Hmm do not get the hate towards people who enjoy fanon Alec when fanon Alec can pretty easily be understood as a version of Alec who reacts to trauma in a more typical straightforward way (the trauma itself is also often made straightforward) as a frustrated reaction to the way canon Alec’s trauma is consistently unaddressed and undermined or framed so he’s the perpetrator in the text and also as a result in the fandom. Like yes that is part of what adds a lot of nuance to canon Alec’s particular brand of trauma and therefor fanon Alec tends to be less nuanced in that particular regard but it is an understandable response to and interpretation of the character and treating it as some kind of moral failing is. Weird.

In terms of sexualizing the character, I think most people read worm when they were the same age as or a bit younger than the characters and I think that’s honestly the defining factor in how someone sees a character long term. Sometimes it shifts sometimes it doesn’t, sometimes they re read and have a new interpretation of the character but it overlays the first one. I do agree that if people were sexualizing the abuse he suffered as a kid that would be really not good but I’ve not seen anyone do that, just seen people portraying a hypersexual (more commonly just perceived as hypersexual) trauma response which is more straightforward and less nuanced than Alec’s actual canon trauma responses but not any sort of horrible bad take. I personally prefer canon Alec but appreciate and enjoy fanon Alec

did you watch lucifer season six and what are your thoughts pls and ty

Ahaha. Yes. Yes I did watch it. Then I cried for a literal hour and attempted to compose myself, only to start crying again when I lay down and kept on thinking about it. Then I had more feelings. Then I slept like the dead due to emotional trauma. Then I reblogged gifsets and had More feelings. Then @buffaluff and @flynnanimal watched it and also required emotional support due to drowning in their own tears. So, uh... we're all fine here now. How are you?

My main takeaway from the final season was the sheer amount of love for the characters, story, and fans that you could feel shining through all the episodes, and which made SUCH a refreshing change. I had feelings in my tags the other day about how a show about the devil was constantly goofy, hopeful, loving, and uplifting, rather than all the grimdark nonsense they could have easily done with it. (As I said, just imagine it as written by the GOT idiots?? NO THANK YOU.) The writing really loved everyone and wanted to give them a proper ending and emotional journey, and it wanted to show the fans that they weren't stupid for having invested six seasons of effort and emotion into this, and just... that is so much rarer than it should be? Compare all the movies and TV shows that treat their fans like the enemy, that want to outsmart them at all costs even if it means changing major plot elements, that ferociously guard spoilers and think that "shock value" means good writing, by throwing hackneyed cliche upon cliche and making everything Depressing, and just... Lucifer had its hiccups and slow points and missteps, of course, but I am SO glad they didn't do that. The entire show consisted of Lucifer slowly but steadily progressing toward being a better man, despite mistakes and setbacks and sometimes a little too much will-they-won't-they. (Season 3 was the only one where I got bored and skipped over the filler episodes with Pierce/Lucifer/Chloe in order to get to the end).

That is an essentially simple premise, but they stuck to it, and they didn't try to create more drama by randomly wrecking what they had already established. I wrote a fic all the way back in mid-season 2 (In Nomine Patris) that ended up predicting quite a few of the future characters who had not yet appeared on the show at that time, including Eve, Michael, and Azrael, and several plot points, including the very major one of Lucifer returning to hell for the sake of his daughter with Chloe. And while this might mean that I am just that good at guessing TV shows (I would like to think this....) it also means that the writers set expectations, followed through on those expectations, and didn't suddenly derail everything or turn it totally on its head just for the sake of cheap shocks. As we can all attest, they certainly caused PLENTY of drama, anguish, pain, and suffering, but they did it in a way that remained faithful to the overall premises of the story and the characters, and wanted to see them become the best versions of themselves. I cried my eyes out at the end and then thought, "hey, I might want to watch the whole series again," which, if you ask me, is the mark of doing your job right. There have been so few TV endings recently where I didn't immediately swear off the whole thing or have to pretend that canon didn't exist, so yeah.

As I said, it was just refreshing to watch something that had that essential deep generosity at its core, where the message is that everyone is worthy of love if they make the hard and painful effort to change and become better, and that even if earthly things feel small next to all this messy celestial drama, they still matter, and that you are loved no matter what. I loved that Amenadiel became God and Lucifer returned to hell as a choice in order to help all the trapped souls be able to work through their guilt and go to heaven. There were obviously certain echoes of The Good Place in that ending; I don't know if it was something they had planned all along or if the success of TGP, another series asking deep questions about life, death, morality, and human nature within the framework of a goofy heaven-and-hell sitcom, influenced it, but either way, it worked so well. Even if it tore my heart out and stomped on it on the ground, it was fitting and oh so lovely to see Lucifer, once the most selfish being in the entire universe, following in Linda's footsteps and becoming selflessly dedicated to helping other people. Just. Chef's kiss.

And of course, Deckerstar. The Hades and Persephone vibes were IMMACULATE this season, and while it did take Lucifer and Chloe the best part of four seasons to get together, they never significantly backslid, never had third-party issues or cheap cheating storylines once they were officially a couple, and Tom Ellis and Lauren German REALLY killed it this season in particular. It was never easy for them and sometimes the drama went on a little too long over the course of said six seasons, but the love story was beautiful and incredibly meaningful and always true to the fact that the actors and characters and writers (not to mention the fans) all loved it so much. They were so much the emotional heart of this, and when they went to hell together in episode 6x03 (where they turned into cartoons because wHAT even IS this show), Joe Henderson said in an interview that this was to give the fans a view into Lucifer and Chloe's future (after) lives post-6x10, and to offer them a basis to write fanfiction. I mean... the showrunner saying to the fans "here, we love you, have something to write fic about!" is likewise pretty shockingly rare. It's again an example of how this show always audaciously poked fun at itself, never took itself TOO seriously, and was always welcoming its fans and the people who loved it to do so, rather than making them feel stupid or taking joy in wrecking beloved characters or plots.

Obviously, I loved Rory, the badass lesbian half-angel goth Deckerstar child straight out of My Immortal (seriously, she was SO edgy, it was amazing), because of the fact that Lucifer's entire arc was always about feeling abandoned by his father and that he was going to have to face it for himself. Dorky Devil Dad Lucifer trying his absolute HARDEST to bond with his daughter was simultaneously hilarious, adorable, and heart-wrenching, and yet again, the Growth. We all remember when he could barely tolerate Trixie touching him, and now we're here. Also, any variation whatsoever of "this is just a brief moment of time that we must be apart, love is eternal and stronger than death and we will never really leave each other" as a line is guaranteed to make me bawl my eyes out. So that was fun.

I got a big kick out of Ghost Dan running around and trying to get everyone to see him, and had feelings about seeing him in heaven with Charlotte and his beloved Pudding Pops at the end. I had feelings about how they handled Ella finding out the truth (or rather demanding to know why nobody had told her) and of course, I obviously loved Maze and Eve and their goth/femme wedding and the fact that they got a good three-season romantic arc (indeed, I wanted more of them). My god, Trixie is SO BIG, she used to be a tiny little nugget. I love that Linda was the moral and emotional rock all along, from the first episode to the very last, and that Amenadiel was Deeply Vindicated when Charlie's wings appeared at his first birthday party. I love how Lucifer in s6 is absolute thousands of light years from Lucifer in s1. And as ever, Chloe was Perfect. I am happy that I spent six seasons with these characters and saw them become better, and that I was never made to feel like an idiot for trusting the writers to end everything in a beautiful and emotional way. Because, well. They did. Sure, maybe I could go back and pick at a plotline here or a detail there, but I don't terribly feel the need to do so? It might not have been perfect, but it was perfect, and I am so grateful that it existed.

Dark Obey Me AU Outline, Breakdown, Game Mechanic + Specifics, + Some Other Stuff

{Previous post}

Kickoff and Quick Summarization:

Leviathan won a new preliminary horror game with VR aspects from a contest to test the game out before its actual release and invited Mammon and Yuki (MC) to play. This experimental immersion becomes too realistic when Yuki's latent powers takes the experience of the game to new levels when the entire House of Lamentation is sucked into the virtualization. Yuki, now alone and confused to the rules of this blended world of reality and simulation, has to venture through the house and recover the brothers from the game's influence. The game seems a little rigged the more Yuki advanced, so is someone actually pulling strings off screen or is paranoia seeping in?

Type of AU:

Mirror Universe, Interactive AU (you can help build up the world of this event)

Potential tags:

Horror, Psychological, Bloody, Dark, Angsty, Possible Sexual Assault, Death Is Allowed, Bodily Harm

Brief (and Liable to Change) Explanation of How the Game Will Work:

-After the House of Lamentation is shifted and adapted into the game's world, the seven demon brothers are also adapted to the elements of the psychological horror genre and placed as progressively harder bosses that MC has to get through to advance the game and undo the effects of what happened.

-The brothers that MC has converted back to normal will stay on their side and aid them in rescuing the other mentally manipulated boys, some even serving as necessary requirements to further progress. They can roam around the house and their rooms can serve as a temporary safety spots, but MC has to be with them to ward off the game's influence from trying to appeal to their cardinal desires based on their sin they govern and controlling them again.

-MC can try to appeal to any brother at any time, but if they don't meet requirements the struggle will be a lot harder and the emotional toll will be more effective on the chosen brother. If MC fails to convert the brother, not only does the next attempt become tougher, but MC takes damage deemed appropriate by the game based on the sin of the brother.

-The only exception to this rule is Mammon. Mammon is basically the tutorial. He's a mandatory scripted event to teach MC how the gameplay will be, and how they'll make it further in the game.

-Each brother is equivalent as a boss. The only way to progress to the next milestone is to release the grip the game has on the brothers' minds, but it's not as simple as breaking a curse like MC can canonically do with their powers. MC has to make a connection to the altered version of the demons, and to reach that connection they have to tackle each brother's insecurities and issues. Not like resolve them entirely with a heartfelt speech, and voila, they're okay again, but really reach into their hearts and remind them that they're not what the game has turned them into, that they're more than their sins and valued individually by MC.

-Thus having the proper brother on MC's side makes that connection a lot easier when it comes to certain brothers. Once that connection has been made and the game has less control, then MC can use the pact they made in the real world as the final move to disconnect the hold the game has in the virtual world.

-Again, however, it's not as simple as a few deeply passionate words and the veils are lifted from the brothers' eyes. Certain items can be found in each bedroom that helps strengthen the pact to mean something aside from a vow between a human and a demon. Requirements are necessary for progress.

-The pacts MC has with the brothers is a key relevancy to progressing the game. Without trying to appeal positively to their insecurities/fears the game has a strong hold on their minds and the use of their pacts aren't as effective

Rundown of What I Mean:

Mammon is the first demon MC bonded with and that applies itself strongly to their connection and relationship, especially in this event. I might be biased here, and not to mention I'm trial and erroring the story with my MC, Yuki, but I believe Mammon has the strongest connection with MC because of how he feels for them, how empathetic he is, and how emotionally aware he can be.

Mammon governs greed and already easily succumbs to his wants in the real world, but as of now in the canon story, he's grown a bit away from his sin, because of his relationship with MC, like most of the boys have. He can put MC above his own desires, and that influence deals a lot with how MC saves him after he attacks them in their room.

Mammon wants to sell MC's body, bit by bit, blood, teeth, hair, organs, nails, etc., as a means to pull in some serious money in the black market. Greed completely takes over Mammon, and he has very little regard for MC's life. When MC tries to use their pact's powers on Mammon the first time not much is really done, because the connection wasn't made. However, being the tutorial, Mammon becomes less influenced quicker than the rest of his brothers. MC has to remind him he's not a total scumbag that loves only money while Mammon is choking them out. So time is of the essence, because MC is physically harmed in this reality and can die as well.

I'll have a rough draft of this scene up later to better explain the process.

So Basically:

MC has to find items or something meaningful to assist them in helping the brothers become aware while under the game's manipulation, and then making a connection to their actual selves that helps absolve the mind control before using the pacts MC has made to finalize the severance, although it's not totally gone.

How I Plan to Progress the Event (Susceptible to Change) and Suggestions That Have Been Implemented by Other People So Far:

-MC starts the event off at the Lord Demon's castle with Diavolo and Barbatos before returning to the HoL to play with Levi. Before MC leaves Barbatos gives them two coins and a cautionary warning [credit to @jinxed-rose ]

-The unstable powers of MC conflicts with the game and locks the HoL and its residents inside the virtual reality.

-The game treats the brothers as bosses and turns their worst qualities up to 11. The small glimpses of how we saw the brothers in the beginning of the game before warming up to the MC is how they're portrayed in the game. They're meaner, deadlier, and heavily warpped from their original selves.

-MC can physically be hurt and/or killed, so the more of the brothers they can rescue the easier the game will be to traverse.

-The brothers are ranked by the order of when they got a pact with MC. So the optional progression between the brothers would be Mammon, Levi, Beel, Asmo, Satan, Lucifer, and Belphie. The longer MC has been in a pact with the boys the easier it is to sway them out of their brainwashing, but it doesn't have to be in this order [credit to @felix-the-lemon-king ]

-Another option of progress with the brothers can be psychological fortitude. What I mean by that is the boys' durability to withstand breaking down from their insecurities being provoked. So Mammon's biggest fear is MC getting hurt so he's automatically the first boss and Lucifer would be among the last to confront because he's mentally strongest and that's where the issues would lie. [credit to 13ineedpills13 on AO3]

-Levi is an optional boss that can be done early or late in the game, it doesn't really matter. If MC goes for Levi first, he'll be relatively easy to return to normal, but if MC doesn't get to him until later then he'll be a lot harder to help. If MC attempts to rescue the others before Levi and succeeds the game will make him aware of this. Levi will get more and more enveloped by envy and jealousy and his insecurities will worsen, making it harder to appeal to him. [credit to @sunshine-apprentice ]

-The reason Levi is an optional boss to go after at any time is because he has a mystery that reveals itself later as the event starts ramping up and big reveal towards the end. It's not really a secret if you read the notes on prior posts, but shhh. [credit to @felix-the-lemon-king ]

-Lucifer is the assumed main person to look out for, because he is the elder, head of the house, and most powerful and sadistic. He watches from the shadows and sets up elaborate snares and ambushes to sike out and slowly breakdown MC. Beel is more frequent around Lucifer's bedroom.

Somewhat Established "Rules" of the Game:

-Each encounter with the brothers during the actual moments of fighting and struggling will be violent and dangerous. Injuries will be painful and won't magically heal after the fight is done. [credit to syvintri on AO3]

-Death is very much possible, but it's tough for the brothers to die. It's not that hard for MC though. So, perma-death is plausible, but it's evened out with the two coins MC gets from Barbatos.

-The end goal is in Levi's bedroom, but it won't be accessible until after the brothers have all been released from the grip of the video game.

-MC's room is the only actual safe room in the house, so it's basically the headquarters

-Beel is the guard that routinely patrols the hallways, but he can be lured away with food from an area for a bit of time

-Each brother's room has a way to help figure out how to un-brainwash the boys, but they are dangerous to go into

-Overcoming the boys' insecurities and sins are a key relevance in progressing the game

-Line up of the boys in order as bosses (potentially): Mammon, Asmodeus, Belphie, Beelzbub, Satan, Lucifer, Leviathan

Concerns and Questions:

There's still a lot of gaps and unfilled holes that I'm not entirely sure how to connect properly. Trying to figure out how to write the encounters between the brothers that are being manipulated and MC/the brothers rescued is going to be tricky. Making sure the boys' characterizations stay close to how they would be will be a challenge.

So my questions for you will help me figure out what people would like to see and also help me connect dots in the story and plot.

A matter to discuss, for instance, is what a comment said on AO3:

"I think them interacting in a proper manner storywise when they are brainwashed is impossible, and such a drag to read. They should only interact during battles, and after battles, as they go on and save the others."

How should I go about writing the progress of the story?

Should I write it like an actual fanfiction, all detailed and specific and going at a constant pace, or should I skip moments instead of writing every scene that could occur to stay fresh and steady-paced, or should I try to base the chapters like actual event lessons in-game where stuff happens briefly and isn't very long?

Or another comment:

"So maybe this is just me, but I think it'd actually be more horrifying if the 'game' wasn't perma-death. Especially if everyone remembered despite any sort of revives or resets and with in-game injuries actually being painful. There's a high potential for angst is all I'm saying. But I guess that lends itself better for a normal fic rather than a choose your own adventure thing"

How should I write the "fight" scenes?

Should they be brief yet detailed or meaty with the conflict as MC tries to resolve the situation before anyone gets too hurt oor would this be good moments for turmoil between the brothers to arise and brawls break out ooor... I don't know what else.

How would the angst and heavy trauma best be applied according to y'all?

What kind of angst would each brother go through as MC tries to rescue them?

Some other questions:

Is the line up of the brothers as bosses okay, or should they be reconfigured to make more sense? Should it be linked how psychologically weak to strong they are or how their sins correspond to the next?

What would they be like at their absolute worst? How far do you think they could dive into their sins if they didn't have morals?

How dangerous would the brothers be?

How would the game use each character's insecurities and fears as their driving point?

How would you like to see brothers interact with MC during the confrontation? Or with each other before/during/after?

If MC were to die what would be the best way to take them out that would really fuck up the boys and devastate the psyche? Any brother is liable to maim or hurt the MC, but which one(s) could actually kill them? Or if a brother took a hit meant for MC, who would be more inclined to step into the line of fire?

These aren't all the questions that I have knocking around in my head and stumping me, but they're the biggest ones. I would like to hear inputs from others, BUT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't feel inclined to answer everything that I've listed. Those are just questions that I thought of and put on this post as examples of what I'm trying to figure out.

Finishing Off:

So yeah. That's the progress I've made so far, both on my own and from suggestions and opinions from other people.

I'd love to hear what y'all have in mind or would like to suggest or a take on a matter for any scenes, interactions, or whatever. Even if it's ideas of your own that relate to something that hasn't been brought up or mentioned, feel free to comment it or send me an ask.

Something this extensive will require a lot of thought and work to be done right, so that's why I had the notion of making this an interactive AU

So, if you're interested or wanna talk about the concept, hit me up! I'm dying just to ramble about potential stuff or read viewpoints about the brothers that you want to see happen or stances for whatever.

I was talking with @himboskywalker​ about Tolkien and fandom and fic, because I’m always curious where people’s “area” of the wider Legendarium are at, whether they’re a fan of the Dwarves or the Humans or the Elves or the Valar or what!  (As a surprise to absolutely no one, the Elves are where my heart is at, where I very much love the Noldor, but if you give me a choice I’m going to run over to that Sindar-centric fic every time.) Which got us onto the topic of fic recs, where, yes, I’ve done a LOT of Tolkien fic recs but I tend to read something of a wide variety and this is a list specifically aimed at those who are familiar with the wider Tolkien world, but haven’t really read much fic and want to know where to start! Other Recs First: - If you haven’t gotten further into Tolkien’s work (like say beyond the movies), I’ve done something of a primer here, which includes fic recs and brief explanations and links to videos that help explain some things.  It’s not as hard as it seems to get involved, honest! - Some other fic recs here, as an addition to the above. - My Tolkien blog (which I haven’t been on in awhile, though, I haven’t let it go in my heart yet) has, I’m not kidding, A LOT of fic recs, I did recs regularly for about three years, so it’s almost as massive as my collection of SW recs. If I Could Only Pick Three To Start You With: ✦ And What Happened After by thearrogantemu - This is the fic that took me from enjoying the Silm characters to diving face-first into really loving them, because it wove such an engaging story about the characters sailing to Aman at the end of LOTR, where various characters you wouldn’t think interacting would be as meaningful as they are, but the fic absolutely sells them on it.  Frodo and Feanor having a conversation about language?  Sam and Maglor sharing a boat to the West?  These things are amazing, as this is a fic about healing and what it means to sail into the Undying Lands.  Also, it has a Feanor and Fingolfin reunion that literally put tears in my eyes. ✦ Interrupted Journeys by ellisk - I’m generally not someone who does a lot of rereading of fic just because I have so many new ones to get to, but I’ve read my favorites in this series (parts 3 to 5 are my sweet spot especially) probably four times through now because “Elfling Legolas growing up in Greenwod with a whole cast of characters around him, as the Shadow so very, very slowly creeps towards them” may sound somewhat simple, but the worldbuilding here is off the scale.  The weaving in of how much the First Age and various Elven politics influenced Thranduil’s ruling of a Silvan people is a major theme, but it’s also good parents raising that precious Elfling right and he and his cousins+friends getting into all sorts of mischief, so it’s balanced between humor and drama in the exact amounts I want.  You can skip the first two fics and jump into the third if you like, which is when Legolas is introduced, but I enjoy the whole thing. ✦ Return to Aman OR Quenta Narquelion by bunn - I can’t pick between these two, they’re both incredible.  Return to Aman is basically “Elrond grabs Maglor and drags him to Aman with them” and it breaths such incredible lift into all the characters of Aman, it doesn’t negate the terrible things the Feanorians did, but neither does it negate Elrond’s love for them and his biological family, too.  It’s another fic that’s about healing and forgiveness and it made me glow to read it.  Quenta Narquelion is basically “Feanor refused the call of Mandos after he died and everything started to snowball from there” and it’s an absolutely heartbreaking look at all our Problematic Fave Feanorians and how they were once good people trying to do the best they could, but bit by bit they slipped into the dark.  It’s especially amazing for capturing the complexities of Feanor, as he hovers over his children as a spirit and it really brought me around on his character. The Silmarillion and other First Age Batshit Faves: ✦ The Starlit Sky by Cirth is the fic that really made me get the potential of reading about Maedhros and Maglor raising Elrond and Elros, where it does such a fantastic job of showing that there was genuine affection there, even the midst of all the angst and trauma and pain.  You really get why Elrond could never give up on them, after reading this fic. ✦ In Courts of Living Stone by ncfan - “What if Maeglin never left Nan Elmoth and instead, several decades later, found himself on an errand to Menegroth and developed a relationship with Finduilas instead?” isn’t a fic I expected to capture my heart, but boy did it ever.  Beautiful characterization and beautiful writing, it really captured my imagination, but also gave me ALLLLLL the Maeglin feelings, as well as made me pine that this Finduilas couldn’t have been more common in fandom. ✦ naught but the shores and the sea by ncfan is more of Elrond and Maglor, where it’s an AU that has Elrond finding Maglor after the disastrous attempt to recover the Silmarils and I loved it a lot. ✦ The Crane Wife by Trebia is one that takes an underused character from Tolkien (Lalwen, in this case) and breathes this incredible life into her, gives her personality and joy and sorrow and meaning and, look, any fic that can convince me that Thranduil would marry a Noldo and utterly believe it, you know it’s well-written! The Second Age Is Kind of Quiet in Fandom But I Love It Regardless: ✦ The Art of Long-Distance Grandparenting by Kazaera is a lovely and bittersweet (but mostly lighter in tone) fic about the separation of the Sea between family members and does a wonderful job with Idril’s character, as she tries to stay connected to her grandchildren while being so distant from them and unable to see them, unless they choose to come to Aman.  There’s joy to be found here and it’s a lovely read. ✦ Relativity by French Pony is a lovely look at the final meeting between Elrond and Elros and strikes the right amount of bittersweetness, where it’s awkward and difficult and heartbreaking, but also feels natural and like this was how it was meant to be.  I had many, many Elven Twin feelings during the whole thing.  (I like all their fic, they’re worth checking out their other stuff for, too!) ✦ A Thing or Two About Elrond by Crookneck is a series of fics about Elrond and the various relationships he has--with Celebrian, with his children, with Gil-Galad, etc.--and I remember being really charmed by all of them and how much shit Elrond has seen over the course of his life. The Third Age, Lord of the Rings Version: ✦ Boromir's Return by Osheen Nevoy - This one is sort hard to summarize, but it’s basically “Boromir lives, makes a friend, and slowly changes everything about the LOTR plot”, but it’s so much more than that, where the worldbuilding is phenomenal, the pacing is incredible, it made me fall in love with Boromir as a character all over again, it contains probably the best portrayal of Denethor I’ve ever read in fandom, and I really loved the OC and so on.  It’s utterly engrossing and honestly I cannot recommend it highly enough, even if you’re not usually into this sort of thing. ✦ The River by Indigo Bunting is a fic where Legolas and Sam get separated from the others for a brief time and I love fics that take two characters who don’t interact much, throw them into an intense situation, and sees what happens.  It’s not precisely a light-hearted fic, it’s very intense, but it’ll make you fall in love with the sheer good in both characters and the friendship they develop.  It’s brilliantly written and I cannot recommend it enough. ✦ A Bit of Rope by Aiwendiel is a fic where Gandalf doesn’t fall at Moria and it changes everything--not necessarily for the better.  The slow, creeping sense of things changing, things going just a little bit worse here and there, until you realize how much darker the Fellowship’s journey could have been, was brilliantly done, and one I thought did justice to the idea, it’s not grimdark, there’s still light and hope here, but it makes you feel like, oh, maybe things happened as they did for a reason, even as hard as that seemed sometimes.  Gorgeously plotted and utterly engrossing. The Third Age, Mirkwood Version: ✦ daw the minstrel has an entire series of fics about Legolas growing up in Mirkwood and there’s absolutely a reason why she was one of the most well-known authors in that corner of fandom.  Her ability to create new characters (including two brothers for Legolas) was incredible, I cared so much about the family dynamics and got swept up in the drama (which was in a very loving family, but Legolas was definitely a mischief-seeker) and they’re fantastic.  If you find yourself in something of a stretch with too many OCs and your attention wavers, you can always skip around, they don’t have to be read in order and a lot of the non-canon characters can be skimmed over, imo. ✦ In a Field of Blood and Stone by ScribeofArda is so much better than what The Hobbit movies gave us of the Battle of Five Armies, it does such beautiful justice to the complicated character of Thranduil and Legolas, not sacrificing the warmth there for how difficult these times are and the war they find themselves in the middle of.  This Bard is also really engaging and fun to read--I read pretty much the entire novel’s worth in, like, a day or two because I could not put this one down. ✦ Swordplay and Swimming by cliodna_bright has an incredible meeting where Thranduil comes to visit Rivendell, runs into Elladan and Elrohir, who are young enough that they speak without thinking, and it’s not precisely a humor fic, but I was screaming the entire time because it’s so sharply written and so absolutely delightful, I LOVE IT. ✦ Deep and Crisp and Even by rivlee made me fall in love with how Elves and humans may look very similar, but there’s this sense of otherworldliness to the Elves, as shown through Bard’s eyes when he has a meeting with Thranduil.  Beautifully written and just the right amount of atmospheric. The Fourth Age Where Everything Actually Does Mostly Work Out: ✦ Far Horizons by Bodkin is the Fourth Age fic of my heart, where the various Elves that we came to know in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are all in Aman and decide to build their own realm there.  Which is difficult because Elven Politics even just amongst themselves, much less clashing with all the established politics of the other Elven realms in Aman!  But it’s a light-hearted fic (for the most part) that’s about healing and moving forward, balancing their ties to their history versus that Middle-Earth changed them, and I love it for soothing my soul.  (Thranduil sailed, you can’t tell me otherwise!!!)(Bonus moments of Glorfindel being pretty hilarious.)  I like all of bodkin’s work, but this one has a special place with me. ✦ Age of Healing by trollmela is one where Maedhros and Legolas have a conversation in Aman and it’s about the bittersweetness of healing and how difficult it is, taking two characters who would never have met in canon and weaving something entirely engaging and poignant out of it. Collections That Span The Ages: ✦ This Taste of Shadow by Mira_Jade - This is a collection of dozens of various shorter stories (or sometimes 10k “ficlets”) that you can largely skip around in if you have specific characters you like or you can just start at the beginning and read through.  It contains looks at pretty much everyone, from Maedhros to Galadriel to Thranduil to Elrond to Caranthir to Glorfindel to the Valar, etc.  I’ve enjoyed pretty much everything I’ve read in this collection! ✦ Fiondil's Tapestry and Tales from Vairë's Loom by Fiondil are in the same vein and I have really enjoyed everything I’ve read from both of them!  I especially remember that there was one chapter that had a scene between Thranduil and Cirdan and thinking, ahhhh, why has no one ever written that before!? as an example of the neat things it does.  But also lots about Elrond and Glorfindel and the Valar and so on! This probably doesn’t feel like a super extensive list, but those collection series will give you an excellent spanning of Elves, Humans, Dwarves, Hobbits, etc., not just the same central characters, but giving time to a lot of lesser focused ones as well.  Like, I feel I’ve read a fair chunk of Elwing fic, but I couldn’t point you to a specific one in my list of recs, which means I’m pretty sure it was in the collections ones or else she got some good scenes in one of the Aman-based fics, so I swear the above is at least a solid place to start for dipping one’s toe into Tolkien fic. AS ALWAYS, OTHER PEOPLE’S RECS ARE WELCOME, god knows I haven’t read anything in the last two years (and will have missed a lot even before that) and so I always need more recs, too!

Harry Potter’s Sister Cliches

Alright so I wanted to look up some cliches and see how they compare, if they exist in my line of fics and if they did, how have I done them justice. All credits to this cliche list go to @/Purplemist14 on Wattpad from the third chapter of ‘Everything Wrong With HARRY POTTER Fanfictions’. I may do some more of these, but we’ll see. 

Of course, featuring dearest Willow-Violet Potter along with spoilers for future unreleased books so, you have been warned!!

1. The sister always has red hair and green eyes. Basically the exact replica of Lily.

- Alright, so, I’ll admit, I did fall down the trap of blessing Willow with the red hair and green eyes, and it is mentioned many a time throughout the fics that she looks like her mother BUT here’s a fun fact, if we were to rid her of the red hair, green eyes and obscene amount of freckles, she does actually look quite similar to James, arguably more so than Harry, specifically her smile of all things. In other words, the only reason she looks like her mother is because of the red hair and green eyes. Dye her hair and give her coloured contacts though along with a pair of glasses and she will basically just look like a freckled version of James Potter.

2. Either Harry’s twin, a few months younger or almost a year younger in the rare case.

- Willow is eleven months younger than her brother, although this fits timeline wise. She was also quite obviously an accident - Lily and James wanted another kid, but not during the time they were living in for obvious reasons. Of course she was not told this information, and either way she was loved by her parents and godparents.

3. Either dropped off at an orphanage, taken to Minerva, Remus or Snape, or just completely forgotten about until she starts Hogwarts.

- This is where the first cliche is really broken. Yes, she is initially taken in by Severus (later revealed that this was a plan done by Voldemort, as since discovering the kid existed he was like ‘hey she could turn on everyone she’s supposed to love and serve me’ and so wanted her to be taken in by his most faithful Death Eater) but, contrary to what most fics have, this f*cker abandons her with the only people he knows where to put her and that’s with Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy!! Some people who have not read the series or my previous posts may be confused as to why they would ever even consider taking this half-blooded kid in, but I’ve explained before and will do it again; Narcissa is a mother, she has very maternal instincts which have been seen throughout the main HP series, and Willow, at the time was barely five months old. To add to that she was found practically dead on their doorstep having been left out in the freezing cold with nothing but a thin blanket overnight. Narcissa was prejudiced, most definitely, but completely heartless? No (I mean, she risked her life to save Harry’s life in DH). And she was sure to make Lucius raise Willow the same way they were raising Draco because Narcissa was also a Black; I think she can see well enough and feel well enough what it’s like to be raised different from the other siblings.

She is, upon turning eleven, adopted by Remus but of course, naturally, he is her godfather and therefore rightful guardian, later parent.

4. She has a lightning scar on any other part of her that isn’t her neck, aka, the Girl Who Lived trope.

- Completely eradicated. Voldemort was there to kill Harry, not Willow. It’s as simple as that. Read your canon children or, if you really want to do this trope, please for the love of god develop a suitable plot in which this can take place.

5. Sorted into either Gryffindor or Slytherin.

- Now this one I did use BUT the thing is, the house she was sorted in matches with her personality and traits (Slytherin). So in this case it’s excusable, but if it’s just being done for the hell of it ... yeah, I’m not impressed.

6. Socially more active and is friends with the Trio, the Malfoy gang, the Weasleys and almost the entire school population.

- Guilty as charged, although once again I have done it in a way that makes sense according to canon. She considers Draco a brother because they spent eleven years being raised together; Crabbe and Goyle aren’t even friends of Draco in this fic, as Draco ultimately grew up a little less prejudiced knowing who and what Willow was; yes, Willow is friends with the Weasleys, specifically Fred and George, but none of their relationships are the whole nice straightforward sh*t you read about in every other fic. The three of them have perhaps the most complicated relationship between them ever (toxic to some degrees, sometimes even, especially as the 2WW takes place), something actually realistic that keeps to all of their characters. Now when it comes to the trio, Willow isn’t really friends with either Ron or Hermione?? She was one of Ron’s better mates to begin with, as he was one of the first friends she had, but they drifted apart more as they grew (and also after they broke up because Willow was honestly left pretty heartbroken after that), and Hermione, well, she’s only ever really been a mutual up until Willow’s fifth year and her sixth when they begin to form more of a friendship due to her (Hermione) being so alone all the time, and Willow needing someone that can emotionally support her when need be.

7. Sister nearly always replaces Hermione in the trio.

- Willow barely ever interacts with the trio. I could honestly count all the times they properly interacted on my fingers. 

8. Loneliest person alive, if she’s in Slytherin she’s bullied, and nearly always ends up in dangerous situations.

- In the series Willow is never actually alone, although feels that she is during her later teenage years, due to the simple reason that no one can truly understand what she has to put up with (also she does sorta force herself to be allienated from others, due to wanting to protect them and keep them out of harms way). She is bullied, yes, but once again it’s entwined into the canon, and by her fourth year no one f*cks with her because they all know that if they do she will not hesitate to bite back and hard. Now I suppose she does end up in dangerous situations, but once again, it isn’t always, and when she does it fits the canon. 

9. Always falls for Draco Malfoy.

- I was guilty of this in the very first drafts, 100% but now that I’ve grown and matured and learnt to understand characters more all I can say is that a) they’re basically siblings (covered in a previous point) and b) you honestly cannot convince me otherwise that Draco is one of the gayest beings in existence. Like you cannot tell me this f*cker isn’t at least a very male-attracted bisexual. You just, you can’t. It’s not possible.

10. Or the other love interest is Cedric Diggory.

- Literally ew. I could not, for the life of me, think of Willow and Cedric as a couple. Best buds? Hell yeah. F*ck buds? No way. They loved each other, sure, but it was purely platonic.

11. Lily’s brain, James’ attitude, brightest witch of her age.

- It is true that Willow has higher-above-average intelligence for someone her age but, here’s the thing, she’s autistic! This is never explicitly mentioned until the eighth book, which partially follows her adult life, but, yes, she’s canonically autistic (as is Remus Lupin, Arthur Weasley and, he isn’t autistic, but James Potter has ADHD). Now when it comes to personality and traits, I’d say she’s a healthy mix of both, but there is also that bit of influence from the Malfoys (she is, to say the least, quite prejudiced towards house-elves, for example). There was also a sub-point about knowing hexes and spells and jinxes which can only be found in restricted books, but both Narcissa and Lucius were quite proud to have a kid as smart as her, and if she wanted to learn something, they just let her, which meant there was a LOT of her reading in the library at the Manor about all of the Dark Arts and objects and such like that.

12. Involved in every major event that takes place in the books, and she always saves the day.

- Once again, guilty as charged, although it all works with the established plot and characters and in her case the later things happen from a different and arguably more entertaining perspective (the perspective of a teenaged, forcbly created Death Eater who’s trying her best to save her friends and family while also not accidentally getting murdered by Voldemort in the process). She also never actually saves Harry. I don’t think there’s ever a time where she saves Harry from anything really, especially not the major things that have been mentioned in the HP series.

13. Minerva gives her a timeturner and she goes back to fall in love with Tom Riddle.

- I’ve never actually seen this cliche before, but oh god if this is one that anyone out there uses, once again, please read the canon; Tom Riddle cannot fall in love, timeturners only work for minutes at a time, not to mention if future Riddle saw MC time would f*ck itself up, and also that is a bit creepy imo (the whole MC with Riddle thing).

14. Hermione and Ginny are made jealous individuals who would do anything to rid the sister.

- No chance this will ever happen, nor has it ever happened. That is very OOC, thank you very much, and you ain’t seeing me take characters OOC unless the canon can make up for it.

15. Ron and Neville are never paid attention to; more or less just desperate crushes.

- While it is true that both Ron and Neville are in relationships with Willow at different times, this serves the plot and their character developments. They are also not forgotten about; Neville is barely mentioned after the break up as neither of the two have the courage to interact with one another again (until after the war where they become friends again) and Ron, as I mentioned, slowly drifts out of Willow’s friend circle, after the break up and as they grow older and develop different personalities.

16. Draco Malfoy is OOC.

- Anyone who has read my so far published books knows that Draco, seemingly is a lot better behaved in my series (which, to a degree he is), but all I have to say for this is that once Harry crushed the dude’s heart to bits in the summer before fifth year, this motherf*cker became one of the biggest d*ckheads you would ever meet. Usually he didn’t mean to be, but the dude lost the love of his life, and of course soon after war shit was happening; basically he was more or less going with the flow of things, but yeah, no, Draco sucked, a lot, in the later WV books. Until after the war and his mental state is a little healthier, but until that point, from age 15 onwards, he was more or less of the asshole you see in the HP series.

17. Severus Snape does not hate her.

- Haha, lol. Snape absolutely despises Willow, because she’s never let him live down the whole ‘leaving her on the doorstep to die’ business and you know, she sees enough of how much of a c*nt he is to other students and she may as well give him a taste of his own medecine.

18. All the professors adore her.

- There is only one, and that is Minerva, but even then that isn’t made a major thing until book four. Aside from that, every professor treats her the same way they treat their other students, as they should.

19. Hagrid is not mentioned, or barely mentioned ever.

- The only reason for this in my series is that he is not pivitol to the main plot. If he was, it would be a different story, but he isn’t, so there is no real need to mention him.

20. Cho Chang is either the best friend or Cedric’s possessive girlfriend.

- Too tired to go further into detail with this, but there is a whole-ass character arc I have for Cho in the series, that abides by canon and plot and character and actually does her justice. 

Anyway, this was really fun to do, I think I’ll do some more but we’ll see. I’m tired now - it is sleepy time. Goodnight guys!

Hey, guys! So I don’t really have enough material in this most recent side quest to work with to create full roleplaying posts for it (largely because the writing for this quest was stilted as all get out and there really weren’t very high stakes)...so instead, I’ll be doing something a little different, and simply writing out my personal rewrite of the quest’s storyline, as performed by my MC, Carewyn. Most of the overall framework of what happened in the quest will still be there, but I will try to flesh out or rewrite some things to hopefully better develop the ideas and help them more smoothly fit into canon. Hope you enjoy!

When Lucius Malfoy first arrived at Hogwarts, Carewyn was immediately suspicious of him. She wasn’t familiar with the man, but she thought that his timing of coming to Hogwarts for an inspection only after the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher went on the run from the law reeked of the school governors and/or Ministry of Magic wanting to put forward a good show of looking after the students for the press, so that they couldn’t be condemned for their inaction.*

* = (Yes, I know this quest is supposed to be aimed at year 2, but...well...I honestly can’t justify why year 2 would be when an inspection would happen. I suppose the Ice Curse was still in effect, but it’s not like the Ministry or the school governors took any action in response to the danger of the Vaults, even though it seems like the perfect ammunition for Lucius to use against Dumbledore. He was able to coax all of the school governors to sack Dumbledore in the name of saving students during the Chamber of Secrets arc later on, so it feels like this could’ve been done here too, if the Ice Vault was still raging. Dumbledore would also have little reason to think we’re “good at solving mysteries” if this takes place in year 2, since we at that point haven’t even successfully dealt with one Cursed Vault yet. So in this version of events, Lucius has only just become a school governor in anticipation of his son, Draco, attending school in the next few years. And because the Statue Vault and Rakepick are currently being tackled by the Ministry already, Lucius doesn’t really have any more action he can take. It also makes very little sense for a five-year-old Draco to be brought along to Hogwarts. His mother Narcissa is a stay-at-home mother, and even in the films, it’s pretty clear she -- and Lucius, at least in the books -- wouldn’t want her precious bb boy being taken care of by a pair of strangers with no experience in child-rearing. And I don’t think either movie! or book!Lucius would want any “bad influences” like protagonist MC around his son at that age, either -- at least by age nine, Draco would be pretty locked into the pureblood beliefs he’s been raised with, and since he’d be attending school in two years, it would give Draco a good preview of what his school life will be like ahead of time.)

Carewyn’s suspicions only heightened when Flitwick summoned her and Ben to the Charms classroom and Lucius Malfoy was there talking to Professor Flitwick. She had been very flattered by Flitwick’s praise of her Charm work...but the way Lucius looked at her when he turned to her...

Even though yes, Carewyn didn’t like the mention of Jacob, there was something else she could sense in Lucius’s eyes -- something intrigued. Although he smiled very pleasantly, there was a definite marked interest in his voice, not unlike how Professor Tofty greeted her upon first meeting. Lucius had definitely heard a lot more than just about Jacob -- but despite this, Carewyn merely gave Lucius a very cool smile in return.

Lucius’s condescension toward Ben for his blood status only made Carewyn dislike Lucius all the more. When he’d left the room, Carewyn agreed with Ben’s distaste for the school governor immediately.

“Professor Flitwick,” she said slowly, “are the Malfoys an old Wizarding family?” Carewyn had heard plenty of stories about her mother’s family and their particular dislike of Muggles, so it seemed logical to think the Malfoys were like them.

Flitwick had confirmed that yes, they were, adding that Lucius could be difficult sometimes. “But he is one of the school governors,” he’d said. “So we simply must cooperate.“

After Potions class, Merula and Carewyn were both forwarded to Dumbledore’s office by their Head of House, Severus Snape. While waiting for Lucius Malfoy to arrive, Merula explained a bit more about Lucius Malfoy’s history with Voldemort, which thoroughly justified Carewyn’s distrust of the man. When Dumbledore and Lucius arrived, however, Carewyn and Merula soon found themselves roped into looking after Lucius’s son, the bratty nine-year-old Draco Malfoy.

Okay -- I know a lot of people liked how Draco was portrayed in the game and enjoyed how he (if you picked to protect his secret) expressed genuine admiration for MC, but...yeah, in this version of events, he’s not nearly so cute. (I mean, come on, in the books, Harry compared Draco to Dudley on first meeting -- this kid has some serious issues with empathy and a real selfish streak. He might be a lot more clever than Dudley, but in my mind, he should be pretty fun to hate at this stage, rather than cute.)

For one, because he’s older, Draco’s in less need of babysitting and more in need of guidance. Lucius thought it only fitting that two such promising students show Draco the best Hogwarts has to offer -- and Draco, being older and therefore even more entitled, arrogant, and condescending than he’s portrayed in the game, was sizing up his competition just as much as he was tailing after them. His father Lucius had told him all about Merula’s parents and about Carewyn’s reputation as a Cursebreaker, so he knew that both girls were incredibly powerful and thus were both people Draco should have in his circle, whether as allies or as pawns. While Lucius was at school, he became very talented at making connections, which has served him well in the present by giving him the power to either sway or pressure people into doing things his way -- and Draco not only is expected to do the same, but the young Malfoy heir is eager to follow in his father’s footsteps and already be the “big man on campus” when he starts at Hogwarts. Even if both Carewyn and Merula will be graduated by the time he starts school, those ties could still be very beneficial down the road.

That being said, Draco and Merula did still instantly end up at each other’s throats. Even if Draco was supposed to “get Carewyn and Merula in his circle,” thanks to his spoiled upbringing by his parents, Draco has no social skills whatsoever, and so has little idea of how to charm people without putting down others in the process. Even though (or perhaps because) Merula was a bully herself most of her school career, she reacted very harshly to Draco’s nasty attitude, and soon the two were verbally smacking each other around with barbed, personal insults.

Despite her growing dislike for both Lucius and his son, Carewyn did everything she could to be the mediating force between them and even successfully distracted Draco by asking about his interests and taking him to the Quidditch pitch. Not long after they arrived, Draco succeeded in snatching a spare broom and started flying around the pitch.

Merula sincerely hoped that he’d fall and break his neck, but Carewyn -- even if she didn’t particularly like Draco -- knew it’d be terrible if he did hurt himself. So she boarded her own Cleansweep (which she’d kept locked in the Slytherin Quidditch tent, in case one of Orion’s players needed a spare broom) and took off after Draco.

Once in the air, Carewyn kept her wand close in case something went wrong. Fortunately she needn’t have feared -- within a minute, she could see that Draco was a very talented flier. In an attempt to distract him away from fighting with Merula, Carewyn suggested that she could teach Draco some flying tricks. Draco was scornful at first, until Carewyn weaved through the stands and threaded the needle through all three goal posts before sweeping into an extreme dive and pulling up mere feet from the ground. She smirked up at Draco, folding her legs over her broom so she could lean back effortlessly with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Ready for a lesson now, Mr. Malfoy?” she called up to him coolly.

The young Malfoy heir couldn’t hide the greedy look in his eye at the thought of learning those cool tricks, nor could he hide how thrilled he was learning how to do an extreme dive.

Once the two had finally come back down to the ground, Draco asked Carewyn if she was on the Slytherin Quidditch team. When she said no, explaining that she just didn’t have the time to devote to Quidditch, Draco reacted with scorn.

“Because of those Vaults, I guess?” he presumed.

He said that his father had told him all about Carewyn’s Cursebreaking, and her family too -- that her brother was a delinquent and her mother had run away from home to marry a Muggle. Merula was actually a bit startled by this, not having heard that particular fact about Carewyn’s mother, but Carewyn herself kept her temper, even as her tone grew cooler and dryer than ever.

“My family may not be perfect, but I’m proud of it, all the same,” she said softly.

What she didn’t add out loud was, “I certainly wouldn’t be proud of my family if I were in your shoes.”

A bit miffed he hadn’t been able to get a rise out of Carewyn, Draco soon enough turned his attentions back to Merula. He ranted about how his father had said Hogwarts was going to the dogs and about how they had so many Mudbloods amongst their ranks. Carewyn stiffened very sharply at the use of the word.

“That is not a word to be used in civilized conversation,” she told him very severely.

“My father says it all the time,” Draco argued.

“Really?” said Carewyn, her lips turning up in a cool smile. “Don’t reckon that’s something you should admit too readily, given your own family’s history -- I wager a fair number of people at this school would hex you to belch slugs for using a word like that.”

Merula's face broke out into a smug smirk. “Don’t give me any ideas, Cromwell.”

This change in topic, however, led to Draco wanting a proper dueling lesson from Merula and Carewyn. Naturally, because Draco didn’t have a wand of his own and they certainly weren’t going to lend him theirs, the two girls refused -- and soon enough, they got word that Lucius was finished with his inspection and would be leaving the school soon.

Of course, that didn’t happen, because sure enough, Lucius’s wand went missing. The prime suspect? The Malfoy family house elf, Dobby.

Carewyn had little experience with house-elves prior to Dobby (only having met Pitts the previous year), so the poor elf’s maltreatment at the Malfoys’ hands greatly upset her. Determined to prove his innocence, she asked Dobby to tell her whatever he could say without hurting himself and -- upon Dobby trying to smack his own head against the ground -- she actually bent down and grabbed hold of him in both hands to try to wrestle him into not hurting himself.

“It’s okay, Dobby,” she kept telling him. “I’ll make sure you don’t get blamed.”

It didn’t take long at all for Carewyn to get to the bottom of who had taken the wand. If Dobby felt he couldn’t tell her who the thief was because he couldn’t speak ill of the Malfoy family, then there was only one possible suspect. Catching up with Merula and Draco, she confronted the Malfoy heir about having taken his father’s wand. Draco denied it at first, but pretty quickly came clean.

“I’m not too young to learn how to duel!” he said. “I wouldn’t have borrowed Father’s wand if you’d just lent me yours!”

After some prodding, Draco admitted where he’d hidden his father’s wand. It didn’t take long for Merula to find it.

Despite the younger boy’s bravado, though, Carewyn could still tell that Draco hadn’t meant for this whole thing to go so far. He wasn’t really sorry about the thought that Dobby could be blamed for something he did -- but he’d enjoyed what he’d learned so far and wanted to stay at Hogwarts a little longer so he could learn some spells.

Feeling some compassion despite herself, Carewyn sat down on the edge of the fountain next to Draco.

“If you give me your solemn word only to use this in a formal duel,” she said very seriously, “I will teach you one spell. Do we have a deal?”

His eyes once again greedy for knowledge, Draco nodded and eagerly agreed. Holding out her wand in front of her, Carewyn told Draco to put his hand on top of hers. Then she walked him step-by-step through the wand movements for the spell “Everte Sactum,” the Stumbling Hex.

“When you cast this correctly, it will hurl your opponent off their feet,” she explained. “That can then give you the time you need to get away, if you’re in trouble.”

Her eyes then narrowed sharply upon Draco’s face. “Remember your word, though -- you will only use this in a duel, not for fun. Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Draco said breezily, but he was grinning from ear to ear all the same.

The group met back up with Lucius Malfoy and Dumbledore in the Headmaster’s Office. When Lucius asked Carewyn who had stolen the wand, she answered simply,

“No one, as far as I can tell. Merula found it on the floor near the Entrance Hall -- no thief to be seen.”

After all, Draco had only admitted to “borrowing” his father’s wand -- not stealing it.

”There’s no evidence that Dobby couldn’t have still taken it,” said Lucius.

Dobby shook his head frantically, wringing his hands desperately as he insisted he didn’t take the wand and never would. Carewyn very gently cut off Dobby’s denials by pointing out that house elves can’t lie to or speak ill of their masters without hurting themselves. The fact that Dobby was not hurting himself while claiming he didn’t take the wand was proof in itself that he didn’t commit the crime. And everyone must be considered innocent until proven guilty...right?

Lucius considered Carewyn carefully, his gray eyes oddly critical and shrewd upon her face -- then he inclined his head in an abridged nod.

“...Wisely said, Miss Cromwell. You could be an excellent lawyer, with sentiments such as those.”

His gray eyes narrowed ever-so-slightly as his lips curled up in a cool smile.

“I daresay that would please your grandfather quite a bit.”

Carewyn’s blood ran cold. Lucius Malfoy was in touch with her grandfather, Charles Cromwell? She’d never met her mother’s father before -- but given that Lucius Malfoy spoke highly of him, she wondered more than ever if she was incredibly fortunate in that...

For his part, Lucius seemed satisfied by how taken aback Carewyn was and, with a flourish of his cloak, swept toward the office door.

“Come, Draco,” he called over his shoulder.

Before Draco left, he paused, turning back to look at Carewyn.

“I won’t forget that,” he said. “What you did.”

He didn’t need to articulate what he meant.

“And I swear -- when we’re both done at Hogwarts, we’ll meet again, Cromwell. And when we do, I’ll be the greatest wizard ever -- greater than you could ever be.”

Despite the arrogance in his expression, Draco was still grinning from ear to ear in a kind of vicious determination.

Carewyn’s blue eyes grew a little smaller as she smirked in return.

“Good ambition. Just keep in mind -- there are many ways to be ‘great.’“

With an offhand scoff, Draco turned on his heel and followed his father, not fully able to bite back the smile still clinging to his lips.

When Dumbledore, Carewyn, and Merula were out of earshot, Lucius spoke to Draco at last.

“She knew you took my wand, didn’t she?” he asked.

Draco, although startled, reluctantly nodded.

“And yet she dared lie to my face,” said Lucius in dark amusement. “Rather effectively, too. Tell me -- what did you think of her, Draco?”

Draco shrugged offhandedly. “All right, I guess. She’s a decent flier -- and her spellwork’s okay.”

“Coming from you, that’s high praise,” said Lucius dryly. His lips curled up in a wry smile. “Seems I was right to think I should keep an eye on her advancement...”

Dobby was so grateful to Carewyn that he said that if she ever needed him, she only had to ask. Carewyn was very happy for that -- she had a feeling that she could use at least one friend in the Malfoy household, if Lucius really had such close ties to her mother’s family.

Fun challenge for you based on your recent tags: Explain to me, someone who has never watched a single episode of the 100, why you ship Bellarke? I am curious, and I'm hoping this is entertaining for you to do lol

Oh gosh ok you asked for it, the flood gates have been opened. Sorry this took so long to answer but I wanted to explain it in the best way I could (or at least try to). I’m going to do a short version and a long version so people don’t have to read my entire explanation lol. Also I’m only going over the plot as it relates to their story, so there will probably be some holes.

Clarke Griffin and Bellamy Blake are soulmates, plain and simple as that. The growth that they have had since the first season till now has been a long and winding road. They were enemies then became co leaders then best friends and now are (hopefully) on track to admitting that they love each other. The amount of parallels the show draws between them is insane and they both have such a profound understanding of each other due to their shared leadership role and constantly being the person that the other one goes to when they need someone to comfort them. Time and time again they choose each other, even during some of the most difficult decisions they will ever have to make. Their growth almost always comes back to how they influence each other to try and be better people. Canonically, they make better decisions when they are together: The Head and the Heart. They cannot exist as their full selves without each other in their lives because their lives have become so intertwined with each other that they are fundamentally different people when they’re apart. No matter how often they’re apart, they always find a way back to each other. And if nothing else, the gazes and longing hugs that they give each other just oozes love and understanding.

Ok that was the short version. Here’s the Long Version🤪

Ok so Bellamy and Clarke definitely did not start off this way. From the very first episode they are at each other’s throats. Clarke is trying to be the practical leader to get these kids to survive while Bellamy is the dynamic leader inspiring these kids to “do whatever the hell they want”. They don’t see eye to eye and Bellamy even says he’s willing to cut off Clarke’s hand to get what he wants. This doesn’t change until 1x03 when Bellamy sees Clarke mercy kill Atom, another kid on Earth.

This girl, who he thought was a pampered princess, was able to make this tough decision while he couldn’t. After that they begrudgingly try and coexist together. Then “Day Trip” happens and Bellamy and Clarke go off on their own and almost die by a rogue delinquent. They kill him and while they’re recuperating Bellamy wants to run away from all the hardships and mistakes that he’s made. Instead of holding it against him, Clarke gives him forgiveness (“if you want forgiveness, I’ll give it to you ok, fine you’re forgiven”)

For the first time they are truly vulnerable with each other and make their first decision to lead together. This is the turning point. From then on they co lead together, sharing the burden and responsibilities of leadership and being the person that the other depends on. They don’t always get along but they learn to rely on each other. The season ends with them separated at the end of their first big battle. Clarke closes the drop ship door to save her people from the enemy and she thinks he didn’t survive the blast outside

S2

Bellamy and Clarke are separated (a common occurrence that you will soon find out) Clarke is trapped in Mt. Weather and although the rest of her people are comfortable there, she is determined to get out and find out if the rest of her people -cough cough Bellamy- are alive. Bellamy likewise also starts to look for Clarke. Angst and drama ensues, but the important part is that we get our first ever Bellarke hug and man is it a good one (and an absolute fan favorite)

Like Bellamy is so stunned by the way she RUNS and wraps her arms around him and slowly after the shock hugs her back. But this hug cements just how important they’ve become to each other. From here on out they protect each other. Bellamy saves Clarke from being poisoned, he volunteers to go into Mount Weather and Clarke (originally) violently opposes it saying that “She can’t lose him to” in reference to losing the boy she loved, among other things (imo this is when Bellamy starts to develop real feelings for Clarke). Finally towards the end of the season when they face off against the “big baddie” they have to make the choice to kill hundreds of innocent people among the guilty to save their own people. An impossible choice, and Clarke being the self sacrificial puppy that she is wants to “bear it so they don’t have to”. But Bellamy won’t let her do that, they’re going to share that heavy burden. And they pull the lever together

So they return home, people rescued and the guilt hanging high above their heads. But for Clarke the guilt is too much to bear and she tells Bellamy that she has to leave. And Bellamy BEGS her to stay, even repeating that same line that she said to him in the beginning of the show. However, she leaves him and her people behind, which would lead them both down a path of hurt.

S3

And hurt they do. Clarke leaving didn’t fill the hole of guilt in her heart, and Bellamy was left to (try lol) and heal his broken heart on his own. I will also say that both Clarke/Bellamy get their own significant other with Lexa/Gina respectively and this is because (imo) they both go down paths where the other is not in the picture I’m so certain that if they stayed togehter, they would’ve been together and that’s why they’re always separated. But then for the first time in the 3 months since she left, Bellamy finds Clarke, while she’s being taken captive and literally DROPS EVERYTHING to rescue her. When he finds her it is the most tender thing.

This is soon interrupted when Roan (her captor) comes back and Clarke BEGS him to save his life, saying “I’ll do anything. I’ll stop fighting just please don’t hurt him.” Bellamy gets stabbed in the leg and and Clarke and Roan get away. Unlike a normal person, Bellamy Blake is hopelessly in love and devoted to Clarke so he STILL TRIED TO GO AFTER HER WITH A HOLE IN HIS LEG AND WE GET THIS BEAUTIFUL SCENE RIGHT HERE

Cut back a little while later Clarke is safe in Polis with Lexa, trying to unify their two clans and Bellamy finds her again. He tells her to come back to Arkadia (their home) but she says she needs to be here (in Polis). This breaks his heart and is what sets him literally down a VERY DARK PATH of murder to try and justify a war (complicated stuff, what matter is he fucks up). Clarke eventually does come back to Arkadia only to find a very angry and heartbroken Bellamy who tries to justify his actions (You Left Me). They have a very Bellarke™ talk full of emotion and love.

And just when you think everything is going to be alright, he handcuffs her to a chair lol. And they spend a good chunk of the season apart.

When the going gets tough however, they know that they need each other. And after episodes of not speaking to each other they have another one of their Bellarke™ talks and hugs where Bellamy says “I was so mad at you for leaving. I don’t want to feel that way anymore” And then they hug like this, like c’monnnnnnn platonic my ass.

I’m going to speed up for the sake of getting to more stuff. But they end season 3 as they always do, fighting the evil together. Other highlights include Clarke’s (brainwashed) mom using Bellamy as her 1st choice to sacrifice in front of Clarke. There’s also a cute hand holding scene hgngnghngg

For all the angst however, this is the first season when other people call them out on their feelings (mainly Bellamy’s tho) for each other well Octavia already called him out during the first hug but that doesn’t count because She knows him too well. His other friends call him out for not being devoted to his old girlfriend Gina (who died) and Murphy comparing his feeling for Emori (his CANON love interest) to Clarke.

S4

Ok, I know a lot of this post has been focused on Bellamy’s feelings and that’s mostly because Clarke has had a love interest in every season so she hasn’t had time to recognize her own feelings. However during s4, we get to see the extent of just how much Clarke means to Bellamy as well. There are a lot of moments in this season so I’m just going to try and focus on the big ones/my faves.

(This isn’t super important, but in the 1st episode of s4, Clarke is still grieving her gf Lexa who died and IMMEDIATELY AFTER, we get a cut to Bellamy like way to be subtle guys. no platonic explanation for this edit)

Ok basically what you need to know about s4 is that the world is going to end by a nuclear radiation cloud thingy called Praimfaiya and it’s up to Bellarke (along with some other peeps lol) to save everyone from it. So one of the things Clarke has to do is write a list of 100 people to choose for a potential bunker. So of course Clarke puts Bellamy on spot 99 but can’t bring herself to write her own name. So Bellamy who is sleeping on the couch wakes up because his Clarke is sad sirens are going off to tell her to put her name down. (If I’m on that list, you’re on that list) Still she can’t do it sO BELLAMY DOES IT FOR HER (because this boy needs her to be with him). and then he puts his hand on her AND SHE LAYS HER HEAD ON HIS HAND....so tender.

Ok so a few episodes later Bellamy (and Kane) get held hostage and Clarke has to sacrifice part of a large shelter that they need to escape Praimfaiya for them, it’s a tough decision but one that Clarke obviously makes. (Literally the only reason Bellamy was even taken was because Roan knew how much he meant to specifically Clarke). I can’t find a gif, but trust me it’s worrisome

Ok god next episode is when we start getting into that high stakes shit (THAT I LOVE). So basically Clarke and Bellamy are going to be separated AGAIN and right before he leaves Bellamy says this

LIKE IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ARGUE THAT HE WAS NOT ABOUT TO CONFESS HIS LOVE TO HER LIKE CMON PEOPLE LOOK AT EVERY TROPE OF THIS EVER. Clarke of course was like “No, we will see each other again” but uhufhdjejdwkndwk he was going to say “I love you” in my book

Ok now towards the end of the season, most everyone in Skaikru is in this Bunker except for Octavia and most of the grounders (people on earth who survived the original radiation). I can’t believe I haven’t mentioned this yet but Octavia is Bellamy’s younger sister and throughout the show he has sacrificed so so much for her and risked a lot of things to keep her safe. So now when Bellamy learns that Octavia is alive and outside the bunker he rushes to open the door for her. But here’s the catch: if they open the hatch, there’s a chance the radiation is bad and everyone in the bunker (THE HUMAN RACE) would die. However, because Bellamy needs to save his sister he’s willing to take that risk. For Clarke, that isn’t though and POINTS A GUN at him. But Bellamy says if she shoots she’s “going to have to make it a kill shot”. AND SHE CAN’T BRING HERSELF TO SHOOT HIM. CLARKE CANNOT KILL BELLAMY EVEN IF IT MEANT SAVING THE HUMAN RACE. Of course it was fine but still man c’mon.

And then later in order to try and lighten the mood, when they’re trying to drive the rover, Bellamy makes Clarke laugh and IS SO DISTRACTED BY HER SMILE HE CRASHES THE CAR. ok moving on

OK HERE IS THE BIG LEAGUE MY FAVORITE BELLARKE SCENE IN THE SERIES. So Bellamy and Clarke have this big heart to heart cause Clarke thinks she’s gonna die and it is the softest scene ever. So Clarke, thinking she’s going to die says “You’ve got such a big heart Bellamy. People follow you, you inspire them because of this (his heart). But the only way we’re gonna make sure we survive is if you use this too (his head aka what Clarke represents in their relationship” AND TO THAT RESPONDS “I got you for that” IN THE MOST TENDER WAY LIKE THEY’RE SO IN LOVE. And also they have one of the best bellarke hugs of the show.

So Bellarke and like 6 of their friends head off to the space station to avoid the death wave. However, the satellite that allows them to get in isn’t working, so Clarke sacrifices her self to go and fix it while the rest of her friends can go to space. Bellamy makes the HEARTWRENCHING DECISION to leave her behind in order to save the rest of his friends from the death wave. So Spacekrew go up to the station to wait 6 years until Earth becomes habitable while Bellamy grieves Clarke’s death.

Except she’s not dead

Clarke has special blood called “nightblood” that made her immune to the radiation. She spends the next six years on the only available plot of green land left with her adoptive daughter Madi (who has nightblood and she found when she survived the radiation.) So for the next 6 years CLARKE CALLS BELLAMY ON THIS RADIO EVERY DAY. This radio doesn’t even work, but Clarke calls him anyways to keep her sane and (imo) this is when I truly think Clarke realizes the depth of her feelings for Bellamy, because I for sure wouldn’t call my platonic buddy EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. for 6 years (THATS 2199 DAYS) like c’mon

S5

Ok so 6 years have passed, and Clarke is waiting for Bellamy + Co (Spacekru) to come back to Earth. But before Spacekru comes back, another ship lands on Earth full of escaped prisoners who have been cryogenically frozen for the past like 150 years. So basically they come to Earth, capture Clarke and hold her hostage, while Madi (her adoptive daughter) escapes.

Literally a little while later Spacekru finds their way back to Earth and stumble upon Madi who tells them Clarke is alive, much to all of their shock but ESPECIALLY Bellamy (cause ya know the love of his life is back from the dead). So he goes to find and rescue her his wife from the prisoners. When he finds her they threaten to shoot him on sight, but he has leverage. He can send a signal back to the spaceship so, he trades 283 lives in order to save Clarke because of course he does.

Bellamy and Clarke finally have their moment to reunite 6 years in the making and it’s as soft and sweet as you could ever expect it to be and they have another one of their classic Bellarke™ hugs.

Ok so happy ending now for them right? They’re finally back together !!! Well NOPE because after Bellamy was done grieving Clarke he got himself a girlfriend :))))))) named Echo (context Echo was an assassin/spy the “bad guys” until end of s4, then she went up to space w/ them) but Bellamys whole schtick is forgiveness, which he learnt from Clarke COUGH COUGH . Anyways when Clarke sees them making out for the first time she is let’s just say ~taken aback~

and the second time she sees them she looks straight up heartbroken !!!

Now that Clarke has finally realized her feelings for Bellamy he’s with another girl :///// But Clarke still holds a very dear position in Bellamy’s heart and we see that when he confronts his sister. Remember Octavia? The sister who he would do anything for??? Well now she’s kinda lost her marbles and became an evil dictator when she was leading everyone in the bunker. So now due to ~plot~ Octavia wants Clarke dead. Bellamy CANNOT have this happen. I mean he just got her back !!! And he pleads for Octavia to save her life and Octavia says this

HIS SISTER WHO KNOWS HIM BEST (well besides Clarke lmao) CALLED HIM OUT ON HIS FEELINGS. And the best part is that Bellamy doesn’t even try to deny it. Then he says “I can’t let you kill Clarke , O” AND PROCEEDS TO POISON HIS SISTER. THE ONE WHO HE HAS RISKED HIS LIFE FOR LIKE FOREVER (she doesn’t die tho) Bellamy choses Clarke over her without hesitation, and that has come a long way my friends. 

Ok while, we’re riding this high it gets kinda worse. So, remember Clarke’s adoptive daughter Madi? Well now Spacekrew wants to put this thing called the flame (ok sorry I glossed over it before but it’s really important to the show, I just hate it !) which all previous leaders of the grounder people had, in Madi’s head because she’s the ~destined~ leader (it’s confusing I know just roll with it). Clarke is like fuck no because she also hates the flame (queen) and doesn’t want Madi to become a leader and carry that burden. So Bellamy locks Clarke up to get to Madi, but then Clarke grabs Madi and leaves Bellamy to die in Octavia’s apocalyptic fighting pit to fend for his life.

Not looking great right? Bear with me for a moment lol. So flash forward to the end of the season and one of the prisoner dudes accidentally sets off a bomb that’s going to destroy the one green valley that was left. Bellamy is pissed at Clarke for leaving him to die, but Clarke was only trying to save Madi but doesn’t know how to fix this. Then Madi (our mini bellarke shipper) tells Bellamy how important she is to him. Like this girl probably watched her make these calls every morning, SHE KNOWS

And just like that Bellamy cannot be mad at Clarke anymore, because he realizes the bond and isolation and dare I say LOVE she must have for him to do that. So they all make it back up to space as Earth explodes for the 2nd time (RIP). So remember that prision ship with cryogenic pods? Yea so now basically everyone who is on Earth is going to rest in these pods until Earth heals itself. Except it doesn’t (at least not in the 10 years they had hoped for). So two of Bellarke’s friends and couple named Monty and Harper stay awake and spend their remaining years finding another planet to live on. And when they find one 125 years later guess who they picked to wake up first. You guessed it, the co leaders themselves Bellarke. So they have a tender moment watching the sun rise over this new planet

S6

Ok this is the last season before we’re caught up but my god it’s a big one for Bellarke. Ok so the season starts off on this new planet and everyone is distrustful of Clarke for what she did on Earth to protect her daughter and make ONE personal sacrifice when she sacrifices everything for everyone all the time god Anyways, on this new planet due to this like “red sun” they hallucinate on the surface and Bellamy says to Clarke “I don’t need you anymore Clarke”(remember this it’s important). After the red sun fiasco, the actual residents of the planet show up (they were descended from an earthship that came there like 250~ years ago).

(I can’t believe I almost forgot to put this but Bellamy tells Clarke about the radio calls before they hallucinate and it’s such a whole some scene and helps to bridge the gap between them once more)

So the people show Bellarke + crew their customs which includes a ceremony where they repent and let go of their past mistakes. Clarke uses this to apologize to Bellamy for her actions as she declares to him “Hey, you’re my family too. I lost sight of that. But I promise I will never forget it again” like boyo that scene brings me to tears like fuck !!! and then once again they have a classic Bellarke™ hug and god it’s a GOOD one.

So yay, they’re on good terms !! That means something bad is about to happen again per usual. So it turns out the leaders of this group of people have been alive for 100s of years using these “mind drives” to back their consciousness up and put into new bodies when their current body dies (fun!). And take a guess as to who has the special blood and can be a new host :))))))))))

Clarke gets stolen and *dies* so Josephine can take over her body. While Josie!Clarke fools everyone for like an episode, guess who is the first to think ‘hey that’s not really Clarke’ ofc our boy Bellamy. AND THEN THEY GIVE BELLAMY AN ENTIRE EPISODE TO GRIEVE CLARKE LIKE HE IS THE ONLY ONE WHO LOOKS THIS SAD THROUGHOUT THE EPISODE. way to be subtle JR

But then guess what !!! Clarke isn’t dead. She’s trapped in her own mind, but very alive. And you’ll never guess how Bellamy finds out. Josie!Clarke taps her fingers on her legs and Bellamy interprets it as morse code that translate into “ALIVE”. LIKE IMAGINE TRYING TO EXPLAIN TO SOMEONE THAT YOUR SUPPOSED DEAD WIFE BESTIE IS STILL ALIVE CAUSE SHE SENT YOU MORSE CODE, LIKE MY BOY I KNOW YOU LOVE HER BUT THAT’S QUITE A STRETCH.

Anyways, this sends Bellamy into overdrive mode, because goddamn it he is not losing her a 3rd time. Throughout the next episodes we see Bellamy prioritize Clarke over everyone, including his girlfriend Echo when she is in danger. He risks himself and even the lives of others to try and save Clarke to get Josie out of her head. And it all culminates to this masterpiece of a Bellarke scene.

Clarke’s heart stops and she won’t get up and Bellamy arguably becomes the most desperate he has ever been. He whispers, “the head and the heart” before LITERALLY BECOMING HER HEART AND PERFORMING CPR ON HER AND BANGING ON HER CHEST TO GET HER TO WAKE UP (HOW MUCH FURTHER CAN THEY TAKE THIS METAPHOR). Even when Octavia gives up, Bellamy yells at her that she’s not dead. “I need you” the first time he has openly admitted that he PERSONALLY needs her in his life. “You’re a fighter Clarke now get up and fight”. Clarke literally (in her mindspace) finds the will to get up and fight by hearing Bellamy’s voice. And like a miracle she wakes up and AN ICONIC AND BEAUTIFUL Bellarke™ hug occurs, even though it looked like she was literally about to kiss him !!!!!! Like tell me these aren’t heart eyes ?!!??!

So then for the rest of the few episodes Bellamy is still super protective of Clarke but they have to split up again because ~plot~. BUT WE HAVE ONE MORE GREAT HURT/COMFORT BELLARKE MOMENT IN THE FINALE. Clarke’s mother had just died, and who does she seek in a crowd for comfort: Bellamy...hopefully you know this by now. God they give each other such meaningful looks in this last scene and have another once again iconic Bellarke™ hug, but it’s a hug where they run into each other like from s2 !!!!! parallels

So they end s6 closer than ever and now we’re all caught up in the present to s7 and lemme be honest besides 7x11, it’s been a HORRIBLE bellarke season, but last episode has had things shake up finally god. So basically everyone assumed Bellamy was dead (including Clarke!!!), but *surprise surprise* he’s alive, but as they soon find out he’s been brainwashed by an evil cult. NOW IT’S CLARKE’S TURN TO SAVE HIM BY BEING HIS HEAD LIKE HE WAS HER HEART LAST SEASON (or I at least hope so). As of writing this post, Bellarke isn’t canon but I’ve been watching this show for 5 years and these two have such a hold on my heart it’s embarrassing, but I hope this explained to you why I and many others will be ridiculously obsessed when it comes to them hehe. Pray for us to be canon, we only have 5 eps left for this beautiful story to come to a conclusion.

Blood of the dragons: A post-canon concept.

Lucina wanders the globe acting once again as a symbol of hope. Morgan desperately searches for a way to reunite their family. Marc is hiding they key to potential disaster.

This is just some musings I had thinking about what life could be like after the events of Awakening specifically for the children of Chrom and Robin. I don’t believe this is what likely what happens after canon, just concepts I found fun to play around with. This is a clean up of an exchange I had over discord, so it’s still a bit of a mess in terms of structure, but hopefully still comprehensible! It’s not really a fic, so I’m not too worried about the flow.

※ Chrom/m!Robin. This could really be for either, but it was written for the intent of m!Robin and as such will reflect in the pronouns. Marc is female!Morgan while Morgan is male!Morgan. They were both found at the same time and both have amnesia. In this timeline, Chrom and Robin only have Lucina. The first part is more Lucina-centric while the second part is more Marc/Morgan-centric.

Now that’s out of the way, let’s go.

Side: Lucina

Lucina doesn’t stay long after Robin disappears. She sticks around and tries to help stabilize Ylisse and to help the communities affected by the influence of Grima. To be by her father’s side helping the people she failed in her own timeline is one of the most treasured experiences she has. But that’s just it. She failed them in her timeline. And now that everything is returning to normal, she feels more out of place than ever. Walking the halls the perfectly maintained castle in Ylissitol feels absolutely foreign to her. Not to mention seeing a younger version of herself toted around and cared for. Chrom doesn’t beg her to stay, but he wishes she would. (He’s lost so many others, and he doesn’t want to lose her too, he doesn’t say.) Lucina wanders Ylisse acting as a mercenary and humanitarian, not being able to bring herself to leave the continent completely. She still loves her father and doesn’t wish to see him alone if he is once again in a time of need. Sure, he has her younger siblings, but they’re all but children. But, she needs to find her place in this world (and perhaps she is searching... searching for something she cannot yet admit to herself) and not let her be a shadow for her younger self. She fought for the her of this world to have the childhood she never got to. To live the life she could not. And so she keeps her distance.

Contrary to what Chrom, Marc, and Morgan believed, Lucina did return. It took her many months, but unannounced strolled their wandering princess. She’ll recount her tales across the lands and catch up with her family and friends. Some stayed in Ylisstol and joined the royal forces. Meanwhile, others set off on their own journey to distant lands. Lucina missed her cousin, but she couldn’t speak as she had nearly done the same. As quick as it she came, she left once again, back on her journey.  

This was how things were for awhile. Lucina would come back, they would be a normal family again, then the feelings of being a byproduct of a cursed time would bubble up inside again. Lucina would leave until she was able to face them again. Marc and Morgan especially had her anxious. She didn’t tell a soul more than she needed to as to not resurface bad memories, but the two fell under the influence of Grima after he had invaded the castle. She tried to escape with them, but she was unable to help.  If possible, she would rather meet her family outside the palace, away from the place he had lost them.

At the times Lucina was in Ylisstol, she tried her best to avoid her younger self. She isn’t quite ready for either her or this small child to face each other. How was she going to explain all of this? She didn’t want to pressure her younger self or act as some sort of aspiration. She wanted little Lucina to live the life she wanted, without some reminder of the failures she may become. So, for the time being, the few times Lucina was with her younger self, now old enough to talk and read and write, she was Aunt Marth. She looked quite passable as Chrom’s sister, no? Although, it was hard to hold her tongue and not address him as father.

Marc and Morgan had to get used to being the older siblings. They do recall Lucina from their time, and she was always the one taking care of them. Now, Lucina is ages younger, and they’re the responsible ones. They both grew into their own, Marc following in her fathers footsteps to becoming a tactician, while Morgan studied under Miriel to become a researcher of magic. But, they still made time to hang out with their little sister. It was hard not to project the Lucina of the future onto her, and they really tried. But, they couldn’t help but be a bit sad their sister was hardly ever around.

Robin returns five years later and Lucina rushes to Ylisstol as soon as word reaches her. She can’t help but feel frustration that she left partially in search of him, yet he was found the one place she could not look. She cannot contain her joy that her father is back, he returned to them, and she has the family she needed. Perhaps, she can stay longer this time.

Robin can’t believe the amount of time he’s missed. Lucina is a no longer an infant, but a young girl! He already feels regret missing out on the youth of the older Lucina, despite not having any control of that time. He doesn’t want to let another moment slip away from him. He is so proud of everyone. Ylisstol is stable for the most part, Chrom is loved by all, the tensions with Plegia have mostly subsided and they’re working towards a bond not built upon lies. Ylissians are sending aid to Valm to help their recovering nations. Not to mention his children, all blossoming in their own fields.

In the year that Lucina spends in Ylissitol, she doesn’t shy away from her younger self as often. They develop somewhat of an awkward sisterly bond. She tries not to say much about her past or compare herself to her. She truly is happy that child Luci gets to have this life, and now that she’s stopped running, she can have it too. Little Luci can hardly help but look up to her. This fantastic princess who roams the world to bring hope to others? What a dream.

Luci, now ten, has started to become wise to how dodgy her family is when it comes to their past. Marc and Morgan don’t seem to be able to tell her anything before she was born. Chrom always gets really nervous talking about his “sister.” Aunt Marth barely even seems to know her father. No one will answer why was Robin gone when she was really little. She vaguely recalled this loud man telling her stories and waving around his... his brand? She couldn’t be remembering that correctly. The only people that could be was Marc or Morgan but she swear it wasn’t them. Also... just how old was her parents when Morgan and Marc seemed so big now. Over the years she prodded for answers, not really suspecting much, just being a curious child. But, she slowly came to accept there was some truth to her family they were keeping from her. She knew enough it was probably better not to ask if they haven’t told her yet.

Luci gets to be a bit older and, ever the studious one, begins reading through some accounts of the war. As princess, she’s obligated to stay aware of current events to prepare her for the future where she may rule (which is becoming ever more a reality as her older siblings don’t seem that interested in the throne.) She begins with the war between Plegia and Ylisse. It seems so far away, the reality that her grandfather inflicted upon her parents and aunts. Then, she reads about the peace Emmeryn brought, wishing she could have met her one day. The resparking of the war with Plegia was next. She knew the toll it took on her father and the regret he felt causing all this loss, the trust of the citizens, lives of the innocent, his sister. She is about to call it a night before she gets to the war in Valm. She so happens to find a particular account that catches her eye though, a roster of soldiers enlisted.

Funny that. Someone with her own name appears on the list, fighting alongside her parents. Perhaps she was named after her? Marc and Morgan are here too. Strange, her parents couldn’t have been older than their twenties, so what were her siblings doing in the army? Now that she thinks of it, her fathers said Aunt Marth had served with them, but she’s nowhere to be seen in the reports or the rosters. She sets out to ask her parents about it soon after.

“Who’s Lucina?” “You, of course.” “No, I mean. She was a soldier in the army but she didn’t have any additional information on her in the log books. Did you know her?”

It was at that time, Chrom and Robin realized, perhaps their daughter was old enough to know. She generally knew of the Grimleals and their god, but never did she think her own father would be the key to this whole conflict, the vessel of a chaotic god. Not to mention her siblings were from a completely other time. And why everyone fell just short of saying “You remind me so much of your aunt.” 

Hanging out with Aunt Marth, now herself from another time, she knows, has become strange. There used to be moments when she would catch Marth about to say something, but not follow through, laughing it off as some joke she just remembered. Marth would be standing and watching wistfully from afar. She was always accepting of whatever she wanted to do because she couldn’t do those things in her youth. It all made sense to her now, but she wasn’t sure what to make of it.

Little Luci continued to look up to her older self, but instead of feeling inspired she was left with feelings of inadequacy. How could she live up to one of the heroes that saved Ylisse? What if she didn’t grow up to be as strong or skilled as her? This is exactly what Lucina wanted to avoid and told her as such.

“I made my sacrifices so you could make your mistakes. Please, live for yourself and not try to live my life. This is the world we fought to make for you. Give it all that you have.”

Side: Twins

※ Takes place starting simultaneous with side Lucina and then after.

Marc dutifully takes up the the mission of becoming Ylisstol’s next royal tactician. She learned from the man who won a handful of wars and saved the world! She knows she isn’t as experienced as her father, he could easily best her in any manner of tactical thinking games and practice, but in his absence, she would have to make do. Chrom was competent enough on his own to be able to handle the military and command by himself, but it endeared him that his youngest daughter felt that prideful connection to Robin. He gave her all the resources and tutors he could, but they were no replacement for her father. 

Morgan dreamed to become a researcher, learning the causes of the universe’s phenomena. To understand just a fraction about the gods. With a focus in magical studies, he joined Ricken under Miriel’s tutelage. At first his intentions seemed to be very pure, to learn and understand what makes the world what it is, but he couldn’t help but wonder something very specific about his own past. The path he was taking might be the road to finding it.

He was always more curious about his and his sister’s amnesia. Robin’s was caused by Grima willfully wiping his memory, but what about theirs? From the accounts of him and his twin sister, he had begun to piece together something puzzling. Their memories contradicted Lucina’s own. Chrom and Robin died so young in her own history, just after Marc and Morgan were born. Lissa raised them until even their aunt and other closest allies fell. Then, Lucina was left to care for them on her own, all while leading a rebellion. She didn’t go too deep into what became of them, but given her grave expression, it was most likely not good. Meanwhile, the few memories Marc and Morgan could recount were rather happy. They were mostly of Robin, occasionally featuring Chrom or Lucina. They had memories growing up in the castle with their parents. Trips to Plegia and Ferox. Travelling with Robin and their sister. All the way up until they were in their early teens they could remember always being by Robin’s side. Morgan came to the conclusion that it was highly likely they came from another time, separate from Lucina’s and the other children. 

Their past was a bit of a sore subject between the twins. Marc had accepted her amnesia for some time. She’d be lying if she said she wasn’t a little curious about her memories, but she never went out of her way to look for them. She was perfectly happy enjoying the life she had now, especially now that Robin was back. Morgan on the other hand, loved his family, but now believing that they were from another time, wanted to know what that was. They’re the only remnants of that world held within this one.

An argument sparks between the two over this.

“If it’s true we’re from another time, what happened to father?” - Morgan “I suppose he would probably be looking for us on the mountain we were found on.” - Marc “And that doesn’t bother you? We just left him all alone?” - Morgan “That isn’t our time anymore. Of course I don’t want him to be alone, but we’re here now. There really isn’t much to be done about it. We can be with the family we have.” - Marc “But what if we could do something about it. Would you?” - Morgan.

While Morgan hasn’t found it yet, he poses Marc with a simple hypothetical, if they had the option to return to their time, would she take it? Marc denies any furthering of the thought. She’s not planning on wasting her life thinking of the hypothetical of abandoning her family when she could be making the most of her time with them. Lucina didn’t go back to her time when all of this was one either. Meanwhile, Morgan is offended at the thought he’d be the one abandoning his family and the implication that he doesn’t care for them. They left Robin to be forever searching on that mountain top, unsure of where their children are. Robin and Chrom have Lucina at least and possibly them if they ever decide to have kids again. Their father only has the one set of kids. And in the case of Lucina, she couldn’t go back because there was nothing left for her there. There is a family waiting for them in their own time.

Eventually, he drops the argument and they decide not to speak of it or to tel their family of it. As they grow older, Marc stays in the castle working alongside her fathers. Meanwhile, Morgan embarks on a quest to discover the true nature of their time. It takes him mostly to Plegia and the Ruins of Time. Occasionally, he even saw Lucina who was out on her own journey. It was in one such time that he asks Lucina about her own world, and how she came here. She’s hesitant to go into the details at first, warning it’s dangerous and irreversible magic. Once there’s a rip in the times, it’s hard to close completely. She had originally assumed that’s what happened to the twins, following after her, but that had now proven to be false. Morgan promises that it’s simply for research, and that he wants to be able to prevent an abuse of time magic. She trusts her brother, and explains what sacrifices and hardships it took to create the portal here.

Marc is so concerned for her brother’s well being. She knows he most likely didn’t stop thinking about it, and she worries for what he’s getting himself into in that world. He wasn’t truly going to leave them, was he? Without saying goodbye if he found his way back? Aside from worrying about her brother leaving, she had questioned why. Why was it they were here? Their childhood seemed so normal compared to Lucina’s. She left out of desperation. What could have possibly happened that suddenly they were with their father on a trip and then they were waking up clueless in the Ruins of Time? She cam to the conclusion there had to be a reason, and she put faith in her father doing this for her own good.

When Morgan returns to the castle with Lucina, everyone is filled with delight. Luci missed her brother. Marc was glad he was safe. Lucina was glad to be home with everyone. It’s been ages since they had all been together. They stay at the castle for awhile, Marc off studying with their father and Morgan seemingly always caught up in his next research project.

One day, Marc notices something strange on her hand opposite her brand. A scar perhaps? Perhaps she had nicked herself while sword fighting, or scratched herself in her sleep. It was insignificant at first. Then, as time went on, she began to notice it take a faint but very distinctive shape, the mark of Grima. She alerts Robin immediately. It’s a major cause of concern, of course. It’s been over a decade since Grima was vanquished. Robin’s own mark had faded as well. Marc begs for Robin to keep this between them, and maybe Chrom for now. She isn’t mentally prepared for the implications of this until they find out exactly what it means. She’s not stupid, and knows that the others need to know eventually, but hopes, just for now, she can keep things to herself.

In an attempt to keep a sense of normalcy, Marc has tea with Lucina and Luci. Apparently Morgan was too busy to join them. Lucina starts sharing stories of her adventures with Morgan as he has been a bit too avoidant for Marc’s liking. It seemed relatively tame, nothing much to do with any kind of timeline hopping. Until Lucina starts reminiscing about her siblings. 

“You two always had your nose in your books, it was hard to get you to look five feet in front of you. You were such nice kids, in spite of everything. Morgan said this a lot, that he was planning on finding a way to save everyone, even though you guys were barely eight. Already looking out for your big sister. Look at him now, trying to set up precautions against other time travelers. I guess he’s finally fulfilling his goals.”

Marc stops her right there. She didn’t.... teach him how to time travel did she? And upon realizing that Morgan has been planning something this whole time, they go to find out what these experiments and projects of his really are.

They find him doing just as they had expected, trying to open a gate through time back to where he came. Before Marc could even get a word out about how betrayed she was, her hand stung with pain. She could feel a long dead god whispering to her, “You will not escape so easily.”

As Marc suspected, there was in fact a reason that they were in this time, but it wasn’t of their father’s volition, but Morgan’s. While she could barely recall more than a whisper of their past, something grave was about to begin, she knew.

Marc and Morgan come from a future where Robin managed to suppress Grima rather than outright killing him or putting him to sleep. Chrom and Robin try their best to keep the world at peace, but Risen are appearing at alarming rates, Grimleal are terrorizing the villages, eventually the chaos even reaching Ylisstol. Eventually, the capital falls and Chrom with it. Robin escapes with Lucina and the twins, desperate to keep the last of his family safe.

They travel Ylisse, fending off Risen, trying to figure out how to rid themselves of Grima’s curse. Eventually, Robin recalls words from Naga. Grima has to be defeated by their own hand in order to truly die. Robin had been able to suppress Grima’s influence to the extent their mark had vanished, but everyone in the family had the unspoken suspicion that it was not quite gone from their blood. Morgan or Marc must die by the others hand.

Robin is not very keen on the idea of letting his children kill the other. He vehemently is against it. They search for other methods for years, but they keep coming back to this. It seems almost like an inevitability to the twins though. Morgan can’t bare the thought of it, but Marc puts down her foot and demands they stop running from it before it gets worse. She volunteers. The mark has begun to manifest on her first anyway. She’s much more vulnerable to Grima, so it should be her to go. Morgan doesn’t see a way to escape this and accepts.

Marc and Morgan go to the ruins nearby to complete the deed. But, just before Morgan is able to go through with it, the Risen attack. Unfortunately, the came alone. They couldn’t let Robin and Lucina stop them. It would be no good if they died like this, and Morgan runs, dragging his sister behind him. And, instead of fighting back, he opens a portal to another time and falls through. And the rest of their days were spent with a father of a different fate.

Morgan and Marc are foreign entities to this world. They are viable vessels of Grima introduced to this world, and with the rips in time that Morgan has been creating, Grima has been slowly exerting his influence on them once again. Even to the extent the mark has rematerialized onto Marc. If he manages to manifest within one of them again, then what? What was all of this for?

Morgan closes the portal he made with the best of his ability. Little did he know, these rifts are not so easily sealed. His fallen father, wielder of the corrupted Falchion, and Risen King, finds his way through to their world.

The Risen King, barely a semblance of the man he once was left in him, still held fondness for his family. He would do anything to see Robin again, even if it means razing the world. Grima has told him, the only way for him to stay with them forever, is to convince Robin to take on his soul.

[This is where I start to lose the plot!]

Imagine the encounter between Risen King Chrom and the Robin of this time. He sees for the first time in years, a Robin that doesn’t fear him. A Robin that perhaps naively thinks Chrom is not a threat, if only they can get through to him. It’s heartbreaking for what’s left of Chrom, to see this young man he loved before his death, but there isn’t enough left of Chrom to pull back.

※  Finishing notes: I know that was a bit inconclusive, but this is all I have so far! As I said, this isn’t really meant to be a fic, just a concept in my head. Feel welcome to send ideas my way about any part of it. Alternatively, if you want to use any of these ideas in a fic, I would love to read whatever you came up with.

Side Lucina and Side Twins were two different conversations which is why they don’t really connect thematically, but in my head they were of the same universe and it felt strange to separate them.

STARCO OVERVIEW - Season 2 (part 2/2)

SEASON 1

SEASON 2 (part 1) (part 2)

SEASON 3 (Incoming)

SEASON 4 (Incoming)

RAID THE CAVE (2x15a)

Bonbon The Birthday Clown was a huge moment of change for Star, her first real loss, something that forced her to start facing her responsibilities: from this moment until the end of the season she’s mostly going to be on a solo-growth time roll, with Marco’s direct influence on her being minimal: he’s still going to be with her in many episodes, and he’s even going to give her some advice in episodes like The Bounce Lounge or Collateral Damage, but there aren’t going to be moments like Mr. Candle Cares or Game of Flags until next season. This doesn’t mean that the two are going to be any less close, and until Just Friends Star is going to be none the wiser about her crush, so it’s not correct to talk about a fracture between the two dorks as a consequence of Jarco happening, but it’s also undeniable that the series wanted for Star to make more solo-experiences during S2B. This is what I talked about several times before: during S1 and early S2 Marco had a huge influence on Star, and Star had a huge influence on Marco, helping each other grow and develop (in several ways, but we can sum it up, for the sake of simplicity, to “be more responsible and thinking more about things” and “get out of his comfort zone more and be more open to taking risks”). Bonbon The Birthday Clown is an episode of important change for both of them, and from here on Star is going to slowly start putting all the accrued development to good use (stopping running away from problems as much, trying to be a princess in her own way in S3), and Marco is going to VERY slowly start doing the same (moving to Mewni in S3, realizing his feelings for Star).

All this introduction was needed to reiterate once more that less Star and Marco moments from now onward, especially in the rest of S2, absolutely doesn’t equal to Starco being less important to the show, or to the characters. It just means that both main characters were finally ready to realistically start to be more active in their growth process, thus allowing the writers to explore other kind of interactions and development arcs.

Getting to the actual episode now, the segment immediately opens on a recurring theme: Marco putting Star over Jackie, leaving her hanging for his bestie’s sake. This is clearly a horrible way to put it, and we now have canon confirmation from Jackie herself that Marco was an average, standard boyfriend to her, but ti tells us something important about commitment. This is the core of why Jarco couldn’t work, why Tomstar isn’t going to work, and even the main answer to the question “Did Starco truly have to be romantic?”: we have repeatedly been shown that Star and Marco are vastly more committed to each other than to any other person in their lives, ultimately putting each other before anyone else. 

The monsters in this episode like Star on account of her ideas and different ways of being a princess, of doing things her own way. Which is exactly what Marco told her in Mr. Candle Cares. And this is going to lead to her trying to unite Mewmans and Monsters, and Marco is the one who first opened her up to the idea in Lobster Claws and Mewnipendence Day. Again, it’s not that everything good Star does is thanks to Marco (nor vice versa), but he was the catalyst who complemented her qualities and characteristics, helping her become the best version of herself - something that still clearly required a lot of self work and interactions with other people.

During this episode Marco gives Star good advice, per se: being honest about what happened with her parents, and not making the situation any worse. And yet, that’s not really what Star needs now, as Glossaryck tells her - what she needs now is to face her mistakes and try to make up for them, truly accepting her responsibilities for the first time. Was Marco wrong? Is he suddenly not a good advice giver anymore? No, it’s simply an effect of the focus on solo-growth for Star in this part of the season I mentioned earlier: in this moment Star outpaced Marco in maturity, and it’s going to take him until Sophomore Slump to catch up, so there’s some sort of “disconnection” between her current position in life and his advice. Star started (slowly) walking toward “maturity”, and Marco was left for some episodes with a different point of view.

This is more of a story structure element than a statement about Marco, it’s clear that he still deeply understands and relates to Star, but if we look at the larger picture Star’s Second Act began with Bonbon, while Marco is going to lad behind in his First Act until Sophomore Slump.

TRICKSTAR (2x15b)

An episode full of foreshadowing for Star’s emotions at the end of the season and for her to mature enough to accept how things are going to go (you can’t be happy all the time, you have to face unpleasant things because turning a blind eye to them is worse, happy times are eventually going to follow sad times once again, all that jazz), but it doesn’t really involve Starco to any extent that’s not three layers of separation away.

Star launching herself to protect Marco from Praeston as soon as she sees him crying being all worried about him being sad is medicine for the soul.

And Marco saying this is almost certainly just a gag and maybe, just maybe, a sign of the relative lack of insight on maturity I mentioned in the previous segment, but it’s ironic given that the series is essentially going to end with both of them going “love is the answer” and the magic that is love being very real and saving their asses. 

BABY (2x16a)

Once more, you guessed it, a mostly solo-growth episode for Star, like most in this part of the season. Important episode bla bla Star looks finally excited about doing magic stuff out of her own initiative but gets slammed down hard because she lacks basic Glossaryck was right in saying that she has her own way to learn blabla first signs of maturity but also always doing things her own personal ways, failing while forced to do things by the book but getting new, incredible results in ways no one would have expected when free to do things her own way, usual individuality stuff.

Marco helping Star with Baby by dutifully making food is cute and certainly one more page in the long book of “Marco makes Star’s stressful life a bit more overwhelming” moments, but it doesn’t get any particular relevance in the episode.

On the other hand what’s interesting is that what pushes Star over the edge, helping her to “channel strong emotions” and create a new spell, is fear over having to leave Earth. Obviously it’s not just “leaving Marco”, Star has many reasons to like being there and the scene itself doesn’t involve her bestie in any extent. But it’s mostly about Marco. It’s obvious that it’d be reductive to consider that he’s the only Earth thing Star cares about, but narratively speaking it essentially is - in S3 Earth barely gets mentioned at all as soon as Marco moves to Mewni, he’s the symbol for what “second home on Earth” means to Star.

And if it wasn’t clear enough already, Star’s spell uses both “colors” of magic, pink and green, and it first splits the apple in two (cleaving it apart), to then make the seeds sprout, giving it new life (cleaving it together, we might say). The theme of unity, of something new and better being born from two different elements meeting, is constant throughout the show, and we now know that it’s all going to culminate in Star and Marco meeting once again in their new dimension, to be always together.

Look how worried Marco is about knowing whether Star can stay his voice is so expectant he’s so cute they’re so cute I love them so much

Remember when S1 hammered the idea that Marco was so important and “formative” to Star because he was the first person she met who truly trusted her and didn’t see her as an irresponsible mess up? Yeah it’s still there, and it’s always beautiful.

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS (2x16b)

Getting Star's scissors back is certainly part of Marco's motivation here, since he would definitely go to such extremes to avoid damaging Star, but honestly the episode is more of a solo-growth one for Marco: Star, and her importance to Marco, play a fundamental role in it obviously, but his decision to not back down and go home is more connected to his tenacity and willingness to go all the way in once he sets his mind on something, rather than specifically to get Star's scissors back itself. That's both Marco's greatest quality, and one of his main flaws when it degenerates into tunnel vision.

This is a weird episode. Marco spends more time living in the Neverzone than he did on Earth his whole life, and yet Running With Scissors doesn't change him at all. He doesn't get any tangible moment of growth or development from this, needing until Sophomore Slump to enter the next stage of his character arc (even if it's clearly important for the scissors, for Nachos, for his fighting skills...). And yet, it's an important episode: we know from the beginning of the season that Marco's greatest fear in life is lagging behind, wasting his life without finding a goal. In this episode an "alternate" version of Marco finds in adventuring a reason to be, something that fulfills him, and for 16 years he doesn't worry about anything else. But it's an incomplete life, by shedding all of his responsibilities and social connections Marco lost in maturity what he gained in freedom. And it's Star who snaps him out from this "fantasy" - a good one, but a limited and limiting one.

The scene is constructed to give Star's "Or... me?" part emphasis, and Marco deeply reacts to it.

The scissors imagery is particularly powerful, as it has multiple layers: there's the usual symbolism for "dimensions meeting", since the scissors are what allowed for Star and Marco to meet and completely change each other lives (and with Cleaved in hindsight we know how hugely important this theme is), and the theme of union in general is important to the show (it might not be a coincidence for this segment to have been paired with Baby, which ended with a similar theme); but there's also this idea of Marco's lonely reflection gaining something once he open the blades, showing Star as well: living a life of adventures is not worth it without all his loved ones. Cleaved apart, cleaved together. Marco gives up on something, this easy life he built for himself in the Neverzone, to gain something that's vastly more important to him, being with Star once more. Obviously it's not just Star, but she's the main symbol for it (and honestly given the series finale it might has well have been just Star): Marco feels content right now, the days of being a sweaty and anxious teen with no clear goal in life are a distant memory, but can he actually be happy and fulfilled without Star? No, obviously not. So he goes back.

And once home Star essentially gives exposition on what I just said, and what Marco thought just mere scenes earlier, probably mostly in an unconscious way. Sure, he has to go through the pains and uncertainties of growing up once again, but this time they'll be together. This is a gem of a scene that often goes unnoticed, essentially Star's version of Marco's speech in Mr. Candle Cares, since in both cases one of the dorks manages to give the other dork a new perspective on their biggest fear (not having choices about her future, not knowing what he wants to do in his future), helping them during a hard time. It's clear that Star deeply understands Marco, even if she usually helps him in practical or indirect ways, rather than delivering speeches like this.

Bonus: Marco's face lights up and immediately goes from gruff buff adventurer to excited kid as soon as he sees Star, wanting to tell her all about the past years like a kid recounting his Summer vacations. Should be clear enough which of his two lives is more important to him.

THE BOUNCE LOUNGE (2x17b)

Not really an important episode, just a lot of foreshadowing for the “end” of Star’s carefree days by the end of the season. Marco’s line here is mostly for that, it’s not really an important less nor something that helps Star figure things out in the context of the episode. If we reeeeally want we could see a connection between accepting that things have to end eventually and the “at least we have good memories from the past!” at the end of the episode with Star’s behavior in Scent of a Hoodie, but it’s kind of a stretch given that Star would have never truly accepted not being Marco’s friend again so it doesn’t properly fit as a parallel.

If you needed a reminder that Star helps Marco get out of his comfort zone and make new experiences that he often ends up liking...

HEINOUS (2x19a)

Just a quick note: even if it’s been a while since Marco called Star the coolest girl he knows, it’s clear that he genuinely appreciates her personality and individuality (see Mr. Candle Cares), and this is particularity important since he’s currently donning his Turdina identity, someone who became a paragon of freedom to express yourself to princess all over the multiverse, and he’s currently essentially telling Star that she’s, to him, the archetype of what a strong princess is. If that’s not love I don’t know what it is.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE (2x20a)

Star immediately seeking Marco’s advice to understand what she did is cute, but we were robbed of a moment of understanding and emotional connection. Stupid Otis.

JUST FRIENDS (2x20b)

After Bonbon The Birthday Clown and right before Face the Music, the tradition of songs highlighting the characters’ emotional state continues. I’m not going to analyze the lyrics of the song because their message is extremely clear, and it’s not like there’s a clear subdivision of verses between Star and Marco: clearly the whole concept of being “just friends” because it was too late for feeling to be revealed relates to Marco being with Jackie and Star liking him, but other than that the song generically talks about the reality of Star and Marco’s relationship. Taunting us viewers. It’s clearly way too early to talk about “love” as in full romantic love by this point, but it’s also clear that Star and Marco’s relationship is characterized by an incredible amount of care for each other which is visible to everyone. And yet.

Hahaha see it’s fun because the episode puts a lot of emphasis on the concept of being “friends”, something that has always been super important to Star, but by the end of it she’s going to be deeply hurt by Marco seeing her just as a friend, realizing that she would have wanted something more. Haha so much fun.

In a single scene we get reminders for several of the important elements in Star and Marco’s relationship:

Star helps Marco with Jackie, still acting as his “wing(wo)man” and pushing him out of his comfort zone

Star is still blissfully unaware of how much Marco dating Jackie is going to hurt her, there’s complete disconnection between what the Heart wands and what the Mind thinks it wants right now, and she’s going to delude herself until she literally sees his bestie smooching someone who is not her

Marco still thinks that Star is supercool, and he’s worried that Jackie is going to realize that he’s not at her level: when I talked about Sleep Spells I said that Star and Marco’s conversation on the roof essentially solved forever Marco’s feeling of inferiority compared to Star, but I forgot about this detail. It’s a very specific situation, but right now Marco feels “not enough”, and Star clearly comforts him 

And the next morning Star keeps being extremely “delicate” with Marco, doing her best to put him at ease. Because showing Star being particularly close and enamored with her bestie minutes before getting her heart shattered is cool!

And then, to make things EVEN funnier, later in the episode Star is about to go comfort a dejected Marco, doing what she has done many times before, but Jackie is faster and she “replaces” her. It’s obvious that Jackie never replaced Star in Marco’s life in any extent, it’s just a detail in this specific scene to better build up the mood and themes for the climax.

Haha isn’t if fun that for the whole episode Marco worries about being the third wheel between Star and Jackie, but at the end it’s actually Star who is going to feel terribly, hauntingly alone?

I don’t want to post too many screenshots, but the first part of the concert... well, it speaks for itself, with Marco sitting between the two important girls in his life, being confused when Jackie grabs his hand, and confused when Star grabs his other hand, but then getting into it.

I might be over reading too much into the boarders intentions here, but I think that Star’s expression in the first screen might fit with the idea that she has always been the one to push Marco intro trying new things, into “letting loose”, but this time Jackie “replaced” her, once again. Since this segment was boarded by the same artists who worked on The Bounce Lounge, which featured a similar “let loose and dance!” scene, it might not be too out there as an interpretation. Anyway, it’s a minor detail, the general vibe of the whole scene is heart crushingly clear.

For most of the song the shot focuses exclusively on Star and Marco goofing around, lypsynching like at the beginning of the episode: it’s their song, and that’s what they usually do. This is a friendship moment, and Marco obviously defaults to Star for it. But then the song gets into the “romantic” part, and the camera moves to Jackie and Marco: Star is just a friend, and as such she doesn’t get to take part in this special part of the night. Just like she said in Blood Moon Ball, this is a “different kind of fun”, and she’s not invited.

 And in full “you don’t know what you want until you lose it” fashion, it’s also the moment she realizes that she’d have killed to be invited to the smooching Marco kind of fun.

Second instance of Marco prioritizing Star over Jackie, he interrupts a making out session because he notices that she’s not there anymore and gets worried. It’s clear that Heart VS Mind is true for Marco as well, even if his feelings are way less definite by this point of the show. His first instincts still always put Star at the first place, but when it’s not an “emergency” moment anymore he’s not mature enough to properly recognize that she truly is the most important person to him. We’ll see this especially well in S3: during The Battle For Mewni he’s not going to hesitate in following her, risking his against Ludo and Toffee, but once the danger is over and his Mind takes control once again he goes back to Earth, without acknowledging Star’s confession, because still convinced that Jackie / Earth life were what he wanted. This scene here in Just Friends is a small taste of it.

Sadly Marco doesn’t have a clue, and Star hides her sadness, and she gets rewarded with a “you’re the best friend”. As I mentioned earlier, the episode opens up with Star and Marco being mutually happy to call each other besties, but ends with Star being crushed inside by being considered just a friend by Marco.

MORE SONG SYMBOLISM!

FACE THE MUSIC (2x21)

“How come Star doesn’t seem distraught over her crush for Marco, and why is she acting normally with him?” well, there are three layers of explanation:

The show is very compartmentalized

Star is super good at being in denial, as we’re going to see in Starcrushed when she claims that she’s over her crush fro Marco

The good ol’ usual “feelings are confused”: in Just Friends Star certainly realized what she truly wanted, but as far as her character arc goes it wasn’t the same as outright admitting her crush to herself. Which is just a form of denial more connected to the structure of the story: in the previous segment Star finally makes a connection between what she wants and why she feels like that, but it’s not the same thing as fully going, even just internally, “Ok I like Marco romantically”. It’s clearly confused if we dissect the whole matter like this, but it’s how the whole show operates when it comes to feelings, and it’s the difference between Star being ok around Marco here, and Star being a complete mess in Scent of a Hoodie.

This being said, once again we see Marco appreciating Star’s individuality and uniqueness, which deeply relates to her wanting Song Day to be special, crafted around her personality.

Was this hug alone enogh to turn Ruberiot into a Starco shipper and convince him that he needed to add a part about Star’s romantic life to his song, or did Star go on and on saying stuff about Marco while they were working on it later in the episode, offscreen? We can’t know and it’s not that important, but I choose to believe that a single hug was enough to make this genius of an artist understand just how much love there’s between these two. No bias here. No bias at all.

Also please note the penguins on the screen foreshadowing the end of Starcrushed - one goes away and the other one is left sad, alone.

Look at Marco, trying to move out of the way to make it clear that he’s not Royal Family, as if he’s not going to be part of it one day! They won’t be royal anymore by then though, admittedly.

Star spills the beans about her own failures during the season, feeling like it was the right thing to do. She starts owning up to her own mistakes, facing her problems instead of running away. But then the part about her crush on Marco comes up, and by the end of the episode she literally runs away: obviously as far as stakes go Star’s development arc in this part of the show culminates in accepting that she has to go to Mewni to defend it, and defeating Toffee is the ultimate test of maturity that allows her to enter the second part of her story. But accepting her feelings for Marco, confessing her crush, is symbolically the last step in her journey toward learning to face her problems and not running away from unpleasant facts. It’s the key to everything, not because there is ONLY Marco and Starco, obviously, but because he’s the single most important thing to Star, and by far what influenced her the most over the first half of the series. So by Face the Music Star is almost there, she has almost reached this first important checkpoint, but she can’t quite get to it until she embraces her crush for Marco. 

Because he’s important.

Because Starco is important. 

"Star Butterfly is in love with her best friend”. Now, obviously this is a song so lyrics are limited by what goes well with the rhythm, but the idea of best friends making the best lovers is incredibly important to the show, so while it’s extremely possible that it wasn’t specifically on purpose in this case I always like the association of “best friend” and “love”. We’ll have plenty of time to talk about it during S3.

STARCRUSHED (2x22)

While the episode is mostly solo Marco and solo Star moments, with little actual Starco interactions being formative or leading to development, I’m still going to go over more or less all of it, since most scenes can be directly reconnected to Star’s crush on Marco, which is directly connected to Star’s S2 arc, to the point that the climaxes of the two “storylines” end up overlapping in Star’s confession to Marco.

The idea of wanting things to go back “to normal”, to how they were once, is going to characterize the whole Starco romance arc: these two idiots, until Here to Help, are always going to think, to some extent, “oh no, having a crush on your best friend is weird and it can change things and maybe they’d get worse and maybe he/she doesn’t feel the same!”, and wish to go back to feeling nothing but platonic feelings of friendship for the other. It happens here, it’s going to be a theme in Booth Buddies (and for most of S3 with the idea of Marco trying to reframe his whole approach to being Star’s friend), it’s going to happen in Curse of the Blood Moon. Obviously things can’t go back to how they were because, as Marco said in Here to Help, they have always been like that. Not as in love at first sight obviously, took months and months for “romance” to start consciously becoming an element in the equation of their relationship, but as in a special kind of connection that was doomed since the first moment to evolve into something more. Essentially Star and Marco were always only able to either go forward in their relationship, or stagnate (with all the tensions and sudden heat-of-the-moment kissing that resulted from it): regressing was never an option, nor something that either of them ACTUALLY wanted (usual Heart VS Mind: worrying about feeling being “in the way”, while still wanting to forever be at her side in her pocket).

At the beginning of the episode Star shows marked improvements compared to her old self, and actually tries to force herself to face the problem, while Jackie pushes Marco to do the same - by leaving them some time, but it’s still quite a little bit too early: Star’s seeing the goal, but she still need some last pushes, and so nothing comes out of it, they’re both too embarrassed to talk.

Star sees a picture of a fun day with Marco then (ignore the “photo from the future” plot for now, it clearly wasn’t planned at the time, or at the very least not relevant to the messages and themes in this episode), and she’s reminded of how important her friendship with Marco is, and gets frustrated at the idea of losing it over some awkwardness, and calls her friends for help.

(idea of things “going back to normal” once again) said friend are actually a bad influence on Star though, dragging her to a party, reinforcing her tendency to avoid problems and confrontations proposing her an alternative distraction.

The party doesn’t convince Star, who is about to go back home: clearly her relationship with Marco is not the kind of problem she wants to ignore, and she can’t bring herself to just run away from it... until she notices Oskar.

Oskar is kind of a litmus test for Star’s growth: she had been drooling over him for two seasons, but she’s largely uninterested now. Even when he essentially tries to hit on her, and make plans to “hang out” over the Summer, Star looks uneasy at worst about the situation, and unconvinced at best. What changed? Star’s infatuation with Oskar was a symbol of her old self: Greason, the bad boy with a record who abides to no rules, lives in his car, and rejects all responsibilities and problems. The perfect man for Star “I love Freedom and Individuality More than Anything” Butterfly, right? But then Star grew and we got a number of episodes teaching her the importance of facing problems and accepting your responsibilities and that rules can be important at times and aren’t necessarily antithetic to fun, and this new Star isn’t actually interested in him anymore.

Star tries to latch to this, and to Oskar, in a last attempt at denial, at “replacing Marco”, as Oskar himself implies.

Meanwhile something similar happens with Marco (even if it’s way less clear in his case, and it’s going to take until Sophomore Slump to get any real payoff, while it’s immediate by the end of the episode in Star’s case): Jackie encourages him to stop worrying about Star and enjoy a Summer of nothing (please note: Jackie absolutely not a bad influence on Marco - just a couple of scenes ago she tried to give him and Star some time to talk things out, this is an isolated case to set a parallel between the dorks).

Also in the following scene we get Marco’s version of “I’d make a great Mango”: he deludes himself into thinking that Jackie is his partner in crime, trying to find a “replacement” to Star in this moment of deep emotional stress and tension. Obviously it’s something unconscious, it’s the first, smaller version of “You’re my best friend!” from Sophomore Slump: Marco’s Mind trying to convince his Heart that Jackie is who he truly wants, and the symbol for the kind of life he wants - a calm, easy life on Earth. But this is premature, I’ll talk about this during S3: in this specific episode what matters is that Jackie is not Marco’s partner in crime to any extent, and that Rafael’s words remind Marco of what should have been the basis of Star and Marco’s relationship from beginning to end but hasn’t been for long stretches of time when romance was involved.

Right now both Star and Marco are convinced that they have to talk things out, but as we’re about to see in a moment they aren’t quite ready to go all the way in with it. Third instance of Marco leaving Jackie hanging for something connected to Star (after Raid the Cave and Just Friends), too many not to be something they wanted viewers to notice, and it’s perfectly in line with the important theme of commitment.

Star takes Marco by the hand to gently lead him to a quieter place to talk, instead of dragging him by the wrist as the usually (not always, this is not the first time she grabs his hand, but it’s clearly a different context), and Marco stares at their hands, almost in disbelief. We get the same kind of scene in Here to Help. Hand holding is apparently symbolic for romance in this series (Marco mentions being ashamed of never having held a girls’ hand in Naysaya, in Demoncism and Kelly’s World the episode closes on the new couples holding hands, in Curse of the Blood Moon Star and Marco holding hands is a symbol for them falling in love, Mama Star and Here to Help we get the came focusing on Star holding Marco’s hand and they’re scenes eventually leading to Starco becoming fully canon).

Short digression about things that are going to be explored better in future seasons: isn’t it fun? Both this episode and Booth Buddies put a lot of emphasis on “things being different”, but then in Here to Help, when Marco can finally be entirely honest with himself and with Star, he says that things have essentially been the same since the beginning, just with an ever increasing intensity: feelings needed time to grow, absolutely, but there has never been a single, clear moment that suddenly made things different. See, this is why Marco’s “You don’t just fall in love at first sight” line is extremely important, because it confirms that Marco and Star’s relationship has been a linear journey from the beginning. It’s not that one day they suddenly stopped being just friends and became more, borders are confused, the feelings have always been there but needed time to grow and change and gain new connotations. Obviously the “Mind” part of their awareness about said feelings has clearly identifiable changes in specific episodes, it’s obviously needed for the structure of a TV show and for the characters arcs, but “in universe” it’s not that things started being different from a specific point in time, it’s just that the feelings became intense enough to scare Star and Marco into wanting for things to go backward. Cowards.

Anyway, Marco is obviously worried about the possibility of Star having a crush on him, Star can’t muster the courage to confess AND she’s possibly even truly slipping back into denial, thinking “Eh, I have Oskar now for the Summer, I’ll be happy with that and I won’t have to focus on Marco and things won’t be weird anymore between two of us, right?”, and they both put emphasis on being friends. Just friends, nothing more.

It’s easy to understand what worries Star and Marco, influencing their actions when it comes to romance until the end: fear of change, fear that their feelings might be in the way of friendship. And in the meantime the show spends seasons telling us viewers “look, the best romance is born from friendship, and Star and Marco’s love is just a side of their friendship! They should embrace it and it would be beautiful!” but nope, takes them until the end.

After this talk, Star is deep in denial: she’s latching to this idea of “Summer” as a panacea there to solve all her problems. She thinks that she actually fixed things with Marco, and she’s evidently trying to delude herself into thinking that hanging out with Oskar could actually serve as a bandaid for her unaccepted, unexpressed, unreciprocated feelings (and she’s barely buying it herself, apparently).

The idea of being able to make choices is extremely important and it goes all the way back to Marco’s speech to her in Mr. Candle Cares, but it’s applied in the worst of ways here.

But then she gets told that she has to go back to Mewni, possibly for a long time, possibly even dying in a dangerous fight with Toffee, it’s impossible to know exactly what Star thought in that moment beyond “I might never see Marco again”, and the Summer illusion comes crashing down. And she’s forcefully reminded of what (who) is actually important to her, and voilà, the last step is Star’s S2 Arc, “stop running away from problems” is complete. By accepting her crush on Marco and owning up to it, no matter how painful it is, she also accepts her duties as princess of Mewni and the burden of her family’s history.

This is what I meant when I said, at the beginning of this episode, that the two storylines of the season end up overlapping in the confession: Star starts becoming an actual princess and actually and actively being involved with the history of Mewni (leading to her arc in S3) when she stops running away from the greatest problem she had at the time, her crush on her best friend.

Pretending that a problem is not there doesn’t make it go away, and it’s clearly relevant to feelings as well and it’s true for Star here as it’s going to be true for Marco in Lava Lake Beach as it’s going to be true for both of them for the rest of the show, to some extent, sometimes more consciously, sometimes less. From this point onward feeling are never going to truly go away for Star, even through S3 and Tomstar: the disconnection between Heart and Mind, how conscious the dorks are about their feelings, how painful they get, how distracted by other things they are, how strong the “romance” part is over the platonic one, all these elements are going to fluctuate over the show; but the intensity of their feelings is going to steadily and linearly grow, as Marco ultimately evidences in Here to Help. They never go away.

Being upfront and honest with your friend is important, and it’s a recurring theme in the show (foreshadowed in All Belts Are Off in recent times, clearly central to the episode in Booth Buddies), and yet for the rest of the show it’s going to be so hard and so rare for the teens to be completely and entirely honest with each other and, most of all, with themselves. And the moment one of them finally is - Marco in Mama Star, everything clicks in place and they can finally, easily solve months worth of tensions (and years worth of suffering for us viewers).

Hard to tell if Star is crying here just out of sadness for having to go away, or if Marco’s inability to answer anything to her confession, tell her anything at all, played a role. We still know from S3 that Marco’s silence hurt her, a lot, but that probably includes all the time spent together on Mewni after Toffee’s defeat as well, so it’s not that relevant right now.

But Marco’s inability to answer by itself, now that’s relevant. An expected reaction obviously - he was in front of Jackie to booth, but still one that, in the context of fictional narrative, clearly evidences how unready for this kind of thing Marco was - as I mentioned he started lagging behind Star in terms of character development and maturity after Naysaya, and won’t catch up until Lint Catcher.

To conclude the post and the season, a heart warming shot full of “magic disappears from Marco’s life” imagery. Obviously Star isn’t gone forever, magic isn’t gone from Marco’s life, and everything she meant to him is still there, but after most of a season focused on Star’s perspective we get this last scene focusing on Marco’s one, with the feeling of emptiness brought by the departure of the one person who completely changed his life for better (when I say “bringing magic in it” I mean it in a broader sense, not strictly THE Magic).

Fun stuff.

hello again! i sent that last ask, and i think you just wrote a story! i liked how everything worked out and the roles that the characters continue to play in each other's lives. it got me thinking of more questions that mainly involve the romance itself. when did they start dating, who made the first move, who proposed, how did Ghira and Kali react to meeting Weiss, how many kids do they have, and anything else you can think of. i hope this isn't too much trouble!

Not at all ! Honestly, I’ve been spending waaayyyyy too much time thinking about all this so it’s nice to see that someone is interested in hearing more x)

(putting my answer under a read more though because it’s HUGE)

For when they start dating, it kinda depends if I want to stay really canon compliant or if I want to have Weiss and Blake start dating earlier. I can stay canon compliant by having Blake and Yang grow apart at the end of the war, each pursuing different goals while Blake and Weiss start spending more and more time together because of the SDC and the WF. Blake and Yang would end up agreeing that the war changed them, a lot, but now that it’s over and they’re healing, they realise that they’re better off as friends rather than lovers and have an amicable break up. Pretty soon after, Blake starts to notice more things about Weiss, like how she plays with her hair when she’s thinking, how she bites her lower lip when something is bothering her, how her eyes sparkle when she sees or hears something funny, etc... and slowly she falls in love. Weiss has had a crush on Blake for years now, since their time in Beacon, but she never told anyone because she knew Blake had feelings for Yang and she just wanted her to be happy, even if it hurt her to see her with someone else. But now that Blake and Yang have broken up and Blake spends so much time with Weiss, our dear heiress’ feelings come back full force and she can’t help but hope that her feelings might be reciprocated...

One evening after a party in Vacuo both of them attended for political reasons, Blake accompanies Weiss back to her hotel room. They both had a couple drinks during the evening and are under a slight buzz, laughing more easily than usual. When they finally arrive at Weiss’ room, they stand in front of the door a moment too long, not wanting to part just yet. No one knows who leaned in first, but they soon found themselves kissing, softly at first, then more and more passionnately. They decided to stop, however, aware that it wouldn’t do them any good to go too fast, and agreed to meet in the morning for breakfast, then parted ways with one last kiss. Both of them had very pleasant dreams that night~

After that, they decided to start dating and see where it would lead them.

If I decide to be less canon compliant, I think I’d have Blake and Weiss start dating during V6 or 7, support each other through Adam’s death and all the Atlas and Schnee family bullshit going on right now. It wouldn’t change a lot of things for the story and, at the end of the war, they’d start working on rebuilding their world together, with the SDC and the WF.

Whatever the way and moment they get together though doesn’t have much influence on the rest of their story together. For example, in both cases, Kali and Ghira were delighted to know that Blake had started dating Weiss. They met her briefly at Haven and considered her a delight to talk to, very kind, respectful and polite, but with a sharp tongue when needed. Ghira is particularly fond of her since Weiss is hard to intimidate, knows what she wants and can be very determined, but also open to discussion and adjusting her stance on a multitude of matters. Kali likes to act like a mom around her (though she’s the same with Ruby and Yang too, so nothing really special there).

Winter, if Weiss and Blake started dating in Atlas, would be a bit suspicious of Blake at first. She respects her sister’s decisions and wouldn’t dare interfere in her love life, but she still has a bit of a tendency to see Weiss as her baby sister, so she’d give Blake a bit of a hard time at first, using every opportunity she gets to interrogate her on her intentions toward Weiss, why she wanted to date Weiss and all that stuff. Yang finds it hilarious but can also relate and supports Winter as a protective big sister x) If Weiss and Blake start dating after the war though, it would be a context where Winter had had time to get to learn to know Blake and saw Blake’s and Weiss’ growing feelings for each other, so she’d be a lot more supportive of the new relationship and only threaten Blake’s life if she broke Weiss’ heart as a joke (or is it ? =P).

At whatever time the girls start dating, Willow and Whitley would be rather supportive. If it’s in V7 already, they wouldn’t know right away and would only learn about the relationship after they started fixing their relationships with Weiss, so they’d be surprised, but would see how happy Blake makes Weiss, so they’d wish them the best. If it’s after the war, it would be at a point in time where Willow and Whitley are rather close to Weiss and have good relationships with her, so they’d be even more supportive and encourage her to pursue Blake in their own ways (Whitley may or may not try to play matchmaker =3)

The proposal would occur a few years after the end of the war, probably around 3 years after Weiss and Blake started dating. Remnant is getting back on its feet, the SDC is getting ever closer to the point of equality between human and Faunus Weiss wants it to reach and the Kingdoms are more and more open to listening to the White Fang and giving Faunus citizens more rights. Blake and Weiss both figure it would be the best time to get married. They had already talked about it a year or so earlier, but both agreed it would be best to wait until things settled down a bit more for both of them before they decided to throw themselves into organising a wedding. So when the time finally seems to be right, it is all a matter of who will propose first. They are both sort of expecting the other to propose sooner or later, but Weiss is still enchanted and overwhelmed by emotion when Blake goes down on one knee after a romantic date in a quiet park in Vale, near New Beacon. The wedding is held in Atlas because most of their friends and family live their or near the Kingdom and it’s easier to reach than Menagerie, but the girls make sure to incorporate elements of both traditional Atlesian and Mistralian weddings (since I headcanon that Blake, with the name Belladonna and her Japanese aesthetics, is of Mistralian descent and would follow their traditions for ceremonies like weddings). It is not a quiet or private affair since Weiss and Blake are such important public figures and their wedding is one more ray of hope toward the end of the centuries old war between humans and Faunus, but they still manage to have their dream day without having to mix too much politics into it (Ghira, Kali, Willow, Winter and Whitley make sure of that).

Their first child is born about a year after the wedding and is named Winry Belladonna-Schnee. Weiss liked the idea of continuing the tradition of names starting with a W, at least for her first child, and Blake had no objection, especially after Weiss told her that Winry was the name of her grandmother, Willow’s mother and the reason the tradition even existed. Winry is a very smart child, well-behaved when she has to be, but also mischievous at times, especially when she is with her cousin Yue or her younger sister Keyla. She looks like a carbon copy of Blake, but with Weiss’ white, straight hair and blue eyes. She has a patch of black hair cutting through the white and falling over her forehead as well as two cat ears like Blake. She’s always preferred to sport chin-length hair and mostly white clothing.

Yue, born two months before Winry, is Winter and Yang’s daughter. She looks like Yang, but with white hair and blue eyes. Most of her personality comes from Yang, though her expressions are very reminiscent of Winter’s. She grows up alongside Winry, more like sisters than cousins since they live together and are so close in age, which makes them very close friends.

Both Yue and Winry want to become Huntresses, but while Yue wants to be free and travel through the world like Yang, therefore deciding to attend New Beacon, Winry prefers to enter Atlas Academy and aim to become the next General after her Aunt Winter retires.

Keyla, born three years after Winry, has long and slightly curly black hair like Blake with two black cat ears atop her head, but her eyes are heterochromatic : right eye a warm amber and left eye a soft blue. If she wears a colored lens over her left eye, one could believe she is a younger version of Blake. She is calm and quiet most of the time, but can also be quite passionnate and eloquent when defending something that matters to her. She has always been interested in politics and hesitates between joining the White Fang or trying to become part of the Atlesian politic circle. She knows how to fight and built herself a weapon in case she ever needs to defend herself, but she doesn’t want to become a Huntress (a shame, according to all the Huntsmen and Huntresses who saw her fight). Since she was a child, she has always been close to Summer, Ruby and Penny’s daughter, but only after her twelth birthday did she realise that her feelings might go beyond friendship. Summer and her start dating around the age of 15, to the delight of everyone around them who were growing tired of their obliviousness and awkwardness.

Finally, Tanya, Weiss and Blake’s third and last child, was born four years after Keyla. She is a bright and energetic girl with long, white, slightly curly hair and blue eyes with a set of white cat ears atop her head. Much like Summer, she is sort of a “mad scientist”, a genius in her own right, though her calling rests with Dust rather than machines and programs like for Summer. When she first discovers, at age 10, the wonders of the researches on Dust, Tanya becomes passionnate and studies everything she can on the matter. She dreams of joining the BSDC’s reasearch and development team thanks to her own merit rather than her family name. 

Nuts and Dolts bonus (because I mentioned their kid in all this and I think she deserves some more details) : Summer Rose, daughter of Ruby Rose and Penny Polendina, born six months after Keyla. She has long, dark-red hair, nearly black near the roots and a lighter shade of red at the tips. She wears a black bow behind her head, like her Ma (Penny) and adopted her Mom’s belief that combat skirts are the best (though she is not a fighter herself and only wears one for the style). She is a little genius when it comes to everything mechanic and is quite good at programming as well. At age 10, she is her grandfather’s best ever apprentice and at 15 years old, she starts her formal studies at Atlas Tech and Mech Academy (name is totally made up, but that’s basically where Atlas teaches all of its future scientists, no matter the discipline). At the same time, she starts dating her friend Keyla who she has always been close to, more so than to anyone else her age. Summer is a very lively girl, so much so that she’s often hard to keep up with, especially when she is very excited and uses her semblance, Teleportation, while she talks or works. It is basically in-between Ruby’s and Raven’s own semblances : Summer can’t teleport as far as Raven can, but she isn’t bound to one or multiple people, instead being able to teleport anywhere in a 2km radius. On the downside, she can’t take a lot of people with her, the best she has ever managed being five, and anything or anyone that touches her and is not the thing she is standing on will be teleported with her. Summer loves her semblance and often uses it more or less unconsciously when she’s excited, teleporting a couple of meters away when she’s switching ideas or emphasizing a point, etc. She has a lot of energy, but usually manages it quite well when she is not working, in which case she can easily get caught up in her own head and become hyper-focused on the task at hand and/or her theories and experiments. Keyla and her make for a sweet pair and get along well, even when Summer gets engrossed in her work. Keyla is usually the only one who can get Summer to rest or eat something when she’s working on something.

Elderburn bonus : I already stated that Winter and Yang had a daughter named Yue, around the same age as Winry, but they also have a son, Tai, who is also very close in age to one of his cousins, Tanya. He’s a very sweet boy, has blond hair, blue eyes and the most beautiful smile you will ever see~ He chose his name at 7 years old when he told his mothers he felt like being a boy. Both Yang and Winter were very supportive of him and offered to help him decide on a name, but he didn’t need their help to choose Tai, saying that it only makes sense for him to be called that since his grandfather was Taiyang and his mother is Yang : someone had the pick the “Tai” part of the name. (Yang laughed a lot at the way he said that, but agreed it was a good name and Tai never regretted his choice) He takes some time to figure out what he wants to do with his life because he isn’t interested in being a Huntsman, but also doesn’t have a passion like Summer or Tanya, nor an innate talent like Keyla. After he helped tutor one of his classmates in high school though, he realises he loves teaching and since he already knew he loved biology, he decided he would become a biology teacher. His students love him because his classes are lively and easy to follow and understand and he’s always really sweet.

Weapons bonus : none of the canon cast’s weapons change, but I had some ideas for the children’s weapons. Winry fights with a chokuto or a katana and her fighting style is very similar to Adam’s and Raven’s. Raven is actually the one to teach her how to best fight with her weapon, since Blake, Weiss and Winter could only teach her the basics on that matter. Yue usually fights with two gauntlets similar to Ember Celica, but she also has two sabers at her sides and is a terribly dangerous opponent when she takes them out. They are not her favoured weapon though because she prefers fighting with her fists and appreaciates that there’s less of a risk of accidentally cutting someone’s limb off with her fists rather than a blade. For those of you who played FE3H, Keyla’s weapon is very similar to the sword of the Creator : it is a sword divided in a lot of small segments that can separate themselves from each other to extend and bend the weapon, turning it into a sort of sharp, thick whip. Keyla can wrap it around limbs or pieces of furnitures and such or just extend it to hit opponents while staying out of their range. Summer fights with a halberd and, although she’s not interested in being a Huntress, she’s terribly good with it. Unlike her two sisters and eldest cousin, Tanya has no interest in fighting, therefore she only learns the basics of sword fight, adopting a rapier much like her Mother’s own weapon, with a Dust filled barrel. She also had her Mother unlock her aura and teach her how to use her Glyphs in case she needed to protect herself, but she’s not a particularly good fighter, especially compared to her sisters. Tanya doesn’t care though, seeing as she doesn’t think she’ll ever need to fight in her line of work and she’s happy with studying her Dust even if she’s not the best at using it in battle. Finally, Tai is a similar case as Tanya : he doesn’t care about fighting, actually dislikes the idea of hurting others, but learned to defend himself from Grimm and potential human attackers. Yang taught him martial arts and Tai always carries a pair of bracelets Summer designed for him that can turn into gauntlets. They don’t fire bullets like Ember Celica, but they make his hits hurt that much more and blades can sprout from between his fingers if he wants to.

In terms of Semblances, all of the kids (except Summer, of course) have the Schnee family semblance. All of them unlocked their aura and learned to use their Glyphs, including the Summoning. Winry and Yue, thanks to their training, are the best Glyph users when it comes to “basic” Glyphs and how to use them in battle, but Keyla also has a very creative way of using her wind Glyphs to direct her sword once it’s in “whip mode” and is the best at Summoning.

...

Wow, that was a lot. Huuummm... Hope you liked the read ? ^^’

Thoughts on/during MSBE

So this isn’t a review, per say, but rather me just pointing out some interesting tidbits, discoveries and comments I had from watching the movie.

Let’s start with the overall feel of the film. It definitely seems much more akin to Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”, than the English dub of the original movie ever was. Whereas in this one it is more apparent that Mewtwo is only lashing out his hate towards his circumstances at the world, rather than setting out to really conquer it. This of course made our angsty kangaroo much more sympathetic, in my eyes. That being said though, I think including his original prologue with Ambertwo, would have added MUCH more depth to his character. CAUSE THIS GENERATION NEEDS TO SUFFER LIKE I DID WHEN I SAW IT. //SHOT

Speaking of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein it was this take on the movie that made me realize Ash seems to parallel Robert Walton, a “protagonist” in the book who recklessly goes out to be an explorer, seeking glory or adventure without seriously thinking things over first. Sound familiar? 

Dragonite’s Muppet noises give me life. You can’t change my mind.

The fact that officer Jenny threatened to arrest those trainers going to New Island means they’re actions were screaming “F**K COPS”.

The rocket trio was cheesy as usual, and tried making the movie into a musical number. They failed. //SHOT

Brock was actually smart enough to recognize Nurse Joy BEFORE her hat came off, who knew he had some brain cells when infatuated? *SARCASM*

The animation was actually better than I anticipated. Mewtwo’s movements felt more alive and dare I say “natural”, the scenery was pretty breathtaking at some points and while the humans could be pretty jarring sometimes the Pokémon were often very visually pleasing to me at least. 

Brock has been drinking his “respect woman” juice, because he called the girl trainer QUEEN. Also he referenced his infamous “jelly doughnuts” sakjhfjkshg.

Also the soundtrack? They really went hardcore on the organ, there. Probably to add to the spoopy Frankenstein vibe.

Speaking of Frankenstein’s monster again, I noticed that BOTH of my psychic kangaroos canon stories somewhat reflect different points of the monster’s life. Not just because they’re artificial, whereas OG Mewtwo’s story focuses more on its creation/lashing out against world Newtwo’s story [mainly the prologue and before she found Pokémon who took care of her] is reflective of the time at the very end of Shelly’s book where the monster got watched his creator die and went off into the isolated arctic never to be seen again. Presumably to rid the world of his “abominable” existence. 

Meowth commented that the clones sleeping in their tubes was ‘cute’ and... well he’s not wrong.

The way Mewtwo responded to Nurse Joy after getting her out of his influence, seemed to suggest that he tried using her to figure out his own body as well and no I don’t mean that in a weird way, get your mind out of the gutter you THOTS.

“No matter who the Pokémon, there isn’t a Pokémon that can’t be caught!” Bro, if you only BEEN to the dynamaxed Mewtwo raid battles. 

Also the clone’s popping out of the machines don’t look like a Rhyhorn giving birth now, so that’s nice. 

Also the whole palace -whistles- that is some top-tier gothic architecture man.

Charizard is a hot-head like usual, but his cgi form gives me Toothless, making me want to squish his face.

“Humans, I have no desire to cause you harm. Simply go home.” Wow that is surprisingly non-jerky of you Mewt- *Opens gate up to reveal HIS typhoon* “That is, if you can make it through the storm. >:3″ Aaaaand never mind, you’re an a-hole. 

If you listen closely you can hear og Mewtwo’s anger slowly increasing, each time his shots fail to hit Mew. 

“A Pokémon’s REAL strength comes from the heart you say! Well mine’s full of rage and emotional trauma!” 

You can climb down that wall Ash! Just believe that you’re Spider-Man! Or whatever version of him you have, in your universe.

Aaaand you failed.

Pikachu and Pikatwo fight, aka Jordon Peele’s Us. 

“Living things won’t give up their territory, to other members of their own species. That means-” “They’ll battle until the other is defeated, until only one remains.” OW, okay just thinking of that possibility ever occurring between him and Psyche, the implications PAINS ME TO NO END.

CHARIZARDTWO GAVE ASH’S CHARIZARD A LIZARD KISS, THIS IS NOT A DRILL! THE VULPIX ALSO GAVE EACH OTHER APOLOGY LICKS!

Okay seriously some parts of the movie’s soundtrack are GOOD, y’all. Also the art in the credits are gorgeous.

OG Mewtwo -glancing back at his clones- “...Oh crap, I’m a father now, aren’t I?”

Finally, GF if y’all are hinting that you might be making a cgi special in returns, may I humbly ask that you hint at Newtwo’s existence more. Plz and thank. 

hey anyone wants to hear about the MP100 Lieat AU that I’ve spent way too much time developing? No? Well too fucking bad here it is:

Reigen is the Theo equivalent, obviously. He’s a licensed private investigator who also happens to be a conman pretending to be a dragon with the ability to read minds travelling from town to town looking for money. One day, he wakes up and finds a dragon egg under his bed, and soon has to deal with actual dragon Mob looking up to him for guidance.

The power Reigen pretends to have is less telepathy and more empathy. He generally keeps his explanations vague enough that it’s hard for people to get a good grasp on the limitations of his ‘power’, making conning them easier, but in essence, he says he has the ability to read people’s emotions and intentions to a very high degree of accuracy. Which is true, it’s just not magic. 

The wish Mob was born from was made when Reigen had been run out of town after being exposed as a con for like, the seventh time in a row, and he was pretty done with it, and it made him wish his lies could just disappear. Que Mob.

idk this is subject to change bc it should maybe be a Bit More Serious, but I’m not giving Reigen Theo’s tragic backstory so I’m not sure how to go about this yet.

Reigen generally doesn’t feel guilty when lying to people, which is why his lies don’t manifest for Mob. However, over the course of his time with Mob, he slowly started to feel more and more guilty for lying to him, but he suppresses it, letting everything build up inside him. This is obviously going to backfire sooner or later.

Mob is Efi, a young dragon (about a year and a half old) with the ability to eat lies. Although he is quite powerful, he has little control over his powers and dislikes fighting, so he attempts to use them at little as possible. Unfortunately, since he does need to eat, and since his abilities are very useful to Reigen, he still ends up using them quite a bit, but nevertheless, he’s still pretty small and functionally the equivalent of a human 14-year-old.

For a reason he doesn’t know, he can’t make Reigen’s lies manifest. This confuses him quite a bit, especially after figuring out that Reigen isn’t a dragon and therefore doesn’t have any magic to counteract him. It sort of worries him, but since this is his norm, he figures it might just be a limit of his power.

He knows Reigen isn’t a dragon and figured it out about three to six months into his existence. However, he hasn’t told Reigen that he knows.

In this AU, Mob’s tendency to suppress his emotions/emotionless exterior is because a) he’s autistic and has flat effect, b) he’s autistic and has alexithymia, and c) when he gets emotional his powers go haywire, which he’s scared of. 

I’m not sure yet if ???% is a thing that exists in this AU, but if he does, he’s probably going to some kind of lie ooze monster.

I’m also thinking of maybe giving him an extra power, namely the power to control the lie monsters, since I feel like that would make him suitably overpowered. 

Ritsu is a human(?) kid that Mob picked up after his first job. Ritsu’s parents were murdered, and Mob decided that he deserved good parents, and since Reigen is a good parent, Mob dragged Ritsu with him and Reigen really had no way of protesting.

The three of them travel through towns looking for work and solving mysteries, and I currently have about three to four arcs planned out, More details about those and Ritsu + some other characters in this AU under the cut. 

About Ritsu:

The murder of Ritsu’s parents was the first real job of Mob and Reigen. Ritsu hired Reigen after learning he was supposedly a dragon, because the police weren’t making any progress in solving the murders. It worked out fine since Mob was able to make the killer’s lies manifest and get them caught. During the investigation him and Ritsu bonded and Mob forced Reigen to adopt Ritsu.

Ritsu hates Reigen’s guts, because he recognizes that the man is a con and is pretty livid at him for a) lying to Mob and b) taking up the investigation into Ritsu’s parents’ murders by getting Ritsu to hire him under false pretenses, which yes, that worked out fine, but only thanks to Mob; he could’ve easily gotten the wrong guy arrested just bc he didn’t want to fess up to his lies. In Ritsu’s eyes, Reigen is a selfish asshole with no regard for others using Mob for his own means. He stays with Reigen because he feels responsible for Mob, and also because he has literally nowhere else to go, though he won’t admit that last part.

Ritsu has something of an inferiority complex, believing he brings little to the family because of his lack of powers or even any special skills (like Reigen has), and overcompensates by being unnaturally polite and helpful.

This eventually leads to him subtly lying to Mob and Reigen about his feelings, but since it’s not something Ritsu admits to himself is a lie and it’s more a lie of omission than a real blatant lie anyway, this doesn’t really manifest as a monster and instead just becomes ooze. Ritsu can usually clean it up before anyone sees it, but even if they do, Mob can’t properly figure out what it is or where it came from, so nobody traces it to Ritsu, and so he continues to hide it. 

This will eventually reach a breaking point where Ritsu is consumed by the ooze and Mob can’t really save him anymore because he has trouble eating the slippery oozy lies. Saving Ritsu required the combined efforts of Mob eating whatever lies he could and giving pep talks, and Reigen talking to Ritsu, for the first time admitting to him that yes, he lies to them as well, and that he has similar feelings of self hatred and understands what he’s going through, and that he’s sorry for not noticing what Ritsu was going through, and just generally being completely honest with Ritsu (and Mob) for the first time since meeting him. 

This eventually leads Ritsu to the realization that he’s essentially doing the same as Reigen; hiding his true self because he’s afraid of what people will think of him, and instead using lies to entice people to stay, and this realization is what makes him understand that he can’t keep lying. He knows that Reigen’s way of living is unsustainable, so his must be as well. This realization is what’s needed to finally make him able to break away from the ooze, and have it properly manifest as lies, which Mob then eats. 

This incident improves Ritsu’s relationship with Reigen. While he still doesn’t like him and has justifiable issues with the guy, he does understand him a little better now and sees him as a person rather than a 2D asshole, and makes him believe Reigen has the capacity for change. 

Yes, this is probably going to be something of a combination of the ???% arc and the Big Clean Up arc.

Ritsu may or may not be a dragon. Everyone (including himself) is under the impression that he’s human, but I’m debating whether it’d be interesting if he later turned out to be a dragon, as a parallel to canon.

I also have the basic idea for the world domination arc, so have some characters:

Touichiriou. He is the captain of the police, a human presiding over the dragon department and many crime investigations. He was appointed because the higher ups wanted a human influence on the dragons. Unbeknownst to everyone, he’s still a dickhead bitch who is planning world domination, and he’s grooming the dragons in the department’s care to be his personal army. This eventually leads to this AU’s version of the World Domination Arc.

He and the family have quite a bit of run-ins, because Reigen & Co keep getting tangled up in crimes he’s investigating. He and Reigen do NOT get along, but since Reigen’s technically not committing any crimes, Touichirou doesn’t have an excuse to arrest him. That didn’t stop him from trying once, but Serizawa interfered and Reigen was free to go. Touichirou hasn’t tried it again, since that could attract serious attention, but boy oh howdy is he bad at disguising his hatred.

Touichirou realized pretty quickly after meeting Reigen that he wasn’t actually a dragon, because that’s not an act you can keep up for very long when people actually know a thing or two about dragons. Touichirou knows that Mob is a dragon and he wants him so bad. Mob is very powerful and his abilities could be extremely useful for someone who is planning to be a dictator. Unfortunately for him, everything points towards Reigen being a good caretaker of Mob, and since it’s department policy to not separate dragons from their humans if they don’t want to be separated and aren’t in danger, his hands are tied. It’s one of the primary reasons he hates Reigen so much, and why he tried to have him arrested.

Mob doesn’t really care much for Touichirou, but doesn’t necessarily think he’s a bad guy either, just thinks he’s kind of rude and very no nonsense. Ritsu is somewhat suspicious of him, first because Ritsu is suspicious of everyone, and later because he has more interaction with Shou, and although he doesn’t necessarily see any immediate reason to think Touichirou might be up to no good, having your best friend tell you to keep your brother away from his ‘father’ is not something you forget. Ritsu does not tell Reigen or Mob about this, because he doesn’t want Mob to worry, and because he trusts Reigen about as far as he can throw him. 

Serizawa is a dragon who is nominally Touichirou’s second in command/co-captain, like Brett is to Neil, but in practice, he defers to Touichirou entirely. He is a lot like his Claw self, and is being manipulated by Touichirou.

Serizawa was taken out of the care of his human pretty much as soon as he was born, as his human was scared of his power and kept him locked up in a small room, and called the police to pick him up as soon as she realized she didn’t know what to do with him. He was one of the first dragons placed under Touichirou’s care, and has latched onto him because he had no one else. 

He’s being manipulated, obviously, but doesn’t really realize that the way Touichirou treats him isn’t normal, since he spent so much of his life around him and no one else. He’s slowly starting to suspect something might be wrong after seeing how Reigen treats Mob (i.e. just like a human being), but he’s deep in denial. 

Serizawa’s power is energy manipulation; he can manipulate energies electricity and warmth to form ‘barriers’ that basically roast whatever comes through and attack people with explosions of power or targeted electrocution/overheating. He was most likely born out of a wish to get electricity to become warm, after the electricity in his human’s house stopped working during a snowstorm. 

He’s about five years old in literal years, but about the equivalent of a 30-year-old human, since he’s used his powers quite a lot.

Serizawa and Reigen befriend each other, though Serizawa tries to pretend this isn’t true because Touichirou would murder him. However, they get along very well, and Reigen tries to tell Serizawa to get some self esteem and not let Touichirou treat him like shit, but Reigen doesn’t really realize what’s actually going on and it really doesn’t work for that reason. 

Eventually, during the final battle, he’ll turn on Touichirou to save a bunch of the kid dragons (the Awakening Lab kids) in the department’s care, who would’ve otherwise died from overexerting their powers. He takes over Touichirou’s place at the force, afterwards, and slowly grows into his own.

Shou is a dragon born out of Touichirou’s wish to have someone who would be capable of doing all the sneaky things Touichirou himself can’t do. He has the power of invisibility as a result, and Touichirou frequently sends him on ‘errands’ that are mainly just missions to steal stuff or infiltrate something or another to get information. He’s working to take Touichirou down.

Shou is still very young, only about six months old, but has grown almost as much as Mob has due to his very frequent use of his power. In fact, he uses it so frequently, he’s permanently of the verge of overusing it, and he’s always in danger of dying of it. He’s not planning on stopping anytime soon though, not until he’s taken Touichirou down.

It took Shou about three months to realize what a douchebag Touichirou was, mainly because Shou read some of the comics lying around for the young dragons, and realized that the people who try to take over the world are usually not the good guys. 

Because Shou’s moral system mainly comes from comic books, it’s very black and white, and very oversimplified. He realizes murder is bad, but doesn’t quite understand why, so he even though he doesn’t kill, he still frequently goes too far à la the Kageyama House Fire. He thinks his father is the ultimate evil, and because Shou opposes him, he must be a hero. This mindset doesn’t lend itself to more complex understandings of morality, but that’s to be expected, growing up with a dad like that. It’s kind of a miracle his moral compass is this good.

Shou met the family not long after realizing his dad was a bitch, and immediately related to Ritsu, because Ritsu was complaining about having to deal with a parental figure who lies and manipulates him and his brother and uses him and his brother for his own gain, and Shou immediately went “!!!! same hat!” This led him to project his own negative emotions towards his father onto Reigen, which hasn’t been conductive towards their relationship. He gets along okay with Mob, but frequently gets annoyed with him because, in his eyes, he’s incapable of seeing how Reigen uses him and it reminds him of Serizawa.

Doesn’t like Serizawa, because he’s annoyed by his yes man attitude, and doesn’t really understand that some people react to abuse and manipulation differently than he does.

Shou spends a lot of time sowing the seeds of unrest and rebellion within the dragon police. That’s how he met Fukuda, Higashi, and Ootsuki in this AU; they’re dragon officers who agreed to work with Shou.

One of the main reasons Reigen hates and distrusts Touichirou (aside from clashing personalities and the whole getting arrested thing) is that Reigen is aggressively not on board with the way he treats Shou. While Touichirou obviously doesn’t let people know that Shou does spy stuff, he does frequently bring Shou along with investigations and has him work for the police, and it’s clear that he doesn’t see him as a kid, but rather as an employee at best and a tool at worst. Mob and Ritsu don’t really pick up on how wrong it is, because they’re kids and they have some difficulty grasping the nuances in this situation, but Reigen, as an adult, can see how Touichirou treats Shou completely inappropriately for a child, and he’s Not Having It. 

He suspects that Touichirou may actually be abusive and not just a dickhead, but he doesn’t have any evidence, and since the way he treats Shou isn’t illegal or anything (and even if it was, what’s he gonna do? call the police?), his hands are tied. He does try to get Shou to talk to him, subtly trying to figure out exactly how far Touichirou’s dickishness goes, but Shou trusts him about as far as he can throw him and is unresponsive.

A large part of his arc is going to be learning to be a kid and recovering from everything. It’s mostly going to take place after Touichirou’s defeat, though it starts during it, when Reigen jumps into the fight to try and kick Touichirou’s ass in his place because he doesn’t these fucking kids fighting, damnit. That was a moment of revelation for him, pretty much, and his opinion of Reigen approves afterwards, and so he agrees to travel with him, Mob, and Ritsu.

(Obviously the kicking-ass-thing doesn’t go all that well, and Serizawa and maybe Mob have to jump in to help him, but hey, it’s the thought that counts.)

So, what cause to Chuck to have a affair with Jasmine ?(BTW i love your blog)

(Thank you!!! ( ˃̣̣̥ω˂̣̣̥ )  That really means a lot to hear! Also, sorry I info-dumped. Whenever someone asks something that even tangentially relates to the omegaverse headcanons I keep hidden, I tend to go…overboard).

Tbh, Chuck having an affair with Jasmine has less to do with there being canon evidence to support the idea and way more to do with me deciding I needed more diverse family situations. They were just the unfortunate pair I chose. That being said, there’s a specific headcanon I have about how cheating would be viewed in an ABO setting that I wanted to explore with this pair, which sort of relates to what causes Chuck to cheat on his wife with Jasmine.  

In this specific version of ABO, when someone goes into their heat or rut, it’s not quite to the point where they’re completely out of control (which is a thing in some interpretations of ABO).  While the urge to have sex is very strong and decision making is certainly impaired, the person is still conscious and can make choices.  It would be incorrect to say they have no free will, and you wouldn’t be able to use that as a defense for something you did during your heat/rut (well, you could try, but whether people would buy it is another story).  

However, because an alpha exposed to an omega in heat is affected to the point that, they too, have impaired decision making, people are more willing to overlook people cheating in this type of situation. Essentially, it’s a ‘less bad’ form of cheating.  Not everyone has this viewpoint, and it’s arguable how accurate it is, but it’s still something I think would come up in an ABO setting.

Related to this, Chuck’s wife is a beta, while Chuck is an alpha.  As such, they can’t form a mate bond, which, if they could, would actually work towards keeping Chuck from being as strongly affected by an omega in heat.  One of the (debatable) benefits of an alpha/omega couple forming a mate-bond is it causes each member to not to be as affected by other people during their heat/rut.  When they do go into their heat or rut, instead of a more generalized lust for anyone, it’s all focused on their mate.  It has the effect of making them more clear-heading around other people, but it’s also more stressful to be separated from their mate.

As such, there’s an additional underlying bias in society about pairs that don’t fall into the alpha/omega dynamic.  Other types of couples aren’t actively discriminated against, but they are viewed as being prone to being less stable.  To some, an alpha/beta or omega/beta pair is viewed as the alpha or omega settling, and at the most extreme, viewed as being doomed to fail and the alpha/omega just waiting to find a better partner.  I’ve always seen Johto as the region that would have more conservative values and beliefs, so the above biases would be more common in that region over the others.

To actually answer your question though, Chuck and Jasmine’s short lived affair results from Jasmine’s heat hitting at an unfortunate time and the two just going for it.  While the two don’t know each other very well during the events of HGSS, over the years of working together as fellow Gym Leaders, they slowly develop a friendly relationship. Past seeing each other at conferences the Gym Leaders have to attend yearly, they do talk and occasionally meet up (always in Olivine though, never Cianwood).  Usually it’s because Chuck needs to come to the mainland to get something (and of course he’s going to check on his fellow Gym Leader while in the area, maybe she’ll even be up for some battling if she’s not busy), but sometimes he’ll bring her things from Cianwood.  The next time Jasmine finds herself in need of medicine from Cianwood, it turns out it’s easier to call up the Gym Leader there instead of waiting for a kind, 11 year old passerby to help you out.  

In some ways, they do have a bit of an emotional affair going on before anything physical happens.  They both find themselves enjoying the others company more than they probably should.  While Jasmine clues in on their relationship being more than just friendly before Chuck does, she always tells herself nothing is going to happen because he’s married.  And even once Chuck acknowledges to himself that he’s attracted to Jasmine, he doesn’t plan to do anything, because he does love his wife (even if the two don’t spend that much time together, with him always being busy with the Gym or training).

So when Jasmine’s heat come early while Chuck is visiting her in Olivine, it’s actually Jasmine that suggests sleeping together.  Initially, once she realizes her heat is starting, she makes some hasty excuse and is ready to head home alone, but then stops herself.  Part of her is tired of being so shy and withdrawn all the time. She’s use to just going along with others and not pushing for what she wants. And really, she’s tired of being alone. So, not truly thinking Chuck will accept, she throws the invitation out there. Would you like to head over to my place with me?  And to her surprise, he accepts. They both know it’s a bad idea, but Jasmine’s heat makes for a good excuse to just give in.

They continue to see each other for a while after that, but once Jasmine realizes she’s pregnant (not from the first time they sleep together, it happens later), she calls the affair off.  She informs Chuck about her pregnancy and tells him to go back to his wife, she’ll be fine raising the kid on her own. But Chuck refuses to let her raise the kid by herself (plus, as unfortunate as the situation is, he’s not opposed to the idea of being a father. Once the dread of the situation lessens, he might maybe even be a bit excited).  Jasmine is very firm about them not being involved romantically anymore though, so the possibility of Chuck leaving his wife for Jasmine doesn’t come up.

Obviously, Chuck has to explain the situation to his wife, Tara. Unsurprisingly, she doesn’t take it very well. Really, the main reason she doesn’t leave him ties in with some of the headcanons I discussed above. From a certain viewpoint, some would say what Chuck did wasn’t all that surprising. And again, since Johto is the conservative regions (and Chuck’s wife seems like a traditional, conservative woman), she would be influenced more by these biases than other people might be.  Their marriage is extremely strained for some time after this, but the two do ultimately stay together, taking steps to try to repair their relationship. 

How Star Trek: Next Generation’s “The Chase” Changed Canon Forever

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What do space heists and archaeology have in common? The answer is one of the most important and bizarrely under-appreciated episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation: Season 6 banger, “The Chase.” Written by future Battlestar Galactica showrunner Ronald D. Moore and Joe Menosky, and directed by Jonathan Frakes, “The Chase” is a perfect example of a late-era TNG episode insofar as the characters all feel super-cozy, and the story has a subtle intensity without resorting to a ton of explosions or violence. At the same time, “The Chase” also offered a Watsonian answer to a question with a seemingly very obvious Doyle-ist answer: Why do Star Trek aliens look the way they do? In “The Chase,” we learn all about the rules of Trek aliens, and along the way, the TNG lore is expanded in other big ways, too.

“The Chase” aired on April 26, 1993, and as such, exists in the interesting time when TNG and DS9 were airing new episodes simultaneously. DS9 had already expanded the canon of Trek by permanently parking itself in the histories of both the Bajorians and the Cardassians, but in doing so, DS9 had also brought another Star Trek plot element back into vogue in a big way: The ancient space mystery! These kinds of stories usually focus on a long-dead alien species that had a profound impact on history and influenced everyone’s basic perception of why things are the way they are. In a sense, the entire first season of Star Trek: Picard falls into this story phylum. In the 1993 DS9 pilot, “The Emissary” — which aired just six months before “The Chase” —  we learn the ancient gods of Bajor, the Prophets, are really timeless aliens from another plane of existence. This kind of idea is nearly as old as science fiction itself, but prior to DS9, Star Trek did this all the time. The notion of ancient and influentially alien races pops up in TOS a lot, including references to “the Old Ones,” in “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” and “Catspaw.” There’s also Sargon’s race of energy beings from “Return to Tomorrow,” who low-key take credit for the existence of humanoids. This idea also pops up with “the Preservers” in the episode “The Paradise Syndrome.” Before “The Chase,” TNG had a few episodes like this, too, including “The Last Outpost,” and pivotally, the Season 2 episode “Contagion,” the first time we learn that Picard had previously considered a career in archeology before staying on the career path that led to starship captain.

The notion that Picard has an Indiana Jones-esque tendency embedded in his personality is one of the smarter layers in his character. I love Kirk, but, other than horseback riding and mountain climbing, his hobbies are comparatively kind of generic throughout TOS and the films. (Sulu has more unique hobbies!) One of the reasons the character of Picard is so easy for people to embrace is his multifaceted love of all sorts of stuff that doesn’t have much to do with exploring space. In “The Chase,” we get a character-development metaphor that illustrates this is the ancient artifact called the Kurlan naiskos, a statue with little statues inside of it, representing as Picard says, “the many voices inside the one.” The storytelling lesson? Cool characters work better when there’s contradictory stuff inside of them.

It’s also helpful when those “many voices” can create cool stories. In High Fidelity, John Cusak’s Rob Gordon explains character development like this: “What really matters is what you like, not what you are like… Books, records, films – these things matter!” With Picard, the vastly different interests that feel divergent from his Starfleet persona — hard-boiled noir novels, archaeology — help round him out in a way that you can imagine him as a real person, existing beyond the confines of the TV show. But, prior to “The Chase,” the archaeology thing hadn’t really been explored in any real way. It’s almost like in the final two seasons of TNG, the writers remembered Picard has a cool intellectual superpower called “archaeology.”

After “The Chase,” we get a Season 7 two-parter called “Gambit,” in which Picard goes undercover using his former archeology professor’s name, Galen, to track down—you guessed it—ancient pieces of an alien artifact that could have untold power! The interstellar adventures of Galen Jones never really took off as a TNG spin-off, but again, if you squint, aspects of Star Trek: Picard don’t feel that far off from “The Chase” or “Gambit.” (As post-” Unification” stories, these episodes also double-down on the idea that Picard is personally invested in the history of Romulus and also making peace with the Romulans in general. Thanks, Spock!)

But. The reason why “The Chase” is so important to Star Trek canon isn’t just connected to the ongoing character development of Jean-Luc Picard. Picard’s personal stakes in unlocking an ancient archeology mystery help make the episode move, but the larger revelation of what is going on is slightly cooler. There’s a scene where Picard is describing the four billion-year-old genetic mystery and the camera slowly zooms in on him, really letting you know that this shit is about to get real. It goes like this:

“It’s four billion years old. A computer program from a highly advanced civilization, and it’s hidden in the very fabric of life itself. [SLOW JONATHAN FRAKES ZOOM LENS BEGINS, OMINIOUSLY.] Whatever information this program contains could be the most profound discovery of our time. Or the most dangerous.”

The culmination of “The Chase” is all about various governments trying to unlock the secrets of the genetic computer program to figure out its secrets. This is the Raiders of the Lost Ark stuff. The Klingons think it’s a giant weapon. The Cardassians think it’s an unlimited power supply. Belloq thinks it’s a radio for talking to God, even though nobody invited him. Even the Romulans are in on it, wanting to obtain this four billion-year-old puzzle for themselves. In the end, the big revelation is that all the “humanoid” bipedal species we’ve seen throughout Star Trek were created intentionally by an even more ancient set of humanoids. This tap-dance with real science doesn’t contradict evolution per se, but in the ancient message the ancient humanoid woman says: “Our scientists seeded the primordial oceans of many worlds, where life was in its infancy. The seed codes directed your evolution toward a physical form resembling ours.”

Read more

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Star Trek Villains Who Actually Had a Point

By Ryan Britt

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Why Star Trek Needs More Characters Like Captain Lorca

By Lacy Baugher

So, the TLDR is that in the Trek universe, we evolved naturally, but only because we were given a push. This is as close the Trek canon will come to the notion of panspermia, the real-life theory that organic life could have been intentionally seeded on Earth. But, Trek alum Ronald D. Moore would revisit this idea in a big way in his famous reboot of Battlestar Galactica. This has all happened before and it will all happen again… sometimes, in a different franchise.

So what’s the big deal with the revelation that all the humanoid alien species share a common ancestor? Well, the knee-jerk answer is that this episode provided bandaid on the slightly unrealistic notion that most aliens in Star Trek just like humans with different foreheads or wrinkled noses or funny ears. And that’s true, “The Chase” does provide a Watsonian answer for why the Star Trek universe looks the way it does, at least when it comes to extraterrestrials. Haters might say this was a bad idea because it called attention to something that doesn’t need explaining, sort of like the Trek version of the midichlorians. But, that negative take misses a slightly larger truth, which debunks an important myth about the foundation of Trek.

The reason why The Original Series mostly tackled aliens who looked like humans in bad make-up is only partially an economic one. Yes, it’s widely impractical to do Hortas and Gorns every week, but in creating the writers’ bible for TOS, Roddenberry also made it clear that humanoid aliens were part of a dramatic choice, not just an economic one. In early pitch documents, Roddenberry describes “the parallel worlds” concept like this: “It means simply that our stories will plant and animals life, plus people, quite similar to that on Earth.”

Roddenberry wasn’t just doing this to save money. The “parallel worlds” concept was clearly something he wanted so the stories would connect with a casual viewer and not just hardcore science fiction fans. Prior to Star Trek, the general perception of filmed science fiction was that it was genre dominated by “Bug-Eyed Monsters.” By introducing the “Parallel worlds” concept, Roddenberry was creating a buffer against the series becoming too much like monster-of-the-week science fiction. Yes, this decision conveniently saved a little bit of money, but it’s very clear that wasn’t the only factor. Even at the beginning, Star Trek wanted to do humanoid aliens not because it was easy, but because telling those stories would be more interesting. 

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What Moore and Menosky did with “The Chase,” was to come right out and make that dramatic choice into a thoughtful and exciting episode. The physics and biological science of the Star Trek universe might not exactly line up with our own, but the way in which the various shows prioritize people over technology is a relative constant. In “The Chase,” TNG reminded everyone that Star Trek was always about telling stories about people, even if those people were literally aliens. In this way, “The Chase” didn’t so much as change canon, but rather, clarified it. The reason why the Romulans, Humans, Cardassians look the way they do has an answer. But the real answer to that question requires even more introspection than the episode has time for. Which, in a nutshell, is what a lot of good Trek is supposed to do. “The Chase” is both an overt metaphor and a hardcore in-universe story at the same time. Many voices, inside the one.

Editor’s note: Norman Lloyd, the actor who played Professor Galen in “The Chase” (and inhabited many, many other roles in his long career) passed away earlier this week. You can learn more about his life and career here.

The post How Star Trek: Next Generation’s “The Chase” Changed Canon Forever appeared first on Den of Geek.

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I just saw the phrase "arsonist Amity Blight" and I immediately thought "ASOUE crossover" and after giving it approximately ten seconds of thought I can already think of a bajillion ideas for how it could work

Looks like we have another AU boys. Oh no

(lmao my keyboard suggested the word AU I didn't even have to type it, shows you how many times I've typed that sentence, fuck)

Oh! Even more fascinating idea! What if it's crossed over specifically with my Beware the Watchers ASOUE AU? That would echo the vibes that the whole situation with Emporer Belos and the titan gives off... Could even have him in the crossover claiming to be able to communicate with VFD... Hmm, I'll have to think about that

Well, that last paragraph aside, my initial thoughts are as follows: Amity is an arsonist, obviously, and Luz was recruited late by Eda, who is a wildcard, neither firefighter nor arsonist. Maybe Luz is the daughter of firefighters? That wouldn't only echo the Baudelaires, which I'm not sure if I want to do or not, but it would also be a further reason for her and Amity to start out as rivals. In any case, both sides were racing to recruit her but Eda got to her first 😛 which neither side is happy about. I'm not sure what's up with the firefighter vs arsonist thing in this crossover, I can't think of anyone in The Owl House who seems like they would be a firefighter, except for Gus and Willow but they're kids, where are the adults? I guess it could be their parents (who in this crossover would really be their chaperones) but we barely know their parents and they're not big figures in the world, who are the big firefighters? Hm, I'll have to figure something out

Anyway, back to Luz: the Beware the Watchers AU would parallel the Owl House canon better because it has more overt fantasy elements than the ASOUE canon, but either universe would work; in either case she's pulled headfirst into a world that can seem wondrous when looked at through rose colored glasses, and we all know Luz wears about five pairs of rose colored glasses at all times. I'm not sure what to do with King, Hooty, and Owlbert; in Beware the Watchers they can easily be shoehorned in, but it'll be a lot harder to do that in default ASOUE. There are a lot of pros and cons to either choice, I'm not sure which one to pick, I just hope I'll be able to pick one because I have way too many unfinished ideas to go with both 😭. I wonder how we can get Luz away from her mother without either of them getting worried about the other though 🤔 what sort of plot device aside for a portal to another realm could separate them? Then again, the portal isn't the only factor even in the Owl House canon, there's also the letters. I hope we find out who's writing them soon so I can fit them into this crossover. Hm, and then there are also the theories that her mother is connected to the demon realm in some way, how would that factor into things? Ugh I don't like coming up with AUs for unfinished stories, there are too many unanswered questions, and I can't just come up with my own answers for them because they may be contradicted later 😭 but this is the curse of the hyperfixation, it always leads to me creating AUs 😔 and this time the hyperfixation is on a story that's unfinished. Such is life. How about I focus on the things we do know, hm?

So Eda takes Luz on as her apprentice, and is also determined to protect her from both sides of VFD and teach her her own wild ways, a lot like some fan characterizations of adult Ellington I've seen. Reminds me specifically of Connie's ASOUE/Stranger Things crossover Fanning the Flames's version of Ellington, although there are also plenty of differences between the two, it's a pretty vague resemblance. Anyway, Luz still ends up coming into contact with VFD kids, firefighter apprentices Willow and Gus and arsonist apprentice Amity. Or we could position Willow and Gus as being on the run from VFD, but that would both mess up our only firefighter connection and leave Eda with no reason not to recruit them like she recruited Luz, so I guess they'll be firefighter apprentices unless I can figure out some other way of making things work. Also in the Owl House canon they both follow Emporer Belos so having them be firefighter apprentices would parallel that better, but something about them being on the run from VFD speaks to me, I don't know what. Oh well, I guess as the story progresses the Owl House canon will probably have them start getting skeptical about Belos so they might eventually end up on the run from VFD in this crossover.

Hmm, speaking of how the story will progress, while the idea of having a crossover with Beware the Watchers is cool, Beware the Watchers is also very intense and leans heavy on the cosmic horror, which doesn't fit the tone of The Owl House at all, and I especially wouldn't want to see bright and sunny Luz end up as miserable as the Baudelaires end up in Beware the Watchers, that would be way too painful, but the only to avoid that would be to make VFD less powerful, which would cheapen the entire premise of the AU. Sadly, it doesn't seem like Beware the Watchers would work 😔 that's too bad. I'm not going to discard the idea entirely, but unless I can think of a solution to this I just don't see how I can make it work. Oh well

Anyway, back to figuring out the crossover: we can try to make Prufrock Prep stand in for Hexside, but that may be difficult because Hexside is an actual half-decent school (at least as far as magical schools go) while Prufrock is a dumpster fire that has been eaten by a trash slug and is somehow still on fire despite being inside the trash slug. If anyone got this far into this post without being familiar with Prufrock Preparatory School, no, that's not an exaggeration. So, we can either modify Prufrock to parallel Hexside better or we can figure out some other way to get the kids together. I'm leaning toward the second option, I don't want to touch Prufrock with a ten foot pole.

Anyway, Amity is secretly miserable with the arsonists and is slowly brought out of her shell by Luz which helps her distance herself emotionally from the arsonists. Willow and Gus though are steeped in the firefighter brainwashing and are still firm in their loyalty to VFD, and their brainwashing, which they spout constantly, is also having an influence on Luz and Amity. But then everything gets turned upside down when Eda is captured by the arsonists, and the kids realize that the firefighters seem to care more about telling the arsonists that killing Eda is wrong than they care about actually stopping them from killing Eda (since, of course, they hate her too and want her out of the way, and the firefighters and arsonists are simply two sides of the same rotten coin). This starts them on their own independent (from Eda) realization that VFD sucks no matter which side you're on.

And then of course there's Lilith. It shouldn't be too hard to come up with a replacement for the curse, though I'm not sure how her motivations would transfer over. She's obviously an arsonist because she's with Belos and Belos has to be an arsonist because only the arsonists would make a spectacle of killing someone who hasn't really done anything wrong, but I like the idea of her and Eda starting out as firefighters but then Eda leaving VFD and Lilith switching sides. If we keep the generations the same as in the Snicketverse books then Eda and Lilith are from the generation where the schism really cemented itself and tore VFD in two, leaving us with those who light fires and those who put them out, and I'm really excited to come up with something that could tear the sisters apart and/or push Lilith to the other side à la the night at the opera, and of course we would need to figure out the other players in this, I already mentioned Gus and Willow's parents/chaperones but there's also the Blight parents and Belos and Kikimora and various other people that we don't know much about, plus what I mentioned earlier about needing to figure out who the big firefighters are. I imagine the Blight parents would be able to pull some strings to avoid being separated from their children, especially since the arsonists tend to be more lax about the rules, but I imagine that Lilith would serve as Amity's chaperone in some capacity. Not sure about Em and Ed though. Then Lilith ditches VFD to join Eda, which upsets things within VFD, right in time for Willow and Gus to start questioning things. I imagine that their chaperones will try to keep them from interacting with Lilith and the one who got her to leave VFD aka Eda, and by proxy Luz, which would push them to choose between the firefighters and Eda's little crew. And the Blight parents would probably crack down on Amity after Lilith's defection. As for what will happen next, I think I'll wait for season 2 to figure that out

Okay, this has been fun, but this is getting long and complicated and I've been working on this for hours, so I'm just gonna post this now

For the unpopular opinion thing again. Jeluka x Rose, Sabrinath, Sabrina or Rose as the bee miraculous instead of Chloe, Nathaniel as the fox miraculous instead of Ayla, Chloe x Marinette, Chloe x Ayla, your full opinion on Lila, Antibug. Nino getting the turtle miraculous, Adrien and Chloe's friendship and your full opinion on Sabrina.

Haha! I didn’t forget about these. I just had to focus on finals and then take some time to be a vegetable. So, let’s dive in!

Juleka/Rose: Cute. I love it. Needs to be canon.

Sabrinath: Basically the only Nath ship I really like.

Sabeena or bee!rose: I think it could be cute. Sabrina would be adorable, and it could do wonders for her confidence. 

No.

Chlonette: Personally, even though I’ve written Chlonette, and still have Chlonette ideas, it’s not my favorite. I still vastly prefer the brotp version cause I think even if Chloe knew Marinette was LB in canon and even if Chloe got better, I don’t see them wanting to date each other. Friends, a definite maybe, lovers, highly unlikely. I can’t get behind some of the popular tropes surrounding the ship either namely that Chloe bullies Marinette because she has a crush on her. I just don’t see that at all, nor do I like what it implies/teaches. I think if they were going to be a couple, they’d have to grow into it and develop their feelings slowly. I’m more okay with Chlonette than I was when I first stumbled upon it, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that I ship it. I’ll write it, but it is more of a brotp for me.

Chlolya: Yes. Good. It can stay. I think Chloe needs someone new, someone she doesn’t have a history with. It’s why I’m not a fan of her with really any of the other classmates as much. I much prefer her with people like Alya or Lila or Kagami because if Chloe were to change and improve, they wouldn’t have an image of who she used to be still haunting them, and I feel like she could fully move past it with them and become someone better. 

My full opinion on Lila: I think she gets a lot more hate from the fandom than she deserves, and I know most of that is because a lot of people automatically side with the protagonist instead of thinking for themselves. People buy into what the show tells them they should and shouldn’t like, and since Marinette was instantly defensive and antagonistic toward Lila, a lot of the fandom is too. After all, she was trying to disrupt the love square. Can’t have that even though literally all of us know it’s end game and nothing is ever going to really get in the way of that. Sure, lying is bad, but I think I can say with surety that all of us are guilty of lying every now and then. I will admit, when I first joined the fandom, I was one of the individuals that just bought canon at face-value, but as time has worn on, I’ve formed my own opinions of characters, and I have to say that I do like Lila. I think particularly as a fic-writer, she has a lot of potential because we don’t know that much about her, so you can make her just about anything that you want. She’s fun to explore.

Things get a little salty under the cut.

My opinion of Antibug? Like the episode as a whole or just the akuma? I think as a whole, the episode kind of bothered me because Chloe always outshines Sabrina. Every other classmate got a whole episode dedicated to them when they got akumatized. The episode was titled after their akuma, we usually got a look into their character and what things get under their skin. Antibug was an exception. Sabrina had a very legitimate reason for being akumatized. Her best friend was engaging in purposefully abusive and manipulative behavior over something super silly, and given that Sabrina doesn’t have the best sense of identity or any notable self-esteem, it’s understandable that she’d become akumatized. And what does she become? Invisible. Just like she always is, and not only does she become invisible, the only purpose of her akuma is to serve as a gateway for Chloe to become akumatized. So, not only did they make Sabrina literally invisible, they also didn’t even name the episode after her. They named it after Chloe who, in my opinion, was being a brat and was akumatized for a very stupid reason.

Because Chloe was lying to Ladybug and Chat Noir before. Ladybug was right not to trust her, and I am still salty that they turned that into Marinette’s fault because it wasn’t. Chloe was being a brat, and she lied. Ladybug knew this, and she shouldn’t have been punished for not listening to Chloe. She shouldn’t have had to apologize in the end because she wasn’t in the wrong. Chloe was. So, I guess if I had to pick a least favorite episode from season 1, Antibug would probably be it because not only did they mistreat Sabrina horribly, but they also victimized someone who wasn’t even a victim in the first place and who got what she deserved by being ignored and not taken seriously. 

I have to admit, Nino getting the turtle in canon didn’t thrill me for a number of reasons. Turtle!Nino is a cool concept in fanon, and I do enjoy me some turtle!Nino art because I didn’t really think it would become canon. But since it is canon now, I have to say I’m not excited? Like, Chloe and Alya were one thing, but now throw in Nino and I feel like there’s just a lot happening here. Maybe it’s because Nino has literally been a ghost this season with next to no development, or maybe it’s because I worry about what it means for my favorite little old man, but I just can’t get myself excited about it? I’m overwhelmed by a sense of ‘meh’ whenever I see it. I think it’s mostly because we don’t have that much on Nino as a character, even from season 1, and season 2 hasn’t exactly done wonders for him as a character either. At least with Alya, we’ve seen her helping Marinette out, plotting to help her get with a boy she likes, calling her out on her problematic behavior, insisting she think stuff through first, but what has Nino done? DJ-ed a couple parties, said maybe two things, mostly in the background, and just kinda been there. If Nino is going to become a hero, I’d like to see him grow and actually convince me that he deserves one. Same with Chloe and Alya.

I think that Chloe and Adrien’s friendship is only still a thing in canon because they’ve known each other for a long time. Adrien often displays expressions of discomfort whenever Chloe is around being her usual self, and I applauded him in Despair Bear when he called her out. It’s kind of why that episode annoyed me a little because in the end, she goes back to being the way she was, having clearly manipulated and tricked him, and instead of being mad, he’s just like ‘Oh well.’ However, I do enjoy writing them post-redemption for Chloe. I think they would take on a very cute, sibling-like relationship and be more of a family. 

My full opinion on Sabrina: I’m actually fairly neutral to her as a character herself, though I have been appreciating her more lately as I’ve contemplated more ships for her besides just Sabrinath. someone got me hecked up with SabriKim and Sabrinadrien, but that’s for another day And I think that the show has been doing her a disservice. I think she really needs to distance herself from Chloe and form her own identity which is kind of why I liked her with Nath initially, and why I also have come to like the idea of her with Kim or Adrien. All of these people have been hurt by Chloe, and I think that they would give Sabrina room to discover herself without smothering her or influencing her to be someone she isn’t. She certainly wouldn’t just be their servant, and I think putting her in a healthy relationship could do her wonders. Thomas said her relationship with Chloe improves, but truthfully, I think a big improvement for them would be to split up. It would be better for Sabrina mentally and emotionally, and I think it would be better for Chloe in the long-run too. It would force her to do things herself and stop taking advantage of someone else.