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bambinella · 10 months

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Sulking

A/N: I have, like probably everyone else, been obsessed with Tears of the Kingdom, and while brainstorming a little with @otomiyaa I thought of this cute idea! Enjoy!

Summary: Link is depressed after being separated from Zelda yet again, and Rauru wants to motivate him a little.

Word count: 2186

Link was sitting on the ground in front of the Temple of Time, and he was sulking. One moment he had been exploring the ruins underneath Hyrule Castle with Zelda, the next moment his entire world had turned upside down. Zelda was gone. The Master Sword was gone. Ganondorf – or rather, the Lich King??? – had returned after being imprisoned for who knows how long. He had almost died, again. But worst of all? His whole right arm was gone. His fighting arm. All his abilities, skills, everything he had trained for, all of it was gone. And it had taken zero effort for the Lich King to do so. So in the end, he was just weak. Link clenched his fist tightly and bit his lip. He looked down at his new arm, which Rauru, the very first King of Hyrule, had given to him after saving his life. It felt… foreign. And while it was supposed to be powerful, it seemed to have lost its power as well. Perfect.

Rauru noticed Link’s sour mood and sighed. He couldn’t exactly blame him for it, though. The boy had had one hell of a day. He sat himself down on a rock next to Link, not sure what to say. “Are you alright, Link?” He asked. He could tell that the Hylian was depressed.

“...”

“... Right, that’s about the answer I expected,” Rauru said with another sigh, and Link let out a grunt. He should be more amazed that the literal ghost of the very first King of Hyrule was talking to him, but he couldn’t get himself to care right now. After finally being reunited with Zelda, he had lost her yet again. What kind of knight was he, as he had failed to protect her for a second time now. Rauru looked at Link for a long second, almost sensing his worries. “You shouldn’t beat yourself up like that. Zelda’s going to be alright, Link. She’s alive,” He said, causing Link’s head to snap up.

“Are you sure?? How can you know?” He asked, looking straight into Rauru’s eyes. There was an ancient wisdom in those eyes, and secrecy. And for some reason it gave Link some hope.

“I just know.” Rauru said with a smile, and Link felt like he had been holding his breath for far too long. He let out a sigh and mustered a small smile. If Rauru said Zelda was alive, then he was willing to believe him. He was willing to do anything at that point.

“... Thanks, Goat Man,” Link said, his smile growing a little wider as he saw Rauru’s eyebrow twitch.

“Goat ma– ahem, you’re welcome Link. Now you must focus on what’s in front of you. You need to strengthen your new arm, by visiting and conquering the Shrines to seek out the Sacred Light,” Rauru said, and a frown reappeared on Link’s face. He was about to face about a thousand trials again, he realized.

“Right… no time to waste, then,” He said, standing up as he made his way towards the first Shrine. He had done something similar a few years ago, it couldn’t be that hard right? Apparently it was that hard. While easily mastering half of the shrines and gaining new abilities, Link hated the Sky Islands, and they seemed to hate him just as much. He had lost count of how many times he had almost fallen off the edge at this point. He had been climbing on boxes, and suddenly those boxes had turned into a giant monster. And he didn’t even want to think about all the times he had created items, to help him on his way, only for them to flow off the edge by a sudden gust of wind. Needless to say, by the time he had reached the third Shrine, his sour mood had returned. Rauru, who had been waiting for Link there, raised an eyebrow. “You really need to smile more, you know,” He casually said, earning another grunt from Link who just walked towards him. “Shut up Goat Man,” He grumbled, stopping next to Rauru. “You didn’t fall off a boat made of logs, to swim after it while it sails away, only to fall off of it again at least three times in the past ten minutes.”

“I understand what you’re going through, truly. But you’re going to be alright, you just need to gain a little more control over your new arm and become stronger,” The King assured. Link rolled his eyes.

“Not to be rude, but I don’t think you know what I’m going through right now, Goa–” Link started, only to be interrupted by Rauru.

“Call me a goat again, see what happens,” He said, and it made Link look up for the first time. There was a serious look in Rauru’s eyes, but there was also a smile on his lips and a hint of… playfulness in his voice. And it sparked something within Link, who was usually known for being a menace with his childlike behavior from time to time. While Link hadn’t had the best of days so far, he couldn’t resist the little challenge in that sentence as a smirk tugged at his lips.

“Or what? I don’t think there’s much you can do as a ghost, you know… Goat Man,” Link said while putting his hands on his hips. Rauru shook his head while giving him a once over. The boy in front of him was naked except for an old skirt and some wear-down sandals, and he decided to push his luck? He had to give it to Link, he was courageous.

“Well… I did warn you,” He said, before making a single move with his arm. Link immediately felt, and saw, his new arm react to it, and before he knew it he was laying down on his back, his new arm attached to a boulder. Wait what.

“H-hey! Wha– how did you do that?!” Link cried out in surprise, tugging at his arm to free himself. Nothing, it didn’t budge at all. Rauru chuckled at that, kneeling down next to him. “Did you, perhaps, forget that this arm once belonged to me? I may no longer have a physical body, but that doesn’t mean I no longer get to control it. At least, control it enough to do that,” He said, casually pointing to Link’s position.

“... And why exactly did you do ‘that’?” Link managed to ask, raising one eyebrow at the former King. This earned another chuckle.

“Because you dared to challenge me, and you really need to smile more,” Rauru said, before using both his ghostly hands to dig into Link’s sides. The Hylian let out a strangled gasp and tried to hold his laughter, one of his arms immediately reaching down to grab Rauru’s wrist, only for his hand to go straight through it. Oh that was so unfair.

“W-wait! No stop! Hohohohow?! You’re a damn ghohohost!” Link almost growled as he fought to hold back his frantic giggles, his free hand hitting the air where the ghost was sitting. And for the first time Rauru grinned widely at him.

“Who do you think you’re talking to, boy? I have been here for much longer than you can imagine, I do have some tricks up my sleeve. Besides, I was sitting on a stone earlier without falling through it, you really should have noticed,” He smiled, moving his large hands up and down Link’s flanks. The ghostly touch was feathery light, and it made Link’s skin tingle wherever it got touched.

“Bwaahahaha! S-stohohop! Dohohon’t tihihihickle mehehehehe!” Link had no chance of holding back his laughter any longer. His skin was on fire because of the phantom tickles, and a blush spread on his cheeks. He had been ticklish for as long as he could remember, and while Zelda discovering this little fact had been one of the happiest moments of his life, right now it was biting him in the ass.

“Oh but I strongly feel like you need this,” Rauru countered, moving his hands under the swordsman’s arms. Link let out an undignified shriek and burst into loud laughter, his arm immediately wrapping around himself. This, however, did nothing to stop Rauru, although it felt weird to squish a ghost’s hand.

“NOHHOHOHOHO STOHOHOHOP! IHIHIHI’LL KIHIHIHILL YOU!” He cried out while thrashing on the ground, realizing a little too late it was probably a stupid thing to threaten him. How did one kill a ghost in the first place? None of his thoughts mattered as the ticklish sensations continued to bombard his brain, sending him into a helpless fit of renewed laughter.

“Oh? Kill me, hm? Did you also forget that I’m a ghost? And how exactly are you going to kill me if you can’t even get up from the ground, Sir Giggles?” Rauru asked with a teasing smile, scribbling his ghostly nails a little faster into his armpits. When Link couldn’t properly threaten him anymore due to laughing too fast, he pulled his hands away to grant the boy a break. “Ohoho fuck… ahaha… you suhuhuck!” Link whined with a giggle, panting slightly as he caught his breath. Stupid goat. The King let out a laugh at that and shook his head again.

“Even in this position you’re still throwing insults, huh? Guess you don’t know when to quit, although that seems to be a positive side of you,” Rauru said, earning another eye-roll of the Hylian. He took a moment to take another good look at the Hylian in front of him, especially his shoulder and chest. While it had only been a few hours, Link’s body had already completely absorbed and adjusted to the new arm, despite Link not having full control over it yet. Link didn’t look tall or strong or intimidating, but his ability to adapt and overcome was his true strength. Rauru was pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of giggling, only then noticing that his claw was gently tracing the dark lines on his chest and ribs.

“Stohohop! Dahahamn you gohohohoat! Thahahahat tihihickles!” Link cried out in protest, embarrassed about the fact that a simple, light touch was enough to make him burst into giggles. Rauru noticed and smirked.

“My my, you really are ticklish, huh? This is enough to make you laugh? What if an enemy learned of your sensitivity, however would you survive?” Rauru teased, speeding up his fingers to really tickle him. Link cackled and threw his head back, attempting to wiggle his new arm side to side to try and dislodge himself from the boulder. However, whenever he got close to freedom, Rauru snuck his claws into his helpless underarm and tickled him until he lost concentration. The tips of his ears were red from both laughter and blushing at the teasing.

“Yohohou’re– AHAHAHA! You’re kihihihilling meehehehe! Lehehet me uuuuhuhuhup!!” He shrieked, once again reaching for one of Rauru’s hands with his free arm. Before he managed to do so, though, he felt his wrist being pinned.

“Hm, should I let you up? I might need to think about this for a while longer,” The King pretended to consider it, while raking his claw up and down Link’s taut stomach. If Link had been laughing and struggling before, it was nothing in comparison. The knight let out a roar of laughter while arching his back, kicking his legs wildly as he tugged at both his arms. Zelda loved to randomly tickle his stomach, since it was his most ticklish spot and it would send him into a giggle-fit if caught off guard. He usually never fought back, because he enjoyed being tickled, but now he was fighting for his life.

“PLEHEHEHEASE! I CAHAHAHAN’T! IHIHIHIT TIHIHICKLES!” Link howled with laughter, yet genuinely looked happy as he had a massive smile on his face. While Rauru was starting to feel a little sorry for him, he couldn’t help but smile at the expression and decided to keep going for a little while longer. When Link no longer had the energy to struggle and was simply laughing his heart out, Rauru finally pulled away.

“Now, I hope this taught you a little lesson. Are you done sulking?” Rauru asked with a smirk as he moved his hand, releasing Link from the boulder. The knight didn’t move and let out a huff, yet still smiled.

“I guess… thanks, Rauru,” He mumbled with a blush. The King blinked, before smirking a little wider.

“You take a minute to recover from this vicious attempt to kill you,” He playfully jabbed, earning another huff from the Hylian. “I’ll be waiting at the next Shrine for your arrival. Oh, and Link?” He said, turning around to face the knight, who had stood up.

“Hm?”

“I gave you that arm for a reason, you know. I truly believe you will manage.” He said with a smile, before vanishing. Link stood there for a moment, carefully considering those words, before moving on towards the next Shrine. Yet this time he wore a smile and a look of determination.

#Legend of Zelda #Tears of the Kingdom #totk #Link #Rauru #Tickle fic #Tickling

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destinygoldenstar · 1 year

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The Island Apocalypse Theory (Total Drama Island 2023 is a plot for world domination)

“Now lets meet the victims-I mean CAMPERS.” -Chris McLean

Yeah, that sums up this entire show.

So you all know how you feel about the reboot by this point. Either you love it or you don’t. But you know what the worst thing about the season is?

OTHER than Ripper.

OTHER than Episode 5.

OTHER than Chris’ new voice.

It’s the plot hole of HOW THE F IS WAWANAKWA BACK?!

We saw the island sink in All Stars and that’s why Paketiew took place in a new robot island… thing.

You would think there would be an explanation for this of any sort, even if it’d be a stupid one-

Nope. It’s just back. Don’t question it.

It’s easy to just dismiss this and move on, call it something like ‘bad writing’.

But if you know me, you know I DON’T leave it at that. And I’m here to tell you that NO. This decision was NOT bad writing, as I wholeheartedly trust Fresh TV’s executives and their ability to fix what’s so obviously broken! (This sentence is complete sarcasm)

So I am here to exploit that the lack of explanation was INTENTIONAL, and is build up towards something outrageously huge as the climax of all of Total Drama! You see, Wawanakwa NEVER sank in the first place. Chris faked the whole thing.

It is the main base of Chris McLean’s ultimate plan to brainwash the entire world and start the zombie robot apocalypse.

AXEL KNEW.

So here is THE ISLAND APOCALYPSE THEORY:

(This is me rambling something stupid. Do not take this seriously. It’s not legit… or is it?)

We need to take this theory all the way back to All Stars. In the finale of the season, due to hot springs Chris placed, the entirety of Wawanakwa sank at the bottom of the sea. Thats exactly they moved to Paketiew to make that season possible. But we’re gonna save that for later.

Let me tell you why the island sinking in the first place is BS. (Other than on a writing standpoint)

You see, realistically, islands are created from volcanic eruptions from the sea. Therefore, made of molten rock. Hot springs are NOT volcano related, actually. The only way an island can sink is if it is dissolved by erosion. However, this takes MILLIONS of years, and obviously that's not the case here. In fact there are multiple islands wit hot springs that stay in tact perfectly fine. So already, there's NO WAY the island could actually sink by artificial hot springs.

If god can't do it, McLean certainly can't either.

But lets say Wawanakwa is a floating island. Okay... my point still stands. If that were the case, the island would tear apart and separate across the sea in chunks. It would NOT sink. If they said "The Island is being torn apart", then it would make sense. But no, that's not what happened.

You get my point. Wawanakwa NEVER sank. There's no way in hell it could.

BUT WAIT, you may be wondering, if the island never sank, why did the island sink on TV?

You can blame one specific person: Chris McLean, THE most evil character in all of Canadian TV. I'm not joking.

Chris McLean is not only the host of the show, but he is also the executive who has taken over everything. It all started with executives hiring him just for a cute little gig... but then they realized they gave him way to much power, and by that point there was nothing they could do to stop the inevitable.

Chris made a CGI version of the show, and cut off the reality at the very moment the sword was pulled out by Mike (or Zoey).

That sword was the moment the cameras were cut.

From there, it was the perfect illusion so that nobody could find out what came of Chris after that, and what he did to everyone on that island.

As for those people on the island, Mike, Zoey, Gwen, Cameron, Heather, and Alejandro, they have... an unfortunate fate. But I'll get to that later.

Fifteen years later, we have no clue of Chris McLean's backstory or why he does what he does. We don't know where this man came from.

Maybe that's why we don't know the true motivations behind his plans for world domination.

Chris could've just been a hotshot egocentric celebrity and that's the end of is character. And he would be one of the nicer celebrities out there. BUT NO. He's not just cocky. He's not just a sociopath. He's not just a victim of bad writing from Revenge onward.

This man, from the very beginning, is straight up EVIL.

So what is his plan?

He plans to use Total Drama to brainwash the entire world and start a robot apocalypse with himself as the only survivor.

It's where the parody angle of Survivor comes in.

That's right. From the VERY BEGINNING, this has been Chris McLean's motive, and this is how it all started.

We know that Chris did not fund the show at first. That was a bunch of executives. In fact, they had Blaineley in mind for the role of the host. And as much as we all hate Blaineley, she probably should've accepted the job. By refusing the job, she just gave power to somebody who is going to destroy everything.

So yeah, you can blame Blaineley for the death of humanity.

Did Blaineley know they were gonna hire Chris if she didn't accept the role? No. There's no hint that she knew. She's pretty much oblivious. BUT, it makes her role in World Tour justified, as during her elimination, she tried to explain her POV on the subject matter, and she gets cut off by Chris shoving her off a plane.

She also so happens to crash badly and break every bone in her body so she can't speak. OOPS, WHAT A TOTAL ACCIDENT ON CHRIS'S PART. GUESS SHE CAN'T SPILL ANYTHING THAT WOULD EXPLOIT CHRIS'S TRUE INTENTIONS.

Also a bear gnaws on her head in Episode 24... she has memory loss now. That's why she's wearing pink in Ridonculous Race. Yes Ridonculous Race is important.

So now Chris is the host of Total Drama on a deserted Island, and he has the support of the network for funding.

Perfect.

He's already gained his base of operation for his plan, and is already starting the prototypes of his robot creations. How do I know this?

You know the animals in Island. They seem to have way more personality than animals should, considering animals aren't sentient. (Or are they?)

We as an audience, watching a cartoon, can perceive this as normal cartoon antics. And that's what Chris wants you to think so you don't see that these animals are actually robotically brainwashed by cheap devices.

I say cheap because there's a bit in Episode 6 with the Screaming Gophers and a bear. Izzy found a costume and scared her teams for the LOLS. How did she know where to find a bear costume?? (Yep. Izzy isn't crazy. She is vital to this. (And you know what video I am referencing.)) It's obvious to say she's just crazy and this is a gag and she's totally not onto Chris. And Chris totally didn't realize she was onto him and shut her up by trying to kill her.

Oh yeah, and there's also the real bear that Owen found. When Owen ripped off that hair on the bear, and the bear acts normally again. He freed that bear from Chris's control. Chris had to replant that hair after the episode to hide things.

Where even is Chris’s base of operations for all of this? How about that reveal in the Island Special where it was revealed the island wasn’t actually an Island?! THAT WOULD BE A GOOD BASE.

And now the big thing: The contestants. The Gen 1 cast. (And soon, the Gen 2 cast are gonna be in the same category) They are Chris's first victims of his plot.

I went into depth about how this cast becomes exploited on TV and how the show is an allegory on how reality shows and fame can corrupt someone as gullible as teenagers. Even with this theory, that's still relevant. These teenagers are getting screwed up mentally by the show.

This is exactly what Chris wants. Chris takes teenagers, slaps stereotypes onto them, and puts them in front of the camera to brainwash them into being the perfect little robots for is propaganda. I went into depth before on some of the characters individually and how this relates to them, but if I went into everyone, we'd be here all day and Tumblr doesn't provide a hundred tags in a post.

The Gen 1 cast became his victims most obviously. Even when they're not in the game, they can't leave. They're stuck in a resort, or they're stuck in Aftermath. Aftermath is a prison disguised as a TV program. They're not brainwashed magically, YET, but they are psychologically raised to be contestants.

You know the story, Chris scams the victors of Island into giving up the money so everyone can participate in Action.

Huh. Action takes place on an abandoned film lot. A lot full of equipment to create the perfect film plot to take over the editing of the show. HUH. I'M SURE THAT'S JUST A COINCIDENCE.

So Chris has his materials, and now he needs the International influence to get in a good enough position to start his plan in full motion. This is why he does World Tour and welcomes two new cast members. You know, it's just a little experiment. You know, one's an uber fan of his, there's nothing going on here.

There's also the matters of villains in the show that Chris frames. I still think it's framing, but Heather and Alejandro are vital villains in all of this. Villains that CHRIS created for the show. Notice I didn't mention Courtney, who sued her way onto the show and threatened Chris's power. She doesn't count. That's why she's on the Heroes team in All Stars at first. If Chris framed Courtney as a villain off the bat, someone who threatened HIS image, it would make HIM look bad.

But back to Heather and Alejandro, I've denied that Chris rigged the game so Heather could move on. But I'd like to apologize because you guys might be right. Heather just wasn't aware of this and thought she was smart. Alejandro as well is being rigged into being a finalist because Chris just so happened to disqualify Sierra for an accident. Yeah that was coincidental. Totally.

Heather and Alejandro, right off the bat, become Chris's pawns to get people's attention on his show. In fact EVERY character Chris plans to use for this, are people who either ARE villains, or are forced to be in some way. Owen, Duncan, and Gwen. Two of them become Vultures. These characters are important.

Also speaking of a robot apocalypse, what happened to Alejandro at the end of World Tour, that Chris put him through?

OH. RIGHT.

By the time of Revenge, Chris is in a comfortable position to expand his playing field and add new cast members in to expand on his army-I mean TV show. So enter Gen 2.

Gen 2 is also in the category of being Chris's victims. They also share the same fate as the Gen 1 cast that I will get to.

The only character who has any ability in THIS cast to realize what’s going on is Dawn. She got cut off when she tried to exploit the enemy among them. BY CHRIS.

In that episode, you can assume she was going to talk about Scott, which would make sense...

BUT we NEVER actually hear what she was ACTUALLY going to say.

She could’ve very well been trying to exploit Chris. THAT’S why Chris cut Dawn off.

This cast gets to see what has come of Wawanakwa and what Chris has been doing with the radioactive waste. Obviously, this is a basis of Chris's plot out in the open and being exploited. It is HERE. Right in THIS SEASON, where Chris planned originally to start it all and start his world domination and the apocalypse he so desired.

He's turned Ezekiel into a zombie. He's turned Dakota into a monster. He's on it...

And then the police show up.

Yeah Chris's plan gets foiled here. That's why he's gone mad in prison thinking he failed.

But he still had a pawn up his sleeve to save him and get his plan into full force: Chef.

You'd think that since Chef is with Chris through and through, that Chris had brainwashed him too, right?

NO.

Chef knew this and was on board with Chris’s plan due to equal pay.

BUT Chef is starting to have doubts and is going to have a full blown redemption arc.

So Chef is someone who used to be in a war. We know that much. He also seems to recognize Izzy who has similar combat training to him. Huh...

It’s almost like they knew each other in that war!

I don’t think Izzy was in the military, if she was alive she was a baby most likely. So maybe she was part of the war crossfire and Chef is her savior, and she KNOWS Chris’s plan, thus is disgusted by Chef’s choice to side with Chris.

Or another way, Izzy mentions reincarnation in Action. Does she know her past life and it was with Chef?

When Chef thinks he kills her in Episode 2 of that season, he says, “Not again...”

Did Izzy DIE in this war Chef was in?

More importantly, what was this war about?

Why does Area 52 have Aliens in them? Why is Chris okay with taking teenagers here?! Are the Aliens related to Chris?! Is Chris an alien, and that’s why he’s doing this?! (Probably not, but maybe)

ALSO, the challenge was to retrieve an artifact from the aliens! I WONDER WHAT CHRIS NEEDS THAT FOR! OMG ‘THE EX FILES’ IS THE MOST PLOT IMPORTANT EPISODE IN ALL OF TOTAL DRAMA...

Also wow Gwen. You gave Chris what he needed to destroy everything and everyone you love...

Gwen ruins everything.

Oh gosh now I have to talk about Dramarama even if I've never actually watched it and never will... here we go.

SO, Dramarama as Chef as a babysitter of daycare of toddlers that so happen to be the Gen 1 cast.

Dramarama is not canon. But it IS canon at the same time. Here’s why:

The show itself? Dramarama? That’s fake. That was set up by Chris. This is ALL CGI, and a part of Chris’s scheme to brainwash people to consuming his content and act as a smoke screen for his crimes.

But the Chef part. I think he actually DID work at a daycare, just NOT with the OG cast as the toddlers he cared for. REAL toddlers, those are what Chef cared for. This is where Chris pulled Chef out from the gutter and got Chef to work with him for a better life. No more war. No more babies. No more loud noises. There would be nothing but order and proper service if Chef joined the dark side.

And Chef is all about order and service, so yeah. See DJ stepping out of line, Chef’s gonna try and get him, and when DJ quits Action, the animal curse is a punishment to get him involved anyway.

Dramarama, though Chris’s reference for this smoke screen show, is also a factor in why Chef acts... nicer in the reboot. That show is one of Chris’s mistakes that will lead to his downfall in his plan in the reboot’s new season(s?). Chris exploited memories Chef had and what they have DONE to the teenagers in these toddler roles. It really makes a man think.

That’s why in the reboot, if my theory is correct, Chef is going to be the driving force of the rebellion, and turn on Chris McLean in a redemption arc for him.

That stare in the reboot intro ain’t a couple stare. That’s a light side vs dark side stare.

Also going back to these toddlers... they are also robots. No getting around that. But they are also the people Chris TARGETS to brainwash into his robots as his generals.

Did he succeed with all of them? NO. He did not. I will get to these people who didn’t.

BUT that leads me to the casts: The OG cast, the Revenge cast, and the Paketiew cast.

What happened to them?

I hate to break the news to you, but the OG and Revenge cast... they don’t feel so good.

It is safe to assume that if the island didn’t sink, but Mike, Zoey, Gwen, Cameron, Heather, and Alejandro were on it at the time, then they have ALL become the first victims of Chris’s robotic plans for them to start his apocalypse.

These six characters have been KIDNAPPED, and forcefully brainwashed into robots to serve Chris. You wonder where the interns are in the reboot. THESE characters. They’re the interns now. That’s why Chris killed the interns from the executives.

Is that what Blaineley was talking about?! How many people did Chris MURDER to make this happen?!

Mike, Zoey, Gwen, Cameron, Heather, and Alejandro have all turned into mindless slaves, and are on their way to destroy everything. We have NOT heard anything from these characters and what happened to them. So yeah. They’re goners.

Since All Stars is two years since Island and the reboot is fifteen years since island...

Yeah. THIRTEEN YEARS. This show just got a lot darker.

Have these characters aged? I don’t know. The Winter Soldier didn’t age when he was brainwashed, and the brainwashing I’m thinking of is similar to this, so...

We might not actually have thirty year olds if we see them.

BUT WAIT, THESE ARE NOT THE ONLY CHARACTERS WHO HAVE BEEN TAKEN OVER.

Ezekiel and Dakota, I think it’s safe to say they’re been taken over as well. They’re failed experiments of Chris’s plan A, and he can’t risk anything.

There’s also the All Stars cast in general who were flushed. Chris designed the toilet. He has control of it. He can very easily take over all these characters once they’ve outlived their usefulness. (I mean what else are these balloons for other than to imprison them to be brainwashed later?)

So that’s Mike, Zoey, Gwen, Cameron, Heather, Alejandro, Ezekiel, Dakota, Lindsay, Lightning, Jo, Sam, Sierra, Courtney, and Scott almost certainly captured.

Am I missing somebody from All Stars?????? Eh, I can’t think of anyone. (I’ll get to this.)

And there’s one person we can add to the certainty pile and that is Izzy.

Why? Again, Izzy KNEW. She found out about Chris’s plan right away, and acted crazy to keep him from catching on that she knew. She was going to use the show to make a plan to stop this.

Whether or not her methods of doing so make her the good guy of an evil madman is up to you.

Point is, her plan failed. Chris realized she knew, and had to get her out of the picture. How does he do that?

Simple. Spend the money on the hot tub and crash the plane, making Izzy get brain damage from the impact. Therefore, she can’t process herself, and she’s gone as a threat.

But is she really?

In this same episode she talks about making a time machine.

HUH. I WONDER IF THAT’S FORESHADOWING A PLOT POINT ON HOW TO DEFEAT CHRIS.

She also makes a cameo in All Stars and sees through Mal. It’s safe to say she’s been taken over.

How did Chris even get camera’s in Mike’s head anyway?

Was Mal Chris’s original creation for his robots? Did Mal sacrifice his sanity to save Mike with the split personality?! (Well the MPD in this show is offensive either way, but for the theory’s sake, let not)

I don’t think Mike won guys...

But wait, how did Chris even get this tech, let alone perfected it?

Paketiew Island.

Here is the craziest part about this entire theory. We know Paketiew Island is a robot island made by Chris that hosts a ton of robots, almost explicitly designed for an apocalypse.

Chris filmed his OWN PLAN as a plot device to brainwash everyone into thinking the plot itself was fake and wouldn’t happen years later.

He used Dramarama to grasp that concept to the audience to shut their brains off further so they don’t question it.

This is LITERALLY the effect of that scene from the LEGO Movie.

“Wait did he just say PUT TO SLEEP?!”

“Tonight on ‘Where Are My Pants?”

“What was I just thinking? I don’t care.”

But wait, wouldn’t the Paketiew campers, who have seen this, be onto Chris anyway?

Yeah. They would.

IF THEY EXISTED.

(NOW I think I’ve lost you all)

You know WHY the Paketiew campers are SO unrealistic?! It’s because they are CGI models Chris designed to exist ONLY in that season and be used as placeholders for his propaganda.

Yes. You heard me right. EVERY MEMBER OF THE PAKETIEW ISLAND CAST DOES NOT EXIST.

AT BEST, they are already turned robots who are spies for Chris McLean on approaching their master plan. Maybe they are teenagers who did exist and were kidnapped, BUT their personalities in Paketiew Island are ALL FAKE. DESIGNED BY CHRIS.

The ONLY fragment that does is Leonard who appears in Ridonculous Race. But it’s easy to assume he’s CGI as well as Tammy who is his copy. They are both robots by Chris, and when Don realized this, he ditched them in the desert.

Speaking of Don, he just SO HAPPENS to have the same voice as Chris in the reboot!

And in Action, Chris could also do accents. Huh, I wonder what his REAL voice this WHOLE TIME was.

And by the reboot, everything’s perfect and Chris doesn’t have to hide his voice anymore.

So wait, Don is Chris in disguise?!

Or are these two RELATED?!

We don’t actually get Don’s last name, which is odd for a celebrity character in this show. Or did Don change his name to hide his identity from his evil twin?!

Don and Chris are identical twins, and Don is the good twin. Don is the one who may not have realized Chris’s plans before All Stars, but when Leonard comes in, he realizes what’s going on, and needs to use his race to make a team to put a stop to McLean.

Thankfully, he has two cops on his side, and members from Total Drama, such as Noah, Owen, and Geoff.

With this in mind, these three are certainly SAFE from Chris’s apocalypse for now. These guys have aged into their thirties, and are unsure what happened to the others. Noah’s introverted, and Owen has failed multiple times to be in contact with Total Drama anyway, so it’s safe to say these two are oblivious to what happened. Geoff’s major connection was Bridgette, and he would have PTSD if Bridgette was captured, so it’s safe to say Bridgette’s okay too.

So that’s four TD characters who are most certainly safe from Chris’s plans, and once they’ve figured out everything, they COULD return to try and stop this to defeat Chris once and for all.

There’s A LOT of great characterization that could happen here with these guys, especially with their arcs in TD itself. Noah could finally get off his butt and be a scheming hero, Owen could get revenge for his mistreatment on the show, and Geoff could be THE mentor character with the knowledge on the show’s corruption. Lord knows a LOT of these reboot characters need that.

But there’s one more character I’m putting in the safe pile, and that is Duncan.

I WILL EXPLAIN RIGHT NOW.

YES, Duncan was in All Stars, and is in prison. Surely, if Chris had captured everyone else from the All Stars cast, he has his hands on Duncan too.

And he would have. But I said, “Everyone who was FLUSHED”

What is the ONE non-finalist-appearance character in All Stars that did not go down the Flush of Shame? Duncan.

He didn’t get flushed because he was arrested. Chris arrested him and threw him in prison instead, as Chris wanted nothing to do with him.

Well that’s stupid on Chris’s part, right? Why not just brainwash Duncan then and there? Why go through that trouble? Especially when you keep the guy around and TRACK HIM DOWN WITH A TERRORIZING ROBOT.

Chris DID have an eye on Duncan, and WAS going to add Duncan to the brainwashing pile. After all, Duncan had everything Chris was going for, a rebellious teenager with great strength, street smarts, and skills in the crime area. He seemed like the perfect minion, right?

If he was actually loyal to Chris.

Red flags started when Duncan quit in World Tour, but the kick of the bucket was Duncan betraying Chris’s storyline for him. Chris FRAMED Duncan to become this redemption arc from villain to hero. His own criminal baby is now a good guy, therefore Chris is a good guy...

And then the burning of the house happens.

Yeah Duncan wasn’t gonna be loyal to Chris, and he could get away, SO... throw him in jail. No need for him anymore.

But that would end up being a BIG MISTAKE. ANOTHER factor in Chris’s eventual defeat.

By throwing Duncan in jail, Chris made it so that Duncan AVOIDS getting brainwashed into a robot and Chris’s slave for the apocalypse. Thus, a crafty delinquent got away, and is alive in a cell, and will be released to figure out what exactly Chris had done.

...whoops.

“I did NOT think that through!” -Storks

Oh yeah, also in Canada, someone who is charged for arson can spend at least 5 years in prison. BUT I would assume Chris would want Duncan locked up as long as possible, so the maximum of Duncan’s sentence would be ten years.

Going by my calculation, what is the gap between All Stars and the reboot?

Thirteen years.

That’s really close, and definitely enough time for Duncan to be grieving in PTSD and find out about the reboot happening.

Whether Duncan undergoes an actual redemption arc or becomes a full on villain who sides with Chris, is a completely different topic.

So we have a host and five characters who know about the upcoming apocalypse, and are prepared for Season Two. With the whole season out in one day, they are ready as ever to locate and strike.

And this very reboot, is Chris McLean’s climax to his plan. By this point, the ENTIRE WORLD is dependent on reality TV, and Total Drama. Evidence is from MULTIPLE characters in this reboot.

Priya’s parents are fans who gave birth to her so she could be on the show. Her whole life IS the show.

Millie is spiteful of the current generation and their appeals. (She’s right, y’all are just mean)

Julia is a HUGE influencer with loads of fans who praise her for being a piece of garbage like Heather. She even enjoys the idea of being called a villain. She’s AWARE of the stereotype!

Damien’s friends influenced him to join the show, which means they are fans and are a part of the scheme. Damien is a precious puppy who is too pure and he needs to be protected at all costs.

Nichelle is a movie star who is a part of television.

And Axel.

Yeah, you KNOW Axel is vital to all of this.

Axel is a part of the military and is prepared for the apocalypse. She KNOWS what is about to happen. THIS is why she tried to take charge of her team and start a revolution before it’s too late. And Chris had to shut her up by rigging her elimination. Yes, her elimination was rigged, I’m convinced.

I don’t know exactly what they plan to do with Axel, but it’s certainly important of a role she has.

You KNOW she’s been onto Chris when she has a cardboard cutout of Shawn. SHAWN DOESN’T EXIST.

This cast is the very last step of Chris McLean’s plan. Now that they have the groundwork for a basic TD season, they are blindsighted, and now Chris can use this new season to take them over and start the apocalypse on the ENTIRE WORLD.

UNLESS, these teenagers are actually going to be the SAVIORS of everyone. And they’re gonna be the ones to defeat Chris McLean and set the old casts free to live out normal TV-free lives.

And they’re starting to become AWARE of their situation they’re in.

Damien is an obvious one as someone oblivious to the entire thing.

MK knows how to access the tech and can see things.

Julia’s fingers.

The robotics of certain challenges.

SEVERAL FORTH WALL BREAKING LINES:

“Wait, WE’RE on TV! Does that mean we’re not real?!” -Wayne, Episode 4

And basically this entire scene in Episode 9:

“What are teams? A bunch of people that compete against each other?”

“Yes.”

“No man, they’re friends. Being forced not to be friends. And I say enough of that!”

“Is there any way to speed this up?”

“I secretly join both alliances into one big seven person alliance, and we’re voting YOU off!”

Yeah, I’m sure that SOUNDS stupid of an idea to the others. AT FIRST. It totally won’t be an idea later. (I love Zee.)

So to set the groundwork on all of this, I can briefly go over who would be the saviors, and who wouldn’t. Cause not everyone will.

Already, Axel is on Don’s side. Like I said, her role is major enough that the show has to kick her out before she can do anything. She’s the one who’s prepared for this and is the biggest asset.

I feel like Nichelle could go either way, as she’s now revealed to be a fraud under TV, which is disgraceful. She could get her fame back, or she could find a different way to be a fighter.

Damien is not aware of the game, and decided he is here to stay. This is HIS time to be a competitor for an even bigger prize: safety for everyone. Again, Damien is precious.

MK... well she clearly has skills that can help, but she also probably won’t want to side with Don. She’s a thief who does her own thing. She’s only gonna want to look out for herself.

Zee... well, I already phrased the scene. This stoner character is gonna end up being the mad genius in the savior’s side.

Julia I feel is a definite Chris side and if she gets cancelled for TD, she’d willingly give Chris her brain. Her entire life is based on her social media following with how many phones she has, which plays a contributing factor for Chris. And she’s very much aware of villains in this show, and that she is a villain. That’s her only label now.

Millie I feel like they’re setting a redemption arc for. Yes she hates our generation, but she’s also come to value her relationship with Priya. She’s getting character development. I feel like she’d be tempted by Chris, but she’d ultimately make the right choice and side with the rebels.

Bowie... yeah I love Bowie, but I feel like he’s gonna side with Chris.

It’s mostly because of this line:

“This challenge is definitely going to be my villain origin story.”

Whether or not Bowie is actually a villain is subjective. Personally, I think he has more dignity than Duncan. However, he is aware his actions are wrong, but he does them anyway because that’s how this world works. He can’t think about other people when so much is on the line. Course, he does care about people, Raj and Emma obviously, but though he’d probably give his crown to them, he isn’t giving everyone that privilege.

After the finale, he probably would side with Chris. But I don’t see him doing that with Raj in the picture, so I think it’s more likely this line is foreshadowing him getting captured and brainwashed into a robot.

Kinda breaks my heart to split up the gays like this.

BUT if Raj isn’t brainwashed, he could be a factor of a “I know you’re in there” moment. That could be cute.

And lastly Priya.

Yeah Priya’s the protagonist of the reboot. In the same vein as Gwen.

If my theory is in play, Season 2 would have a Hunger Games Catching Fire ending where the protag breaks the barrier separating them from the games and reality, and the rebels come to save half of them while the other half is captured by the bad guys.

Priya’s entire life was Total Drama and winning it. Well, she did. Now what? Sure she could do the medical school she dreamed of, but once she realizes Chris won’t allow them to leave Total Drama, she’s gonna be having an identity crisis and a half.

(And also question her parents like seriously who gives birth on a mountain at their own free will?!)

I also think her friendship with Millie is important for both of their stories. Millie is aware of this generation’s setbacks, and would definitely be aware of the setbacks of the show. Priya wouldn’t. Or, at least, she’d have a hard time accepting that. That could be interesting drama.

It could also lead to really neat interactions with Noah, Owen, Geoff, Bridgette, and Duncan. And also Sanders and MacArthur would be a part of this because, you know, they’re cops, it’s their job to take care of this. It’s like the tributes from The Hunger Games Catching Fire, but they’re actually fleshed out characters. (No offense Hunger Games, I love you)

No matter what, Priya is an extremely vital character in this story, and is gonna be the bridge in between Total Drama and real world drama.

My last point is that lets assume the reboot is structured like The Hunger Games. Book one was the game itself. Book two was the fallout after the game and the sequel game, ending with an escape. Book three is the rebellion and the apocalypse.

We know for a fact that the reboot is getting a second season. We have zero idea of a third season, and I think it depends on how well the two seasons do. (It looks like it’s doing really well from this season alone, so I have hopes)

This supposed third season would likely be the grand finale of Total Drama, which is NOT the game, but everyone trying to overthrow the game and rescue everybody from the REAL enemy.

This is The Walking Dead, but with robots, and with a happier ending (because kids show, we can’t end the story with everyone dead after all).

I am not even a fan of zombie apocalypse stories, but it would be neat to see this shallow TV-brainwashed world fall apart and for people to get back up again and see what really matters.

It would be a satisfying conclusion to ALL of the Total Drama generations.

And also get Chris a satisfying life sentence in jail. It’s what he deserves, if not worse.

Now, Total Drama MAYBE wouldn’t end with this, they could do an epilogue spinoff of all the generations adapting to normal life. Kinda like Steven Universe Future. But for the main story, I think it would solidify Total Drama as THE Survivor.

BUT HEY, THAT’S JUST A THEORY. A TOTAL DRAMA THEORY.

(This is likely never gonna happen, so don’t take anything here seriously)

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slocumjoe · 2 months

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Hello! This is a little out of the blue, but I'm outlining the last third of a big fallout 4 fic (this one, if you're curious), and I'm tying up all the companion character arcs. Its going fairly well... except for Danse.

I've been waffling back and forth about what he'd finally end up deciding to do with himself after being kicked from the Brotherhood. I've had him work with both the Railroad and Minutemen, drifting through their causes. He's helped out Goodneighbor to make amends for his past. Months of drifting and slow healing.

But as we reach the end, I'm not sure where he'll settle in at last. I'd even considered him rejoining as Elder of a reformed Brotherhood but that feels... wrong, after everything he's been through. Some bridges can't be rebuilt after they're burned.

So I thought I'd ask you since you've got a good read on the pulse of his character.

I don't suppose you have any insights to share for me? Thanks ahead of time if you do, and no problem if you don't!

uhmmm okay SO

This depends so strongly on like...what Sole is doing, or how you personally set up your story. I've seen basically one of two scenarios

The gang sticks together

The gang separates and goes back to what they were doing

I HAAAAAATE option 2 I hate it I hate it I hate it. It's not for me.

So, personally, my lil world has the gang all kind of be wanderers who were always trying to find their place in the world. That's a common theme with literally everyone except maybe X6 and Gage bc they're bitches but whatevaaa

Danse has a handful of motivations he can have after Fuckery, but my favorite are

Understanding his own identity as what he assumes is NOT his own identity

Coming to terms with his actions under the bos

Coming to terms with the BoS as a deeply flawed organization

Still continuing his personal goals of protecting the wasteland (though the methods may change)

So, my timeline of post BB danse is as follows;

Danse isolates in LPB until someone comes and fetches him to bring him back to Sanctuary. His plan was to just stay there and figure out what to do next, but his plans very much involved isolation. Sanctuary conflicts with this. At Sanctuary, he volunteers for guard patrol to both continue his mission of protecting people and isolated himself, as having Power Armor means he doesn't need any backup, so he can just go off on his own. So, Danse stays to his patrols and functionally doesn't exist to anyone if he's not traveling with Sole. He begins treating himself as a machine, limiting basic needs. This is also where he worsens his alcoholism and begins dabbling with chems.

His mental health gradually slips into a genuine loss of reality, and the others begin to notice that, hey, Danse keeping to himself is not what we want, actually. Augustijn takes him to Spectacle Island for a vacation and they talk a lot of stuff out.

Once Danse begins the slow climb from Rock Bottom, the game plan (from everyone else, as they know he's not at the point where he can just spring back from everything alone) is to just keep him busy with something. MacCready takes him to the shooting range, Preston talks strategy and history and such, Nick has heart to hearts with him, Cait spars with him, so on, so forth. Much of Danse's After involves the others and their genuine efforts into becoming a community for him.

Eventually, he decides to join the Minutemen proper as a Power Armor technician, though he ends up manning them himself on the battlefield more often than not.

But that's just what I have.

You're asking where he settles.

And that's the thing.

I don't think Danse settles, in most stories.

Danse gets a firsthand look at what can happen if you trust too much in something. Whereas Preston never stopped believing, Danse has his whole reality shaken, and his faith in the Brotherhood very much rattles. In most stories, Danse is more likely to just stick alongside his friends, wherever they go, and not have his loyalty lie with an organization. This could mean he tags along with Nick. Maybe he does join the Minutemen. Most likely, he just moves into Sanctuary and does odd jobs, takes the armor out to defend wherever needs it.

Danse is more likely to end up as a lone wolf than people think. In most cases, it's not good for him, but it's where he goes. Danse wants community, but someone has to protect that community. They have to do the dirty work. That work takes you all over and it changes you. You have to keep your distance for their sake.

It all depends on what you want to write. The fact is, Danse is so confused and lost after the Brotherhood, he could end up anywhere. It's really up to whether or not you want it to be angsty and bittersweet, or have him genuinely heal and grow into himself. The drifting is almost always going to be the first option. But if you want a happy Danse, you'll find that in a world where Danse has people to look after who look after him.

The best outcome for him to just become part of a guard force for a community. Not DC, though, that'd be a sore spot. He just needs to know he's keeping people safe.

#this is rushed im sorry but i dont have coherence rn but i wanted to answer bc I HAVE THOUGHTS

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bendgineer · 2 months

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I watched the first two episodes of the Netflix Avatar: The Last Airbender adaptation, and have to say! I'm enjoying it! I feel like it's hitting all the right emotional beats. The story is a little different as far as character motivations, but they are getting to the same places. It's definitely a bit more serious than the original animated series, but there is still some of that goofiness and lightheartedness there. I think the more serious tone is why they changed some of the character motivations. Like going to Kyoshi island, originally they go there so Aang can ride the giant koi fish, but in this series it's to find out more information about avatar Kyoshi and what being the avatar means. Like yes, there is a terrible war that needs to be addressed and this actually makes more sense as Aang's first step to saving the world. I love that they are giving Kyoshi a bit more space in this adaptation too. Her scene was SO cool. There's already quite a few little nods to the original series too. The clip of Aang running his air scooter into a rock from the original intro is created pretty much exactly. Gran gran says the words of the original intro too, even saying "everyone knows this". Even though the waterbending scroll episode plot is cut, they still get Katara the waterbending scroll and it looks so much like the one from the show. It's actually a sweet moment as it comes from Gran Gran and she's emotional about having had to hide Katara's bending and now she can start her journey to learning the art, and continuing the culture of waterbenders. I kind of like that this is what sokka and katara argue about at the beginning too. It kind of just makes sense? And yet they still show Sokka to be humbled by the Kyoshi warriors, specifically Suki, without him having to be so blatantly sexist. He's being egotistical and gets humbled. Thay scene when Suki cuts all the melon? Brilliant. Loved it. The show also quotes Kyoshi's "Only justice will bring peace" which is from the very end of the animated series when aang consults the past avatars about his reluctance to take firelord ozai's life. I hope if (when) they get to that point, they keep that line, as it would be a nice call back to kyoshi's introduction in this adaptation, which fits because that quote is so simple yet so powerful and really sums up her character. My only real disappointment was a few cut scenes/changes, but not too upset because I get it, they have less episodes to work with. But 1) foaming mouth guy 2) Sokka in the Kyoshi warriors garb, and probably the most important 3) the Agni Kai between Zhao and Zuko. Idk maybe they'll do something like that between Zuko and Zhao later? I just always thought it was an important part of understanding both their characters. Iroh's little talk with aang on the boat was nice too. Also! At one point Sokka says momo "probably tastes like chicken"? But there's no just chicken in avatar? Surely he should have said something like possum chicken??? And Suki, not an element bender, but evidently a makeup bender, for removing a full face of makeup by splashing her face in some water for 0.3 seconds lol

#word dump #sorry #avatar the last airbender #atla #netlfix atla #netflix atla spoilers

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free-for-all-fics · 11 months

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Squid Game prompts and thoughts. Yeah, I know this fandom may be dead, but these are old and have been sitting in my notes app for a long time so I figure I might as well share them here anyway. Maybe it’ll be revived at some point with season 2, who knows. If anyone is inspired by or uses these, pls tag me. I’d love to read it 💜

1. Since In-ho gave Jun-ho a kidney, what if you, In-ho’s spouse, have an unspecified life threatening disease but couldn’t afford treatment. You’re the motive for In-Ho becoming a dirty cop who takes bribes and later entering the games. After winning and becoming the Frontman, he secretly transfers you to his private quarters on the island while you’re cared for; mostly bedridden, closely monitored, hooked up to tubes and wires with all the medication you need, etc. Maybe you’re put in a medical coma or are otherwise in and out of consciousness/disoriented and lethargic. He spends years using his resources and power as Frontman to cure you. Even if he keeps you sedated to take that edge off reality and make things sort of a blur for you. So you’re in an almost constant stupor where you think you’re dreaming even when you’re awake, etc. He’d try to keep you in the dark about the games and what he does, but what if you know more than you let on? What if Jun-ho inadvertently found you while snooping in the Frontman’s private quarters during his investigation into the disappearances of both you and his brother? (Ep. 5 & 7)?

2. “Isn’t the idea supposed to be ‘you saved my life, now I owe you a debt’?”

“Nope. You saved my life, now I’m your problem.” With either Salesman or Frontman.

3. It’s been a few weeks since your (relative, friend, neighbor, you choose.) went missing. You hear a knock on the door. As you open it, you realize that the man in front of you is not a typical solicitor or salesman. Before you can say anything, he says, “They said you’ll pay the debt.”

4. He’s one of the best recruiters for the games. A mastermind of persuasion and manipulation. He could sell rocks to jewelers, woo any man or woman, and even get away with murder. Until he meets you, his match: The most obstinate, unyielding, stubborn person whom he’s ever encountered. Your personal records tell him you’re not in the best of situations, and yet you’re not falling for any of his tricks or games. There’s nothing you seem to want or need that he can offer you. You keep turning him down, declining everything he claims he can give you, totally uninterested and not falling for any of it. But that just makes you all the more intriguing to him. As frustrating as you are, you’re a challenge. And neither of you are ones to give up easily. Maybe he won’t recruit you to play in the games after all. Maybe your resolve to resist temptation shows him you have potential for something even greater.

5. You’re one of the most aggressive salespeople alive; you steal money from your “customers” but leave an item they want, of equivalent value, behind. You’re threatening the Salesman’s “business” by taking away his “customers”. He has to decide what to do about this. Would he try to get you out of the way? Or Perhaps you could be a useful “business” partner?

6. The world’s most arrogant salesman meets the world’s most ignorant customer.

7. In-ho and Salesman, or In-ho and Jun-ho prompt: After years of struggling to pay off your college tuitions, all your debts are taken care of. Relief grows into suspicion when you come home. An unfamiliar black vehicle is parked nearby. Two men in expensive suits stand up when you enter. How did they get inside? “You’re not an easy person to track down. You know that, right?”

8. You’re behind on payments. A salesman recruits you to do a “housekeeping” job to clear your debt, handing you a card. His “colleague” (The Frontman) will act as your benefactor if you accept. It isn’t until you’re kidnapped and wake up on an island that you find out your task is to act as a forensic cleaner. You’re expected to wash away, disinfect and sanitize every game’s messes, removing all traces of murder and death after bodies are disposed. Not a drop of blood in sight. No human matter or fingerprints left to be found. You haven’t officially met the Frontman, but from what guards have said, you don’t want to know what would happen if he found out you missed a spot. The pink guards and surviving players leave you alone to do your job at the end of each game. But something is wrong. It feels like someone is still there, watching you at all times. What’s also weird is you’re assigned a room close to the Frontman’s quarters and kept separate from the other guards. He doesn’t trust the other guards to leave you be. Basically, you’re the only masked guard who’s a woman during the games. In-ho and/or the Salesman is interested in you and purposely sought you out. What happens?

9. You’re deep in student debt with no hope to pay it off in your lifetime, so you do the logical thing: Fake your death and move to South Korea to live an inconspicuous life under a new identity. The bank can’t really do anything since you’re “dead”. All your paper/online trails have been expertly wiped. So you thought. Some years later, door-to-door salesmen in your area start asking to be let inside. You know that’s not how salesmen do things. Something’s up. This prompts you to move around the country, never staying still too long. Seoul, Busan, etc. you’re on the move the second you feel they’re onto you. Until a man in a gray suit enters your train compartment and slides the door shut behind him. He sits next to you despite there being empty seats. His polite demeanor becomes unnerving. Small talk becomes invasive. He asks rhetorical questions - already knowing everything about you. He’s backing you into a corner. He opens his briefcase to display damning evidence detailing your “past life”, a sly smile on his face. Well, shit. Can’t run or hide on a moving train. And it’s a non-stop trip that will take a few hours. What do you do now?

10. Being In-ho and Jun-ho’s younger sister would include, before and after In-ho’s entered the games? Or maybe a fic where you’re their younger sister and unknowingly in a relationship with the Salesman (as in, you don’t know what exactly he does for work and are in the dark about your eldest brother’s involvement with the games. Your other brother doesn’t tell you much, if anything, about his investigations into In-ho’s disappearance, claiming the less you know the safer you’ll be. To you, your eldest brother is still missing after so many years and Jun-ho is still trying to find him. You haven’t heard from either of them in so long. Recently, Jun-ho has stopped responding to your messages. Now you’re getting worried. You may have to go out there and find your brothers yourself, to hell with the risks.)

#squid game x reader #squid game imagines #squid game imagine #salesman x reader #the frontman x reader #gong yoo x reader #random fic ideas #fic ideas #these are old but I didn’t have the heart to delete them

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karizard-ao3 · 6 months

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To be completely honest my main interest in an alternative ending would be a full on confrontation between Eren and Mikasa. Where she confronts him head on about the table scene, his shitty choices and motives, his betrayal and unjust treatment of her and their friends. Also getting more into Eren’s thought process. We had Eren’s breakdown with Armin but it’s not the same with Mikasa. Why he’d let himself die instead of being with her. Just the emotional and psychological charging of such a scene would be great. Most of these weren’t addressed in canon, and while angst is great (she gets the cabin dream but in that timeline the horrible things he’s done never happened so she could never call him out on the rumbling, and so on), I’d love to see this confrontation

Oh, that would be neat! I actually wrote a scene a long time ago where they have somewhat of a confrontation. I'll copy paste it here, but please be aware I had not written anything creative for years when I wrote this and I'm very self-conscious about it:

BEGIN SCENE

Mikasa Ackerman lay on her cot belowdeck, the boat’s gentle rocking lulling her as though she were an infant in her mother’s arms. She had been anxious and heartbroken ever since the walls of Paradis Island fell. Somewhere out there the love of her life, Eren Jaeger, was busily committing genocide and she couldn’t do anything about it but wait for their ship to arrive in Odiha, wait for the Azumabito engineers to assemble the flying boat, and then to try to find Eren and hopefully stop him (without killing him, she hoped, despite what Annie and Jean kept saying) before he flattened the entire planet with his horde of colossal titans. Her stomach twisted painfully as she remembered the last time she had seen him, when he had told her how much he hated her. He told her she was a slave to her Ackerman blood, that he couldn’t stand to look at her, and then proceeded to beat up their best friend, Armin. She hadn’t seen Eren since, and although Armin, the smartest person she knew, believed that Eren had been purposely pushing them away for unknown reasons, his words had been ringing through her head ever since. Her Ackerman blood undoubtedly gave her almost godlike fighting abilities, and the rumor was that it also made her resistant to the powers of the Founding Titan that Eren was now using to manipulate his titan army, but was it also really true when Eren had told her that her Ackerman blood had enslaved her to him? Was she only imprinted on Eren? She got headaches, just like he had said, but she couldn’t remember if the headaches had started before or after she had met Eren and he had draped his scarf around her neck. Mikasa gripped that scarf now and struggled to blink back her tears. She was so angry at him. How dare he cast her entire life and their entire relationship into question? They had always been more than just friends. They were each other’s only family, not by blood but by choice. She had risked her own life time and again to protect him (was that just her Ackerman blood in action?) He was her home after everything else was gone. She had thought he felt, if not as strongly about it as she did, at least something similar. Despite everything, she wished that Eren were here with her now. As much as he may hate her, as many people as he trampled, as angry as she was, she couldn’t pretend that she didn’t still want to be near him. She shut her eyes against the tears welling up inside them.

When she opened her eyes she was laying under a tree on a hill, the sunlight twinkling through the leafy awning above her. She gazed at the sun-spackled branches above her, knowing that if she only turned her head to the left she would see the walls of Shiganshina District there. This was the hill where Eren used to fall asleep when they were children. She was laying there now, just as he used to. Was she dreaming? As she reached up to wipe the wetness from her eyes, a soft exhale beside her startled her, and in an instant she had lurched upwards and onto her side, propping herself on her elbow and readying herself to grapple as she turned towards her unknown companion.

Eren looked back at her. His face fell as his eyes scanned her. “Were you crying?”

Mikasa ignored him and, with narrowed eyes, studied their surroundings. Behind him, flowers speckled the meadow. Bees bumbled from flower to flower, but she noticed that no butterflies danced among them. Odd. At the base of the hill, a poorly dressed little girl with blond hair and a sad face sat, running her hands through the grass and watching them through her bangs. Ymir. So this wasn’t real. Physically, Eren was thousands of miles away. They must be in the Paths. Mikasa looked away from the strange child and glanced back at Eren, who must have brought her here with the power of the Founder. She hadn’t realized he could change the scenery. Suddenly irritated that he’d had the nerve to drag her here after all that he’d said to her, she turned her back to him, reaching by habit for the scarf at her neck and realizing that it wasn’t there because she had stopped wearing it. She only held it these days, and only when nothing else could soothe her. It had been folded on her chest when she was on her cot and it either wasn’t here in the Path with her or had slipped to the ground when she’d been startled by Eren’s presence beside her. She slowly lowered her hand from her neck and placed it in her lap. She would not let herself look for the scarf in front of him.

“Mikasa,” Eren whispered, pained by the streaks of tears he had seen on her cheeks and the hollow way her back caved between them. He reached out a hand to touch her shoulder, then stopped and hung his head. He had made a mistake bringing her here. He hadn’t planned to at all. He had visited Armin and the rest of their friends already, then wiped their memories of it. They wouldn’t know they had even spoken until after his death broke the power of the Founding Titan and released his fellow Eldians from their curse. But Mikasa was different. She was an Eldian, yes, but she was an Ackerman, too, and there was a chance the memory wipe wouldn’t work on her long enough for her to kill him without regrets. He didn’t want to make it more difficult for her to do what he believed she was going to have to do, but here he was anyway because as determined as he had been to make her job easier, he had missed her and he had wanted to see her and he couldn’t bear the way they had parted and he was weak. He couldn’t let his last words to her be, “I’ve always hated you.” Now that they were here it was, once again, too late to undo things, so he might as well keep moving forward. He picked up Mikasa’s scarf from where it had fallen. Her head turned towards the movement, almost imperceptibly, but then she looked away again. He crawled around so he could see her in profile and reached out to take her hand. She let him hold it, but she didn’t return his steady squeeze.

“What do you want, Eren?” she asked flatly, staring forward towards the walls.

Eren didn’t reply, just held her hand and gazed at her, drinking her in; her sun dappled black hair, her bottomless dark eyes, and the scar on her cheekbone that was the only blemish on her otherwise pristine face. She buckled under the weight of his eyes on her, and turned her head to finally look at him.

“What do you want, Eren?” she whispered, her heart feeling as though it were breaking. He looked so tired. She felt so tired. She wanted so badly for him to give her a reason to forgive him. He looked at his lap, where her scarf rested, and, letting go of her hand, unfolded it and reached out to wind it around her neck. The familiar warm weight of it settled around her collarbone, and she couldn’t resist nestling into it as a feeling of well-being flooded through her. Eren stood up beside her, and then reached out his hand for hers. “Please, Mikasa. I want to be home one last time.” He helped her to her feet and then, her hand still clutched in his, led her back towards the house where they had lived together with his parents after her mother and father were murdered. Behind them, the soft footsteps of the shabby little girl rustled through the grass and then padded on the cobblestones of Shiganshina.

As they walked, Eren’s warm, rough hand became smaller and softer, her own shrinking in kind. When they stood before the old house they were nine years old again. They, like the house, no longer bore the scars of the Titan attack that had turned their whole world sideways on that day so long ago. Mikasa slipped her small, dimpled hand from Eren’s and pulled her scarf up over her nose. “Do you want to go inside?” she asked.

“Not really,” said Eren, a serious expression cast over his small face. “Most of my fond memories are of playing outside with you and Armin. I like this view of it.”

Mikasa stood beside him and looked at the house, remembering the one happy year she’d spent in Shiganshina with him and his family before the walls fell. Back then she, Armin, and Eren would tear through town like wild animals, laughing and shouting, before falling in exhaustion beside the canal or on the hilltop outside the town to stare out at the sky above the wall and talk about the limitless possibilities that lay before them in the way that only young kids can. She even fondly remembered the childhood scraps they got into with the local bullies. The stakes had seemed so high at the time, but she had always been able to save her her friends when their enemies were just mean older boys.

As if he could read her mind, Eren asked with a wistful chuckle, “Do you remember all the times you had to jump into a fight I had started and rescue me from my own hubris?”

Mikasa smiled in affirmation and then began walking down the road aimlessly, but in the general direction of Armin’s house. Eren trotted to catch up with her. “I never appreciated it at the time, but I always relied on you to save me.” They walked side by side in silence for a few moments. “Mikasa,” said Eren, “I know you’ll want to try, but it’s too late to save me now.”

Mikasa stopped walking and turned to look at him. She opened her mouth to disagree but Eren stopped her with an upraised hand. “It’s too late. I’ve started wheels turning that I can’t turn back. I’m not smart like Armin. Maybe if he were in my place he could have found another way, but all I could do was follow the plan that I saw in my father’s memories and not burden anyone else with what I was going to do. Maybe it’s what I wanted to do. It’s all become twisted in my mind…” He trailed off for a moment, then regained his focus. “This is what I need you to accept.” His eyes bored into hers, his small face growing dark as he repeated, “It’s too late to save me now. All you can do is stop me.”

Mikasa chewed her lip, looking down at her feet. She had already known it was too late. It was too late the moment he had deserted the Survey Corps and disappeared into enemy territory. It was too late the night that Eren had summoned her and the rest of the Survey Corps to Marley so that they could extract him after he had destroyed the Eldian ghetto of Liberio and stolen the Warhammer Titan from the Tybur family. It was certainly too late now. But, there had been a different night in Marley, when maybe things hadn’t gone too far, and Mikasa had often wondered what would have happened if she had answered Eren’s question differently that night. But, no, it was too late for that, too.

Eren looked at her intensely. “Will you stop me, Mikasa?”

She was quiet for a long momet. Finally, “I have to,” she sighed.

“Will you be the one to kill me?”

“Is that the only way to stop you?” she gasped.

“Yes,” he said, somberly.

She hung her head, her stomach roiling with emotions. “Is that… what you want?”

Eren hesitated. “Yes.”

“Then, I suppose I can be the one,” she said, her eye bright with tears.

Eren touched her cheek, making her look at him. “I’m inside the mouth. I don’t know if you’ll remember me telling you this, but… that’s where I am.”

She and Eren looked at each other for a long moment, then Mikasa nodded, and looked away.

Eren looked up at the sky, watching for birds. “I don’t hate you, Mikasa. I’ve never hated you.”

“That’s not what you said.”

“I was lying.”

Mikasa looked down at her hands, her heart quivering pathetically. “Why?”

Eren picked up a rock from the paved road beneath them and chucked it away. “I wanted to make it easier for you to fight against me. I lied about the Ackerman slave bond, too. I thought it would piss you off. Make you want to prove me wrong. Make it easier.”

"Well, you did piss me off,” Mikasa admitted, then looked up at him accusingly. “But you hurt me a lot more. You hurt me."

“I know,” said Eren guiltily. He paused. “I don’t know why you’re so nice to me, but it’s not because I’m your host. Zeke said- well. I don’t know.”

“You were a real asshole to me,” said Mikasa.

“I know,” said Eren, miserably.

“You really messed with my head. I’ve been questioning my entire identity this whole time. Armin said you were making it up, but…” she threw up her hands.

“I brought you here so I could apologize,” he said, weakly. “I didn’t want to leave things between us like that. You’re the most precious person in my life.”

“What about Armin?” she asked, squinting at him dubiously.

“He’s a close second.”

Mikasa regarded him coldly. She had already forgiven him in her heart, but she wasn’t going to let him off the hook yet. “We’re the two most precious people to you and yet you made me think you hated me and you beat up Armin. How could you do that to him? He’s your best friend.”

Eren looked away. “I wanted to protect you both from me.”

Mikasa tutted. “Why should I believe anything you have to say?”

“Because I have no reason to lie to you anymore. I’m never going to get to talk to you again out in the real world. I might get to see you for a moment before you kill me, but- well. I just don’t want to die without making sure my true feelings are known. I visited Falco to apologize for how I used him when I was in Marley, and do you know what he told the brat who killed Sasha? You know what, nevermind. I’m nervous. I’m prattling.” He took a deep breath, ran his hand through his hair, and began again. “Look, Mikasa, I know that all I am to you is family-”

“That’s not true.”

His face fell. “Are you saying you don’t even consider me family anymore?”

“No, I mean you’re much more to me than that,” said Mikasa, angrily.

He looked at her sharply, then blinked in disbelief. When he opened his eyes again, they were standing together in the lot outside the refugee camp in Marley, the first time they had gone. The bright tents lit up before them. Lurking near the biggest tent, a poorly dressed little girl with blond hair and a sad face stood, her face tilted up towards the moon, her shadowed eyes watching from under heavy lids. Eren looked at Mikasa. She looked back at Eren, clad in his Marleyan suit, his dark hair brushing against his jaw line. 18 years old. She could tell without looking down at herself that she was also 18 again. Her woolen Marleyan blazer tickled her skin, just as it had back then. Eren looked down into Mikasa’s face. “But that’s not what you said.” His cheeks flushed red and he looked at his hands. “I asked, ‘What am I to you’,” he mumbled. “And you said-”

Mikasa could feel her own face burning as she also looked down at Eren’s hands worrying at his coat. Since there was nothing left to lose, she said, “I guess I lied to you, too.”

“Why?” he asked, his voice breaking.

“I was afraid of what you would think of me if I told you how I felt,” said Mikasa.

Eren looked into her eyes, just as he had that night that had not been so long ago, even though it felt like a lifetime. “Then… what am I to you?” he asked.

Mikasa smiled sadly. “All my life since I met you, all I’ve wanted is to be by your side. Just once, when you go away I want you to take me with you. I want to run away with you and spend your last four years together, just the two of us. I just want to be with you, at your side.”

Eren’s eyes widened as she spoke. What would he have done if she had said this to him on that night? Would he have been able to slip away the next day and take his first, irreversible step towards genocide? He had been looking for a way out then, and, oh, he wanted so badly to run away with her still, but… It was too late. His face darkened as his heart twisted painfully. Mikasa saw his expression and hung her head, the paleness of her cheeks and the quiver of her lips reminding him of how she had looked when he told her he hated her even though he could never hate her.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I knew you wouldn’t… I’m sorry. I’ll go.” She moved to leave but he caught her upper arms in his hands to hold her in place. With her strength she could easily have broken free but she paused and waited for him. He could feel tears beginning to sting his eyes, but he ignored them. It wasn’t a secret that he was always crying about something. He leaned down and rested his forehead against hers. “I don’t want you to be with me in this hell I’ve made. I want you to be happy. I want you to be free.” His tears made good on their threat and began to stream down his cheeks. “But I also-” his voice broke, but he continued. “I wish I could be at your side, too, Mikasa.”

A surge of relief and sadness and longing washed through Mikasa. Slowly, she lifted her head to look at him, not breaking the contact he had made at their foreheads. They were so close that ther noses were touching. She could feel Eren’s shallow breath against her lips. Her own breath shuddered from her chest. She couldn’t see his mouth- their faces were too close- but she could picture it perfectly. She had often found herself preoccupied with the curve of his lips, their blush pink color, the mystery how how they would taste, how they would feel pressed against her own. Mindlessly, as if in a dream, she tilted her face up, bringing herself another fraction of an inch closer to his mouth. With a soft intake of breath, Eren closed the final, miniscule distance between them and those distracting lips crushed themselves against hers. They were soft, and warm, and salty- was Eren crying again? She lifted her hands to his cheeks and rubbed the tears away with her thumbs as he pulled her closer against him. She parted his lips with her own and their tongues caressed. The rough skin of his close shaved chin scratched against her own as they urgently entwined themselves together. Mikasa’s heart pounded as violently as if she were racing through the woods in her ODM gear. Then Eren’s kisses slowed and, with a look of pained effort, he stepped away, holding her away from him with the same arms he had just used to crush her to him.

“That was selfish of me,” he said, frustrated. “I can’t go back, Mikasa. I can’t undo what I’ve done. I can’t stay at your side. I can only move forward.” Fresh tears welled in his eyes, and he wiped them away with the back of his hand. Mikasa’s heart squeezed in her chest because he was right. She couldn’t be at his side, either. She could only stop him.

#eremika #ask me things #my asks #answered asks #eren jaeger #mikasa ackerman #attack on titan #eremika fanfic #fanfic #alternate endings #confrontation

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zosonils · 1 year

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Wait, no, actually, tell me about the Scribblenauts timeline. I must be real... I like it too. I love unifying timelines where things seemingly just happen, tell us!

scribblenauts fans rise up >:] to be clear this isn't an attempt to sort out the canon timeline [although if you asked i'd guess unlimited > scribblenauts > super > unmasked based on the few splinters of plot we get] but rather taking inspiration from the scraps of story available to build something new and coherent, although at this stage 'coherent' isn't super accurate lmao it's just islands of solid ideas amidst a sea of autism nonsense

basically i'm deciding that the doppelganger's presence in 10-5 of super counts as a plot and slapping that on top of the more consistently defined world and lore of unlimited and onwards [so kind of what unmasked and the subsequent comic did but batman isn't there], with an added sprinkle of the 'scribblenauts being an actual organisation that maxwell is involved in' thing that never made it past background details in the first game. while unlimited arguably has the most iconic and/or existent plot and for sure i want lily to be a deutragonist i'm not sure how much of it i'll retain because 1. turning your daughter into stone is bad parenting 2. let her tag along and be an actual character instead of a literal rock you cowards and 3. the more super-inspired storyline i have in mind with the doppelganger is probably enough to carry the emotional intensity of a mostly lighthearted story by itself and i don't want to bog things down with too many subplots lol

i'm absolutely reading too deep into this kiddie game but i think the doppelganger as an antagonist of maxwell's own creation reflecting all his worst traits would be super interesting in an environment that puts more consistent and deliberate thought into character writing, so that's the idea i'm basing this autism-powered rehash on. i don't think it's ever actually specified but when i was a little sporelet playing scribblenauts unlimited for the first time i somehow got the impression that starites grant wishes? which is cute so i'm using that as maxwell's motivation to join the scribblenauts and seek them out, that he wants to collect enough to wish for something cool and superficial that a 12ish [?????] year old kid would want. but then after lots of adventures and character development when he's in the dramatic final confrontation with his doppelganger and has matured enough to see him as a distressed kid in uniquely terrifying circumstances rather than just an annoying knockoff he instead uses his wish on giving doppelganger the chance to be a normal kid with a normal life because he wants to make kind decisions now. then i guess they all go home and nobody dies in a scripted ufo explosion

this post is getting toooooo long so i'm gonna try and wrap it up now but god i already have so many ideas rattling around my head for an autism reawakening that could be over in a week lmao. now i'm even sadder that my computer is busted because i want to replay unlimited and refresh my lore so badly..... there's a fandom page [breezewiki sweep though] for the series which has helped refresh my memory but none of the sources are cited it's a nightmare. what do you mean maxwell and lily are twins for the love of god give me a single screenshot or manual scan that mentions this

also i didn't have a good place to insert this but even though edgar and julie having 42 kids is obviously a Silly Joke and excuse to give unlimited some unique characters i am choosing to interpret it as them being experienced foster carers. i don't care to sort through every single character and decide which if any are biologically related to each other lmao but adopted/foster families are swag as hell and there should be more of them in media! it also adds a nice layer to the doppelganger plot - maxwell is more willing to reach out to him because he's seen 'angry bitter kid who will only get better with kindness' in a lot of his brothers and maybe himself, and it gives doppelganger an easy place to go for his happy ending because maxwell's parents are experts at taking in kids like him. didn't want to end this post without mentioning this because i'm already suuuper attached to the concept

#[not] sorry for the long ass scribblenauts infodump i just love the goofy noun kids! it may happen again #just fucking whatever #scribblenauts #yeah i'll tag this why not. see if i can get the 3ish active scribblenauts fans to weigh in on my deranged nonsense #also you know how i mentioned in the tags on my last post that one of my overambitious hyperfixation ideas was a super remake #cause initially my idea was that vanilla 5-10 is the 'normal' ending but if you've collected every starite you get this 'good' ending #i dunno that just seems like the kind of slightly annoying design decision that a late 00s ds game would have made hsnbkjndhfhnjj #i'm so normal about this fucking baby puzzle game. can you tell #long post #at least i think it is. i don't use mobile if i can help it #mysthalery

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cloudborn309 · 7 months

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FE OC Week Day 3: Backstory

ugh been so busy today so I didn't have much time to draw anything so I'm just gonna throw the abridged, somewhat messy backstory I wrote down without any fun doodles

I have a bunch of headcanon stuff so it's a little different to canon so just bear with me

Spoiler warning for Fire Emblem Fates Revelations below

Iris was raised in one of the 12 Manokete clans that lived on the Isles of Kah’Rah; a far away tropical island. She grew up in the Mangrove clan with her twin sister Ossiedian, and the two aspired to grow up and become just like their mother, Kanresh, a Spire Guard.

Spire Guards were the most revered and respected roles a Manokete could achieve. Spire Guards lived in the large jagged rock spires that jutted out of the sea that surrounded the islands. These Spire Guards would protect the Isles of Kah’Rah from humans. Some of the humans that came to their islands meant no harm, like sailors lost at sea, or merchants who got caught in a storm. Others had less than dubious motives. Hunters who craved the glory of bringing home the head of a Manokete, or perhaps hoped to butcher their bodies for magical ingredients for potions. Some of the very worst of them were slavers who would take and sell them to the highest bidder. Spire Guards were trained in combat for at least 100 years, and were taught how to speak common to communicate with ships that sailed too close to their waters.

Iris and Ossiedian trained since they could walk, and when their mother passed on they took her place. They lived and worked as Spire Guards for nearly 400 years, until Iris decided that she wanted something more. She loved being a Spire Guard, but she longed to be a mother. She had courted many over the years, but none were meant to be, so she asked if one of the other Spire Guards, her good friend Tahron, would sire children for her. A few months into her pregnancy was when the Night Stalkers came.

Invisible soldiers pillaged their home, and dragged Manoketes into the sea. Despite her combat training, she was overpowered. As the water swirled around her, she found herself in a strange place, somewhere she had never been before, with a stranger she had never met.

Her people had been attacked as a test of power for the stranger.

The Manoketes he had captured were merely a trophy for him, things to watch for entertainment. He hated all life, but held a particular hatred for Manoketes. He wanted them to suffer.

Iris was the only one who knew how to fight out of the captured Manoketes. The others were either elderly, young children, or adults that were too weak to defend themselves against the onslaught. Iris became the leader of the small group of Manoketes, and carried the burden of ensuring their survival, by any means necessary. The stranger wanted entertainment? Iris could play his game. In exchange for the safety of her newborn twins and her small group, Iris did whatever was asked of her.

She became a gladiator.

She managed to amuse him for 10 years.

Iris had noticed, as the years went on, the stranger was losing his sanity. His speech was erratic, the battles he wanted more bloody, more violent, more painful. It was only a matter of time before he snapped. She wasn’t sure why exactly he didn’t just kill her, perhaps he wanted to watch her suffer as she tried to find her way back to her family. He always watched. Just as she had been dragged from her home, she was dragged out of the strange place, back into water. However, when she emerged, she found she was not home. She wasn’t sure where she was. Wolven shapeshifters found her quickly, and took her to their clan leader, who offered the fellow shapeshifter shelter. When Iris tried to explain what exactly had happened to her, she found herself in unbearable pain. Her throat burned, her insides churned, and she felt herself nearly disappear, before she closed her mouth.

…Why couldn’t she talk about what had happened?

She didn’t test her luck after that. After she regained her strength, she bid her hosts farewell, and travelled the lands in search for her family. She came across another shapeshifter clan, this time they had fox features. They welcomed her in just as the previous one, but just like the wolven clan, they couldn’t help her in her search.

It was a little over a year when she returned to the wolven clan, and found their population was nearly halved. The clan talked of invisible soldiers who dragged their people into the water, and disappeared along with them. The leader of the clan joined Iris in search of the invisible soldiers. They journey to the other shapeshifter clan, and just like the wolves, they had a similar story. The leader of that clan joined Iris and the wolven shapeshifter, and the trio began to investigate, hoping that together they’d be able to find and free their people.

#fe oc week #fe fates #fe14 #fire emblem oc #fire emblem fates #fire emblem

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altheneum-writings · 17 days

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Hey! The person who requested the Courtney one here! Thanks for answering my request. I thought about another one,a kinda of unhinged and silly reader. You can decide the characters :D

Also,can i be 🍁 anon? That's all,bye!

you've given me the power to do what I want now you will suffer it's consequences

a drink for my absence? sorry for the wait! it was hard getting my motivation back for a moment lol xP

contains; various/reader (can be seen as any relationship), somewhat heavy angst, comfort, fluff, crack taken a bit seriously

When you arrived on the island and it turns out almost everyone is dying, you made a vow to stay optimistic and be as wild as possible. the others were skeptical of you at first cause you were acting like an Izzy 2.0 but somewhat more unhinged than her, even she got sketchy of you. though when you proved that you weren't the killer and admitted that you're just like this normally then it's more understandable and there we're still times you made everyone laugh despite how dire the situation can be

times where you joked about Chris being a wuss, so you would shout "DOWN WITH THE KING!!" at the bonfire area with the others and they would cheer on and shout with you. it was like you made them forget a killer was even there!

you were known to be the sunshine character who is basically hyperactive, feral, and on crack, and who also has the love for arson and is the only person with a lighter

WHEN YOU LIVE:

so when Chris came back and had to ask you for help, you made a deal with him that the campers stay on the boat. along with his helpers. you led him to the spirits, under the guise of being their 'helper' too, though deep inside you we're pissed at him and when you saw they became vengeful spirits out to get him you used your unhinged appearance and personality to be very cunning.

you had cried when Owen and Noah died, you liked them, they balanced you out basically. You we're so pissed that the others can't find DJ yet, and with how angry you were with Duncan already you went out on your own to find him, your wrath was what made the killer avoid you. who knows what you'll do with a goddamn lighter and knife begrudgingly given to you by Duncan!?

when Chris died to the spirits taking him, you escaped with the other survivors.

right now, you made sure to keep contact with everyone, just to make sure they don't do anything stupid. you've not changed at all, except for maybe a few scratches and scars here and there.

WHEN YOU DIE:

you died the day before Chris came, you we're protecting Cody from the killer and distracted them by hitting their head with a rock hard. you ran and ran, until you're on top of the very same cliff your blonde friend fell from.

you weren't going down without a fight, and you fought against the killer for a good while but it seems there was no winning. so you wanted to make sure the killer came down with you, you lit your lighter and burnt them as you both fell from the cliff and landed into the ground.

Cody mourned for you that day when everyone found your body, the killer's was no where to be seen but judging by the blood they're long gone by now. everybody was deeply upset for you, even Eva and Duncan, you practically kept a strong attitude and a brave face the whole while. Heck, even the spirits of those who were killed we're deeply upset you didn't survive, they were highly hoping you would but you kept up a fight and killed the killer so that was enough for them.

when Chris came, your spirit didn't show your scars like the others so he was tricked by you into their trap.

you were happy the others managed to escape and survive, hoping they wouldn't come here anymore.

#island of the slaughtered x reader #island of the slaughtered

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writingonesdreams · 2 years

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Wince, Stop, and Comfort, for the Tiny Scene Game

Have fun! ✨

- Circa

Sky of shards

Summary: Backstory chapter about how Skye, Zephyr and Hal met for the first time. This is how it all started.

Author's note: Thanks for the words! I had this scene in mind for a long time and this just clicked together. I love how these tiny scene words provide me with the external motivation to write.

Also 2.1k words! This makes the draft officially 20k words long!✨

She watched them turn their backs on her.

Ever since Skye was little, her biggest fear was standing in a room full of people talking to each other. Talking happily and merrily and ignoring her.

It wasn't even that she was ignored. It was the responsibility. Like she was supposed to be talking with them, but wasn't, couldn't get into touch with them, all divided in their neat little groups.

All she could muster was stand there, paralyzed by her discomfort, by the feeling she was doing something wrong, being so left out, not wanting to annoy anyone, by mixing in. Asking. Reaching out.

She couldn't take the sight for more than 10 seconds before bulking. No matter how objectively ridiculous it seemed afterwards.

Just didn't expect it to happen here of all places.

The Flying Islands were legendary. Floating shards of earth in the sky, children running out of their homes to point at them, to add meaning to the shapes, to imagine what dragons might be sleeping there.

But the Isles were forbidden territory. Unexplored. Mysterious. Dangerous. The weather and nature there were so wild and unpredictable, humans couldn't tame them, even after 100 years of their sudden burst into existence.

They say they were created at the same time as the old Dragonknight Order fell. They say there was an explosion, conspiracy. Or an accident. Many versions and no way to fact check.

But there was a way to get to see them. One day excursion on the Islands with soon to be graduates from the most prestigious university of magic offered the one in a life chance to set foot on the Islands. Try to reach out to its wild magic with their own. Hope, semester after semester, that with this honour, one day, a discovery came.

Or any kind of new knowledge, really.

Skye felt so confident going there. She was the only mind mage in the last 5 years to go there, for the incredible rarity of mind mage graduates. She was with the top group of students researching it.

That fateful day, she wore a dark blue blazer to highlight her stormy eyes and a striped shirt. Had a new haircut, her silver blond hair just under her chin. She felt beautiful wearing her confidence.

All before the exciting research trip went to hell. A sudden storm caught their airship. They were stuck. Stranded on a small island, a shard shaped piece of rock and mud above a bigger greener shard.

The only means of transpiration without their automatically flown and failed airship were the magic powered gliders.

Gliders powered by physical magic. Soulfire magic that came as a visible tangible fog from the mage. Or Elemental magic, that involved the magicae of the mage connecting to their trained element. The element they were used to resonate with.

Mind magic was the only existing type of completely non physical magic. It worked on a mental level, connecting with anything with consciousness. It couldn't power the gliders.

So, her lovely classmates went ahead and abandoned her to her own fate. For the "greater good of the many'' they said.

"Really, you should insist on sacrificing yourself. You should want to save as many people as possible. Why are you making it hard on us?"

Their de facto leader, a blood mage, informed her in a completely serious, earnest tone.

Hard on you? I'm so sorry, it's so hard on you to write me off as useless and leave me to die!

What can you expect from a blood mage, right? Self-righteous idiots. Just cause their magic was the most used in the medical field, they thought they ate the universe's wisdom and had the right to use the "for the greater good" phrase. She never liked the sound of that argument.

A moral trap people told you, whenever they wanted you to sacrifice something they had no right to claim.

But now, she was the sacrifice for the greater good and she should be thankful. Even insistent and willing.

Looking at their departing backs, she didn't know if she wanted to cry or scream. But she held her tongue, her expression schooled in stony features. Her talent was always not showing her emotions.

Only one persona stayed behind.

Zephyr.

He had black curly hair cut short from the sides, but long enough in the middle to fall into his forehead. Sea green eyes, changing with the light, like they couldn't decide if they wanted to be green or blue. They fascinated her. Or they would have, any other day.

He had an athletic build and wore his shirt and blazer with enough contempt to reveal he wasn't used to them. But his face was calm and his voice steady as he argued with their classmates. In her defence.

"You can't just sacrifice a human life."

"Oh don't be so preachy, Zephyr. You have a soulfire training hall, right? You train that for heroic professions, like police, dragon management, rescue service? Didn't they teach you maths?" Her classmate said. Skye couldn't remember his name, although she heard it once. She was always bad with names. Names, faces, and people she didn't care about.

"Do you want to die?" Another added.

But he insisted on staying with her, although the endeavour seemed hopeless. There was no way he could help her on his own. Even if they thought of something, they probably couldn't do it without the gliders their classmates took, to heighten their own chances.

It shouldn't surprise her. In critical situations, people always thought of themselves. Fear for one's own safety was deafening. Hysterical. Unmanageable.

As much as she hated them for leaving, she didn't feel any comfort by Zephyr staying. It seemed futile, self-destructive even. Maybe he was calm, cause he was doing what he believed in, but was it worth dying for your beliefs?

Curious thing, to pity him and not herself. In critical situations, she blocked her feelings. Didn't want to feel anything she would if she let herself right then. Like a switch. Bet nobody else without her mind mage training could do it.

It was just the price she paid. With her magic potential, with her discipline of the mind and keen intellect, she could have chosen any magic. Blood magic even. All the respect and trust and money that came with that.

But no, she chose the magic that interested her, that she believed in, that made her heart sing and eyes sparkle, that made her life more interesting than her dreams.

Didn't realise that something so rare would be so barely understood. So unknown. That she would be written off as useless at the first opportunity.

She paid her price.

But what about Zephyr? He didn't fit in her constellation of the world. She hated he was the only one, her only saviour, her only hope, the benevolent one that pitied her enough to stay.

"Don't worry. I won't leave you."

She nodded and hugged herself. Pretended to be lost and scared. Rage and sense of offence wouldn't make her sympathetic to him and she didn't know if she didn't end up needing him after all.

Couldn't muster an answer though, so they walked in silence. Found a good tree to sleep by.

Zephyr gave her a reassuring smile.

Skye couldn’t wait until he fell asleep.

She reached out her fingers to him. Usually she had to make up pleasant dreams to make her clients grant her entrance into their minds. But this close up and at sleep? All guards down, trusting her to be an innocent frail little victim? Pche. All she needed was touch. One finger on finger.

She could touch him and go through his mind. One millimetre of skin and she would know who he was, why he saved her, what he was playing at. No way this was a selfless thing. Maybe he was in shock. Maybe he didn't believe the danger. Maybe he was too stupid or too arrogant to understand it. Maybe he wanted to be a hero. Maybe he was just suicidal.

If she touched him, she could know all about him. Likely why she was so bad with people. She preferred to get this "getting to know you" phase quickly and effectively over with. Just one little touch.

But when she reached out with her mind, the ground shook beneath them. The tree moved its roots, shifting them around their bodies, as if a hand was cradling them. She winced, but suddenly they stopped again, just barely not touching her.

Silence followed. The darkness felt thick against her skin, an itchy coat to throw away.

She shut her eyes. This wasn't right. She shouldn't be mind raping her saviour's mind. Even though she hated to be saved by this stranger. Even though she didn't want to need saving in the first place.

Her fingertips tingled with the prepared magic. Skye prepped herself up against the ground with both hands. This was wrong.

A drizzle started then. What a dose of bad luck today.

Closing her eyes, she lie against the ground, hands spread out around her body. The ground felt warm under her back, solid and strong. Why was it shaking? The shard was big and slow enough not to be able to feel its movement. Why did it shake?

The water from the drizzle ran down her cheeks, her neck, her bare arms. Palms turned outward, she let go of her ready magic, of the focus, like throwing an arrow into the sky instead of her unknowing victim.

A pulse. A flash of lighting to her body. A kick into her mind. Something responded. Something connected.

Skye never felt a mind like that. Her sense of her body, her situation, her surroundings disappeared. She was a blade of grass beside her head. She was a bee. She was part of the tree, roots deep underground, communicating with the other roots. Everything was connected. All the little pieces, the shards, the trees, the rocks, the insects made up a net of connections, of flashes of light, life, consciousness. A net over it all, pulsing, alive.

There was no way to stop.

And the net, it was still going. A leaf. A moose. A butterfly over a sleeping body of a dragon. Then she was a dragon, with the weight of wings on her back, with eyes yellow as melted gold.

As if the Islands lived. Breathed. Connected with everything and everyone, they were one big net, one big ecosystem. Exhilarating.

But still. Something was beneath it all. Not just a singular point in a net, but a voice. A consciousness.

Who are you? she asked.

Another mind. Very strong. Mingling with all the points, all the connections, but changing shape. It was sleepy and heavy and slow, but it was an entity separate from the living net of the Islands.

Who is asking?

It was a voice that answered, rumbling deeply in her mind.

She wasn't sure who she was anymore. Part of everything and nothing. Part of the Islands but also a person of her own. Skye. That was her name.

She couldn't formulate words anymore, swimming in and out of self-awareness. Turning into a stream of thoughts, memories, moments that made her a whole being.

So that was what she sent him. A focused stream of who she was. What she felt. What happened to her.

The consciousness, the stranger, shifted. Changed. Activated. Like waking up from a long dream, he, she or it reacted to her thoughts. To the onslaught of memories.

Now there were glimpses coming back. The person, vast and wide like a whole world, giant and overwhelming enough to connect with the whole net of the Islands, couldn't answer. It was confused. But still, she got the glimpses.

Explosion. Blood. Dragons. Giant castle-like building. Impressions and emotions. Pieces of sadness, of grief, of loss and a void.

Escape, escape, escape.

It was too much. He needed to escape. Turned into a tree. A rock. A fly. A dragon. What did it matter? Seeing the world from a different vantage point. Trying another form of existence. Everything, just to not feel the pain.

It took all her skill and experience, all her deep self-reflection and discipline to pull herself back. To realise how she was to separate herself from him. Skye. My name is Skye.

Who are you? she repeated to him. He was becoming clearer on the edges, forming a shape of colour and blackness.

Hal. The only word in the mess of thoughts and memories, of flashes that only vaguely made up a form.

He was too strong. A mage with so much power would be considered a god. The closest to a god their atheistic society, based around magic, had.

A god named Hal.

#writeblr #creative writing #my writing #writeblr community #writers on tumblr #wipnook

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spiderdreamer-blog · 1 year

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Treasure Planet (2002)

The year 2002 was a weird time for the Disney animation studios, to put it mildly. After the legendary stretch of films that constituted the Disney Renaissance-The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King-the yearly animated offerings were still making money, but they largely weren’t outright phenomenons anymore. Worse, competition had arisen both within and without: Pixar had totally changed the game with 1995′s revolutionary Toy Story, but the fancy new CGI bells and whistles were making more money than the studio’s traditional 2D animation and seemingly had more staying power to boot. Former studio chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg had left to form DreamWorks with legends Steven Spielberg and David Geffen thanks to a highly publicized power struggle with CEO Michael Eisner after the 1994 death of company president Frank Wells. They were succeeding too, with 2001′s Shrek being a (ahem) monster hit in particular. Eisner’s grip on the Magic Kingdom was slipping after this and other costly blunders like the creation of Euro Disney/Disneyland Paris, and he knew it. In the middle of all this, one of the most expensive films in the company’s history, a passion project for directors Ron Clements and John Musker, was nearing the end of production: a sci-fi adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic adventure novel Treasure Island. How does it hold up? Well, if you’re like me and grew up with this, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, and The Road to El Dorado on loop, the answer is “I cannot be remotely objective about that”, but let’s get down into the nitty gritty on why this movie rules.

I suppose in one sense, I don’t necessarily have to offer a plot summary. If you’ve somehow gone your entire life without knowing the basics of Treasure Island and its myriad adaptations, I’d love to see the realtor quote on the rock you’re staying under. Disney itself is no stranger to the property as a studio. The book served as the basis for Walt’s first big swing into live action territory in 1950, and quite a good one at that in its surprisingly faithful rendering of Stevenson’s red-blooded adventure. Not the least of which was Robert Newton’s immediately iconic, gloriously hammy West Country accent-fied portrayal of Long John Silver; if you’ve ever wondered why movie pirates sound the way they do, he’s patient zero. And of course there’s Muppet Treasure Island, a childhood favorite that has a surprising amount in common with Planet in terms of some of its adaptation choices (namely, making Mr. Arrow a stern, professional sailor rather than the drunken layabout of the novel).

Where Planet benefits the most is the meta-knowledge one is bringing to the story and updating it to fit within the lines of a modern feature film. Structurally, it’s fairly faithful as we meet Jim Hawkins (Joseph Gordon Levitt, still most famous for 3rd Rock from the Sun at the time) at the Benbow Inn and he obtains the fabled treasure map from Billy Bones (Patrick McGoohan, giving us a great death rattle in about 2 minutes of screentime), thus prompting a treasure voyage. But even in this early stage, there are smart changes: Dr. Doppler (David Hyde Pierce) is a combination of Dr. Livesey and Squire Trelawney so we can cut down on characters, for instance.

And most crucially, rather than a pre-teen, Jim is now a teenaged delinquent whose father abandoned him and his mother Sarah (Laurie Metcalf); the thirst for adventure and Treasure Planet itself is established in a tooth-rottingly sweet prologue, but now we have extra context and motivation in addition to the destruction of the inn. Jim wants to make his mother proud and feel like he’s worth something. Then, when we get to the ship, not only do we get the great reinvention of Captain Smollet in Amelia (Emma Thompson at her Emma Thompson-iest), Silver (Brian Murray) too is enriched by foreknowledge. Silver’s treacherous intentions are laid bare within minutes of meeting him rather than saving that turn for Stevenson’s famous apple barrel scene. But this adds tension rather than subtract. Now we wonder less that Silver WILL turn mutinous and more what it means for his and Jim’s relationship; the apple barrel becomes a lightning rod. He becomes an even more intriguing character as a result, one of the few genuinely morally ambiguous villains in Disney’s history that makes some surprising choices by the end.

If there’s one arguable flaw in the adaptation, it’s the depiction of B.E.N. (Martin Short), a robotic take on Flint’s old crewmate Ben Gunn. He’s a clever idea conceptually, especially with the angle of his missing memory circuit that hides a deadly reveal, and I like his gangly CGI animation. But he fits into a trend Disney was leaning into in terms of trying to recapture the lightning in a bottle that was Robin Williams’ Genie in Aladdin where they hired big comedy actors to come in and riff as the sidekicks so that they could boost the trailers with funny bits and ensure the parents their kids wouldn’t be bored. Sometimes this worked out splendidly (Eddie Murphy’s Mushu in Mulan is as iconic as his Axel Foley or Donkey in Shrek, Rosie O’Donnell and Wayne Knight fit in shockingly well in Tarzan), other times...less so (hi gargoyles in Hunchback and Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis just doing Bob and Dave McKenzie again as the moose in Brother Bear). To be clear, there’s nothing outright wrong with the character as presented. I think Short is a deserved comedy legend who also really needs clear direction so he doesn’t get lost in a sea of hamminess, but this is certainly a better showing of his eager-to-please neuroses than the likes of The Pebble and the Penguin. And he only comes in at the third act point, so there’s less time for him to feel jarring. But he doesn’t feel strictly necessary in retrospect, especially when the movie is already funny in cleverer ways (”Well, uh... thank you. Thank you very much! Well, I have a lot of help to offer anatomically— amanamonically— as-astronomically face smack“), and we have a Designated Kid Appeal Merch Sidekick in the form of Morph. Two feels like pushing it.

Of course, even if the story had been merely okay instead of better than average, this would still be one of the most visually striking films the studio’s ever released. Taking cues from the Brandywine school of illustration, the colors are lush and rich, and the alien character designs are appropriately outsized on such a grand stage. The action scenes are clever and creative throughout, especially the escape from the inevitable mutiny and a nail-biting outrun-the-clock climax. The CGI integration is a little easier to spot 20 years on, but the Deep Canvas process allows for all manner of imaginative spacefaring visuals, the Victorian-by-way-of-Star-Trek aesthetic (sailing ships in outer space is exactly the level of FUCKING AWESOME it needs to be), and especially Silver’s cyborg limbs married to his broad 2D frame.

Though it certainly helps when you have master animator Glen Keane supervising one of his best performances, marrying the subtlety and grace he’d achieved with characters like Aladdin and Tarzan with the bravado of his earlier villains like Ratigan or Sykes in Oliver & Company. Under his hands, Silver can go from garrulous and brash to quiet menace or reflection in the blink of an eye. John Ripa (recently co-director on Raya and the Last Dragon) has a tougher assignment with Jim considering he’s something of a straight man, but he rises to the occasion with touches like a ‘face mask’ adding to Jim’s brooding nature that gradually fades as he opens up emotionally. Ken Duncan adds another great heroine to his quiver after Megara and Jane in Amelia, especially with the cat-like features, and Sergio Pablos’ Doppler is frequently a comic highlight with his wild gestures and facial grimaces that anticipates the animator’s work on Klaus.

Things are equally great on the aural end. A year after his iconic work on Atlantis, James Newton Howard gives us another great old-school adventure score with Celtic/Gaelic influences that also gets rockin’ at points with electric guitars punctuating Jim’s most awesome moments. Yes, it’s very XTREEEME and 2002, no, I do not care. (YMMV more on John Rzeznik’s “I’m Still Here” musical montage, but I think it’s awesome) The voice cast is also well chosen in its mix of then-current-stars and more unusual talent. Levitt, as with Ripa’s animation, opts to underplay, but he’s far from flat and manages some moving moments of tenderness and anger. Murray, primarily a theater actor in life, goes for the opposite approach, marrying big theatrical emotions with Silver’s larger-than-life personality, but never loses sight of the character and is quite affecting in the film’s denoument. Pierce inevitably brings a bit of his Niles Crane to Doppler, but since that’s one of the best sitcom characters in history, I can hardly complain, and he gets the lion’s share of the film’s most memorable lines, including a priceless Star Trek shoutout. Thompson is stiff-upper-lip dry wit personified, and she gives an interesting tinge to a budding romance in the latter portions of the film. Metcalf only has a few key scenes, but builds an effective portrait of a struggling single mother within them; thanks to her, you really end up rooting for Jim and Sarah to make amends. Rounding out the numbers are Michael Wincott giving a scary-ass pirate filter to his iconic gravel-pit voice as the villainous Scroop (who gets a memorable spin on the typical Disney villain death-by-falling trope), Roscoe Lee Browne’s stentorian bass giving Arrow a do-not-fuck-with-this-guy dignity, and ringers like Corey Burton and Rodger Bumpass as a pair of robo-cops.

Treasure Planet’s story had a bit of a sad ending at first. Unlike the same year’s immediate hit Lilo & Stitch, it was a notorious flop financially, especially given how expensive it was to produce, and hastened the death of big 2D theatrical films at the studio who pioneered them. But it’s lived on admirably, and even with its flaws (I think we also could have done without the fart noises alien), I count it among my favorites. I miss this period of Disney theatrical animation, where strict formula gave way to experimentation and weirdness. We should do that again every so often.

#disney animated canon #treasure planet #reviews #media analysis

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rockislandadultreads · 2 years

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Even more fiction picks for AAPI Heritage Month

Patron Saints of Nothing by Randy Ribay

A coming-of-age story about grief, guilt, and the risks a Filipino-American teenager takes to uncover the truth about his cousin's murder. Jay Reguero plans to spend the last semester of his senior year playing video games before heading to the University of Michigan in the fall. But when he discovers that his Filipino cousin Jun was murdered as part of President Duterte's war on drugs, and no one in the family wants to talk about what happened, Jay travels to the Philippines to find out the real story. Hoping to uncover more about Jun and the events that led to his death, Jay is forced to reckon with the many sides of his cousin before he can face the whole horrible truth -- and the part he played in it.

The Cartographers by Peng Shepherd

What is the purpose of a map? Nell Young’s whole life and greatest passion is cartography. Her father, Dr. Daniel Young, is a legend in the field and Nell’s personal hero. But she hasn’t seen or spoken to him ever since he cruelly fired her and destroyed her reputation after an argument over an old, cheap gas station highway map. But when Dr. Young is found dead in his office at the New York Public Library, with the very same seemingly worthless map hidden in his desk, Nell can’t resist investigating. To her surprise, she soon discovers that the map is incredibly valuable and exceedingly rare. In fact, she may now have the only copy left in existence... because a mysterious collector has been hunting down and destroying every last one—along with anyone who gets in the way. But why? To answer that question, Nell embarks on a dangerous journey to reveal a dark family secret and discovers the true power that lies in maps... From the critically acclaimed author of The Book of M, a highly imaginative thriller about a young woman who discovers that a strange map in her deceased father’s belongings holds an incredible, deadly secret—one that will lead her on an extraordinary adventure and to the truth about her family’s dark history.

Strangers We Know by Elle Marr

Adopted when she was only days old, Ivy Hon knows little about her lineage. But when she’s stricken with a mystery illness, the results of a genetic test to identify the cause attract the FBI. According to Ivy’s DNA, she’s related to the Full Moon Killer, who has terrorized the Pacific Northwest for decades. Ivy is the FBI’s hope to stop the enigmatic predator from killing again. When an online search connects Ivy with her younger cousin, she heads to rural Rock Island, Washington, to meet the woman. Motivated by a secret desire to unmask a murderous relative, Ivy reaches out to what’s left of a family of strangers. Discovering her mother’s tragic fate and her father’s disappearance is just the beginning. As Ivy ventures into a serial killer’s home territory, she realizes that she may be the next victim of poisonous blood ties.

The Verifiers by Jane Pek

Claudia Lin is used to disregarding her fractious family’s model-minority expectations: she has no interest in finding either a conventional career or a nice Chinese boy. She’s also used to keeping secrets from them, such as that she prefers girls—and that she's just been stealth-recruited by Veracity, a referrals-only online-dating detective agency. A lifelong mystery reader who wrote her senior thesis on Jane Austen, Claudia believes she's landed her ideal job. But when a client goes missing, Claudia breaks protocol to investigate—and uncovers a maelstrom of personal and corporate deceit. Part literary mystery, part family story, The Verifiers is a clever and incisive examination of how technology shapes our choices, and the nature of romantic love in the digital age.

#Fiction #Books to Read #booklr #AAPI authors #asian american heritage month #asian american pacific islander heritage month #to read #Book Recommendations #reading recommendations #tbr #highly recommend

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wolfjawswriter · 10 months

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so I just watched the live action lil mermaid (don't ask me about it or I will go on a rant) SO prepare yallselves for the lil mermaid lco au none of yall asked for!

and yes this Tumblr post is all the au u will get, I wish I had the motivation to write a whole fic however I haven't had any ficwriting motivation in a while and I still wanna get this out there

because I like to change things up in aus based on existing ip for the sake of living it up, this is the story of Anthony Lockwood, a young merman, prince of the sea, who is obsessed with humans - he finds them to be such fascinating creatures, just like his parents did before him, but he and all the rest of Atlantica are forbidden of interacting with humans by his older sister, Queen of the oceans Jessica Lockwood, after the former king and queen were killed by fishermen

this doesn't stop Lockwood from collecting human stuff that falls from ships or that he finds in shipwrecks, wondering about human life and wishing he could learn all about it for his parents’ sake, to get the knowledge they so readily died for

this drives him to interact with a passing ship where he spies a bunch of humans celebrating, becoming entranced by one such female human among the crew

this human is Lucy Carlyle, youngest daughter of the queen of a pathetically small and insignificant Caribbean island. A lifetime of being ignored as the seventh in line for her family’s puny title led her to find friendships with the common folk of her island, most of which work as fishermen. Today is her birthday and she’s chosen to celebrate in one of the many boats she usually works in with her peers, dancing and drinking until a terrible storm rocks the sea into a frenzy. Lightning strikes a fire on the boat, forcing everyone to evacuate to the lifeboats.

unable to see the young woman drowned, Lockwood takes the princess and follows the boats back to the island, laying her down in the sand. Seeing as she’s terribly wounded and cold sick, he uses his Siren song, an ability legendarily used by sirens and mermaids to beckon fishermen to the sea so they drown, to heal her, making sure she’s found before he leaves

after this event Jessica could tell something was changed about her brother - his sharp nature suddenly dulled with daydreaming, and wonders if his stubborn attitude has finally been met with the stinging needle of love. She’s sorely disappointed to find it so, not with a fellow oceanid, but a human girl. In a desperate attempt to keep her brother safe, she destroys the secret collection of human junk his treasured

betrayed and hurt, Lockwood’s approached by a strange kelpie. She claims to have been an old friend of his parents who wishes nothing more than to aid her old friend’s beloved son in his our of need. A striking siren by the name of Marissa, she promises him to make his wish come true with magic almost as powerful as his sister’s - she can make him a human.

blinded by the possibility of seeing the girl his so infatuated by, Lockwood readily signs Marissa’s impossible contract; trading his Siren song/voice for legs, vowing to procure a true love’s kiss from the princess before the third sunset. he manages to swim back towards the island he took her to, and is quickly found by the townspeople, assuming he’d been shipwrecked from a trading ship, those pass a lot by the isle on their routes

since her rescue, princess Lucy had been all but obsessed with finding the mysterious man who saved her. It was nothing short of expected that she’d want to thank them, but the longer time passed since, the more seemed to go deeper than that to her friends. A growing desperation drove her to ask her family’s limited resources to search for him again and again, all throughout the island and the neighboring ones - Siren’s songs do have addictive qualities, probably the reason they were used in legend to compel fishermen to jump off their boats when they heard it

on one day she's about to search for the mystery man, she finds the townspeople helping a castaway who’d just washed up shore. Awash with empathy, she offers him a stay at her family’s modest manor, hoping that a comfortable bed, a safe roof and warm food might shake off the horrors he lived enough to restore his voice

despite her mind still being desperate to find the man who saved her, Lucy can't help but be taken by the castaway, mute though he is, and how he seems to be intrigued by everything around him - unable to express a single thought yet so clearly filled with ideas and emotions and desires - its endearing. she allows herself to be pulled away from her quest yet a second day in favor of showing him the small island, introducing him to her friends and watching him discover the world like it was new

by the end of the day she finds herself exploring the few inhabited areas of the isle where flora thrives the most with him, enjoying a quiet row boat jaunt. somehow she felt at peace there, just listening to the singing of crickets and the water rippling under them with a man who’s name she didn’t even know but whom it felt like she knew better than anyone else. there was something about him that gave her a strange feeling, one she’d never known - despite all the things they saw that day, his eyes always returned to her, his attention always came back to her. even now, faced with the beauty of a perfect night, he seemed to have eyes only for her. He spoke without words, a language that seemed to be made only for her and that she longed to understand

even the row boat getting tipped couldn’t ruin the night for her as she led him back to the manor, soaking wet and laughing, wishing him a good night. it wasn't much later that night that, while watching the sea out from her window, she’d hear the same melodiously masculine voice that spoke to her on the day she was rescued, and the Siren song’s hold on her would be revived once more into a frenzied bliss, finally finding the man

the next morning Lockwood wakes up to the manor’s loud preparations for a party, hearing the few servants around talk about the youngest princess having finally found the man who’d rescued her and her desire to wed him immediately. Despite the unfortunate interruption they’d suffered last night, Lockwood couldn’t have been more happy that he’d managed make her see the truth - he had saved her! he loved her! he wanted to be with her in this magnificent island of hers forever!

he searched for her to express his delight, only to find her and her family discussing the wedding, another man’s arm around her.

maybe he misread the signs. maybe he should have been more forward, however he could have done it without his voice, but he’d lost. he’d lost her. she’d fallen for another man, and he’d have to return to the ocean

idk who the fuck is the seagull, i didnt think that part bUT WHOEVER IT IS TELLS HIM ABOUT THE WITCH OR WTHEVER

lockwood hurries back to the Carlyle’s manor, intent on stopping the wedding. Just before the third sunset he manages to tear the necklace off the guy’s neck, releasing his Siren song

the spell of the Siren song breaks and lucy finally recognizes lockwood, not just as the guy who saved her, but the guy shes really in love with, and she runs forth to embrace him-

the sun sets and lockwood doubles over in pain. he looks down to see his legs tear off his clothes, transforming back into a single long tail. the guy transforms back into Marissa, the sea witch, who quickly makes her way back to the sea, dragging lockwood back with her

big fight happens, i dont particularly care about this part, all u need to know is yes lucy stabs marissa with a sunken boat, that bitch basically becomes fried fish

jessica sees how affected her brother is having to leave that human girl behind and decides to give him his human legs back so he can live with her

#wolfs disney scribbles #wolf shitposts #lockwood & co #lockwood and co #lockwood and co netflix #lockwood and co tv show #lockwood and co fanfiction #anthony lockwood #lucy carlyle #lockwood spoilers #I mean not really lnco spoilers but yes cause this is derived from the books canon so watch out #I feel like lockwoods the only one dumb enough to trust a sea witch that's why his the lil mermaid here Lucys wouldn't fall for that #its literally the movie but locklyle #i wrote this at like 1 am #this has been sitting in my notes for like a month still i wrote this after watching the movie

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