brother!”

“-What have you done?”

A low laugh, vicious and cruel yet broken, rising high until it cracks and turns to wheezes, to gasps and shuttered sobs. “Only what I was born for, brother.”

“No,” says the Thunderer, horrified realisation crossing his face. “No.”

But it is too late.

Fenrir’s wolf has awoken.

And now it hungers.

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crusherthedoctor · 5 years

Text

Sonic Villains: Sweet or Shite? - Part 11: THE MONSTERS OF THE WEEK

There are some villains I like. And there are some villains I don’t like. But why do I feel about them the way I do? That’s where this comes in.

This is a series of mine in which I go into slightly more detail about my thoughts on the villains in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and why I think they either work well, or fall flat (or somewhere in-between). I’ll be giving my stance on their designs, their personalities, and what they had to show for themselves in the game(s) they featured in. Keep in mind that these are just my own personal thoughts. Whether you agree or disagree, feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions! I don’t bite. :>

Anyhow, for today’s installment, we’ll be cancelling our flight to Tokyo as we look up at the impressive size of a particular recurring brand of foe in Sonic's universe: the Monsters of the Week. (Excluding Chaos, who we've already covered.)

So for reasons that should be obvious, this edition of Sweet or Shite is going to be a little different. Seeing how we’re covering more than one villain - and since you can only say so much about characters who aren’t really characters - this will instead be a series of mini-reviews, one after another, for each monster. I figured this was the best course of action since the alternative would be to go back and forth constantly between the monsters, and that would just be messy.

Also, none of these guys have much in the way of personality aside from “DESTROY FUCKING EVERYTHING GRRRRRRR”, so I’m not even going to bother analysing their “personalities”. Everything else will be the same as usual, of course.

And yes, I’m treating Iblis and Solaris as individual monsters. Because they barely have anything in common despite being the same beast.

Right then, we’ve got a lot of these king-size bastards to cover. Let’s go.

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MONSTER #1: THE BIOLIZARD

The Gist: In the endgame for Sonic Adventure 2, the late Professor Gerald Robotnik was revealed to have programmed his Space Colony A.R.K. to crash down to the planet and destroy it should the Eclipse Cannon be equipped with all seven Chaos Emeralds. The heroes and villains teamed up to combat this threat (thus completely negating the game's Hero VS Dark selling point), and together, they made their way to the cannon's core.

What they didn't expect however was for their target to be guarded. In order to stop the A.R.K. from falling, they were forced to deal with the Biolizard, Gerald's original attempt at creating the Ultimate Lifeform before he decided to take a page from the Sonic OC booklet with his second attempt, Shadow. Thanks to seeing the error of his ways courtesy of one Amy Rose, Shadow himself confronted his older sibling, and Knuckles used the Master Emerald to cancel out the power of the Chaos Emeralds, thus preventing the A.R.K's collision...

Just kidding. As if to laugh at the very idea of Knuckles actually having a useful role in this game beyond treasure hunting fodder, the Biolizard immediately used Chaos Control to assume direct control of the A.R.K. in order to continue its collision course. Sonic and Shadow had no choice but to go Super, and with their powers combined, the Biolizard was beaten for good, the A.R.K. was stopped once and for all, and Shadow died but not really.

Sonic and Shadow were hailed as heroes. Even though everyone else contributed too. But apparently, only the heroes with super forms are allowed to be on the President's desk.

The Design: The Biolizard is a failed prototype, and it shows.

He's gonna sweep them bitches off their feet with a face like that.

Surprisingly, I actually dig his design. It's a bit messy, sure, but that works to his benefit in this case, since as a failed creation who demands a life support system just to function, it's justified within the context. It's a cool mesh of organic and technology, and it perfectly demonstrates the horrors that can come with trying to play God and creating life.

Unfortunately, his final form is underwhelming. He "fuses" with the A.R.K, but don't get your hopes up. It's the same design as before, only... well...

Yeah. It's just... right up there. All the way through.

The Execution: The Biolizard technically doesn't come out of nowhere, since there's a Dark Story cutscene that foreshadows his existence. But he still feels very WTF in spite of that. This adventure involving G.U.N, Dr. Eggman, and a feud between two hedgehogs, and this thing is the final challenge? It doesn't help that despite the relation, he feels very disconnected to Shadow's story when compared to Gerald, Maria, etc. (And yet ironically, he's the most interesting part IMO.)

So in regards to proper build up for a final boss, he's a bit shit. But since I like his design, and since his theme music is kickass, I'll give him a little step up. Just a little one.

Crusher Gives the Biolizard a: Thumbs Sideways!

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MONSTER #2: IBLIS

The Gist: In the future, everything was a shitehole. This was due to a terrible beast known as Fire Chaos Iblis, who spread his penchant for destruction everywhere he went, leaving behind nothing but ruins in the process. A young hedgehog named Silver, and his friend named Blaze, have fought him for a very long time at the expense of Blaze's actual backstory, but nothing they could do kept Iblis down for long. Desperate to save their world, they followed the advice of comic relief character Mephiles the Dark, which was to find the so-called Iblis Trigger of the past via time travel, and destroy him. That Iblis Trigger was none other than Sonic the Hedgehog himself.

Except not. Turns out the guy with no mouth and snake eyes named after Mephistopheles wasn't all that trustworthy, and was using Silver for his own purposes. Undaunted, Silver continued to do a bunch of things that meant little-to-nothing, before finally defeating Iblis for definite because... he was stronger this time, I guess?

But Zoinks, Scoob! He couldn't seal Iblis away! Luckily and unluckily for him, Blaze was able to do so, and with a few emotional parting words, she vanished from Silver's time to get ready for a better game stop the threat of Iblis. That's not the end of Iblis' story however, because as it turns out, he's only part of something even more destructive... Also, Silver and Blaze didn't achieve anything anyway since Mephiles unleashed Iblis in the present time after killing Sonic.

Lol.

The Design: Get ready for a trilogy of fatigue.

You have Phase 1, which is just a clump of lava with some arms:

Good at mix tapes though.

Phase 2 is a replica of his Iblis Worm minions, but bigger. That's it.

Even he looks tired.

And for Phase 3, he finally realises he should probably try to look more worthy of a main baddie, but it still falls flat due to his ridiculous anchor feet:

"~Lava bone's connected to the fire bone~"

On the whole? Wank.

The Execution: He's from Sonic '06. What do you think?

Outside of being a lame version of Chaos, what else is there to say?

Crusher Gives Iblis a: Thumbs Down!

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MONSTER #3: SOLARIS

The Gist: Remember Iblis? The guy I just talked about? Well he wasn't brought into existence as Iblis, but rather Solaris, the flame of hope. A time-dwelling entity of sorts, the kingdom of Soleanna had worshipped him for as long as they've lived, for reasons that can best be described as "fuck knows". In particular, Soleanna's ruler, the Duke, was devoted to harnessing the power of Solaris for the sake of being able to control time itself, and thus bring his wife back from the dead.

Sure enough, he joined her once more... by ironically getting himself killed in an accident during one of his experiments on Solaris, which also happened to split the entity into two different beings: the raw power named Iblis, and the subconscious named Mephiles the Dark. Before he died however, the Duke made the brave and heroic sacrifice of sealing Iblis - the fiery demon of death - within his own daughter, with the added deal of her never being able to cry unless that demon gets free, because who cares, she was adopted anyway.

She's guaranteed to be a strong queen if she can withstand a lifetime's worth of severe heartburn.

Anyway, the Duke got a Game Over, Silver the Hedgehog left a Chaos Emerald in his daughter's presence at the expense of the overall Sonic the Hedgehog continuity, and that was that. Ten years later, Sonic and Eggman had a tussle in Soleanna that I'm not even going to bother talking about because it's that unimportant, and eventually the aforementioned Mephiles gives Sonic a Game Over, causing Princess Elise to cry and thus release Iblis. Mephiles, the shadowy hedgehog, then uses the Chaos Emeralds to rejoin with Iblis, the fire lizard, to become Solaris, the bird made of light... Okay then.

Solaris threatens to consume all of time and space, but before he can do that, his decision to throw the Chaos Emeralds away like disused wrappers comes back to bite him in the ass, because through his friends' wise decision to collect them all, Sonic is brought back to life, and in his super form at that. Together, with Super Shadow and Super Silver, they kick Solaris' shit in, until it reverts to its original form of a tiny flame, and after some hesitance born from the sorrow of losing her biggest friendship, Elise ultimately makes the right decision and blows out the flame, thus creating a new future where Solaris - and the events of Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 in general - never happened.

Does that mean the Duke is alive? What does Soleanna worship now that Solaris never existed? Who knows, who cares, I'm already getting bored talking about these guys.

The Design: Unlike with Iblis, I actually like Solaris' forms, since there's an attempt to give them some elegance rather than just making them generically ugly. Even if Phase 1 looks as though he's got a steering wheel on his back...

Literally at the helm.

And Phase 2 looks like it could be desecrated by the Dark Lord Ganondorf at any moment...

"Who wants a hug?"

But overall? I like them.

The Execution: It's still '06, so his chances aren't looking good. I WOULD give Solaris some leeway since like with the Biolizard, I like his designs and his music (though I'm that weird guy who prefers Phase 1's music)...

Buuuuuut he's still the endgame of an absolutely shitty and plothole-infested narrative. And he's technically Mephiles, so...

Crusher Gives Solaris a: Thumbs Down!

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MONSTER #4: IFRIT

The Gist: Iblis got its own ripoff.

That ripoff's name was Ifrit.

It was in Sonic Rivals 2.

Eggman Nega sought to unleash it.

And it liked to feed on Chao, allegedly.

......

So anyway, how's your sex life?

The Design: Despite being the younger sibling, it's design is arguably better than that of Iblis. It's still nothing amazing mind you, but it's got a Firebird thing going on, so that alone makes it more pleasing to look at than any of Iblis' forms. And if it were in a fully 3D game rather than on the PSP, it would probably look a lot better with its visuals too.

Ifrit wants a belly rub!

The Execution: He shows up at the end to get killed.

Next.

Crusher Gives Ifrit a: Thumbs Down!

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MONSTER #5: DARK GAIA

The Gist: One day, Dr. Eggman decided to have yet another go at controlling a giant monster. This resulted in the events of Sonic Unleashed, which started off with a bang when after a spectacle of action and destruction in the far reaches of space, Sonic was lured into a devilish trap by the wicked scientist. Using the negative energies of the Chaos Emeralds, Eggman fired a laser that literally broke the planet apart, in an attempt to unleash (HA!) the being sleeping within the planet's core: Dark Gaia.

Those negative energies also turned Sonic into a bizarre werewolf-hedgehog hybrid, which wasn't intentional on Eggman's part, but he dealt with him easily by letting him fall all the way down to the planet... along with the sapped Chaos Emeralds. Oops.

With the help of a strange little guy with amnesia named Chip, Sonic and his new alter-ego - the Werehog - went on a grand day out to find the Gaia Temples around the world, with the idea being to restore the Emeralds' energy one by one. All the while, Dark Gaia kept... existing, and Eggman tried to stop them. Eventually, it's revealed that Chip, bog standard comic relief that he is, was in fact Light Gaia all along, the fated nemesis of Dark Gaia. After all, you can't have dark without light, just as you can't have light without dark.

"I wish I knew how to quit you... and this boss fight."

Same song and dance from then on. Dark Gaia pops up, Sonic and Chip beat it, Gaia gets angry and transforms, then they beat it again with Super Sonic. Chip says goodbye as he prepares to sleep for nearly an eternity to keep Dark Gaia at bay, which could be seen as a metaphor for how I'm close to falling asleep for eternity due to how genuinely exhausting it is to talk about these non-characters.

The Design: I really do not like Dark Gaia's design. Outside of the purple tentacles, which are admittedly pretty cool, he's just a stick with eyes and teeth. That's all he is.

Nice nail polish, prick.

And when he becomes Perfect Ultra Mega Dark Gaia 2: The Return of Jafar, what does he transform into? ...A stick with MORE eyes and teeth.

"I'm never drinking Chaos Cola again, Chip."

So yeah. His design is boring. And he could do with eating more.

The Execution: Dark Gaia is at least set up from the beginning rather than showing up haphazardly towards the end, but that's about all the praise I can give it. Despite everything to do with Chip, the Gaia Temples, and the Gaia Manuscripts, there's still not nearly enough to make Dark Gaia truly stand out. It's the personification of the world's darkness, and it's involved in a cycle with Light Gaia... what else? What else is there for me to care about?

Also, its boss fight was the worst, and coming after the Egg Dragoon, it was like a slap in the face. Say what you will about the guy below, at least you can deal with him quickly.

Crusher Gives Dark Gaia a: Thumbs Down!

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MONSTER #6: TIME EATER

The Gist: Young Sonic was on his merry way, then a time monster showed up to cause trouble... in time. Young Sonic was thus forced to team up with Older Sonic to combat this threat.

So they did.

......

At least Eggman was in control this time. Or Eggmen, rather.

"Did I ever tell you the time I wrote about how Sonic the Hedgehog had it pretty rough lately...?"

The Design: Not too bad, actually. Sure, it looks like a stereotypical ghost at first...

"WHAZAAAAAAAAPPPP"

...But once it's revealed to be mechanized by the Eggmen, we see its true, clockwork-esque form:

Might want to get those boils checked, buddy.

As a robotic Frankenstein abomination, I really like its time aesthetic, and its twitching and whirring, as if it's trying in vain to fight back against the Eggmen's control. Like the Biolizard, the context allows it to be a bit hideous, and it still looks cool despite that.

The Execution: Am I going to give the Time Eater a complete free pass just because it's the one that Eggman successfully controlled? No. I will freely admit that there was not enough to establish it in a way that felt satisfying, and some would say to a worse extent than Solaris or Dark Gaia.

But here's the thing: I'm more willing to let these things slide if the game isn't forcing me to try and care about it. Or to put it in another way, the plot of Sonic Generations may very much be an excuse plot in its purest form, and that will always be a shame, but that's actually why I don't mind this as much. Generations isn't pretending that the Time Eater is anything more than what it is. It's not hyping it up without being able to back its "lore" up. It's nothing more than the justification for why we're having this adventure. And since Eggman is the real baddie pulling the strings anyway, I look at Time Eater as a plot device used by Eggman, than as an actual entity of its own.

Note that I'm not saying this is ideal. I'd have loved it if Generations had more of a story, and I'd have loved it if Time Eater had more lore behind it to back it up. But I'm explaining why I'm not so harsh on it as I am with Dark Gaia or Iblis, who their respective plots tried so hard to make me care about as big bad threats, only for it to fail miserably due to how mind-numbingly boring they are. It's a lesser of two evils situation, and I'm just giving my stance on it.

Plus, again, I actually like Time Eater's design. And Eggman did succeed with it...

Crusher Gives Time Eater a: Thumbs Sideways!

------

So that’s it then. That’s your lot for today. Some of them are okay, most of them are crap, none of them are as good as Chaos. I apologise if this edition of Sweet or Shite felt a bit rushed or shoddy, but in my defense, it's hard to say much for these guys, and I try not to be too repetitive.

......

Here’s a Shadow for you.

#Sonic Villains: Sweet or Shite?#Opinion #Sonic the Hedgehog #The Biolizard #Iblis #Solaris #Ifrit #Dark Gaia #Time Eater

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