#otherwise known as one of the funniest things that has happened on one of these blogs that I've ever seen
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In honor of Christmas spirit, I will present you with things I love about my moots and why I appreciate them. Hope this there's you guys up no matter what you're going through right now, you deserve to have something good said about you, I love you guys <333
A/n: please excuse the few ones because now I've started to drink.. vodka mule.. hope I don't say anything too weird and I know I'm kinda a weak drinker, still building my tolerance and all.
Alright, let's start with my most favorite moot..
@puff0o0
🩷 You are so pretty love, how dare you ever say anything otherwise. The curly hair and it's beautiful color, facial features that look like they've been carved by a sculptor and down to your sweet voice. Physically hurts me to know that you're gonna say otherwise :((
🩷 Your writing? Fucking top tier fluff ever, those mean comments about it? Screw them, your writing got you to almost 3k followers and they're just jealous because they don't have that.
🩷 You are such a good friend, always caring for everyone and not asking anything for in return. Also please love, give yourself a break and please rest. Never will forget the first time we interacted because you are by far the sweetest creator who so happens to be well known.
@connorsui
🩵 Christmas is the time of giving right? It's time to give some back to you. I'm gonna get this out of the was, sweetie you are the best kind of reader I have ever come across and there's really only one of you, I wouldn't have it any other way.
🩵 You are the kindest and funniest person ever, your commentary keeps us writers motivated. I mean this genuinely, I find myself always looking forward to what you have to say on my works.
🩵 I'm sure many writers you've reblogged will agree with me, your commentary has honestly been the best, you sure know how to make me feel better about what I write. Also I'mma need some of those memes you use, you're so iconic and funny I can't.
@simp4konig
❤️ You don't give yourself enough credit for how much you help people boost their works, saying you haven't done much but commenting, talking to me and just interacting with my work does so much.
❤️ You are literally so nice to me, I don't even know where to begin with the list of things you've done that you refuse to be credited for.
❤️ You're so funny and another great writer, I hope that I see more of your writing along the way.
@blingblong55
❤️ First of all, who gave you the right and talent to be such a good writer? Genuinely, what kind of drugs are implemented in your writing.. you got me to like Makarov.. you're that powerful. I know I'm into villains but I wouldn't be surprised if you got me to like shepherd too... Please don't. (This is not a challenge please 😭)
❤️ How can I say this without sounding like a total fangirl? I'm obsessed with your work as you can tell, so much so that you're one of the creators who inspired me to start writing again and still as of now I think of your works while writing my own.
❤️ I DEFINITELY WASN'T SQUEALING AND KICKING MY FEET IN MY BED WHEN YOU FIRST INTERACTED WITH MY WORK...
@anonymuslydumb
🩵 Love you as the first Filipino person I had interacted with within this app that doesn't happen to be my school friend or relative.
🩵 Mangangaroling po, blue and yellow bills only. Pwede din po through G-cash and ShopeePay, pero no less than 1k pag-ganon AHAHAHA CHAROT, KIMI LANG.
🩵 Mwah <3
@shadofireshinobi
🖤 You are so special I can't even, you're my first ever mutual, first request and first person that I can genuinely talk to here before anyone.
🖤 You've made me feel so comfortable in my own skin and I know you're facing difficulties with your own that I am too but you're in so much more difficulty. I really do wish the best for you, love.
🖤 You are so strong, confident and resilient, you've been through so much and gosh you are the definition of a powerful woman who I wanted to be when I was young. Child me would be the happiest knowing that a motherly figure is looking after her.
Past Friends and Relatives <3
@marshmallowinamess
💚 Do I even have to say this? You are the best person in my life, my soulmate forevermore, we've been through so much together that I don't know where to start. I wish I was able to express how much I love you.
💚 You have been there for me through thick and thin for the most difficult times of my life, you've saved me countless times and though it doesn't feel like I'm doing enough, I made a promise to myself that I will make it up to you even if it will be the rest of my life.
💚 You are the only person who stood up for me when I needed you the most, I just.. don't know what else to say because what can you give someone who's done so much for you? Who has treated you better than anyone in your life, better than your parents? What can you possibly do to repay someone who saved you from yourself?
@ysalinedevreux
❤️ I know we've had conflict and drama in the past and I just wanna say I'm thankful that you contacted me again because we would've missed out on the friendship we were supposed to have.
❤️ A lot has happened and yet you stayed strong and we both learned from our past.
❤️ Happy holidays my dear <3
@rabblebite
🧡 What more could I say to my most favorite cousin in the world?
🧡 Thanks for being there for me always, you've made heartwarming promises and we still have a lot of adventures together (we're both drunk right now)
🧡 Honestly I wish my dad would take me here more often because then I'd get to spend more time and gossip with you guys. Thank you for comforting me like you always do when I needed, immediately noticing the change in my voice and that I'm crying.
Special mentions:
@azereus @rustic-guitar-notes @trepaika @skeletalgoats @icarustypicalfall @ghosts-cyphera @thesnowurzikdjinn @legallymentallyillfuckers @miss-gms-and-the-rotten-womb
You guys are always there to support my works and I want reciprocate that as much as I can, each and every one of you are so talented. I wish I can write more and do you guys justice but my eyes hurt so much and this is overdue. You guys are such good writers and even more amazing mutuals of mine who I know have been through some tough times. Know that all of you are welcome to talk to me when you need to and that my page is open to comfort as much as I can from a distance <3
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Random question cause I've just seen an event and I'm starting to find idia a bit annoying lol but I do still like him when he makes sense but I wanted to know why YOU didn't like him lol
Okay I give my whole ass disclaimer that I know Idia is a fan favorite and I completely get why. In the words of Hades, I get it. I got it. I got the concept. But I just personally don't vibe with him.
Mostly I think it's because I've known quite a few people with his personality/archetypes in real life who were just absolutely awful, and that colored my opinion a lot. It's a fun concept for a character, very not fun to deal with in real people. Which, tbf, would be the same for pretty much all of the Twist boys. But as a nerd and someone in a very quote-unquote 'intellectual' field of work/education, I have met too many people like this.
But as like, an aside on top of that bias, I can tolerate most traits or flaws in other people, in real life and in fiction. My one, personal, irredeemable, nitpick is hypocrisy. Everyone comes from somewhere different and has different experiences that shape your values and ideals, but the second you start being a hypocrite, you're just proving that it's not the values, it's you being a dick. Idia for a lot of his vignettes etc. is incredibly judgemental of his classmates, while simultaneously lamenting how everyone would judge him for his interests. You don't get to be a dick to people and then be all 'uwu no one likes me' when they call you out on it. Like in the Ghost Bride event! Everyone shows up to save him--intentions entirely good or otherwise--and he spouts off enough ungrateful/mean comments that it turns into all of them basically being like 'fine go die :)' I remember thinking it was the funniest shit, and it was definitely meant to be a comedic moment, but the problem is that he never really recovers from those moments. It's always him being a dick, inevitably getting roasted, and then that's... sort of it.
His one redeeming trait in my opinion is Ortho and his obvious love for him. But like, even that gets tainted a lot of the time. Like in Ortho's vignette for his robes or whatever, he gets so excited to go to the opening ceremony! And when shit goes tits up, Idia just like... refuses to interact with him? To the point that the groovy image is Ortho pressed up against the door just... waiting for him? Ortho would give literally anything for his brother, and yes we're told Idia feels the same, but more often than not he still puts himself first. I'll give my disclaimer that I haven't read Idia's book. I know the gist of what happened to the OG Ortho, but like, I don't have the details. Maybe it gets better. But for the most part, until that book, all I'd really seen was things perpetually working out for Idia whenever he needed it (every event he basically gets what he wants--the new years bags, the wishing star, etc), while never having to deal with the consequences of him being nasty to other people and then just going on to complain more. Which. Ack. It just personally rubs me very much the wrong way.
Again, I completely get his appeal. His character design is absolutely gorgeous and sometimes the guy says some genuinely funny/unhinged shit. My favorite characters have literally tried to kill people and I'm sure drive some people into an absolute rage, so like, no judgment here. He is just very much Not My Vibe. At least, not at the moment. Maybe it will get better in Malleus's book.
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My granny used to put things on tumblr
It's! The Infamous! Kill The Moon! otherwise known here as the pro-life Doctor Who episode. so that's... something that was on my mind while watching. To be honest, I don't think I'd go that far, I think it was mainly politically completely unsure of what point it was trying to make at all
but yes, it makes the suggestion that Tumblr is not only around but a hit with the teenagers in the year of 2049, which is actually its best and funniest statement
sexism rank objectification (female character is ogled/harassed/turned into a sex joke by the doctor and/or a lead we’re supposed to root for and/or the camera): 8/10
sexism rank plot-point (lead female character is only there to serve plot, not to have her emotional interiority explored, or given agency to her emotional interiority): 8/10
interesting complex or pointlessly complex (does the complexity serve the narrative or does it just serve to be confusing as a stand-in for smart, this includes visually and philosophically and emotionally): 3/10
furthers character and/or lore and/or plot development (broader question that ties into the previous ones, at least two of these, ideally three should be fulfilled): 7/10
companion matters (the companion doesn’t always have to be there, but if the companion is there, can they function without the doctor– and overall per season how often is the companion the focus or POV of the story): 5/10
the doctor is more than just “godlike” (examines the doctor’s flaws and limitations, doesn’t solve a plot by having it revolve entirely around the doctor’s existence): 4/10
doesn’t look down on previous doctor who (by erasing or mocking its importance, by redoing and “bettering” previous beloved plotpoints or characters, etc.): 4/10
isn’t trying to insert hamfisted sexiness (m*ffat famously talked a lot about how dw should be sexier multiple times, he sucks at writing it): 10/10
internal world has consistency (characters have backgrounds, feel rooted in a place with other people, generally feel like they have Lives): 3/10
Politics (how conservative is the story): 2/10
FULL RATING: 54/100 (if I can count….)
this episode.........
OBJECTIFICATION: we brought back fan-favourite ORANGE SPACESUIT (orange spacesuit my beloved). Actually genuinely, hi bby I miss you every time I don't see you. It's been in this season twice for some reason
apart from Clara, we also have Courtney the teenager, and um... science space lady whom I recognise from back when I watched all of Spooks just to get to Richard Armitage in s7 of that. but enough about MI6 propaganda, this is um... Moon Propaganda? listen, I know exactly why it's called the Pro-life episode, and technically that is its worst implication with what it's doing, but I think there's so much else we can tear it to pieces for
however, objectification of its female characters is, blissfully, not one of them
PLOT-POINT: so as of time of beginning this sentence, I've rated this one quite highly, because it's all about Clara's trust and faith in the Doctor being shaken, when he treats her badly just one fucking time too many
I'm unsure if it'll continue being highly rated, because unfortunately the way the episode went about all of it was sooooooooo "forcing something into the correct shaped hole in order to make this exact point and so as consequence I feel like Clara almost suffers as a character, rather than grows"
but this may be an issue to come at in other points. Technically it fulfills this remit!
COMPLEXITY: moon's an egg. [gets a nuclear bomb]. moon's an egg.
oh boy oh boy does it try to do something emotionally complex with this one, but really all it's about is that ostensibly all of humanity is wrong for being worried about a Thing Happening that they've had exactly no knowledge of since like. less than an hour before they have to make a decision, and even then have barely any info on
seriously, listening to Clara's speech, I was wondering if I was on earth, how would I react to that? Ok so wait, moon's an egg- oh it's hatching, right now? and we want to blow it up to... turn it back into the moon? BBC science advisors what do you make of this, oh hallowed of totally unbiased news? doesn't the moon doing all of this mean the earth is fucked either way, I mean... something with tides right? ahhh we have vote by turning off the ligh- well the council roadworks shorted out the building again mate, so idk. guess I'll die. or the moon dies. or we both die? do I have enough mobile data to check in with this one?
so wait, if the moon's an egg- [episode ends]
they should not have involved the whole earth in this one for starters. secondly the Doctor leaving is bonkers yonkers. thirdly the scifi bullshit is streeeeetched thin. sooooo thin in this one. fourthly Science Lady with the nukes, I don't understand your motivations very well beyond Space Scary so this might be scary also. fifthly Clara being in the middle of something that makes so little sense, means that I'm having to engage with her emotions about something that makes no sense, so how can I take her arc seriously? this is ostensibly a Clara-centric episode that has her reevaluate her whole feelings about the Doctor based on being warned about Red Flags numerous times, but the science fiction underlying concept is "would you kill this unborn child if it would save billions of people" to which the answer is... yes?
(aaaand we come around to the pro-life vibes of the plot eyyyy we got there)
but mainly "would you kill this unborn child if it would save billions of people" is then peppered with so many "uhhh ignore this logic flaw" moments that I can't get into the actual ostensible philosophical point it's trying to make, because not only is it a bad point, it's also made badly -- it's not "would you kill this unborn child to save billions," it's "this hypothetical child is the moon, and whether or not you kill it doesn't matter, because the earth is gonna be without a moon either way, so you're basically fucked might as well let it live" or even (as it turns out to be) "this unborn child is the moon in a system that deliberately makes sense to allow earth to continue, so there's no real stakes here actually"
ironically M*ffat-era did this better in s5ep2 with The Beast Below, and there was more to it than "just" people kinda suck. like yeah, that episode struuuuggled with justifying its political structure, but its central philosophical ideas are quite interesting and Amy's journey in that is about growing and changing and seeing
Kill The Moon has such a simple premise that you can't see anything but the question it's asking and the more you look at it the more you go... "wait, what?"
CHARACTERS/LORE/PLOT: this is the episode where Clara finally goes, "hey fuck you!" at the Doctor and yeah, it better be, however I have so many questions about what the heck the Doctor is doing in it
a. leaving Clara behind just to see what she'll do
b. "lol if the child that crucially I am the only own who knows doesn't have to die dies, then that's a learning opportunity for... someone"
c. this episode starts because the Doctor told a clearly-struggling teenage girl that she "wasn't special." not onscreen or anything, just at some point, just cos -- I have been reminded several times (by others and also by myself) that Ten could be quite unthinking at times, and this is true. it brings to mind when Ten says to Donna that she's not important, but the context there is that Ten sometimes says/does things without thinking and in this instance, crucially, is having a bit of a rough time, and then spends the rest of their time together basically apologising for his own words. now not that this is a "competition," they're not real etcetc. but Twelve is. A Dick. To Everyone. and that is kind of just... there. I am waiting for something to happen with that, I am seeing where this is going, but seeing as I brought up Eleven and The Beast Below a second ago, "you couldn't bear to watch a child cry" is one of the most interesting things about that character, and other Doctors bear this out too. they are -- for the most part -- not massive dicks to kids
Twelve has a line in this where after Clara rebukes him for being a bastard to the kid for the whole episode, goes "she’s fine, what are you 35?" (Courtney then replies, "15")
it's fascinating that this Doctor not only doesn't like people, this Doctor doesn't even see people
and Clara is now reacting to this at last by going, hey buddy, fuck you
but I am definitely reaching a point where I hope all of this makes some sense, because oh boy is the Doctor just not likeable, and the more that is stretched out, the less fun I have watching these episodes, especially when it feels like it's being leaned on for comedy
COMPANIONS MATTER: I have feelings about M*ffat having a couple of episodes where some kids that Clara knows are brought on a space adventure, and those feelings are... it was bad
I think the actress who plays Courtney is better than the two kids in Nightmare In Silver, but she is -- like them -- such a badly written teen, do you not know how 15 year olds speak? what is the purpose of having kids in these stories, if you're not telling a story for that age group? "Hey, you too could fly on the Tardis and have an adventure and do something incredible," but instead it's "hey you too could... tag along, get bored, sit on your phone, make stupid comments, and be ragged on by adults the entire time"
I will give Courtney is 100% going "uh let's not kill this creature" the whole time (weirder vibes with the pro-life undertones, fine if you just consider that like... it doesn't make sense to kill it anyway, because once again, have to say, the scifi is so bullshit as to be unintelligible)
meanwhile Clara asks the earth for advice, decides not to kill the moon against earth's advice and everything is fine and dandy (no consequences within the actual episode, because it's really just a backdrop on which to cause Doctor and Clara Drama), it's... the more you think about it, the less she has to do in this episode, other than to emote (understandably) at the Wildness of the Doctor just deciding to leave her alone, just... because.....
but yeah, technically none of them need to be there. even Science Lady is barely an antagonist
“GODLIKE” DOCTOR: HE'S A DICK WITH A TIME MACHINE WHO DECIDES TO PLAY 5D CHESS FOR NO REASON FUCKYOU MATE
PREVIOUS DOCTOR WHO: HE'S A DICK WITH A TIME MACHINE WHO DECIDES TO PLAY 5D CHESS FOR NO REASON FUCKYOU MATE <- this was the previous point also, and I think that may be unfair to call "totally against every way the character has been written thus far," but then again.... is it?
we've had Machiavellian Doctor. we've had Doctor makes decisions for others, because they don't trust people with their own agency (literally from the beginning). we've even had Doctor who tries to unwrite a fixed point in time because of being mad with grief
we've had many flavours of this kind of Doctor. but have we had a Doctor who just... leaves.... because fuck this noise. not leaves out of defeat. not leaves out of disgust with people. not leaves because of idk, exhaustion. leaves because "hey why not let you deal with this one, even though I have all of the information to defuse the situation instantly, but I just don't like anything anymore"
there's some grains of something that could be interesting there -- and even is interesting in other episodes of this season, but maaan do I feel like they gambled on how far they could push things with this episode, but failed to make anything in it compelling, and so the Doctor comes out the other side an incomprehensible asshole
there are fun references to classic who in this episode, but at least one of them feels bastardised (the earth isn't my home) in order to justify the Doctor simply not caring anymore. it's like the inverse journey of Nine, but an endless endless slog
boy oh boy does this season/era have a lot of legwork to do to make me care
“SEXINESS”: I guess at least this is fine?
INTERNAL WORLD: *I wish I could take a massive swig of wine but I do not drink. sips tea with disgust instead* the moon is an egg could be fun. it is not. political situation on earth that merits earth being involved in this episode? nah none of that
Tumblr is still around though. should I vote it one down or up for that assumption?
POLITICS: ohhhhkay we've covered this I feel, in all the other points, but to summarise: it's so incomprehensible, with a dash of I think definitely unintentional pro-life stuff going on, but mainly just there to justify the Doctor's continued bleak, cynical, utter lack of faith in humanity As A Statement
sure there's a breadcrumb at the end of "and now I guess you'll get better" but it's just... it's like you know how Rise Of The Guardians has this whole Thing where children stop believing except for this one persistent light that won't get snuffed out, and so the Guardians all gather around that light as a way to regain their powers and protect the children
this episode doesn't even have one persistent light, never mind a coherent political statement. I think the one persistent light was meant to be Courtney, but it failed so hard at having purpose on any fronts that of course she was barely needed in it either
we also get an added nugget of Danny as he uses his experiences in the army to mirror Clara's experience with the Doctor (which, even that is just... bleak as hell comparison to make here)
Danny: I left the army
Clara: You loved the army
Danny: Yep. And then one day I didn’t
seriously hope we get something more in-depth about Danny versus the military industrial complex at some point -- I mean, orphan who found structure in a system, the violence of which eventually drove him out? that's interesting. Potentially
FULL RATING: 54/100 (if I can count….)
this episode should not be rated this highly, but its crimes do not extend to literally treating its female characters as garbage for being women, although I do have some questions about Courtney as a Black teen who's told she isn't special as what sounds like a casual aside and acts out as the setup for this episode to happen in the first place
at least we hear she does well at the end of the episode, but urgh, why is she there for this story, when so much of it is pointless, her being there is just as pointless as the rest of it
at the end of it, we are left to question: okay but does the Doctor's character regression at least get better after this?
and what is Clara's whole... deal (at least that, I think, is answered at the end of the next one)
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so this year I ~challenged myself to post a gifset once a week, because making gifsets is something I enjoy very much and can always improve in but literally cannot do for money or lbr meaningful validation and I am historically bad at doing things that fit those categories!
I ended up posting 54 gifsets in 2023, one a week plus a few extras lol. A few stats behind the cut just for fun!
Most popular overall: "I'm so glad I met you" with 1,738 as of this morning. Objectively correct. The nicest-looking gifs I maybe made all year and an all-time scene. Made it my pinned post recently.
Least popular overall: A Community set of Jeff making a Dane Cook joke, coming in at a grand total of 39 notes. This was actually a remake of a set I made YEARS ago because I think it's a great joke lmao. A set doomed imo by the youths on my lawn not knowing who Dane Cook is and also tbf Jeff as the only featured study group character.
Honorable mention to the Rangers World Series set I made, but I'm actually floored and delighted that it got 43 notes. There are dozens of us!!
Gifsets made per fandom:
Community: 14 (!)
Doctor Who: 10
Elementary, Mythic Quest, Ted Lasso: 5
Succession: 3
Last of Us, Leverage, Severance, Shrinking: 2
Always Sunny, The Bear, MLB (haha), Scrubs: 1
I'm a little insulted for Elementary tbh! Otherwise this pretty much tracks.
By average number of notes and not counting the one-offs:
Least popular fandom: Mythic Quest with an average of 130 notes across 5 posts. I don't care. I'll win you all over.
Most popular fandom: Leverage with an average of 837 notes across 2 posts, both of which were Hardison/Parker, so...
Most popular fandom not inflated by Hardison/Parker: Doctor Who by a mile with an average of 775 notes per post. Feels good. Feels right. We're back baybee
Interesting split of 18 shippy sets and 36 non-shippy. Including "outliers," shippy sets averaged 621 notes compared to an average of 332 for gen sets. Throwing out the two lowest note-getting posts from each set, the averages jump to 680 and 350. Also not a surprise; fandom loves a ship lol.
Number of sets (avg. notes) per ship, not including one-offs:
Ted/Rebecca: 2 (333) (womp womp)
Jeff/Britta: 3 (267)
Hardison/Parker: 2 (836)
Ten/Rose: 2 (619)
Nine/Rose: 6 (890)
Doctor/Rose: 8 (823)
It shows that I trailed off my RTD1 rewatch mid-s2 lol. (Which seems blasphemous!! but it was never the right time to handle the satan pit episodes, you get it) Doctor/Rose supremacy obviously but also justice for Jeff/Britta, the greatest relationship ever known
Some one-off fandom set thoughts:
The Dr. Cox set was a mostly-for-me fave. The Always Sunny set happened because I thought the Aaron Paul/Bryan Cranston episode was one of the funniest the show has had in years; that episode was also what finally pushed me into watching Breaking Bad this year, which I mostly really enjoyed lol.
The set I made from the finale of The Bear s2 ended up the sixth most popular set of the year with 1k+ notes and it's probably the set I most notice on my activity page every week. It does look really nice but also, I see you, Syd/Richie fandom, and I hear your siren song. Maybe in 2024...
So OK! Hey! I set a meaningless fun goal and accomplished it!! I'm not setting another specific gif goal for 2024 so will probably be a lot more sporadic. Or not! Who knows!
OK pals, thanks for indulging me, happy new year <3
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Chapter 6 is (finally) up!
When we last left off, Kara was just about to take Lena with her to Esme's birthday party. Lena is starting to open up. And Kara has to contend with her attraction, her nosy niece, and her jealousy in a whirlwind day of park picnic pleasantries and sunshine.
Read the whole thing on AO3 here.
A snippet below the cut:
Lena sat primly at one of the empty tables, watching the children giggle and shove with a trepidatious smile. Kara snagged two plates of pizza, avoiding Kelly’s knowing look, and made a beeline for Lena–only to be beaten by her own niece, who slipped guilelessly onto the bench beside the brunette and plastered herself to Lena’s side.
Lena startled at the sudden contact, looking down at her young assailant with a combination of confusion and amusement.
“Oh. Hello?”
“Hi! We haven’t met yet. I’m Esme.” The girl grinned. “This is my party! Who are you?”
Kara begrudgingly sat down across from Lena, eyeing her stolen seat, as the other woman turned her body to fully face the small child, sticking out her hand in greeting.
“I’m Lena.” She hesitated, casting Kara a sidelong glance. “Kara’s friend. Happy birthday, Esme. It’s wonderful to meet you.”
Esme shook Lena’s hand, parroting in the most grown up voice she could muster, “Nice to meet you, too, Ms. Lena.” Then she cocked her head, genuine curiosity coloring her expression. “Are you friends like Mommy and Mama used to be friends before they got married or are you friends like me and Penny are friends?
“Esme!” Kara squeaked, her face flushing with embarrassment. Lena pointedly kept her eyes on Esme, but, unless Kara was very mistaken, her cheeks were dusting a light pink, too.
“I’m pretty sure we’re friends like you and Penny.”
“Pretty sure?” Esme’s face was pure innocence, but there was a slyness to her voice that Kara recognized as Alex’s influence. If her sister had put the girl up to this, Kara was going to kill her.
Lena smirked and cast a sidelong glance at Kara, before returning her attention to the girl. “Well, I wouldn’t want to assume what kind of friendship you and Penny have,” she responded cheekily. Esme giggled. “Kara and I have only known each other for a few weeks, but I’d like to think we’re friends.”
“We definitely are.” Kara piped up, sounding a little too enthusiastic to her own ears. Both Lena and Esme turned to look at her. She ducked her head and made a big show of taking an excessively large bite of pizza.
“Good to know.” A little smile played around Lena’s lips, but her expression was otherwise unreadable.
Esme shrugged. “Okay!”
Esme dug into her pizza, but peppered Lena with questions between bites. Far from being bothered by her pint-sized inquisitor, Lena responded in kind and, although Kara was trying hard to be normal about observing their interaction, she had a feeling she was failing miserably.
Kara had always approached her niece and other children in a boisterous, childlike way, regaling them with goofy antics and enthusiastically participating in their make believe and games. Kids loved her and wanted to play with her. She was, objectively, good with kids. But…Lena was, too. She was quiet and attentive, treating Esme’s often disjointed or non sequitur stories with the gravitas of an adult conversation, then following up with earnest questions: And what was the color of the cute dog by the water fountain? Was he all brown or with spots? Oh, little flecks of white and gray over the brown with fluffy tufts of fur? I’ve always been more of a cat person, but I bet he’s a nice dog. Do you have any pets, Esme? What’s the funniest thing that’s happened to you at school this week? What’s the best part about getting older?
Esme took in each of Lena’s questions with precious sincerity and responded with a flurry of chatter. By the time the little girl had finished her pizza and was collecting her plate and napkin for the trash and scampering off, Kara was practically a puddle. She had never seen anything as adorable in her life as Lena Luthor engaged in deep conversation with a seven-year-old.
"What?"
Kara looked up sharply, meeting Lena's questioning gaze across the table. "What?" she echoed dumbly.
"You have a funny look on your face." Lena leaned forward, tone quieting with concern. "Is everything okay?"
"Oh!" Kara laughed nervously. Busted. "Everything is totally fine. I just… You're really good with her."
Lena’s mouth curled into a small smile. "I can't decide if that's a compliment or you're surprised a Luthor could ever be good with children."
Kara licked her lips. She had no choice but to be direct. "A compliment."
Lena was definitely blushing now. She locked eyes with Kara, held her gaze. "There seem to be a lot of those lately, Ms. Danvers. What's a girl to think?"
The rabble of the park, the children at play, the family and friends talking around them–everything dulled to a gentle hum as Kara's senses laser focused onto the woman across from her, not really all that far away, actually, just the table between them. Her eyes were a deep green, a mossy hue made more brilliant by the early summer lush of the park around them. Kara got lost for a moment, forgetting that Lena had asked her a question, had asked her–not in so many words, but in what passed between her words–to confirm that there was something happening between them. Lena was flirting. Kara was almost sure of it, and the brunette was now looking up from under her lashes as she watched Kara’s face. Kara needed to respond, needed to convey to the heiress that she was open to whatever this was, open to her, open to the possibility that–
"Auntie Kara! Auntie Kara!" Esme barreled into Kara from behind, practically knocking her off the bench. Kara’s arms pinwheeled as she grabbed the table for support. Lena burst out laughing, expression fond but slipping back to something friendly yet neutral as Kara's attention was drawn to her boisterous niece. "Come bounce in the bounce house with me. Pleeeeeaaaassse!"
#where the light leans past our shadows#supercorp au#the summer fic that got away#it's almost summer again now#perfect time to rejoin our ladies#just riding horses and writing and pining#i'm supposed to be working on my scbb fic so ofc my brain was like work on the WIP now instead
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11, 17, and 49 for the ask game!! :3
you didn't specify so im doing EVERYONE under the cut bc this is a lot. i got way too into the logistics of the first question sorry. this answer got so so fucking long holy shit. this is what happens when u let me talk about these guys
11. If someone was impersonating them, what would friends / family ask or do to tell the difference?
now this is an interesting question cause not to give away the secrets but at least 4 of these bitches have powers that u cant just replicate and it would immediately be obvious to anyone who's close with them... i wonder if in the question, impersonation accounts for stuff like that? we also don't know what these impersonators know about the characters in question.. maybe you could ask fake!Psy something as simple as "do you like cats?" and they'd fuck up right there!
we have to assume that they know enough to impersonate them on a superficial level, mimicking their speech and mannerisms, and have at least a basic knowledge of their hobbies and interests and day-to-day life and likes and dislikes if they actually want to fool anyone, right? so lets assume that much, i suppose.
im kind of stuck on the powers thing. dunno how someone would just mimic that kind of thing, but i also dont want to just say out loud the parts of these characters that are supposed to be more like subtext? but if they're such a close copy that they even have their powers, then they must know everything about them, too, so that's TOO close of a copy for the purposes of this question.
alright im just gonna ignore all that and give you the answers i think are funniest.
if someone was impersonating psy, they'd simply use their powers to knock them out or something. lets also assume psy cant help for the rest of these because otherwise its just like "psy reads their mind and knows immediately"
for melody im imagining some shit like that scene from adventure time where finn asks pb to prove that she's real to recite what she wrote on his birthday card two(?) years ago, word for word, and shes like "finn how could i possibly remember that?" and he's like "🥺i remember......" that would be jett trying to figure out who's the real melody lmao
ok but how would they actually discern this... lol ask about the lore of her Galaxy's Oath Online character :') there u go <3 (if u dont know what galaxys oath online is bc u havent read every single ask on the blog dont worry about it u will know next chapter)
for jett just give him super specific death note trivia. it can practically recite the entire series from memory and has read the manga and novellas like at least 5 times each if not more. u could literally be like "whats the first word Light says in episode 16 of death note?" and he wouldn't even have to think about it for that long he'd just know.
tate... well as of now i dont think any of his friends know him well enough for this to be honest with you (sad), but like, his sister could probably do it. ask him the name of the first boy he had a crush on because he was ANNOOOOOYYYING about that.
for guy, ask him what his plans are for the day. i think that would work. he has everything planned out down to like the fucking second so he can be fuckin everywhere at once.
probably shouldn't answer these for conner and rotom right now </3
17. What do they notice first in the mirror versus what most people first notice looking at them?
ok well first of all what do *i* notice when i look in the mirror hold on. ok i just checked. answer is my eyebrows. would not have known that just in general lmao so this is a tricky question bc i would never think about something like this
psy - they hate looking in the mirror and avoid it as much as possible. i cant imagine them focusing on any one feature, honestly. its like a blur to them. they dont want to see it at all. what do most people notice? hm. idk im thinking about the two times they've appeared in my dreams as a real person and what i first Noticed and it was their glasses im pretty sure. Defining Characteristic...
melody - definitely her smile she loves her lips and her smile she will smile at herself in the mirror all day. i think other people also notice her smile first if they're further away, but close up they probably notice her pink color contacts haha those are pretty striking
jett - when it looks in the mirror it immediately is checking the Hair to see if it needs touching up. very important. other people also definitely notice his hair first and foremost because i mean look at it.
tate - first, his eyes + mole (its a package deal) but he's p vain and can just stare at himself in the mirror forever, just his whole face, checkin himself out cuz hes soooo hot. other people notice the mole under his eye, its pretty striking. i was gonna say hair cuz its fucking ourple but like jett already got hair lets do something different. (dante wrote this one lol)
guy - he notices his eyes + eyebrows first. he got those big bushy eyebrows that stand out, and beautiful dark brown eyes..... other people usually notice his Arms first. (dante wrote this one as well 😎)
conner - his freckles he loves his freckles :) other people first notice how short he is because he's 5 feet tall hehe
rotom - lips or nose... other people probably notice faer fucking full facepaint xe always wears lol. more specifically the lips bc it wears black lipstick so that catches the eye
49. Would they eat something they find gross to be polite?
psy - hell fucking no
melody - she would at LEAST take a bite and if she hates it she'd politely be like "its just not for me ^.^;;"
jett - no lol it'd be like "im autistic i cant eat this sorry"
tate - depends on the person he'd be disappointing if he didn't like it... like in some cases he'd be like "that looks yuckydisgusting im not eating that" and in other cases he'd be like "mmm!! s-sooo good!*gags*"
guy - same as melody. he'd probably give it more than one bite though just to make sure, like, maybe it'll be better on the second bite? maybe if i keep eating it it'll get good? he might eat like a quarter of it before giving up
conner - absolutely. always.
rotom - fuck no lol
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Lifting the Veil
Not quite sure how to put this into words, but someone else needs to know what I know. This story can save people and I won’t feel right until it’s consumed by as many as possible. I can’t express how many times I’ve tried to get this out. I almost even gave up on it, but God wouldn’t let me. So, let me make another attempt at it - this is how I escaped the devil:
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It was a Friday night, April 5th, 2019.
I’m at El Rey on U street NW DC, having a few crispy beers by myself. Just got off work, taking it easy...
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Then, I end up running into and old “friend” I used to hangout with. Known him for about 7 years at the time: (Dave) - tall, black, dreads, above average build.
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After a couple of drinks, he asks if I want to hangout at one of his friends house. Said we can smoke there and that she has a lot of drugs.
So I accepted cuz I was originally going to let the night unravel on it’s own and it didn’t sound like such a bad idea at the time.
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It was a habitual routine I developed during my heartache…
I’d go out alone, run into a group of people I knew, bar hop ‘til we ended up at an after hours spot (or someone’s place) and shamelessly sleep my next day away.
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So we get to the front of his friend’s building and she’s like a 60 something-year-old lady:
(Robin) - fat, white, short, blue hair, top row gold grill and “ride or die bitch” tattooed on the back of her neck (amongst a couple others, but that one stood out most because it was in my face while she was unlocking her apartment door).
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At first, I thought it was a descriptive-type of tattoo. Like, she was saying that that’s what she was.
But in retrospect, it was almost like it was something she saying to me...you’ll see what I mean later, if you don’t get it now.
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Oblivious to what was about to happen next, I continued to walk through that door...
Something felt off, but I just figured it would be something low-level weird.
I’m always seeing signs that show somebody dabbles in magic or gives a head nod to the prince of darkness (such as a pentagram or something), but I figured “if I’m not actively practicing divinity or doing weird rituals, it won’t personally affect me…if I don’t create a ceremonial invitation, then I’ll be okay.”
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Now, I’ve already had a good amount of spiritual experiences at this point (good and bad), but for some reason I just didn’t think anything like this would happen…at least not to me.
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I thought I had it all figured out, because I thought I’d seen it all - or at least enough.
I should’ve known though…I was just so emotionally numb at the time, I was doing anything to feel anything.
I mean aesthetically speaking, in a worldly sense, she looked like she’d have a few good stories or something. Needless to say by now, but I ignored the red flags in hopes of escaping my pain.
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So, moving forward...
We walk into her apartment, sit on the couch, watch skate videos and start breaking some weed down.
After a few minutes of small talk, they offer me some acid in a vile. Emphasizing how it was very high grade stuff, but I didn’t need much convincing anyway. I was growing bored and undergoing an overwhelming amount of emotional damage.
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Now, I was very into psychedelics and considered myself extremely experienced in that realm.
But just because I did it a lot, didn’t mean I was. You couldn’t tell me otherwise though.
It was usually my go-to for when I needed that unrivaled escape from reality.
So yeah, I took the witch’s brew, still thinking it was something I considered fun.
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Once it started to kick in, I could feel her beginning to stare at me from the end of the room with a big grin on her face.
She then suggested that I take my jacket off because I was going to end up getting really hot, then cackled like it was the funniest thing in the world to say.
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It was something she said a couple of times too. At first I didn’t know exactly what she meant, I just thought she was a basket case repeating herself. But she was implying that I was going to end up in Hell…you’ll see what I mean.
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A few moments go by and they both suggest we move the party to the rooftop because her place was limiting and we could see more from up there anyway.
Plus, she wanted to blow bubbles (possibly a way to distract me from their underlying plot)…and I figured “tripping indoors is boring anyway, why not?”
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Now because I took my jacket off and left it in her apartment, I began shivering after a while.
I didn’t expect for it to be that windy, I only wanted a nice little breeze.
So she says she’ll get me a something cozy to put on and that she had to go in for more soap anyway. She comes back and asks to put this fur coat on me. It was nice, so I let her. It had an invigorating energy attached to it, I can't lie. I felt like a million bucks.
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So I’m comfortable now and she gives me a a little rooftop tour, showing me the visible landmarks from each corner.
Mentioning for me to not to be afraid of my true potential and that I can obtain everything I want.
I was feeling pretty good about those words, until I thought to myself “that sounds familiar…what if she isn’t speaking in general?” - but I just chalked it up to her being an old hippy.
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She then grabs my arm and tells me to look at this red wall, as we walk to the other side of the building. I figured it’d be something visually enticing she was trying to share, but this was going to be her first attempt at hypnosis. There were lights spaced out by every three steps we took, so it would go red-black-red-black-red-black...
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Then she asked if it felt like my soul was being massaged - encouraging me to ride it out...essentially, trying to get me to put my guard down, saying “this is where dreams become reality.”
Then, I began seeing holographic outlines of people in the wall. The traces reminded me somewhat of a glowing snail trail.
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Right after, I saw myself turn into a block of deformed flesh and almost being slid into the wall if I stared any longer.
But like I woke up in one of those falling dreams, I snapped out of it with my heart racing.
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Then with a laugh attached, she exclaims “damn, almost!”
And that’s when I stopped letting myself be completely naive. The veil was clearly being lifted before me and I needed to be alert. It’s just, I had this slight muffle surrounding my common sense for some reason. Surely it must've been a spell she cast.
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Now I knew hallucinogens were considered sorcery in the Bible, but I figured one more time couldn't hurt. It’s not like I wasn’t still smoking and drinking.
It’s just crazy, because it was after learning about the what the fallen angels taught us in the Book of Enoch, is when I decided to trip again. I blatantly chose to play with fire and defy God that night.
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See, these hypnotic spells are telepathic contracts. Once the manipulator is installing a vision, it’s at the last second where it becomes your choice to see what happens next.
It nudges at your curiosity, feeling like it’s a part of the trip you’re supposed to let happen.
But every time I almost did, my heart wouldn't allow it and I’d snap out of it again.
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Every time she would make another attempt, I could feel my soul almost getting tugged at, with a malicious presence surrounding me.
The goosebumps I got from this thing, felt like it was ready to defile me in every way possible.
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In disbelief that what I thought might be happening, wasn’t - I tell myself “let me not cause a ruckus for no reason, I am trippin’ after all. Think of something positive.”
But now my eyes are shifting everywhere, because I keep getting a glimpse of whatever’s approaching.
Even with that many peculiarities, something kept me in denial.
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Still though, she tries another set-up and tells me to look at how high up we are, as she gestured for me to look down from the rail. As if I didn’t already know, but I go because I also didn’t want to be rude. I wasn't sure if everything happening was all in my head or not at the time, so I remained as cool as I could.
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I grab the rail and look over…
(Dave) says “don’t let go,” giving me this wide-eyed look with a smile and said “you feel it, don’t you?”
Then just like that, my heart jumped and my mind began getting flashes of demonic symbols and images like subliminal messages. I even saw random equations in the air, like measurements and ratios of whichever object I laid my eyes on.
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My vision was about to go black, exactly like the circle closing at the end of a cartoon…until I snapped out of it yet again and backed up with my head on a swivel, angrily questioning them.
That’s when I caught (Dave) behind me, quickly hiding his hands.
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Now I’m on survival mode and it feels like I can’t even make a step without risking my soul, literally. Each step mattered.
It's at this point that I can feel that I’m being made a fool out of, but of course they gaslight me and try to calm me down.
I still didn’t want to believe I was in this kind of mess, but I’d be a fool to let all of that slide so easily. I couldn't keep lying to myself, as bad as I wanted to.
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So with caution, I’m trying to plan my escape - playing dumb, but my body is getting heavier by the second too.
She then lifts her speaker and says “listen to these different frequencies, it can change your mood.”
I really wasn’t trying to, because I needed to leave and I didn’t trust her at all now. Especially not with anything sound related.
Then out of nowhere, I hear a distorted garble come out of the speaker and hit my ear.
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I asked “what the fuck!?”
Then (Dave) was responds with “oh, you heard that...?”
I looked away and acted oblivious not knowing how I'm going to get out of this, because I felt that if they knew I could hear that, they’d bring out the big guns.
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(Dave) laughed, saying to Robin “wait, he still don’t know what this is yet?”
Unintentionally, or intentionally letting me know what it was.
So I tried to leave and they started laughing because the door needed a key fob in order to get to the elevators. They kept suggesting I have a seat, trying so hard to keep me there.
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(Dave) said “you already ‘bouta do it, it’s better this way anyway.”
Then he was like “look at my hands, this shit trippy, right?”
Followed by him creating an infinity symbol with his waving hands.
Now this infinity symbol was made of light and floating in mid-air in front of him after he did it. I even looked at it from the side to confirm that it was real.
Right after that, he did the Baphomet pose, flipping his hands and head perfectly in a stiff dance.
Which then caused me to see it’s true form in my minds eye, with a heavy vibration. Another attempt at making me slip, as I try to keep my reality gripped.
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Once I can see them again, it’s like time stood still and only I could move.
I’d look around and they’d be frozen.
At this time, I can hear them having two simultaneous conversations.
Although, all I caught was (Dave) say “he can’t hear us in this plane.”
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Then as he slowly got up, it like I was tuning through a radio, I hear a screeching static clear up. The sound then becomes like an electronic bleating and bellowing from a goat, in-sync, surrounding him.
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This was the moment I became a part of their their collective conscious conversation - essentially telepathy.
Then they began letting me know who they were. Saying that they were angels, that they were around before us and that I can be like them.
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The whole time they were talking to me, they were trying to weaken and hypnotize me with hand signs - trying to convince me to let go. Thing is, when they did try to convince me, they’d always talk around the subject at hand...but once you know what the subject is, the situation becomes clear.
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A lot of people might think they’d get physical and get out of there. I just don’t think they’d understand how it is fighting sleep paralysis, awake.
I also knew that one false move would take me to the ‘sunken place.’
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I knew I couldn’t just stand there though. But right before I grab the door to get to the elevator, (Dave) says “okay, you gon’ be waiting on that elevator forever; this is a REAL trip…c’mon, I thought you liked this shit, right?”
Mockingly he asked “yeah, I guess you gon’ think twice about taking LSD again huh?”
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I was thinking in my head “fuck, did I really just lose my soul? Is this how it happens to people? Is this where it all ends for me?”
I thought that was it, so I was about to give in and accept the offer - see what benefits I could get, if any. I figured living a worldly lifestyle would be better than dying immediately.
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Then from there, every time we almost sealed the deal, I would feel a hungry fire approach me from behind. Almost like a burning lick.
The one time I decided to look for where it was coming from, I got a vision with an glowing orange blur in it - slowly materializing, until I could make something out of it. Then with the bit that I saw, I knew it was me being swallowed by fire and not dying.
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Immediately after, almost as if I had touched the flames themselves, I yelled in confusion “What? No! Yeshua Hamashiach is my Lord and Savior!”
To which (Dave) nonchalantly responds “okay, you do that...that [N-word] died a long time ago.”
I sharply look at him with disgust and continued my prayer.
Mentioning to God that He promised He would never abandon His children if they encountered evil and that if there was a way for Him to save me, to do it.
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Dave says that I’m blowing his trip and leaves to the gas station.
I could’ve left then and there, but I still didn’t want to be alone in an elevator with him. There's no telling what he has under his sleeve or how I might react in while in there.
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So as I’m praying, I begin to feel the dark hold they had on my heart loosen up. It was like my heart was pumping physical light throughout my body, then all around it. I could feel the forcefield - the LORD had arrived and I could move my body freely. No more fear in taking the wrong step.
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So on (Dave’s) way back, (Robin) announces it and says let’s go downstairs and get him. That’s when I hear (Dave) say - not yell, “open up” from all the way downstairs and I was amazed...I asked myself “wait, can he still hear me?”
With him responding “DUH! Damn, you some shit!” and continued on his way. Then it all came to me, I'm sure hidden witches and warlocks communicate like this whenever they encounter one another. Whether it be at parties, art shows or even churches...a fleeting thought, but a concrete one nonetheless.
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So back to us going to get (Dave) - if I was to leave, this was going to be my chance.
In the elevator she tries enchanting me again, but I rebuked every attempt. She seemed so confident with a huge smile, as if she already won the battle.
But I’m trying to maintain focus the best that I can, so I don’t slip - which made this elevator ride unnecessarily more intense than it needed to be.
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Once the elevator door finally opens, I see (Dave’s) silhouette behind a thick glass rail, carrying an ominous slouch.
Walking towards me, he notices that I’ve calmed down. I guess he expected me to be spazzing out, screaming about devils and spirits...I already knew how that would make me look though. So when he sees my face, he smiles and asks “oh, you’re good now?”
I guess he assumed the process was complete...
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Instead, I replied “yeah, I’m not with this goofy shit y'all got goin' on”
So as I’m walking towards the exit, he yells “that’s not the way out!”
To where I respond “fuck y’all!”
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You would’ve thought I opened the door before touching it, the way I left out so fast.
As that door closed, I did a little jog to get across the street.
But a few seconds later, I feel this tingle in the back of my brain (specifically the medulla oblongata), as though it had neck hairs that stood up.
I look over my shoulder and noticed he decided to follow me…of course. Shortly after I noticed him - with that bull-like slouch, he started to run.
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Now I was a little ahead of him, so I didn’t start running yet. I had to make sure I knew where I was going before exerting my energy.
Every time I moved my head, I could feel the tingle coming from his direction like a compass always pointing North.
So there was no losing him, at least not easily - but I am fast.
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I couldn’t call a ride because my phone was dead and I couldn’t go to anyone’s house at the time, because it was around 5am.
As (Dave) got closer, I felt my vision going black and my body getting heavy again. A lot stronger this time…time to kick it into high gear.
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Once it clicks into my head that the easiest place to catch a taxi in such a heated moment would be in Adams Morgan, an opportunity presented itself.
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Ahead of me was a crosswalk and the orange hand was counting down it’s last seconds. Everything I ever learned told me I wasn’t going to make it, but I wasn’t going to stop running either.
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So when my foot lands off the sidewalk, is when the cars to my left and right begin to move.
That’s when everything moved in-slow-motion…and a burst of energy launched me across the street. I saw that moment like a painting in my mind. Sweat with streetlight reflections, my hair slightly messy, clothes moving with the wind, chain dancing and molecular debris falling from my shoes.
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That moment bought me time because the cars acted as a barrier as soon as I made it, so he was stuck across the street for a little bit. But he didn't give up. This is when I start hearing scribbly garbles rolling and jumping off of buildings and into my ear “you acting like a lil bitch - come back!”
Perfectly delivered as if he was next to me…I look behind me and it’s like he hasn’t broke a sweat. Completely focused, but still plenty of distance.
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From the gas station diagonal to the 9:30 Club (where Robin lives), to the McDonald’s in Adam’s Morgan...
My body wanted to give out most of the way, but soul wouldn’t allow it.
I just had to keep running until I found a taxi - which I did. I was going to live to tell the tale; I had to.
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That’s when Dave caught up, yelling “you look like a unk right now!”
Because 4 taxis stopped for me coming from each direction in that intersection.
To where I respond “I don’t give a fuck, I made it out and you mad as shit!”
I get in the car and tell the taxi driver to head towards Maryland. I’ll give him the address on the highway.
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Finally, after surviving a living nightmare, I made it home.
I went to my room, played some worship music, got on my knees and wrung myself out of tears to the Lord.
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Unable to sleep because I knew they could contact me in my dreams.
So I didn’t rest until the drug wore off, which was on the next day in the afternoon…
I even felt that burn on my back as if it was sunburn for the next couple of weeks after.
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I’m so grateful to still be alive and myself, because I’m 100% positive I’d be in Hell (with something else in my vessel) if I didn’t call on God that night.
It was like I was tiptoeing on a needlepoint to keep my soul.
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Since then, I've been learning a lot more to keep myself more spiritually fortified and spreading my experience in hopes of leading others into a life of light into the hands of the Lord. I hope this story can do something positive for whoever comes across it, so feel free to share to those you love. God bless you.
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Goodness
Original Essay
We memorized the "Three Character Classic" when we were young. The opening chapter is "In the beginning of human beings, nature is good." Kindness can be separated and understood as goodwill and conscience. Kindness refers to gentleness and kindness, and conscience refers to the conscience that does not harbor malice and is worthy of oneself in doing everything. I would like to use this short article to share my personal understanding of kindness.
I asked myself, what is the first image that comes to mind when the word kindness is mentioned? The image that came to my mind was of a mother holding a newborn baby in her hands. The baby lies quietly in the arms of the mother with eyes closed, and the mother conveys the most primitive kindness in life with loving eyes. When it comes to the good and evil of babies, some people say that "at the beginning of human beings, their nature is inherently good", while others say "at the beginning of human beings, their nature is inherently evil". Who is right? I guess that the newborn baby's preference for favor and evil comes from the genes of the parents, but what is more important is whether the family gives the child enough sense of security. If a child receives enough sense of security and feels enough love from his parents, relatives and friends, he can slowly build a "castle of love" in his heart even if he is ignorant at the beginning of life. A child with such a strong enough "castle" can better protect himself in the face of future unforeseen events.
The next factor that determines whether the child can maintain kindness is education—the education of the family, the teaching of the teacher, including the teaching of various teachers after entering the society. This is like a novice who wants to learn to drive. After he has learned the theoretical knowledge, he starts to sit in the cab for practical operation. The co-driver must have a coach to guide and supervise, so as to prevent the car from accidentally driving into a ditch or flying into a tree. superior.
Adolescents are full of energy, receive information very quickly, and are particularly vulnerable to the influence of the environment. If they are not careful, they will go astray. As a teenager, I was blackmailed by gangsters and bullied on campus. The funniest thing is that as soon as I buy a bicycle, it will be stolen, and if I buy another bicycle, it will be stolen again… My first bicycle was when I was just in junior high school, as a prize for being admitted to a key middle school, every day I am content to drive this "special car" between home and school. (I used to ride women's bicycles like my mother's, which was too imposing.)
This exclusive bicycle is a mountain bike, rebuilt and assembled by a car dealer owner, with high performance and good looks! This cost parents hundreds of dollars. But the good times didn't last long. I hadn't been riding my beloved bicycle for two months before the bike disappeared. I still remember standing in the bicycle shed, looking at the place where I parked every day, thinking over and over whether I parked here, did I forget to lock it? Watching the students ride their bicycles away one by one, I even wondered if I walked to school today, and my beloved bicycle was just waiting for me obediently at home! … That sense of helplessness still exists faintly in retrospect, as if someone stole a piece of your memory, and also stole a corner of your heart.
In order to comfort me, my parents quickly bought me a road bike, commonly known as a claw bike. Seeing that my psychological trauma was about to be healed by this new bike, the tragedy happened again-this claw bike only stayed with me for two weeks.
In desperation, my parents had no choice but to buy me a very ordinary bicycle for the convenience of my going to school. At that time, my mother said to me: "Son, you may be targeted by car theft gangs. You can't keep the conspicuous and inconspicuous bicycles. Otherwise, we will take the bus to school in the future." I could only silently agree, so I started Every day when I get stuck going out, I walk slowly when the bus does not pass the intersection in front of my house. As soon as I see the shadow of the bus, I start to rush towards the bus stop. This may have improved my sprinting ability.
My parents didn't have the mentality of revenge in my education back then. If they couldn't protect their own interests through formal means, they would go another way. They enlightened me with appropriate methods and protected my "castle". Much of my understanding of the world was slowly established from this period. The education of adolescence is particularly critical, which may determine whether you will become a street gangster who speaks foul words and fights, or a teenager who is full of goodwill towards the future and the world, and believes that there are many ways to go in this world. I am glad I accepted To the education!
With a kind heart, you will become tolerant towards everything in the world. There are no absolutely good people and no completely bad people in the world. Looking at ourselves and others with multiple dimensions and different perspectives will make us more tolerant. I often think, what color is kindness? Goodness seems to me to be transparent, it can overlay any color without distorting them. If your good heart becomes cloudy, then what you see may not be the original color of things, but your own polluted heart. Our hearts may be easily contaminated, so we need to reflect and brush frequently.
There are many windows in the castle of the mind. If the windows are full of dirt, you will be afraid to look out, and even think that the blurred images are the messengers of demons. When you wipe the window clean, you realize that it is the sun that wants to shine into your heart—you stand in front of the window, the sun surrounds you, and the distance is waiting for you.
Good versus evil, that is the question. To be or not to be is up to you.
#zhang zhehan#zhang sanjian#word of honor#may 25#2022#shan he ling#haizhe#the english translations are machine translated and hence prone to errors
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Made a new Flight Rising iceberg and also wrote an explanation.. man, this took way longer than it should have.
Anyways, I hope you enjoy :D
Iceberg explanation
( If there are any mistakes please let me know and I’ll edit this asap. Also, English isn't my first language so please forgive me for any grammatical errors)
EDIT 28/06: Added some new info! Thanks to everyone who tagged and responded with new stuff to add, I really appreciate it!
The Sky
Naomi
Back in the day, whenever you bought or sold something on the auction house a message would show up in your inbox confirming the transaction. These messages were sent by one of the dragon couriers: Pearl, Spitfire or Edgar.
On January 2016, a strange glitch occurred that replaced the images and names of couriers with the ones of a female fae named “Naomi”.
It goes deeper than that, though: if you looked up her name in the user search menu, a clan would pop up with over 15 million dragons.
It was quickly discovered that all exalted dragons had somehow become part of her clan. Naomi herself apparently didn’t exist, and clicking on her page redirected to an error page. This was later fixed and the original Naomi page can be now visited.
What exactly caused this glitch is still a mystery and today Naomi is still a well-known piece of Flight Rising history.
Missing Tidelord
In the official lore, the deity of the water flight disappeared in early 2018, as described in the short story “Hear Today, Gone Tomorrow”.
In the follow up story (Mixed Elements) posted in April of the next year it is confirmed that the Tidelord is still missing, but alive. This coincides with the fact that the Tidelord account hasn’t made any forum posts aside from festival announcements.
Emperors
Emperors are a type of unobtainable dragon that are formed when several Imperial corpses are left in close proximity to each other, which then fuse forming a multi-headed chimera.
Emperors are described in the lore as having an animal-like behavior and destroying everything in sight. They are extremely difficult to kill, which is the reason why in-universe Imperials have such strange burial rites.
An emperor named Luminax is first described in the Raising a Family short story, and their sprite can be seen walking around on the world map.
The Surface
Old color wheel
Originally, there were only 67 available colors for dragons. On June 8th 2016, 110 more colors were added, meaning that currently there are a total of 177 colors available.
When making a custom progenitor dragon, it is only possible to choose among the 67 original colors because it would be otherwise unfair for those who made their account before the new colors were added.
Imperial breed scrolls
Imperial breed change scrolls are one of, if not the most, rare type of item on the site. They were given only to those who pledged 30 dollars or more on the original Flight Rising kickstarter.
At the time, this was the only way of obtaining an Imperial dragon, which meant that the breed as a whole was pretty valuable. Now that Imperials are abundant this is no longer the case, but First generation Imperials are still extremely sought and probably the most expensive type of dragon on the site.
There were also other items that were only given to Kickstarted backers, namely Skycats, Bonefiend, Golden Idol and Cogfrog familiars, and those are also pretty much impossible to obtain.
Baldwin breed change
When Baldwin was introduced in 2015 he was originally a Pearlcatcher. On September 14th of 2016 however his site art started to gradually change, until his transformation was completed five days later.
In-universe, Baldwin started to change after a lightning strike hit his cauldron during an experiment, which made him slowly mutate into the breed we now know as Bogsneaks.
Trans Fiona
When Fiona was added as a trading post dragon people speculated that she was trans, because the female pose for Skydancers only displays two antennae, while the male one has four.
Since Fiona has four antennae in her site art, many wondered whether it was an oversight or actually intended. Aequorin later confirmed in a forum thread that Fiona is indeed trans.
Boolean
Speaking of rare items, the Boolean familiar was only given to a handful of Flight rising beta testers and as such is extremely rare and valuable.
Plaguebringer coli team
On the Plaguebringer’s page she is listed as being part of a coliseum team.
As of now we have no clue as to why this is, and even more strangely she is the only deity that does this.
Boston & Hope
This story is a bit complicated. I’ve scoured the forums in search of info but it seems like there are still some pieces missing. I’ll try my best to explain anyway.
So, for a long while the Lightweaver was the only deity that had other dragons aside from herself in her lair: these dragons were a Spiral named Boston and a Tundra named Hope. Strangely, they were both Earth dragons and apparently have been there since the beginning (?). When asked why (this happened back when deities would interact on the forums) the Lightweaver responded that they were having a dinner party together.
In August 2014 during a pretty heated dominance battle between Shadow and Light Boston and Hope disappeared from the Lightweaver’s lair.
The Shadowbinder now had them, and both their elements were alsochanged to Shadow. The two deities acknowledged this and changed their broadcast messages accordingly.
If I had to guess this was some kind of inside joke that the admins had, although some people got angry that the Shadowbinder now had both Hope and Boston. Some time later(?) Boston was returned to the Lightweaver and for some reason his element was changed to wind.
I don’t have any more info on the matter but if some of you do I would appreciate it if you tell me.
Shallow Waters
Eyepocalypse
On June 8th 2018 eye type variants were introduced. This update was pretty controversial for a bunch of reasons, and the topic is still discussed today. The majority of people(?) seemed to be upset by the fact the “best” eye types (primarily goat, primal and multi-gaze) could only be displayed on dragons that were born with them, and the fact that every dragon born prior to the update couldn’t have these eye types at all displeased a lot of users.
Another problem was the fact that most of the non-special eye types (i.e the only ones that could be applied to already existing dragons using a vial of Scattersight) were not clearly visible on the grand majority of adult dragons.
A smaller(?) complaint was that two of the primal eye types, Shadow and Plague, were seen as kind of disturbing by some people.
Three years later staff attempted to fix this issue by adding Eye type vials for every available eye type. This resulted in a market crash for special eye typed dragons, as now these eye types could be applied to any dragon. The value of Scattersights also tanked, and the people bought them and hadn’t used them yet lost money as now they were infinitely less useful.
EDIT 28/06: Goat isn’t actually obtainable via breeding, faceted is. Bad mistake on my part.
Also, Scattersights were given away freely by Galore on Flight Rising’s fifth anniversary in 2018 and could not be bought afterwards. I admit that I thought people could be able to buy Scattersights due to how upset people were that the value went down, but whatever.
Courier Breed
The courier dragons (Edgar, Spitfire, and Pearl) are part of an exclusive dragon breed that is currently unobtainable. Even though their eye color still reflects the flight they were born in, in-universe they are considered to be “neutral” and they are granted free access to all domains. This raises the question as to which deity created them, as every other dragon breed (Bogsneaks being the only exception) has been created by one of The Eleven.
Multiaccounting
According to the site’s terms of service, no one is allowed to have more than one account. This is pretty standard for pet sites, as having multiple accounts grants unfair advantages and can mess up the site economy. This doesn’t completely stop people for having more than one account, and the practice as a whole is called “Multiaccounting” or “having multis”.
Some people only do this to have multiple clans or reboot their account without deleting their old one. They mostly do no harm but it is reasonable that the site wouldn’t allow this because of how easy it is exploit.
The real harm of multis comes from a practice called “funneling” which is when someone creates multiple accounts only for the purpose of giving items to their main account. This practice violates the game’s rules and can result in a ban. Funneling is not limited to multiaccounting though, and having an account only to feed another is against the site’s rules whether or not the account in question belongs to another person or not.
Some people fear of being banned for multiaccounting even if they haven’t done so, especially if they share a computer with other people.
Purble
“he purble” is probably among the most famous Flight Rising memes.
In 2016(?) a rant was submitted to the original Dramarising blog by a very angry user that wanted to buy an XXX Purple Ridgeback back when triples were pretty expensive, but got beat by someone else.
I’m not going to copy paste it here because in my opinion it’s one of the funniest Flight Rising related posts ever and I don’t want to spoil the experience of reading it for the first time. You can find it pretty easily by searching it up.
Tert Picking
This is something that refaced recently, even though I’ve seen people talking about this for a while. Some people vividly remember being able to pick their custom progenitor’s tertiary color, even though the developers have made it clear that such thing would be impossible. This is without a doubt just one of those weird situations where a lot of people somehow remember the same thing wrong.
Still, it’s fascinating just how many people claim to remember doing picking their tert.
Swiftwings
Swiftwings were a dragon breed that was scrapped in development. The design was rejected because it didn’t fit the 2 arms 2 legs 2 wings format that every dragon design had to follow before the introduction of ancient breeds.
The reason for this rule is that otherwise it would mess up apparel placement. Although the concept was scrapped, echoes of the design were scattered throughout the site: for example, the empty dragon slots that were present prior to 2019 had the silhouette of a Swiftwings dragon. They are also mentioned in the April Fool’s update of 2018.
“Real” Lore dragons
Most people don’t know that some of the dragons featured on the lore stories are actually real, and you can visit their pages. This is the case for Tetra, Cracklinne, Velya, Liefa, Garote and Mirth, which are currently chilling in Aequorin’s lair.
All of the other dragons in the developers’ lairs are not canon and are used to test bugs and features on the site.
The Middle ground
True deity names
When the site first started the deities used to have actual names instead of titles. Some of these names were based off of the site founders’s usernames on other sites.
The names are the following:
Amogayvhi - Gladekeeper
Xhaztol - Arcanist
Rhenik - Tidelord
Akiri - Flamecaller
Thrage - Stormcatcher
Undel - Shadowbinder
Jhortanas - Plaguebringer
Ghurab - Windsinger
Artaios - Earthshaker
Rhiow – Lightweaver
As you can tell, Xhaztol, Akiri, Thrage and Undel are the usernames of some of the admins of the site, and the flight they are a part of corresponds with the previous name of their deity.
No leg coatls
On January 16, 2015 an iconic thread was posted in the flight rising discussion forum, which displayed a photoshopped image of a coatl with its legs removed. Quickly the thread devolved into a general photoshop thread were people took official site art of dragons and modified it.
The thread was eventually locked due to spam and quote pyramids, but spiritual successors of the original “phoatlshop” thread still exist today.
Dress slot unlocking
A thing that a surprising amount of people don’t know is the fact that when buy an additional apparel slot, the slot opens for every dragon in your lair and not just the one you bought it on.
This is something I also discovered very recently and it’s kind of funny that so many people that have been on the site for very long don’t know this.
Clanbound scatterscrolls
I think the wiki explains it best, so I’ll just copy paste this here:
“Tri-Color Scatterscrolls suffered from an issue where they would only scatter a random range from colors 1-47 (white through sunshine) rather than 1-67 (white through rose). They have been fixed and are now functioning correctly with a random range within the 67 color set. The affected timeframe was from August 15th, 2013 until September 22nd, 2013. The admins allowed users who were unsatisfied with their bugged Tri-Color Scatterscrolls to receive the same amount of them back in the form of Clanbound Scatterscrolls to try scattering their own dragons again with the full color range.”
Beta Mirrors
Ever wondered why they’re called Mirrors?
According to Undel, the main artist of Flight Rising, mirrors originally were supposed to have every part of their body “mirrored”, meaning they had two sets of eyes, two pairs of wings, two tails, and so on.
This design ended up being too cluttered and looked weird shrunken down. The name was kept the same, even though the only mirrored part of the design are the eyes.
Dragons are evil
If you read the “Beastclans on the rise” lore bit, the dragons come across as… very evil, stealing territory from the beastclans when they have been living on Sornieth way longer than the dragons have and killing them for loot.
Furthermore, in the Bounty of the Elements lore bit the Beastclan rebellion guided by Talona is seen by the dragons as unreasonable and wrong even when in canon Beastclans are framed as the innocent party.
The Depths
Scroll of Divorce
In the alpha stage dragons were supposed to be monogamous and could only breed with the dragon they were “paired” with. To break their bond you had to use an item called “Scroll of Divorce” which even featured broken marriage rings in the art.
If I had to guess, this item and the concept as a whole were scrapped because the idea of dragons having “weddings” and needing to divorce before breeding with another dragon felt kind of weird, especially in a game targeted towards teens.
First Festival
The first Holiday festival in Flight rising history was the 2013 Brightshine Jubilee. The items that were available for this festival only are incredibly rare, particularily the Light Sprite which is one of the most valuable items on the site. Apart from that and the fact that the skincent contest only had 6 winners, not much is notable about it.
Offsite drama
Flight Rising has had its fair share of drama both on and off site, but due to the fact that it’s against the site’s rule to discuss user drama on the forums most of the notable drama happened off site (mainly tumblr).
Egg rot
Egg rot was a very early mechanic that was pretty quickly removed from the site. If you forgot to incubate your eggs, they would “rot” and no longer hatch.
It’s the reason why in the nesting grounds the text reads “Eggs healthy” and also the reason why on the stats section of the Account settings it says “Eggs discarded”. The mechanic was removed because it heavily punished casual players and the frequent downtimes of the site meant that even if someone logged in every day they could still have their eggs die.
Also, the images of egg rot look extremely cursed.
Pablo
From what I could gather, Pablo is a dragon which became somewhat popular after user “Desmondtiny” wrote a very long and detailed backstory of them being the Arcanist’s lost boyfriend.
I’m pretty sure it gues deeper than that but I couldn’t find any further information. As usual, if you know something more let me know.
Latest News
On November 12, 2014, a glitch(?) occurred that let anyone post in the Announcements thread. Anything that was posted went directly to the front page, which resulted in quite a bit of chaos.
This was fixed only half an hour later, but the screenshots people have from that time are extremely funny.
Lameforger
On the 2014 Flameforger’s festival announcement Undel accidentally misspelled “Flameforger” as “Lameforger”, which prompted the official account of the Flamecaller to respond aggressively. Lameforger is still jokingly used by users, even after the typo was fixed.
Festival of one (1)
On the first day of the 2014 Greenskeeper Gathering a glitch occurred which switched the site banner for the Starfall celebration banner instead of the Greenskeeper one.
It didn’t end there, in the coliseum Magical shards dropped instead of Bladed Flatleaves, even though skin chests dropped as normal(?).
The weirdest thing about it all was Joxar’s Space inventory, which didn’t display any items at all and had glitched dialogue.
The event was nicknamed by the fanbase “Festival of 1” and even the deity’s official accounts acknowledged the incident.
Vape Juice
As far as I know the original forum thread as been lost, but the vape juice fiasco will always remain cemented in Flight Rising History.
A company called Vape Daugz was making vape juice with Flight Rising dragons plastered on their packaging, completely violating the site’s policy.
The company’s site still exists, and browsing through their products I found that the products that previously had Flight Rising dragons on them still exist, but now feature completely different packaging.
I have no idea whether they changed the packaging spontaneously or staff did something about it.
I think there’s a potentially interesting story buried down there, but we’ll likely never the truth behind the Flight Rising vape juice.
The Abyss
Humans
There’s been some speculation over the years as to whether or not humans are canon in the Flight Rising universe. Some people believe that the “Mages” of the second age in the official lore are actually humans, but we can’t be sure because they are depicted with long robes that cover their whole bodies.
The idea of humans existing in canon has spawned a couple of memes, most infamously Thomas.
Plague healers
Again, I think the wiki explains this one better:
“According to Aequorin, Plague healers are an interesting bunch because rather than administer treatments that counter illness, they use a mixture of magic and contagion that stress the affected dragon further, allowing them to reach a stronger, healed, and resistant state faster than other elements. Plague healers will treat physical injuries with sutures, bandages, and braces, but they won't clean the wounds or apply ointments."
Akitla
As described in the original thread, Akitla was a dragon that user “qunii” saw on the front page, but noticed that she wasn’t accompanied by the username of the person owning them.
After clicking on her, an error page loaded. It was discovered that putting her color combination or ID in the search bar would result in an error page. This was later fixed, and both Akitla and her mate were now displayed as being exalted to the Arcanist. T
here are some theories as to what happened to the Akitla’s user, some think that she belonged to a deleted account, others that it was the result of an incomplete account creation.
As with a lot of things on this iceberg, it will likely remain a mystery forever.
Arcane sprite book
“what is the arcane sprite reading??” is probably one of the oldest still active threads on the forums.
On September 25, 2013 user “Kaadashi” started a joke thread were they wondered what exactly is the arcane sprite reading, and playfully suggested that it could be erotic fanfiction. People went crazy of course, and started to wonder what kind of juicy secrets were hidden within the pages of that book.
I don’t want to say too much because I really don’t want to spoil the experience of reading through this very cursed tread.
Sunshine
Sunshine is one of the most… interesting lairs on the site, and certainly one of the most well-known.
They(?) have a lair (almost) completely full of triple basic sunshine dragons, most of which are Tundras. So far they have collected about 320 triple hundred Sunshine dragons, almost all of which are also named “Sunshine”. They’re not all the same, some of them have apparel, some of them are gened and some have unique art and descriptions.
They’re dedicated and I respect that.
EDIT 28/06: Apparently some people seem to think that the sunshine-dedicated lair is based on a meme concerning the announcement of the color wheel expansion, which became so discussed that the itself site broke. The two things are unrelated however, as the Sunshine lair has been around for much longer.
The announcement of the color wheel expansion was cryptic, with only a few post showing off differently colored coatls and then 3 pages of reserved posts, with no explanation whatsoever.
Simple Farmer
Another very famous thread is the “I am but a simple farmer” thread started by user “someKindOfGenius”. It’s not really about anything specific, it’s just a rather silly thread were people photoshop flight rising dragons onto various crops.
Still, this thread is iconic so I had to include it.
Dragon Deaths
Way back in 2014 former flight rising programmer Thrage revealed on a forum thread that way back before the beta, dragons could actually starve to death if left unfed.
Yep.
Obviously they had to remove this mechanic because it would have been extremely harsh to casual players and make people frustrated with the game.
Zalvador
User “manojalpa” became fairly well-known for the extremely dark lore they(?) had written for their Clan, it was so dark in fact that every single one of their dragon’s bios had to moved to their tumblr where they couldn’t be easily seen by the site’s mainly underage usebase.
Their lore centered around their progen dragon, a tundra named Zalvador, which behaved and had the same powers as a flight rising user: buying dragons off of the action house, having “breeding projects”, exalting dragons, etc.
These things seem pretty normal when done by a player, but when taking them as actual real things that happen in universe… yeah, it was way too morbid for the site.
The Pit
Black linen neck wraps
For some weird reason, the apparel piece “Black linen neck wrap” when put on a male pose Coatl wraps around the dragon’s throat instead of it’s neck. It’s kind of subtle and hard to see, but if you compare it with the female pose the difference is clear. This is probably just an art error, although it’s weird that it hasn’t been fixed yet, since linen wraps are a very old piece of apparel.
Another weird thing about linen wraps in general is that the wing wraps just sort of… go through the membrane? This is not possible. These dragons are in pain.
Icewarden ears
Another very remarkably popular thread is the Icewarden ears thread.
In 2014 user “Llanai” simply makes note of the fact that the Icewarden has teeny tiny ears.
As we have come to expect from these threads, it quickly devolved into nonsense.
Forbidden Snapper lore
Snappers used to have a way different lore section that was changed because it deemed too similar to the lore of another petsite.
This is what the original section read:
"Snapper dragons do not sleep, but exist in a constant state of reverie. They receive and catalogue all experiences and stories told within their dreams. This persistent state of awakened dreaming awards them the longest memory of any dragon species. They are living encyclopedias, and any dragon who is seeking difficult-to-obtain information will have the most luck unearthing it from a Snapper clan - provided they have the patience for it. If you want two dozen quick answers, talk to a spiral. If you want a fully developed answer, camp out around a Snapper.
These dreamers move at their own pace, which varies from dragon to dragon. For some, the awakened dream can prove to be more interesting than their surroundings. This leads to a focus upon the dream, and the waking world as filtered background noise. Interacting with these sleepwalkers can be a trying and repetitive task. Other Snappers may be fairly lucid, with a focus upon their surroundings and the constant hum of the dream pushed aside."
Bee movie script
I’ve seen this story around the forums a few times but I’ve never been able to learn the details.
From what I’ve heard someone copy pasted the entire bee movie script into their clan bio in a drop down text format, which completely broke the page for anyone who visited it. This was fixed, apparently, although I have no clue as to who this user is.
EDIT 28/06: Zeus
Zeus is an XXX gold g1 permababy imperial that used to belong to user "happywing".
Their account is now locked because Zeus was created with the use of a duplication glitch on an imperial breed change scroll, which is obviously not allowed (although I've heard some people say that the dragon was hacked in altogether). Before the account was locked, people speculated that Zeus was the most valuable dragon on the site, because an XXX g1 imperial is impossibly rare.
Wegg shaming
On July 2017 user “Dreamnorn” made a thread were they(?) claimed to have a dream where everything was the same except people used the term “wegged” when two dragons would lay only one egg in a nest.
Ex. Aw man! I’ve been wegged again! = Aw man! I bred two dragons and they only had one egg!
The dream ended up being prophetic, as the term catched on and people started to use it unironically.
The practice of “Wegg shaming” I think refers to the trend of people posting pictures of the dragons that “wegged” them in order to “shame” them.
Plague nest skull
The site art of the plague nest features an unique dragon skull that doesn’t match with any currently existing dragon breed or creature: It appears to have two sets of eyes, like a mirror, but also long and curled horns.
It’s probably just for decoration and it likely doesn’t have any significance whatsoever, but personally I believe it would be pretty cool if when they eventually release plague ancient it at least somewhat resembled this skull.
EDIT 28/06: On second thought, the skull doesn’t seem to have two pairs of eyes, It just has the generic shape of a carnivore.
Rock bottom
CAPTAINPLANET
…this is CAPTAINPLANET. Somehow, user “Decres”' managed to overlay a Fae skin on top of a Tundra, creating this horrifyingly fascinating abomination.
I have no idea how she did this, and she seems pretty adamant to tell.
EDIT 28/06: People have pointed out that this skin overlay glitch was actually somewhat common (although I still haven't found another dragon like CAPTAINPLANET). What you had to do was breed change a dragon while attaching a skin to them in another tab.
This glitch has been patched and such thing is no longer possible.
Lair 46264
A cursed lair.
Dreams
I’ve seen a lot of people, both on forums and on Tumblr, sharing dreams they had about Flight Rising.
A lot of people dream of just being on the site, while occasionally weird things happen.
I’ve read of people who dreamed the distribution of a new breed, buying an exclusive item, a new Fiona feat or Swipp trade, or just browsing the forums.
The most common type of Flight rising-associated dream I’ve seen however is being caught multiaccounting and having their account banned.
I’m no psychoanalyst, but I think it’s pretty clear that these nightmares stem from the paranoia of being banned from their beloved petsite instead of showing any actual intention of doing the “crime” in question.
Anyways, I think it’s fascinating how so many people dream about this site, and it reminds me of the dreams people claimed to have about Mario 64 where completely new levels were added or a scary monster appeared.
Dragon Slime
Dragon Slime was an infamous thread which was supposed to be start off point for an ARG.
It was deleted because it was considered too “spammy” and also because ARGs are banned from the forums. The thread has been lost, unfortunately.
EDIT 28/06: Thanks to @randompurple-fr for providing screenshots of the dragon slime tutorial! You can find them here
Cucumber
Cucumber is the only dragon ever to have been exalted with a skin, which is something that should not be possible. This raises some questions as to what exactly did the person that exalted them do to achieve this, but we have no way of knowing who Cucumber belonged to.
EDIT 28/06: Actually, we do know who used to Cucumber belonged to! Its owner was Osiem: an official flight rising artist. I couldn’t find the thread where they(?) acknowledged the glitch though, if someone has it please let me know!
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Wait we can request more than once? Okay then... I wish for Craig x Insecure! Reader (and also kind of x Tweek). So basically we get into a relationship with Craig, at first our personalitiy from very cheery and everything is peachy keen at first.
But then Craig starts ignoring us or shrugging us off, thats when we start being insecure and start thinking dark things like: what did I do wrong? Is there someone else? Am I that annoying?.
So trying to be progressive with her life, we take a job at Tweek coffee, (also sidenote everyone noticed our change in behavior and were worried, but didn't know how to ask how). So Tweek becomes the brave soul to ask us what's wrong. And we spill our problems out to him, Tweek doesn't know what to do but gives us a shoulder to cry on , few weeks roll by, and we find we have alot in common with him, so we start hanging out with him, almost completely forgetting about Craig. (It's up to you if you want Tweek to gain feelings for us)
By this time, Craig has started to notice and gets in the same position as we were (although more jealous than insecure), it isn't until a girl makes a comment about how she'd leave Craig too if he treated her like that, does Craig connect the dots and apologizes, they compromise their relationship and try to be a better couple and be peachy again (or you could do another ending where Tweek goes 'Treat you better' and fights for us).
I'm so so so sorry that I took so long! I just really wanted to take my time on this and really get into it, since I love the request! <3
I'm also sorry that Tweeks route is shorter but hey, at least we can choose which of the two deserves our love. :)
Thank you for being so patient and requesting! <3
_____________________________________
Craig Tucker x Insecure!Reader X Tweek Tweak
The sun on your skin felt wonderful. There is nothing better to do, than to hang out outside on a sunny, warm, and beautiful day in South Park.
To your luck your relatively new boyfriend Craig asked if you wanted to hang out with his friends and him when they would go to Starks Pond. Naturally, you said yes, getting finally a chance to also hang out with his friends.
While the guys were busy playing catch with a ball, you and Bebe, Clyde's on/off Girlfriend sat on the picnic blanket that she bought along.
It was also the first time you hung out with her and honestly, you were happy to basically get to know all these different people.
Bebe was a ray of absolute sunshine, and her boyfriend was the funniest dork you had ever seen.
Token was a more serious guy but oh so nice to you as well. Tweek and Jimmy were nice too and the quieter ones of the bunch.
"So... You and Craig huh?" Bebe asked you and you finally preyed your eyes from the black-haired boy away.
"Yeah. I was surprised when he asked me out." You laughed and Bebe did so too.
"How come?"
"I don't know. Kinda thought maybe I was out of his league. I'm not the most popular person around school and most people don't know me. Unlike you guys. You and Stans Friends are basically famous."
"That's only because of all the weird shit that sometimes happens around here." You nodded.
“So, how is he?” Bebe continued her questioning and you thought about it for a second before answering.
“Honestly, he’s a real sweetheart. Totally not like you would imagine him to be when you don’t know him too well.”
“That sounds so cute.” Bebe said dreamingly.
Your conversation was disrupted by a ball flying towards you. It landed just a few feet away from the blanket you and Bebe were seated on and Craig came sprinting.
He smiled when he picked up the ball and came closer to you.
“Sorry for that. I think Token was distracted by your beauty.” Bebe giggled in the background and you had the widest smile possible on your face.
“No problem. But I think you need to tell Token I’m taken then. By the prettiest boy around the school.” Now Bebe rolled her eyes.
“Ahh, to be in love like that again.” Now Craig couldn’t contain his laughter. He looked over to where Clyde was standing and obviously waiting for him to bring their ball back.
“Go back. They are waiting for you.” You said, pointing over to the boys. Craig nodded, but quickly pressed a kiss onto your lips, before sprinting right back to his friends.
It was a beautiful day that was always on your mind. Now more than ever. Recently Craig had been rather cold to you and you really had no idea why.
He simply became less and less affectionate, when you would do something together, he barely talked, and he generally seemed changed.
He was angrier, cold, and seemed distant. It hurt you a lot, but talking to him about it was impossible, since he would just not admit that something changed.
It started getting to you. It poisoned your heart and mind that he was behaving in such a way towards you.
Maybe…Maybe he was seeing someone else... But no. Craig wouldn’t do that…Would he? Maybe he just realized you're annoying but didn’t want to break up.
“H-Hey Y/N!” Jimmy called out to you.
You waited for him to walk up to you since you were getting books for the weekend out of your locker. When he was finally next to you, he seemed giddy.
“I was wo-wondering if yo-you’d like to help TimTim and m-m-me with a project?” He asked, a pleasant smile on his face while he waited for your answer.
That smile turned into a frown when you shook your head.
“Sorry, I think I will just stay at home this weekend. I'm not feeling too well…” You lied, hoping Jimmy would not see through your fake smile.
Of course, he saw right through it, but he didn’t know what to do. None of your friends did. They all noticed how different you had become, how you smiled less and less and seemed more in thought.
They weren’t sure what to actually do, or how to help, so they just hope that you would maybe come to them and talk about it.
“Oh o-okay. No problem.” Jimmy said, and you could clearly hear that he was hurt, but he already continued walking.
You starred after him, wishing you weren’t so complicated. You felt like you kept only hurting everyone around you. With a deep sigh, you closed your locker and shouldered your backpack.
“Maybe…Maybe I need to change something…” you mumbled while walking towards the school’s entrance.
Craig had football training anyway, so it’s not like anyone was waiting for you, or that you had any desire to talk to anyone.
Someone hesitantly, you pulled out your phone and went onto Craig's contact.
“Hey, you got time this weekend? <3”
The least you could keep doing is trying you told yourself, even if you felt more and more like an idiot. A few minutes later you got an answer from him.
“Sorry, no time. Maybe next weekend.”
You wondered how many times he had said that by now. It felt like a million times.
Were you really that horrible that he couldn’t stand you anymore?
That it was too much to give you a merciful breakup instead of keep dragging this to the inevitable? And yet you also refused to break up with him.
There still was this small hope that maybe he would come around, see he was being a dick, and change his ways.
You loved him a lot.
And whenever you thought about breaking up, your heart ached. It was a horrible situation for you. And you wished you could escape it.
“Okay, Y/N. I think that’s all you need to know. If you have any more questions, you can ask our son, Tweek when he will arrive. He got a doctor’s appointment today, otherwise, he will be here before you. He’s weird but nice.”
“Eh…Mister Tweak, I know him, we got to the same school and sometimes meet up.” You said, raising an eyebrow.
Mister Tweak, your new employer, simply smiled. You sometimes weren’t sure if he actually listened.
He was an odd fella, but you were just happy to have a little side job, that gave you okay money and had good hours.
You were looking around the shop in your new Tweeks Bros. apron when the door flung open. Tweek stepped into the shop, rambling about god knows what, and took his backpack off.
He stopped dead in his tracks when he laid eyes on you.
“Y-y-you applied here?” He questioned, seeming genuinely surprised.
You and Tweek didn’t hang out that much. He and Jimmy were little busy bees and therefore weren’t at every hangout, unlike Token, Clyde, and Craig.
“Yeah, I thought I…Might need some change or something like that.”
Richard Tweak clapped his hands and proclaimed: “Good, you two seem to get along. Then I will go home. Have a great first day, Y/N!” Tweek and you watched his father leave.
“So…What happened to the well-known fact that your father is a cheapskate and hires no one to save money?” You asked.
“My mother u-urged him to hire someone so that he can be home more. No idea how she convinced him.” Tweek smiled awkwardly, as so did you.
You never noticed before how little you had talked to the twitchy blonde.
Tweek walked behind the counter where you were and also took his apron.
“My dad already explained the basics?” He questioned to which you nodded. “Good, because honestly, I-I suck at explaining things.”
You loved Tweeks smile, and it involuntarily made you smile too.
“Well, I hope this job will get my mind off things.” You mentioned absentmindedly and the blonde cocked his head to the side.
He would love to ask what going on, but he felt awkward. Like it wasn’t his place to ask. And yet in a short-lived moment of bravery, he asked: “Yo-You’re... alright?” His anxiety shortly piped up, making him scared that maybe you didn't appreciate being asked if you're okay and that he already messed up with you.
You let out a deep sigh, the fake smile appearing once more.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it.”
“I feel like you’re lying about it.” Tweek wanted to slap his hands over his mouth, felt incredibly surprised that it just came out of his mouth and he immediately mumbled a quick sorry.
“It is fine. It’s just… I don’t know if I can tell you. You’re friends with Craig and shit.”
“D-don’t worry about that, honestly. I wouldn’t dare to tell anyone anything that yo-you tell me in private.” Tweek said, stepping closer to you. He pressed his index finger onto his lips, smiling at you.
“Well…Since you're the first guy to ever ask me...I just feel like Craig doesn’t like me anymore. Just…Whenever I ask him if we want to hang out, he tells me off, he doesn’t kiss me or anything, I just… Maybe he has someone else on his mind already.”
Tweek felt overwhelmed by your sudden confession, not having thought you would actually tell him.
“If you want to hear my honest opinion as someone who is close friends with him, there is no one. Craig is not that kind of guy. Maybe there’s a lot going on with him right now and he just can’t tell you. M-maybe give him some space and he'll come around. I know we not really all that close or anything, but if you ever need anyone to talk to, I-I’m here.”
You smiled, feeling actually better, even if you never would have thought talking about it would help.
“Maybe you’re right. And I now have a job, so some time apart might be the right thing.” You shrugged.
You heard the bell above the entrance door ring, signaling a customer arrived.
“Well, let’s see how you do on your first day.” Tweek smiled and gave you a little notepad to go and take the customer’s order.
Weeks had flown by and you had a wonderful time at Tweeks Bros.
Tweek’s parents were incredibly sweet to you, sometimes making you coffee or giving you a cake or cookie free of charge.
Tweek himself had become a really good friend to you. Outside of work, you now hung out at school, sitting together at lunch, or sometimes even hung out on the weekend.
When Craig and you would meet up on rare occasions you texted with him. Tweek was a wonderful person to talk to.
There even was an incident when Craig asked you to hang out and you declined, stating that you had already promised to Tweek that you two would bake cupcakes that day.
“Wait, so you love Fav/Flavor cupcakes too?” Tweek asked feeling giddy, as you two were out shopping.
“Yes. I never found someone who loves them as much as I do!” You happily proclaimed, feeling amazed at how much you and the blonde had in common.
While nearing the checkout area, Craig spotted you two.
He was out shopping with his family. Somewhat angry, he stomped over.
“So you’re busy today, Y/N?” He said sarcastically and let his eyes wander over you two.
“Yeah, like I said. Me and Tweek are baking today.” He nodded, looking obviously not pleased.
Tweek shifted around uncomfortably, hoping this ordeal would end.
“Well, we gotta get going, those cupcakes aren’t making themselves. I'll bring you one on Monday if you’d like.” You smiled.
Craig only stared coldly at Tweek, who wished the earth would just swallow him whole.
“Okay. Have fun then.” Craig mumbled and walked away fuming.
“C-c-come on, Y/N, let’s get going.” Tweek said, tugging you along to the checkout.
“Bullshit. I’m sure Tweek is hitting on them!” Craig fumed, walking up and down in Tokens living room.
Token, Clyde, and Bebe were all there to see Craig's emotional outburst.
Bebe was leaning on Clyde, reading a magazine while Token and Clyde tried their very best to keep their fuming friend calm.
“Tweek? Tweek Tweak? The shyest, weirdest kid in our goddamn school? Are you on fucking drugs?” Token exclaimed, not believing the bullshit Craig kept on spewing.
“Token is right, Tweek is not that kind of guy. He’s our friend and he’s a pure soul. You’re seeing danger where there is none.” Clyde said and looked at Craig with a worrying expression.
Craig huffed and let himself fall onto the opposing couch to where the others were seated.
Bebe kept chewing her bubblegum.
“What ya mean seeing danger where there is none? There is?” Bebe mentioned now sarcastically and kept reading her magazine, obviously not understanding any of the guys here.
Craig made a questioning sound, hoping Bebe would elaborate. She didn’t seem interested in answering until Clyde asked her politely.
“Oh my god.” She exclaimed annoyed and sat up, closing her magazine.
“Craig, do you honestly think you have been a good boyfriend? Because, frankly, you haven’t been great at all. You always ditched Y/N, kept them at distance, you didn’t give two flying fucks about the relationship and now you’re mad they turned to someone how obviously cares more about them? I would have broken up a long time ago. Consider yourself lucky that they didn’t do so already when Tweek seems like a much better option than you are right now.”
Craig's heart stung, and Clyde looked at his girlfriend in shock.
“Honey, you can’t just say that!” Clyde whispered, but Craig stopped him.
“No, I guess she’s right. I was a dick I think. I need to apologize.” Bebe nodded and so did Token. The black boy looked over to the blonde woman, mouthing a “Thank you” to her, to which she smiled.
Craig felt like an idiot. A big one. He was now standing here, flowers in his hand, looking through the glass windows of Tweek Bros..
He saw his girlfriend laughing together with his blonde friend and his heart hurt when he saw it.
He loved Y/N. He didn’t want to lose them.
So, with a little confidence, he stepped into the coffee shop and Tweek was the first to spot him, he smiled at him waving.
When he spotted the flowers in Craig's arm and his nervous expression, Tweek could easily guess why he was here. So, he excused himself from Y/N and went to that back of the shop.
Confused, you turned around and seeing your black-haired boyfriend standing there, looking all awkward made you smile involuntarily.
“H-Here. These are for you.” Craig mumbled, passing you the beautiful bouquet of different flowers over the counter. He extended his hand, asking for your, which you gladly gave him.
“Hey, I know I have been a dick recently and I wanted to apologize. I really didn’t see that I had hurt you and there was a lot going on for me, which is why I wanted to stay alone for a while. I now know that that’s stupid. So, I am asking, can you please forgive me?”
You felt dumbfounded. This was everything you wished for, ever since Craig started being so cold and here, he was, flowers and apology were already given and now it was up to you to decide if you two still had a future ahead of you.
You kept opening and closing your mouth, not really knowing what to say at all.
You wanted to get words out so desperately, but you simply could not…
If you choose Craig:
Finally taking a deep breath, you smiled and with teary eyes said: “You’re forgiven. Just…don’t ever do that again.”
“Never ever again.” Craig agreed and you quickly walked around the counter to hug him.
While he held you close, he whispered to you.
“I’m sorry that I have been so cold. My grandma died recently, and it affected me more than I thought it would…I just wanted to be alone.”
“It’s okay.” You whispered back, just feeling happy that your beloved boyfriend came around.
“So, to make that lost time up to you…” Craig broke away from your hug and you smiled contently at each other.
“Wanna go out for dinner next weekend?”
“I’d love to, honey.” The bell of the shop rang once more, and some elderly men came in.
“Seems like I gotta go back to work.” You mumbled, watching the men get seated.
“Yeah. So, I’ll be on my way, don’t wanna keep you from work. You look cute in your apron though.” You giggled, biting your lower lip.
“I’ll text you when I’m off work.” He nodded, waved, and went outside.
You stared after him for a moment before you took the new customer's orders.
While preparing the coffee and cake Tweek came back and looked at you with a curious expression.
“He apologized and invited me for dinner next weekend.”
“S-sounds amazing. Does that mean… you will stop working here?” He asked and you immediately shook your head.
“Not at all. I love it here and I love working here with you.”
Tweek smiled widely, happy that his friend would stay with him in the shop.
“I really hope you got some nice clothes for that dinner.” Tweek said while he had a glance at your note block to help you prepare.
“I have something in mind. But maybe you’re interested in coming over and help me pick something fitting? And before that, we will try that new recipe for the raspberry cupcakes and banana bread?”
You asked, sincerely hoping Tweek was onboard.
“Yes, that sounds great.” You were somewhat thankful that Craig had been acting so weirdly.
It allowed you to really get to know the blonde coffee addict that you would now even consider your best friend.
“But n-next time he acts up, offer him some cupcakes with la-laxatives in it.”
The customers were looking over to the two laughing idiots behind the counter.
“Oh my god. Where did you get that idea?”
“Have I ever told you the story of W-WikiLeaks and how Cartman got thrown under a bus by t-teachers?”
“No?”
“You’re in for a treat, trust me.”
The following weekend was wonderful for you.
You had a great afternoon with Tweek, baking and trying on outfits, and your dinner with your boyfriend was amazing too.
You had never seen him so well-kempt and without his signature hat, so it came as a surprise when he stood outside of your door like that.
The dinner itself was a new fond memory of yours. You ordered food and talk for hours on end, catching up on what you two had been missing out on for so long...
If you choose Tweek:
You didn’t know why your heart arched; you had known it for so long already but just hoped that you didn’t have to do this.
“I-I…” Craig stared at you.
“I am sorry… I just think we should break up…I think I caught feelings for someone else.” You decided to be completely honest and noticed the change in his expression immediately, even if he tried to play it cool.
“I could have guessed that. Tweek is not a bad guy at all… I just want you to know, I am really sorry for how I behaved and maybe we can remain friends?”
“We will see, Craig.” You awkwardly nodded at each other and he left the shop, obviously defeated.
Tweek poked his head out from the backdoor and questioned where your friend went.
“Home, I guess. We broke up.”
Tweek walked towards you and gave you a hug.
“I-I am so sorry to hear, b-but how come. I thought he wanted to apologize?” “I-I-…guess I just don’t feel the same anymore... My time here at the shop and everything made me realize that I can do better…And you proofed me that especially.”
You took his hand in yours, and he jittered and twitched insanely in this for him unusual situation.
You noticed the red blush on his cheeks, and you smiled warmly at him.
“You treated me so much better than he did recently.”
“Well…I-I-…I d-do like you.” Tweek managed to stutter, and you felt your face heat up.
“Hey…Maybe want to hang out next weekend and make dinner together? My parents are out of town.”
Tweek nodded, feeling happy when the bell above the door made you two instantly gain distance.
To Tweek this was new, a close friend of his hinting that they like him and everything.
That was simply too much for him.
The pressure he felt was immense and yet, he felt happy, giddy… In love.
He felt bad for Craig, his friend, and yet happy since you choose to spend time with him.
That slight red blush kept lingering on his cheeks, as he watched you work. With such ease, you managed to make his head spin.
“Just keep doing you. She liked you well enough until now!” He thought to himself to keep calm.
He just had to keep on doing what he did until now and everything would be fine. Basically, a date with the girl he liked the next weekend?
He will try to manage…
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see I don’t know exactly where this came from in my head but Haseul and trans masc vivi who have some long stupid rivalry and both are too stubborn to admit they wanna fuck
Oh I can see it.
TW// Transphobic comments
Vivi being that kind of pretty boy who thinks others aren't good enough to entertain him, and Haseul who just wants to get things done.
They get partnered for a project, it's due in a months time and they spend the first week arguing over the numbers.
They actually got into each other's faces, claiming the other doesn't know what the fuck they're doing and this project was a mistake.
Haseul storms out pissed as hell, and Vivi just keeps pacing, claiming he can do this all on his own. He's known for not being much of a team player but he always brought his A game.
Even with how mad Haseul gets, she's never actually been so mean to anyone ever. Sure she gets the occasional road rage when commutting to work, but who didn't?
She overhears some gossip, focusing a little harder when she hears Vivi's name. They're badmouthing him, claiming that if it wasn't for the fact that he's a diversity hire, he would have been fired already.
The gossip is deep rooted in jealousy. Vivi holds his work to a standard, one that gets praise every time. Haseul clenched and unclenched her fist. Sure he was a handful, a bit of an ego. But he was still better than the idiots laughing at the water hole.
-
Haseul returns like nothing happens and is willing to sit through Vivi correcting her math for the second time today. Instead of getting mad she simply thanks him while typing away.
Progress is made and Vivi is skeptical. But otherwise gets back to work. They end each other notes on the shared document, not really wanting to break the silence between them. Awkward or not.
-
"You're being weird." Vivi bluntly says, he hasn't looked up from his screen but he knew Haseul was looking at him.
Haseul shrugged. Was she being weird or just trying to get her work done? "Just doing my job."
Vivi's eyes narrowed, as it he knows that Haseul is hiding something. He just didn't know what and it was irking him.
-
It happens again, Haseul stumbling into gossip. But this time she's witnessed and even called over. She tries to mask her emotions and fake a smile, but she can feel her lips twitch.
"How's it in there? As much as a handful I bet." The small group laugh like it was the funniest joke ever told.
"Nope, we're doing very well. Will probably finish before next Tuesday."
"Ah, poor thing has you working so hard in there."
The way that her coworkers were describing Vivi wasn't sitting well with her. "I know he doesn't have the nicest personality, but he works hard. I don't understand why you refuse to acknowledge him" She out extra emphasis on Vivi's preferred pronouns, and watched at two of the group shuffled from foot to foot, and the third simply narrowed his eyes.
"Don't tell me you buy into this pronouns. Your generation is ruining what we've been thriving on." Haseul wasn't in the mood to listen to this nonsense.
"One more word and I'm taking this to HR. I already plan to but I will name you the main problem.* Haseul meant well on her threats too. This is supposed to be a zero tolerance work facility, and I'd HR catches wind of bigotry mixed with transphobia. They're not even going to recommend training, and will simply let you go.
Blockberry doesn't play with when it comes to discrimination.
-
Word seem to spread fast that a certain trio was caught being messy and their leader was let go. The others are given a slap on the wrist and written up. But besides that they were hardly acknowledge on the team. No one wanted to work with them anymore.
Vivi caught wind and was confused as to how all this drama around him happened, but didn't care to look into it. All the while Haseul couldn't help but feel like she helped in some way or another.
She was greeted with the sight of a banana nut muffin in her desk, right next to a thermos filled with coffee. There was a note, one from Vivi.
Thanks for sticking up for me even though I'm an asshole. I'm only like this because I've had to work harder than usual cis men.
Haseul understood that, she definitely has had her fair share of being spoken over or someone repeating what she said and getting pats on the back for her ideas.
Male dominated spaces sucked, and yet, Haseul didn't dislike Vivi the more time she spent around him. Yes he was a workaholic, but so was she. He dressed nice, and smelled good.
Even had a habit of licking his lips when focusing on something. Not that Haseul has taken notice to that. No that would be odd.
Right?
-
"We finished."
Vivi didn't know why saying those words felt strange. It was expected of them to finish this project and forward it to management to be reviewing. Once it was approved they would simply have to present their ideas a week from now.
Usually it wasn't in either of them to get projects rejected but who knows.
But with the hard part out of the way there really was no reason for them to interact nearly as much.
"We should celebrate. Maybe we can get the company card for lunch." Haseul suggested, a wide grin on her face knowing full and well that Blockberry did motivate them to work hard with assigning company cards for each department.
And there was a killer kbbq place around the corner too. Assuming Vivi wanted to be seen in public with her. She wouldn't be surprised if he said no, but-
"Okay, yeah we can do that. Maybe a beer too." He stood up, stretching before offering his hand out to help Haseul up. She never realized how dainty his fingers were. But there was hidden strength in the tug.
Haseul nearly fell over. "Holy shit are you hiding muscle under those jacket?"
Vivi's lip quirked but he didn't answer right away. "Wouldn't you like to know."
Haseul opened her mouth to reply, but she didn't have one. Did she want to know? Was Vivi flirting with her? Instead she simply walked past him to open the door. "Guess I'll find out over that beer, hmm? Let's go."
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hey so I’m not trying to be gross but this genuinely something that I wonder about like how does mc survive on her period in a mansion full of vampires? Especially with a pure blood like Comte or Leonardo like can’t they sense it? sorry if this is weird I’m just genuinely interested In like pure blood and vampire lore and like what they pick up on especially comte as he’s a fave. I’d love to hear your thoughts as always I love your posts and I hope you’re doing well and staying safe and healthy 💛☺️
Haha, please don’t worry! 😂😂😂 I’ve often wondered about the very same thing, and while I don’t have any canon answers, I can offer the most likely scenario from my understanding of the game. Hope you’re doing well too, lovely, thank you! Stay safe out there~💛💛💛
Given what I know, and the fact that blood is only a small component of the discharge that comes with one’s period, I’d wager it poses a low risk generally speaking. I think the plan would be to make sure everyone’s on guard and has been keeping up with their usual doses of Blanc/Rouge (no waiting until you starve, Jeanne, yes that is a threat) but otherwise everyone proceeds as they normally would. I think it would be hardest on the vamps who are most sensitive to the presence of blood/have a harder time controlling their thirst, like Isaac and Arthur.
Purebloods have been canonically established as having a much lower tendency to bloodlust by comparison to lesser/turned vampires, so I very much doubt Comte or Leonardo would react much. A blip on the screen for them, nothing more. (I often categorize Jeanne as the closest to pureblood level reactivity because his ability to control the thirst is exceptional; the only time he has ever come close to attacking MC was when he was at a point of intense starvation.) I think the only time her period could potentially become risky is if one of them was starving (and therefore reacting on the level of base instinct) or grievously injured. If they have feelings for her or she’s in a relationship with one of them, it may make them want to bite her more, but I don’t think they’d necessarily act on it. I’d assume most of them would be reluctant because MC is already losing blood as it is? Better to be safe than sorry, and all that.
As for whether or not they can anticipate it, I’m really not sure? It’s possible they might sense hormonal changes, but given I haven’t seen them react to anything so slight I can’t be sure. Purebloods I’d say it’s a coin toss; it’s very possible they can sense it before it comes--but I just have no way of knowing for sure. Lesser vampires, I very much doubt it.
That being said, you bring up a very timely contention (for me) as of late. Which is to say: what are purebloods capable of sensing? I’ll be elaborating on a recent JPN collection story event that included Comte, as it had a very interesting tidbit that I’d like to share with y’all. It isn’t a huge spoiler as I’ll be focusing on the pureblood lore that was included, but for those who don’t want to see it I’ll be placing it under a cut. (Also some slight spoilers for Comte and Leo’s main story rt).
Mandatory spoiler warning:
So this last event featured MC and her suitor taking care of a child for a few days, in which they act like a pair of surrogate parents. Naturally, being a feral Comte stan, I got his story. In it, both he and MC are taking care of a young girl named Emma--the daughter of a fellow aristocrat (a friend of his). At some point during the story, MC accidentally loses sight of Emma while hanging up the laundry. MC searches the entire mansion but can’t find her anywhere, and she begins to panic when Comte encounters her. Alarmed, he gently asks her what’s wrong and she explains what happened. There’s a brief pause [”...”] and then he says “It’s okay, MC. Emma is–”. Comte then leads her to the gazebo where the little tyke is fast asleep, taking a midday nap in the shade. Naturally MC is relieved to see her safe, but also a little baffled as Comte led her directly to Emma.
MC: “I’m so glad she’s okay. But…how did you know she’d be here?”
Comte: “Purebloods are good at sensing/detecting nearby human beings.”
And I ????? Granted it’s possible it got translated incorrectly but...I really don’t understand how else he would have known exactly where she was? If MC asked around and searched the entire place and still couldn’t find any trace of her, how would Comte have just known in an instant? Additionally, if he spotted her before he found MC panicking, then I doubt he would have just left her there without an adult/guardian nearby--he would have either stayed there or taken her with him.
So this makes it plenty plausible that he really did just sense her presence in the vicinity. But........like..........howmst in the fuck. Is that even possible. I have no idea, but I find it a little shocking that I’ve only discovered this now? I mean maybe I missed it somewhere else where this tidbit of lore came up, but as far as I know they don’t discuss it much? The most I remember is Comte giving very clear indications that purebloods were able to sense each other, but I assumed that was restricted to purebloods only...
That being said I’ve been thinking about it and, well, there are at least three pretty strong instances in the game that could affirm his claim in this story. Namely: the beginning of the story itself (Comte’s POV of the prologue), the kidnapping incident in Comte’s main story, and the beginning of Leonardo’s main story.
I remember @a-maidens-dream asking about something very interesting in Comte’s POV story, and at the time I was a little unsure what to do with the information--it wasn’t aligning in a way that made sense. But I think this might help that tidbit fall into place? I think that Comte really hadn’t realized she followed him into the door until she was already in the mansion, and as such this ability to sense humans would explain why he knew she was there before Napoleon even told him anything. If purebloods can sense human people, then he would know a human being entered the house because of the species signature; the only human person living there otherwise was Sebastian. I’m not sure if the sixth sense is acute enough for him to be able to differentiate between human people. (My guess is that it’s not that specific, or if it is, the pureblood has to know the person very well to be sure.)
Building on that, this is a subtle distinction, but it still stood out for me. In his main story route, both MC and a fellow aristocrat (a woman she was friends with) are taken to these small cabin things in the middle of the woods. All Comte, Napoleon, and Jeanne have to go on is the general location of these hideouts. They decide to split up; Comte goes one way, Napoleon and Jeanne go another. I find this instance particularly interesting because Comte’s POV indicates a kind of loss of rational thought--he is 100% in a panic state, just moving to satisfy one objective: save MC before time runs out. This suggests that Comte very much could have been relying on that sense to pinpoint her and her assailants. We have no evidence to believe he was ever a soldier or somebody with extensive experience in tracking--or that knew the landscape well. But he only trusts she’s alive and unharmed for sure when he has her in his arms again, suggesting either that this sixth sense has its limits (in regards to specificity of the person being detected) or that his judgement in that moment was too compromised for it to be clear.
The last one, and perhaps the funniest possibility of the three, lies in the beginning of Leonardo’s main story route. Iirc, Leonardo spends much of that time hauling MC around the mansion to interact and properly situate herself in the mansion’s social dynamic. While this may just be a coincidence, MC notes that she actively tried to hide from him and make herself scarce, but whenever she tried no amount of stealth worked. One can certainly argue he just paid attention or asked other residents about where she was, but I do think it’s worth considering? I need to re-look at the chapters, but I seem to recall her trying to hide in a garden shed and he still found her immediately and just picked her up and walked right back out.
Tl;dr: So does this mean Comte/Leo can sense when MC is on her period? I have no idea, but at this point I really can’t be sure what abilities they do and don’t have!
#asks#ikevamp#ikemen vampire#ikevamp meta#ikevamp comte#ikevamp saint germain#ikevamp leonardo#ikevamp leo#ikevamp jpn spoilers#i dont need sleep i need a n s w e r s yall holy shit#i'm torn bc i feel like i sound like a conspiracy theorist but i also#can't shake this feeling that there are hints of it in the storyline#oh well i will at the very least be paying closer attention moving forward#its interesting to me because like#its such an expansion of comte's character construction to know this?#in that like#he has every capacity to sense whether or not she's alive to some extent it seems#and yet he literally can't calm down/trust it as a result of the trauma#i love this little character detail--it feels v apt considering his contradictory nature#but i digress!#hopefully this was interesting and/or informative#happy to answer though the topic is a bit odd HAHA#thank you for the ask lovely! <3#rambles#not incorrect quotes#tw: period talk
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I know I shouldn’t be turning to to individuals as like a Source™️, but I’ve tried google and come up with nothing. Could you explain what The Jackles Long Con is?
there is no conceivable way of answering this without making me sound like an insane person so if you are reading this and know me in real life please look away. I’m a normal human woman who knows a normal amount of things about the cw’s supernatural
I’m absolutely not providing sources for any of this btw because that would mean I think this is legit. which haha, would be insane. or would it 🤔
anyways here is what I know:
up until basically last week everyone (including fans lol) was convinced that jensen ackles was WILDLY uncomfortable with the gay subtext in spn, based on like, every single thing he’s said and done in public since 2008 apparently. I’m not gonna go hunting for sources because that’s insane but he’s not always had the best PR presence when it comes to handling queer fans/questions about queer rep so this wasn’t an unfair accusation
not that I blame him, this fandom was psychotic
I say that like I’m not typing up an explanation for the jackles longcon in 2020. I can admit to being a hypocrite
ANYWAYS everyone had it in their heads that jackles was lowkey homophobic or at least uncomfortable with the queer interpretations of the character he played on tv because he related heavily to said character and is a 40 year old straight american man. again. this is not an unfair accusation against him.
THAT BEING SAID he seemed to change his tune or at least not be so loudly against it in the last...idk, year? I haven’t followed this much because at no point in my life have I ever wanted to know about the opinions or lives of actors on the CW network and yet. here I am
it’s pretty much a fact that he didn’t like the ending. he’s said he struggled with it and had to be talked around by multiple people including kripke. everyone thought it was because it was gay, turns out he just has taste
what we do know is that he has talked more about ep18 than he has about the finale. this is more probably due to NDA clauses but STILL
he asked a crew member to film the confession scene so he’d have an unedited version of it, and also mentioned that there were a lot more reactions on his part that were cut
he also shared fan reaction videos to the confession with misha collins, although the way he describes that is more akin to a scientific observer documenting animals in the wild lol. again this is a straight man in his 40s, he’s trying ok
halfway through this explanation and it just occurred to me that jensen ackles being homophobic and still a bigger proponent for canon destiel/bi dean than anyone else at the CW would be the funniest thing that has ever happened to me so I am IMMEDIATELY choosing to pivot to that angle and will believe that until proven otherwise
oh somewhat related someone also brought up that he was really really against fridging charlie, so never mind I changed my mind again, one true ally of the Communité jensen ackles
he’s talked about dean’s reaction to that scene, and did not say definitively that dean doesn’t reciprocate. he’s said that dean’s reaction is more due to misunderstanding castiel’s intentions because of the species difference. jensen said hashtag dumbass dean rights
ackles (and his wife, known cas girl danneel) has been virtually silent since the show ended. the only major thing he’s posted related to the show has been that IG post of the rebar
the only two tweets he liked (at least as of saturday when I stopped paying attention to this) about the show were misha collins’ tweet and bobo berens’ tweet about ep 18. berens is the writer of ep18 and that was his last episode
he unfollowed andrew dabb on twitter in 2017
this is all to say. everyone is now convinced that jensen ackles has been on board with canon destiel since at least the beginning of season 15, and has started his own production company with the intent to film a post-canon miniseries fixit to make that happen. I am only slightly joking here
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BKDK Fic Recs (AKA 4 of the greatest fics you'll ever read):
1) Crimson Concrete (Words: 56,468 Chapters: 30/30, Teen+)
Bakugou Katsuki was pretty sure he had this vampire shit down to a tee. All he had to do was stay away from the sunlight, avoid churches and not have any attachments to humans...? That was literally how Katsuki had lived his life up until now- it was the exact same, except, he supposed, with much higher stakes... Ha, get it?
This is one of the funniest things I've ever read in my life and the characters and plot are so well-developed. This is a fic that haunts me and I'm certain that I'm not the same person I was before I read it. A little warning tho the ending will punch you in the heart and spit on it. :))
2) Welcome to Magnolia Springs! (Words: 79,395, Chapters: 38/38, Teen+)
Bakugou Katsuki was going to tear up this quinoa-encrusted suburban shit show, one school bake sale at a time.
This is written by the same author of Crimson Concrete (@pearliegrimm ) and they are genuinely so talented. There is some triggering content written so please be mindful of the tags but this story is full of domestic, suburban goodness and I love it. 💕💕
3) Honeymoon High (Words: 115,125 Chapter 18/18, Teen+)
“OI, FUCKFACE! If you think you’re just going to waltz into this fancy-ass church with your fake as shit smile and your miserable bitch of a wife while my friend is sitting on the street carrying YOUR BABY, then YOU need to step right down here SO I CAN DETONATE YOUR ASS UNTIL NO ONE CAN RECOGNIZE YOUR LYING FACE, YOU DIPSHIT EXCUSE FOR A HUMAN BEING!”
A beat of silence.
And then all hell broke loose.
It started with a ‘SLAP’ resonating from the bride who activated some quirk to maximize the pain that her ex-fiancé felt. A lady near the front fainted, knocking over the table with the wedding cake and a glass swan sculpture. The scattered remains caused the ring bearer to jump up. Her quirk accidentally activated and sent the brides’ maids into the air. A man with half white and half red hair rushed to save the statue, but ended up tripping over a power line which engulfed the room in darkness. It didn’t take long for everyone else in the building to follow.
In the midst of the glory Katsuki felt at the complete chaos, a calloused hand grabbed his sleeve. He was met with wide and curious green eyes. “Excuse me, I’m the groom. Do I know you?”
.
Fuck. He crashed the wrong wedding.
THIS IS IT. I LOVE THIS WITH MY WHOLE HEART. There is no way I can properly describe how amazing this story is. Be careful as well though because there is some discussion about past sexual abuse so please please be careful.
4) Bakugou's Childhood Sweetheart Survival Guide (Words: 28333 Chapters:4/4, Gen)
Childhood Sweethearts is a Japanese game show series inspired by the popular book The Childhood Friends-To-Sweethearts Contest by Merrywetherweather originating as far back as 2018. Childhood friends who are now lovers from all over the world compete in what is known as the ultimate challenge to prove your love to that girl next door, or to gain confidence to propose to the boy you've been protecting since you were both toddlers. Gaining a huge following and recently signing a contract to have their show aired internationally, the organizers opted to set up camp for the fifth season off the beach that Class 3-A happened to be spending a vacation on.
“Kacchan.”
“No.”
Deku gave him a look. “But I didn’t say anything yet.”
“You were thinking it. That’s enough incentive.”
Otherwise known as that other fanfic where Izuku and Katsuki sign up for a childhood sweethearts competition while remaining 99% oblivious to their growing feelings for each other.
This author also wrote number 3 and is genuinely one of the best authors I've ever come across. (Check out their writing @rirururu ) I adored what they did with this fic and you should just go read it instead of reading my thoughts on this....just go read it
Soooo... yeah these are 4 of the best bkdk fics I've ever read. And if any of these sound vaguely interesting to you I highly HIGHLY recommend reading them. :)💕💕
#bnha#mha#bkdk#boku no academia#bakudeku#ao3#fanfiction#fic recs#fanfiction recommendation#bakugou katsuki#bnha fic recs#mha fic recs#fiction#fic rec#fanfiction rec list#midoriya izuku#izuku midoriya#katsuki bakugou#my hero academia#class 1a#fanfic reading#modern au#canon#fanfic#vampire#supernatural#au#mha bakugou#deku#dynamight
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Who could replace Hades as the new big bad? Overly long essay
Like pretty much everyone else in this fandom, I love Hades. Guy’s your typical pure evil villain with a personality larger than life itself and he’s having so much fun with it that it’s contagious. Every time he pops up, I’m delighted to see him. It’s so fun to see him do his shtick and have the time of his life with it, which also makes beating him feel so great. After all the crap he has put the main cast through, it’s so satisfying to blast him into the face because for a moment that confidence finally breaks and once it's all over, people cheer because they don’t have to live in horrible fear for a while at least. This characterization is mostly rooted on the sheer fear factor Hades had in the eyes of ancient people - even in civilizations which have rather chipper afterlife people tended to prefer living over dying, and this of course meant that they were absolutely terrified of the Underworld deities. Hades was mostly addressed by epithets in texts because people thought that if they called him by his name, they were drawing his attention and the last thing a sane person wants is the attention of an powerful god who has power over the dead. So if a god has this level of appeal, be it positive or negative, you may not even need excessive amount of mythological content to create a frame for a character!
This being said, I don’t believe his chances of coming back are as the big bad of a next game are high - that is unless we have to wait another 15-20 years to get a new game, but I’d like to be more hopeful than that. So if he isn’t coming back, who could possibly replace him as the new big bad of Kid Icarus? It’s not like the writers could ever run out of source material because there’s so many monsters to deal with and every god is more or less morally grey, meaning that there’s many possibilities for new bad guys regardless of the scale.
This took a lot longer than I originally expected and I’m sorry for that - there’s no worse idea than to jump into a rabbit hole and bringing a shovel with you because things will quickly spiral out of control into new interesting directions. The more info I gathered, the more interested I was on looking more into it and sometimes it even spiraled out of mythology into history and philosophy. If you’re interested on some specific reasons for why this took so long, here’s few: myths are long and there’s many different versions of them, epics are even longer, Peloponnese people couldn’t be bothered to write their own things down so I had to look what travelers wrote down, it takes Plato way too long to get into the point, Herodotus never gets into the point, someone translated the term metic as resident alien of all things which I thought was the funniest thing ever and Ludovisi Ares is really pretty.
This is the point where I give the obligatory warnings, so here - since I'm discussing mythology here, it's inevitable that there's some talk about violence and death. I'm not going to linger on the gruesome details, but know that it's there. At couple points this will spiral into a full-on history lesson because I thought that understanding the historical context was important regarding the topic I was discussing. Also this is a one long essay - and by long, I mean really, really long. If you want to read it all at one sitting, prepare some time for yourself. But with that all out of the way, let’s jump straight into the discussion on who could be the next possible big bad, shall we?
I’m limiting this mostly to the main 12 Olympians with the addition of some other big names to keep things simple - while some smaller mythological figures such as Arachne or Arke would work fantastically as villains, they don’t have that recognition or presentation the more well known characters have. We’re trying to speculate who could fill Hades’ shoes as the new main bad guy here after all, not who we could add on the list of great yet less significant antagonists like Medusa, Pandora and Thanatos. I’m excluding Zeus, Athena, Hephaestus and Demeter from this list for rather obvious reasons - Zeus because the the guy seems to be MIA for good so Palutena could rule the place, Athena and Hephaestus because Palutena and Dyntos practically are them and Demeter because Viridi pretty much is Mycenaean Demeter on steroids in a package way too small to contain all that anger within. I also don’t think her relationship with Pit and Palutena will change drastically, so she’s sitting comfortably on her friendenemy-zone.
As for already existing characters, I don’t think anyone of them could snatch the title of the big bad. Viridi is off the competition for already mentioned reasons and I don’t see anyone from Forces of Nature defecting to become the new main villain. Pyrrhon is either gone for good or went back to whatever is this world’s equivalent of Egypt to lick his wounds, so I don’t think he’s coming back anytime soon - and if he’s coming, I don’t think he’s coming back as a main bad guy since he really wasn’t one to begin with. Thanatos’ only major mythological appearance is the myth of Sisyphus capturing death which doesn’t exactly strike confidence on his abilities in general and if that version of Thanatos couldn’t do his job correctly when meeting one guy too stubborn to die, do you really think that I believe our Thanatos has any chances of becoming the new big bad? Bringing back Medusa would be beating a dead horse at this point unless they really twist the formula and I don’t think that’s going to happen, so Medusa is off the competition. Pandora wasn’t all that big of a threat to begin with, so if she comes back she most likely stays that way. So it’s definitely going to be a new character, but who could it be?
As for who for sure can’t replace Hades as the new main bad, it’s Hestia. She probably has the lowest chance of any big Greek god to even appear in a possible future Kid Icarus game simply because there’s next to no material of her and that’s for a good reason. She was the goddess of hearth, domesticity, family, home and state. Most of these were and still are considered private, so that explains why there’s very little material of Hestia actually doing anything - we don’t write epic poetry about cleaning the house, making a macaroni casserole for dinner or going to bathroom and so didn’t the ancient people. With Hestia, you’re dealing with the bare bones of a character because she’s so passive and non-confrontational figure. It would be hard to make her a central figure in any kind of plot, especially for a one centered around action, so she’s out.
Hermes is also a figure I don’t think would work as a big bad or as an antagonist in general and I don’t really have any concrete reasons for why I think so. I just feel that he would be unfit for the role. He’s a trickster who started his shenanigans on the day he was born and the rest is mythology - by cunning escapades and underdog tactics he became the messenger of gods and from that point onward he kept collecting even more jobs such as becoming the god of merchants, shepherds and thieves, being a psychopomp, guiding dreams and helping heroes whenever he felt like it. He has a lot of going on but he’s always regarded as someone who knows all the tricks and isn’t afraid to use them, not all bad for a guy whose name was derived from a word meaning a pile of rocks.
As for why I think Hermes would make an terrible antagonist is mostly because of his status as the god of thieves and how it’s pretty much the easiest way to turn him into an antagonist. The thing here is that I just can’t stand antagonists whose main thing is that they’re amazing thieves and/or tricksters in games. While I think they can be enjoyable in other forms of media if they’re written on a smart way, in games this is almost never the case because gameplay and story don’t always match perfectly and writers need to use cheap tactics to make the character work - and by cheap I mean either A.I stands for artificial incompetence and the character is simply bad at being a thief/trickster despite all the characters and lore saying otherwise or that the game just starts cheating against the player to make them feel dumb even though they did nothing wrong. Thieves and tricksters are just really hard to balance in a game when it’s not the player character doing the deceiving. That perfect sweet spot for a great character is too goddamn tiny and if the thief/trickster isn’t exactly in there, you have an annoying character either because they’re incompetent at their job or because computer is a cheating bastard. So while there’s many enjoyable antagonists who share traits with Hermes, combine them all into a one character with the problems I already mentioned and most of the time you have a figure everybody hates due to how infuriating they’re to deal with. We’re trying to make people interested of going on and seeing what happens next here, not trying to annoy them to the point where they can just drop the game and never pick it up again. As for another reason I don’t think Hermes would work all that well as an antagonist is because his whole shtick is that despite his incredible powers, he still manages to be an underdog. Needless to say, the way underdogs are represented in media is vastly different from the way major antagonists are and while it can work, it’s hard to pull off. And of course there’s the thing of Hermes being portrayed almost always as a positive figure in myths, meaning that I and many others have a hard time imagining him as a bad guy. At his most evil we imagine Hermes doing stuff such as saying to his nephew that grandpa equals target practice, not anything that could threaten the world. Though if Hermes is included into the cast of a future game, I can image him having a theme that sounds similar to the BW rival theme for some reason. It has that I’m a one chipper fella but I’m also extremely busy right now so goodbye for a moment, see you soon-energy in it that I associate with Hermes.
As for what kind of role Hermes could be playing, he could work rather well as a quick cameo like Poseidon was in KI:U, where he offers help in some form. If one wants to go deeper into it, he could possibly run some service since he was the god of merchants and trade as well - though if one want to involve the fact of him being the god of thieves in addition to previously mentioned things, make him an occasional scammer because that’s what one would expect from a trickster. Or have him as a boss in a training gauntlet. Works either way.
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If Artemis was introduced into the series, I don’t think she would be antagonistic. I can totally see her having a cold personality and her being bit of a hard person to deal with, but I don’t see her being actively malicious character - only example of Artemis being overly cruel towards figures KI-characters seem to be based on would be her sending the Calydonian boar to cause chaos in Calydon. It’s interesting if you believe Magnus and Gaol are at least partially inspired by Meleager and Atalanta like I do, but I don’t think it’s enough to make Artemis an antagonist, much less the main villain so she’s off the competition. Not to say she isn't wrathful, I looked into it and her wrath far outnumbers her blessings, though it's rather messy at times and some of them even can't co-exist the ones about Orion and Callisto definitely can't but her wrath is divorced from the main KI-cast. You'd have to create new characters to excuse it and KI already has a rather large cast, so I don't think it would be all that wise to create new characters just for the sake of goddess cursing them for a plot line that's resolved in couple chapters. Maybe she’s just a cameo or possibly a boss in a training gauntlet.
Apollo would be an antagonist. I just don’t see any other way how he could be introduced into the series. He has potential to be a charismatic, funny and mostly harmless antagonist who isn’t there to cause any trouble, he just really hates Pit and only Pit. But why would he hate Pit? It’s not like the mythological Apollo dislikes Icarus or Perseus and that’s indeed true, but there’s one more thing. For a god who we associate with a celestial body mostly made out of hydrogen and helium, Apollo has extremely high levels of sodium chloride within him - which is to say that he has been salty starting from the moment Hermes robbed him that one time and that lake of salt inside him has only become larger ever since. That salt is directed at people he dislikes and while he doesn’t dislike Icarus or Perseus because he never met either of them, guess who he does dislike? Angel-like gods, or just Eros to be more specific.
The story goes that Apollo’s enormous ego took the better of him one day and so he started to mock his nephew for what he thought was mediocre use of the bow and arrow. Insulted Eros decided that Apollo had officially lost his uncle-license which led him to curse Apollo to have the worst love life imaginable, starting with Daphne. And as we all know Cupid is Roman version of Eros and Pit is named after Cupid, so this was hatred made in heaven and it would be disappointing to not use the opportunity when it has been given to us on a golden platter. And you don’t even have to come up with an detailed and intriguing story to explain why Apollo hates him - something could’ve very well happened during the three years Pit’s consciousness was in that ring. His body may have ruined Apollo’s chances to hit it off with people because it was destroying their cities or something similar. Or just leave it as a noodle incident that’s referenced multiple times, everyone wonders what the heck actually happened but only Apollo knows, refusing to tell the story because he just assumes that everyone already knows it and they’re just messing with him by pretending to not know. Either way, Apollo should be an antagonist if he’s featured in a sequel. Not a villain, definitely not the big bad but fun antagonist to deal with.
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This is something that most of you probably already know or at least you would know if you’ve actually read something other than Ovid’s Metamorphoses, or as I like to call it Jaded man screams at Emperor Augustus because apparently telling the Roman citizens to go all out on every monument the prude ever built clearly wasn’t enough, please tell me you have but Medusa isn’t an only child. She’s in fact one of Phorcys and Ceto’s seven children, both of them being somewhat monstrous primordial ocean deities - Phorcys has been described as a merman with red skin and crab claws, Ceto’s name in the other hand just literally means sea monster. Besides Medusa and the two other gorgons Stheno and Euryale, the list of their children includes the graeae sisters, serpentine dragon Ladon and Echidna, which is quite a lot of snake monsters for two deities who themselves don’t have any snake traits. There’s a lot of potential in this group but ideas of any of them becoming the new big bad end up falling apart because just like Medusa, they’re all rather bland characters like you’d expect from a mythological monster. They’re less like characters and more like plot devices that the hero needs to deal with. The only two members of this family besides Medusa who actually get to do something of importance are Ladon and Echidna and even those acts aren’t all that interesting. Echidna gets to have her many monstrous children with Typhon and then she’s apparently is killed by Argus, Hera’s servant-giant while sleeping on a cave just like her sister. Ladon guarded the garden of Hesperides which was well known for its golden apples and he doesn’t get to die with much dignity either, since Heracles just shoots him in the back and literally the next day other Argonauts find nymphs looking at his still twitching body. Alternatively Heracles just tricks Titan Atlas to do all the apple picking, which leaves Ladon alive.
Possibly one of the biggest problems writers have to deal with is setting. Ladon is very strictly tied into the garden setting and Echidna was cave dweller who never left her home, so writers would have to come with rather specific situations for them to appear. Of course if one wants to be lazy, Underworld could possibly serve as their home. It could very well house caves big enough to house a snake monster and Greek Underworld does have Elysium, which is basically Paradise and it could very well also function as a garden. But honestly even with the right setting, I don’t think either of them would make all that interesting big bads. They would definitely work fantastically as large-scale villains, but they don’t really have that much intimidation factor all things considered - you can blame Argus and Heracles for that.
But I’m not done with this family yet as there’s one character connected to them who’s probably the most feared monster of all Greco-Roman mythology and that’s Typhon, Echidna’s mate. He’s essentially an ancient Greek equivalent of a kaiju, more a destructive force of nature than a monster and everyone fears him - and by everyone, I mean everyone. There’s couple of versions of what happens but the most popular one goes that when the gods saw him, their first instinct was to shapeshift into animals and flee into Egypt. Those who did stay behind such as Hades were said to cover in fear in their homes while Typhon ravaged the land. Zeus tried to fight him but when he went for the kill, Typhon caught him and cut off his sinews, then threw him into a cave under the watch of another snake monster Delphyne. This didn’t stop Hermes and Pan from getting the sinews back and saving Zeus, and once his strength has been restored he and Typhon fought once again. Zeus eventually wearied Typhon down and then either casted him down into Tartarus or dropped a mountain on top of him, that being Mount Etna.
He could work very well as a big bad, problem here are just how high the stakes need to be for him to work. He’d had to be the ultimate villain if that was the case, the stakes need to be higher than they were with Hades. And considering how Hades was pretty much your typical pure evil villain causing chaos, what separates Typhon from him? Just some more chaos and no wisecracking dialogue because everyone is too scared to talk? He comes off as way too similar to Hades without all the fun personality. Maybe if KI:U became a KI:U-trilogy he could work as the ultimate big bad of the last game, but I got to say no otherwise. The bar for making him work is already sky-high due to how destructive he is and we don’t want to repeat the plot of Uprising here. So while he definitely can work, maybe save him for later.
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Hera and Poseidon both have potential to be serious antagonistic forces, but I don’t think they have it to be main villains. Hera simply fits the bill because most of the times she’s the antagonistic force actively trying to make people’s lives worse, all because she can’t direct her anger at correct people. Some times she’s just blatantly evil, like how she imprisoned her own daughter Eileithyia or you may better know her as Lucina to prevent the birth of Artemis and Apollo or how she tricked her pregnant great-granddaughter into disintegrating herself Semele is her great-granddaughter by the way. As for examples of Hera being wrathful which don’t involve Zeus being horny, she was said to be the one who sent Sphinx to Thebes, no reason given why or if there’s one, I couldn’t find it. Works either way.
Because she might as well be the personification of divine wrath, it’s pretty easy to see why one would think she would make a great villain. However that wrath also gives us a big problem, it being that her evil escapades are mostly rooted on anger and spite - while wrath is a good driving force for a villain, it needs more to work. With Hades, he does evil things for fun and is having a blast while doing it. Hera on the other hand just rages and most of the times it’s because of Zeus, who seems to be out of the picture. She’s not there to have fun and when you add her general lack of charisma on the top, you don’t end up with the most endearing character. While wrath can serve as a character motivation, it can become stale very quickly and this means that unless the story regarding villainy her is short (as in solved in 1-3 chapters) it starts to feel like dragging. I overall think that Hera does have very low chances to appear in general, but if she does appear as an antagonist she should preferably be a minor one in the same way Viridi was. You know the meme of what makes villain a supervillain and the answer is presentation? Hera doesn’t have that presentation. Writers can certainly just give her that which is what they did with Hades whose mythological counterpart was more or less a basement dweller, but why go trough all that trouble when there’s so many better candidates to work with?
On to Poseidon, who’s an important figure in the founding myth of Athens - it’s honestly quite odd how it’s never mentioned in any shape or form in KI:U despite Palutena being based on Athena. But then again, considering how much “care” this series put on the names of its cities and towns, this being ignored doesn’t really surprise me even if it does disappoint. He was a really big deal during the Mycenaean period, besides being the god of ocean he was also seen as the head god and the ruler of the Underworld. Then the Late Bronze Age collapse happened and Poseidon was nerfed in the lack of better words - during the Dark Age, Zeus became the new head god and Hades popped seemingly out of nowhere, taking over Poseidon’s role as the god ruling the Underworld. On the other news Poseidon’s antagonistic potential is somewhat dwarfed by the fact that most of his escapades involve banging and they don’t really feature any figures the main cast of KI seem to be based on. It’s annoying because he does so much but because it’s mostly banging people and either helping or bullying very specific heroes, it’s just not something that’s all that relevant in the context of KI. But there’s couple myths and stories that would make him an easy bad guy, first one is that of Atlantis - and we’re going to jump straight to the source material because on it’s core, it’s technically just another tale of Athena and Poseidon having a conflict. Fish people under the sea is fun as well, but by using the source directly it gives us the most potential.
So Plato tells in his dialogues Timaeus and Critias that when Athenian statesman Solon visited Egypt, he found some interesting records about certain events during 10th millennium BCE and translated them into Greek. Only thing here that’s true is Solon visiting Egypt, everything else was made up Plato - if you need more proof, know that 10th millennium BCE was during the stone age for context, Britain wasn’t sharing a land border with just France, but also with Belgium, Netherlands, Germany and Denmark during this time. It was that far into the past. As for the actual story, it begins by gods choosing lots of land for themselves and Poseidon chooses Atlantis. He then falls in love with a mortal woman Cleito, builds her a luxurious home, they have five sets of twin boys together and once the kids have all grown up, they divide Atlantis into ten parts and so is born ten different lineages of kings. But by each generation the kings become more and more human, meaning that it’s much more easier for their wealthy lifestyle to hit them in the head - compare that to Athenians in the story, who’re not tempted by luxuries and have quite Spartan lifestyle interestingly enough. This wealthy lifestyle of the Atlanteans quickly leads into colonialism and war mongering, leading into them trying to take over the Mediterranean but they’re are stopped by Athens because naval warfare was the only type of warfare Athenians actually excelled at. Zeus eventually looks down to see what the heck is going on and then tells Poseidon to do something because this racket is technically speaking all his fault. Poseidon agrees, causes an earthquake and then sweeps Atlantis under his rug, that being the ocean. So Atlantis is pretty much an antithesis of a perfect society, a concept that’s discussed more in Republic and the lesson here is that being consumed by hubris in the search of luxury leads to ruin - but since we’re not here for philosophy lessons, let’s forget all of that and think what kind of plot one could craft out of this mess.
Island nation in search of wealth is a good set-up for some action, so I don’t think there’s much that needs changing. Have Atlanteans attack some cities which alerts Palutena and that leads Pit into a mission in which he tries to tell Poseidon what’s going on. After 2-5 chapters of war against Atlanteans, Poseidon deals with the problem either willingly or by force - whether he just destroys the place or makes Atlanteans full on aquatic folk who can’t survive on land meaning that they have to give up the conquest is up to writers. It’s honestly quite refreshing to have the original tale working so well, because usually everything related to Atlantis in media is so divorced from what Plato told. Sure, a submerged city full of fish people could still work but by using the original tale as base we get a story with clear beginning and end which makes perfect sense in context of KI. Or maybe have the a plotline inspired by the original story first and then later have something related to the submerged city with the fish people. Best of both worlds, amazing!
Also orichalcum, the metal Atlanteans were said to have aplenty, is pretty much just copper. Reddish metal and only gold is more valuable than it, it couldn't be anything else but copper. The term even translates into mountain copper! So why is it never portrayed as copper in fiction?
Besides Atlantis, Poseidon has couple other myths I’d like to talk about too. The first one has him and Apollo losing their divine authority for a while and as punishment they have to serve Trojan king Laomedon father of king Priam and grandfather of Hector among some others if you’re wondering. The king makes them to build the legendary walls of Troy and he promises them great rewards, but once he doesn’t deliver them Apollo sends the plague upon Troy and then Poseidon sends a sea monster to terrorize the place Heracles kills it if you’re wondering. There’s also certain another situation which I’ve actually already talked about on a different post and how with little shaking it could work nicely on a future game - what I said was that Pit should do something Poseidon is going to hate to the point that the god is screaming for his head and that he wants to settle things on court.
The myth I used as reference was that of the supposed first trial in history, in which Ares kills Poseidon’s son Halirrhothius for assaulting his daughter and Poseidon loses his marbles over it. The gods gathered on Areopagus which is a real place in Athens, fun fact and I’ve heard two versions of how the trial goes. In the first version everyone agrees that Ares’ actions were justified and in the second one gods side with Poseidon, but goddesses side with Ares and since there was more goddesses present than gods, their words mattered more. Either way, Poseidon loses the trial and Ares gets away scot-free.
Were a future KI-game do their own twist with this myth, Pit would obviously take the role of Ares. Besides the fact that we’re trying to make Poseidon more antagonistic, Pit just being on a situation similar as Ares makes sense thematically speaking and I’m going to talk more about this later since it’s rather interesting. As for why the trial happens in the first place, it could very well be over anything. Maybe mix it with the one where Poseidon sends a sea monster to terrorize Troy just replace Troy with some unimportant city as this series always does and he’s so attached to it that seeing it getting slayed deeply saddens and angers him. You don’t even need to get rid of the idea that it was over a girl, even if the motive for killing the monster is changed along with what kind of relationship the girl could possibly have with the main cast. This is something I’ll get back into later because there’s in fact one other character who I’d like to talk about and how their most cruel and personal form of villainy happens to bound to a certain girl.
So back to Hera and Poseidon. There’s definitely potential for them to be antagonistic, but I’d say they would work much better as arc villains rather than as the main bad guy. There’s only so many things you can do with characters whose actions are rooted on anger or wrath, especially when they don’t have all that striking personalities.
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As for someone who could well work as the big bad, Dionysus is the first serious candidate. It’s partially due to how inconsistent his characterization has been, which I guess is something one should expect from a figure who has been around since the Mycenaean times and who happens to be the god of insanity, vegetation, orchards, fruit, grape-harvest, winemaking and wine. Does this sound like someone you’d expect to be a member of Forces of Nature? Because it sure does for me and I’d honestly be surprised if he wasn’t one if he was introduced to the franchise.
Symbolism behind Dionysus’ birth is pretty neat, my favorite version of it is the one written down by Diodorus of Sicily in Bibliotheca Historica and in that one Demeter is his mother. It starts the usual way in which the poor kid is killed shortly after his birth by Titans and Demeter comes back just in time to gather his remains to allow his rebirth shortly after. It references the harvest process and wine making - the god wine is born from the union of rain and earth just any plant is, he’s torn apart and boiled alive symbolizing the harvesting and wine-making process, his remains represent the fallen bare vines which become fertilizer for the earth and lastly wine itself is supposed symbolize the now reborn Dionysus. All of the versions of his birth myth do have this symbolism to a certain degree but I’d say this version has it the strongest because unlike his other the mother candidates, Demeter is a nature goddess first and foremost and also the goddess of agriculture.
This next point is somewhat tied to the previous one which is that he actually has valid reasons for his absence, that being his meanderings. Long story short - Hera’s angry over the fact that he exists, she injects him with madness and he wanders around like a madman for a while, then Rhea cures said madness and tells him to go on a journey so he could teach people how to make wine. So he goes and wanders around the world with the exception of Britain and Ethiopia for some reason teaching people the art of winemaking and does some other things in the meanwhile, such as apparently founding a city it’s told that on his campaign Alexander the Great came across a city that was supposedly founded by Dionysus. And this is a fun fact, apparently Dionysus’ popularity exploding around late 4th century BCE can be directly linked into Alexander, which is pretty neat. Once he comes back home he firmly establishes his place as a god and then he starts doing shenanigans much more familiar to us, such as giving king Midas his golden touch and marrying Ariadne.
So why do I think Dionysus is the first real contender for a possible new big bad? Well, do you know what’s the first thing he did once he came back to Greece? According to Bacchae, he brainwashed a city to worship him, caused an earthquake, set a palace on fire, gleefully watched when his worshipers teared a man into pieces and then turned some other people into serpents. Now that’s an entrance Viridi would be proud of!
Besides this, there’s also two similar stories in which Dionysus meets some pirates and they both show him as an unhinged god. They capture him and in the first one Dionysus shapeshifts into a lion and unleashes a bear against his captors, causing the scared pirates to abandon the ship and then Dionysus turns them into dolphins. In the other one he turns the mast and oars into snakes, fills the ship with ivy and the sound of flutes to make the pirates go mad and once again when they abandon the ship, Dionysus turns them into dolphins. The tale of him giving Midas his golden touch could also count as him being antagonistic since the act gives Midas nothing but suffering. So while he is much more friendly towards humans than your average god, Dionysus definitely has an antagonistic flare deep inside him and a place in the Forces of Nature and you can’t change my mind.
If Dionysus was a major antagonist or the big bad, I could see the plot going a lot like this - he comes home, causes some racket because he feels neglected, Viridi is happy about all of this and tries to control it while keeping him on this state of mind because who wants a happy party guy when you can have a chaotic deity, for a while she can do it but not for long before things snowball out of control and he becomes an unhinged god dead set on causing chaos. As for how he’s defeated, I can’t really come up with anything concrete on a fly but I don’t think Dionysus would be defeated the same way Hades was. And while he has the personality and presentation needed for a main antagonist, I just can’t see him as a pure evil villain like Hades was. He’s very much redeemable in my eyes and as for what happens to him after his defeat, I could see it leading to him mellowing down kind of like how Greek wine was watered down before it was used for anything - he’s still part of Forces of Nature and perfectly capable of doing all the same stuff he did as a major antagonist, but he would prefer partying with humans over destroying them. Viridi probably isn’t going to be all too happy about this, but it’s not like she’s going to be all that angry about it either.
Also fun fact at the end - in Dionysiaca, Ariadne laments if Eros and Anteros hate her because she had amazing dream about a wedding, only for Theseus to piss off and abandon her on Naxos. But as we all know, she would soon meet Dionysus who she does end up marrying so hey, the dream just wasn’t about the guy she thought she would marry. So if Dionysus isn’t going to be the big bad and the arc devoted to his villainy is relatively short, this could very well be used as a blueprint for a funny side story. Ariadne lamenting about Eros and Anteros would give Pit and Dark Pit valid reasons to be there.
This is not a joke, by the way. The part of Underworld which wasn't either Elysium or Tartarus was commonly referred as "the House of Hades" in ancient texts.
As for someone else who could also work quite well as the big bad, that would be Persephone. You all know the drill with her - Hades takes her, Demeter panics and goes to search her, she causes the Mediterranean summer on the meanwhile and does a thing which looks awful without context Demeter sets a baby on fire which is supposed to make him immortal if you’re wondering, everyone else decides that enough is enough because endless Mediterranean summer is a nightmare, they beg for Hades to give her back and he does that but not before the pomegranate trick. Demeter causes Mediterranean winter to come, the trouble is solved, we have a nice functional couple in our hands and they continue to appear together when Underworld is relevant to the plot - which surprisingly isn’t all that often as only Adonis, Heracles, Theseus who loses his arse and friend in the process, Orpheus who loses his wife and will to live in the process, Odysseys, Psyche and Aeneas managed to go to Underworld and back. That’s not really all that much all things considered.
And before anyone says anything about seasons here - Mediterranean climate is a thing and it’s best known for its hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters. One of these is much more preferable for plant life and in this case, it’s not summer. The more you know.
While there’s not much material of her when compared some other people in this list, I’d say there’s enough to create a frame for a character. In both Theogony and Iliad Persephone is described as dreaded and in Odyssey Odysseus assumes Persephone is the one sending ghosts to torture him while he’s visiting the Underworld. Just like Hades she has her fair share of vague epithets like Despoina (mistress) and Kore (maiden), presumably for the same reason as to avoid getting her attention. And while the etymology behind her actual name is rather muddied, the popular theories are that it means something in the vain of to destroy, to bring/cause death and she who brings destruction. And people have the gall to say she isn’t scary!
With this info and Hades’ characterization from KI:U in mind, you could very easily create a powerful pure evil villain who’s not going to be happy to learn what happened to her husband. As for why I believe she would be pure evil instead of redeemable one like Dionysus, it’s simply so she and Hades would match on their villainy. Considering how the big thing about Hades and Persephone is that they genuinely love each other to the point of possessiveness Pirithous and Minthe learned it the hard way, it would be weird if they hadn’t rubbed on each other during the time they were together. There’s an amazing chance for drama here and it would be dumb to ignore it when it has been given to us on a golden platter. And besides, unholy matrimonies are quite fun in fiction. Villains too have something they love.
As for attempts of villainy that don’t revolve around her being antsy at Pit about Hades, we interestingly need to look at the list of those she granted favors rather than those that had to deal with her wrath - or just one of them in particular, Psyche. As I’ve already mentioned she was one of those mortals who managed to go to Underworld and back and to make things better, she went to Underworld specifically so she could speak to Persephone. Persephone greets her with a nice cushion to sit on and a banquet, which Psyche declines because it’s a trap this is practically just the pomegranate trick on a larger scale. She tells why she came into the Underworld in the first place and Persephone fulfills her request, which is to say that she gives Psyche boxed death.
Coming to Underworld to speak to Persephone in particular definitely gives Psyche an edge compared to others when it comes to exploring Persephone’s potential villainy. But just why is Psyche such a big deal when compared to someone else like Orpheus, Adonis or Aeneas? Well, Psyche just happens to be the girl who would become the goddess of soul, a job that isn’t currently filled by anyone in KI-universe which Hades has kindly illustrated to us in KI:U by eating and repurposing souls for his own purposes. She’s also Eros’ wife with the addition of being the mother of his daughter and as we all know at this point, Pit is mostly inspired by Eros. While Persephone just being angry about her husband’s treatment makes a perfectly fine motivation, why not use the chance when it has been represented to us on a golden platter? Because while KI has a large cast of characters, most them are quite divorced from one another when it comes to their mythological counterparts interacting with each other. This subverts it since Persephone actually gets to interact with someone important to the figure Pit’s inspired of, which is more than almost anyone else in this list can say. The opportunity is there and there’s an open position for a new god, so why not take it?
Also if Persephone is going to be in a future game, I say I’m going to be so disappointed if there's not at least one pun about her epithet Kore. Like imagine if she was introduced on a chapter called Lost Kore or something similar and then the characters would just continue on making bad puns, annoying her. Wouldn’t be too out of line when it comes to this series humor.
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I know what I’m going to say next is probably going to be controversial, but anyway - if Ares ever makes an appearance, I don’t think he would be a bad guy and this is mostly due to how Pit has been characterized. I know that may sound weird at first but trust me, I do actually have a point with this.
So let’s start with something that may seem completely unrelated at first, these being a history lesson and some talk about over-demonization. We honestly don’t know much about how some city states worshiped gods and what specific versions of the myths they had because some people just couldn’t be bothered to write things down. Besides it being extremely annoying for me, this is also probably where the misconception of all of ancient Greece being either like Athens or Sparta came from, which just is completely false. However what is correct is that city states didn’t really like one another all that much and often engaged on stupid wars with each other, only uniting when there was a much bigger threat looming on the horizon - and with war comes propaganda and when only some people write things down, we’re usually left with really one-sided information when it comes to both good and bad. For one example of this coming off as hilariously hypocritical to me is Athena being worshiped under the epithet Areia in Athens. Areia is very obviously derived from Ares and means warlike, but Athenians had their heads so far in their arses that they came up with a reasoning that this version of the epithet is actually derived from areô or areskô, meaning to propriate or atone for. It’s most likely just some crap Athenians came up with to excuse the worship of Athena Areia, which I just can’t help but find pathetically funny - you can only blame your own propaganda for this, guys.
Historically speaking Ares most likely originates from Thrace since besides his popularity in there Herodotus notes in Histories that only gods from Olympian Pantheon that Thracians worshiped were Ares, Artemis and Dionysus, a really odd trio if I have to say so myself, it’s also said to be his birthplace in the myths. His name can be found on Linear B scripts, a writing system that goes as far back as 1450 BCE and which disappeared during the Late Bronze Age collapse around 1100 BCE. This informs us that he was part of the Mycenaean Pantheon in some way, most likely even then as a war god - it also informs us that he predates gods such as Apollo, Hades and Aphrodite who just don’t exist in Mycenaean texts at least in any recognizable forms. As for Ares during the Archaic, Classical and Hellenic period, especially when it came to places that weren’t either Athens/Attica or Sparta, I had to mostly rely on travelers who wrote things they saw down because some people just didn’t bother to write their own stuff down. Pausanias’ Description of Greece was especially helpful with the research, but what must be remembered is that he lived during 2nd century CE and that he was an outsider to these cultural aspects so how old some of this stuff here is and what the exact context behind it was, I don’t know and neither do others at least currently, one sure can hope so we know more in the future. Then again past is another country so maybe I'm setting my hopes way too high. When given anything in Linear A, people channel their best "I never learned how to read!"-impression.
As for how Ares’ Roman counterpart Mars came to be, it’s mostly due to syncretization. He probably was originally an agricultural god who was later associated with warfare once the Roman Republic started expanding. It’s possible that he was syncretized with an Etruscan deity called Maris, who was usually portrayed as a young boy whose caregiver was Menrva, a goddess who was later identified with Athena and Minerva. While this isn’t an universally agreed take, it’s still pretty interesting in context of Kid Icarus even if it wasn’t intentional or in the case of the take, true. Once Romans started to interact with Greek settlers from Magna Graecia Mars was syncretized with Ares, giving us the Roman god that looks familiar to us. One notable thing to keep in mind is that most of those Greek settlers in Magna Graecia originated from Peloponnese and what I’ve managed to find, they held Ares on much more higher regard than those originating from Attica did.
Okay, now when that has been cleaned out of the way, let’s go to the slightly more interesting stuff which is cult titles and epithets. Just like any other god he has his fair share of both, some examples include Teichesipletes (stormer of cities/walls), Hippius (horseman, of the horses), Theritas (beastly/brutish), Enyalius (warlike), Obrimus (strong/mighty), Thurus (violent/furious), Chrysopelex (of the golden helm) and Chalcocorustes (armed with bronze). I’m using Latin spelling of these to make things easier for myself if you’re wondering. But there’s two titles I specifically want to talk about, both them originating from Arcadia around Tegea because apparently all the cool stuff happens in Arcadia.
Interestingly also in Tegea there was a temple of Athena under epithet Alea. Pausanias tells that her priest there was a boy who held the title until he reached puberty, meaning that her priest was a child. Now this has nothing to do with Ares, but it’s pretty interesting when thinking of Pit. It’s not exactly same for sure, but could this mean that he would leave Palutena if he ever grew up?
The first one is Gynaecothoenas, meaning “Feasted by women” - and no need to worry, it’s nowhere near as sexual as it sounds. The story goes that Tegeteans were at war with Sparta and what decided the victory was an ambush by Tegetean women. Because of this, they offered Ares a sacrifice and celebrated the victory alone. The king of the Spartans at the time was said to be Charilaus, meaning that this victory must have happened around early-to-mid 8th century BCE, making this rather old cult title by the time Pausanias was writing. If only the research for everything else here could’ve been as easy as this.
The other and much more interesting title was Aphneius, meaning “Abundant” and under this title he was worshiped as the giver of food or abundance. The story behind this title goes that Ares fell in love with Tegetean princess Aerope and they had a child together, but she died during childbirth. Ares, doing his damndest to keep his son alive, managed to find a way for the baby to still have milk. Once he grew up, his son Aeropus then managed to do the thing that’s near impossible for a demigod, which is to live a normal life as the lord of Tegea. Now this would make a great character backstory…
… What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, history lesson is over! Finally! Now into the fun stuff, which is Pit’s characterization. It’s pretty common knowledge at this point that that Pit’s inspirations are Icarus, Perseus and Eros but when it comes to his characterization, Eros definitely takes the cake as the main inspiration. He is a fully realized character with multiple myths under his wing, unlike Icarus or Perseus.
Starting with Icarus, he isn’t even a character but a plot device. He’s a tool for Daedalus’ character development and that’s where his importance ends. He’s a miniscule part on a much larger narrative in which the most important part is the Minotaur, as it drives the plot for everything else in it. Icarus’ death serves to drive Daedalus’ character to the point which eventually leads into him killing Minos. He exists for a metaphor that pop-culture has blown out to be way more important than it originally was and that’s it.
As for Perseus… The guy is just really bland. While all the other heroes have their flaws like hubris and wrath, Perseus doesn’t really have any flaws. He doesn’t have that many achievements in either bravery or stupidity due to his method of dealing with things being the quickest way possible. This makes all of his battles extremely boring and because he’s one of the first demigod heroes in the mythological timeline, he doesn’t even get to interact with anyone who could be interesting. How many of you even know that he’s supposed be the founding hero of Mycenae? Not many, I’m sure about that. The most interesting thing about the guy his that he’s an ancestor to people such as Tyndareus, Alcheme, Heracles, Penelope and Telemachus but this doesn’t save him from being any less boring. He's that famous ancestor nobody gives a damn, so to speak. Pit certainly doesn’t get any part of his personality from a plot device or a blank of wood, only a literary reference and an antagonist.
Also can I quickly rant about the Angels in art vs. Angels in Bible meme because I hate it? For some reason most of times when people show art of these supposed angels, they aren’t even showing biblical angels but Erotes/Amores or Nike/Victoria instead. Erotes/Amores and Nike/Victoria are winged Greco-Roman gods, not biblical angels and using art of them proves absolutely nothing. Also you may have forgotten that there’s in fact hierarchy of angels and not all of them look identical. In Christian faith angelic hierarchy is composed of three orders, there being nine different kinds of angels - Seraphim, Cherubim, Ophanim/Thrones, Dominions, Virtues, Powers, Principalities, Archangels and Angels. Seraphim and Cherubim do indeed look terrifying and so do Ophanim, but Thrones are just bizarre because apparently they’re elderly carrying God’s throne, whatever that means also I’ve seen people use Ophanim and Thrones interchangeably which just makes the whole deal even bigger of a mess. And then there’s Dominions, who’re just really pretty winged people, proving that the idea of all biblical angels looking terrifying is completely false. I couldn’t find what Virtues looked like, but if they’re anything like Powers, Principalities, Archangels and Angels they’re most likely pretty winged humanoids. So yeah, surprising amount of biblical angels are indeed just pretty winged humanoids and only the highest order of them is clearly inhuman - so if you ever wondered why so many angels in art actually featuring Biblical angels have them looking so humanlike, now you know! It's not the highest rank's job to interact with the human world. Though in modern language, the term angel is simply used as an umbrella term which refers into a winged humanoid being regardless of which religion they originated from - so by using this as a frame, it would indeed make Erotes/Amores and Nike/Victoria angels along with some other winged gods such as Eos and Iris. This would also make Iris’ twin sister Arke a fallen angel because as punishment for siding with the Titans during Titanomachy, she was casted into Tartarus and her wings were ripped off so she could never escape from there. And then much later her wings are given as a wedding gift to Achilles’ parents, my god! You could actually a craft a plot out of this, hmmm. When it comes Pit and Dark Pit, I do think they’re angels only on this broad, modern way definition due to them being mostly inspired by the Greco-Roman Erotes/Amores and it’s possible that they’re only referred as angels because not only is the term Erotes/Amores is strictly associated with Aphrodite and only Aphrodite, it's also much more specialized term than just "angel". There has also been cases in art featuring multiple Nikes, but Nike's special role as the goddess of victory still prevents its use as a broad term. So I believe that in the case of KI, angel is just an useful umbrella term and nothing more.
So Pit’s mostly an Eros-expy when it comes to his personality and attributes, so what makes him so special when compared to many other Eros-expies in media? It’s actually a surprisingly small thing, but boy does it make a difference - on a thematic sense, Pit’s a total daddy’s boy and in this case the dad would be Ares. Most of the Eros-expies you see in media are completely divorced from anything related to Ares despite the guy being Eros’ dad but not in Kid Icarus, where we have a very blatant Eros-expy whose connections to his main mythological inspiration come almost exclusively from Ares. Just why is Pit doing Nike’s job? Because Nike happens to be Ares’ daughter according to some sources, like in the Homeric hymn dedicated to him. Why’s he a soldier in an army? Because Ares was a soldier and in some parts of Greece he was seen as a model of a perfect one who’s resilient and has physical strength that isn’t matched by anyone else. Apparently in Sparta they even had a statue of shacked Ares, supposedly as an attempt to keep the martial spirit and victory in Sparta I don’t know about you but for me this sounds like a very bad move, as if they were asking for the god’s wrath. Then again Athenians did the same thing with wingless Nike, so I guess it was fine in some twisted way. Why does Dark Pit exist? Because would you know it, there’s myth in which Ares and Aphrodite spot lonely little Eros and decide to create Anteros to be his brother, their only differences being hair, wings and weapons of choice Anteros has longer hair, plumed butterfly wings, golden club and lead arrows when compared to Eros' golden bow + both golden and lead arrows. Why does Magnus possibly being based on Meleager matter? Because would you know it, the dude’s sometimes a son of Ares. Why did he spend three years trapped inside a ring? It could parallel the tale of Ares and the giants, in which he spent a lunar year trapped inside a jar. Why does a dog help him during that section? It could still very well be reference Ares and the giants as Hermes and Artemis came to save him and one of Artemis’ sacred animals is a dog and Hermes is the god guard dogs. Also one of Ares’ sacred animals is dog as well, meaning that it could reference this as well. Honestly if Pit ends up having a divine parent and it’s not Ares, I call bullcrap.
So now when that has been made clear, what can writers do with Ares? Well if you take the myth of Poseidon wanting to settle things on court and give it to Pit, you end up losing one of his three major myths in which he’s wrathful towards someone odd I know, you’d probably expect a god of war to be much more wrathful but no, he’s not. The two ones that are left don’t really give all that great material either because in the first one, the target is Adonis and whether it even was Ares’ wrath that killed him is left open - in some versions it’s Artemis who wants him dead because she’s angry at Aphrodite for causing the situation which lead to the death of her hunter Hippolytus, sometimes it’s Apollo who still hasn’t forgiven Aphrodite for blinding his son Erymanthus, occasionally it’s Persephone of all people because she’s angry at Adonis for wanting so spend time with Aphrodite and at times it’s just an accident this all makes me think it was an elaborate coup. There’s always a reason for a divine being to be angry at Aphrodite because she just can’t help but cause trouble whenever she can. When it comes to the second one, it’s honestly pretty odd because not only does Ares forgive the man who originally was the target of his wrath, it illustrates how good of a parent he is on Olympian standards not that it’s a high bar but anyway - even better than the lady whose favorite boytoy he is, and she’s well known for being an overprotective parent.
The myth starts with this lad called Cadmus, who founds the city of Thebes, becomes its king and then kills a dragon residing on a nearby spring. Ares is furious about this since the dragon was sacred to him and apparently it’s sometimes his son, don't know how that works and as punishment, Cadmus has to serve Ares for eight years he got it easy when compared to Adonis and Halirrhothius. Once that service is over, Cadmus marries one of the two daughters of Ares and Aphrodite, this being Harmonia, the goddess of harmony. However not everything is all sunshine and rainbows because Hephaestus is still salty about how his marriage with Aphrodite went south and once he hears about a wedding, he prepares two gifts for the bride - first one was a beautiful necklace that could keep its wearer eternally youthful and the other one was a luxurious robe. But there was a catch, since both of these objects were cursed to bring bad luck to those who owned them. The bad luck eventually took its take on Cadmus’ mental state and one day he remarked that if gods fancied those serpents so much, maybe his life would be so much better as one. Gods fulfill this wish, he’s turned into a serpent and once Harmonia notices what has happened, she wishes the same. At one point Dionysus comes to the city, trashes the place and then gives them a propechy of this happening. Either way, Ares comes down to get the unlucky couple and then scoots them to safety in paradise-like Elysium, where they get to reside from now on.
You may already be familiar with this myth to a certain degree because Pokemon B/W could technically count as an adaptation of it. N is of course the most obvious parallel due to him getting his second name from Harmonia and Ghetsis takes a role comparable to Hephaestus. It all becomes even funnier because Harmonia hits some characteristics associated with yin - she’s passive, feminine figure who represents harmony which can only exist due to lack of action, an idea. It gains even more hilarity points thanks to existence of Adrestia, Harmonia’s sister and the goddess of revolt - she’s pretty much yang to Harmonia’s yin and to make things even more hilarious, she was often portrayed as a beautiful winged maiden. Now who would expect the goddess of revolt to be a lovely winged lady and the goddess of harmony to be at least momentarily a serpent?
While this is indeed an interesting myth, I don’t think it would make all great material for future KI-game, at least on its current form. The cast of KI doesn’t really get to interact with humans on a personal level, which is something this myth largely relies on. Honestly, I think the best way it could be referenced in game would be just Pit going to Elysium and meeting Harmonia still trapped on a draconic form. Considering the way Hades had been characterized in KI:U, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had just kept trapped Harmonia as a pet lizard in his garden. Maybe say something on the vain of him eating the husband’s soul or using it for something else to explain why she’s there all by herself. And if you want to make fun of the fact that the fourth wall might as well not exist, throw Adrestia in Elysium as well as a dragon as a nod to Pokemon. “The Twin Dragonesses of Elysium” sounds like it would make a very cool boss fight.
So a wrath or blessing, Ares gives us not much to work with either of those at least when it comes to him actually doing stuff - but that doesn’t mean we’re left with nothing because there’s three myths that I’ve glossed over quickly that could give us something, one just for comedy and two others actual plot. As for the one that’s just for comedy, it’s the one in which Sisyphus captures Thanatos. Ares is actually the one to save Thanatos from the tough situation since after it has continued for a month, he bursts into Sisyphus’ house, frees Thanatos and drags Sisyphus’ spirit to the Underworld… Only for him to come up with a sad story, which leads into Persephone letting him go only for it to backfire. Ares then disappears from the story, but it ends up with Sisyphus doing P.E for eternity in Tartarus once he dies for real as you all already know. This is pretty funny if a bit morbid myth, so it could be really easy to use it as a comedy goldmine if Ares ever interacted with Thanatos. Maybe have Thanatos trying to act like they’re friends, only for Ares to become more and more frustrated the longer Thanatos continues. Maybe once he mentions some of his escapades involving Pit, Ares finally decides that enough is enough and shows to Thanatos that mortals don’t call him by the name Thurus for nothing.
To the myths you could get some serious plot out of, the first one is very predictably the one in which he earns the title Aphneius. It just has everything a great character backstory needs on its original form, meaning that it could easily be inserted on the game with minimal changes and it could still work fantastically. It has a romance between a god and a mortal which ends up on a tragedy during a moment that was supposed to be joyous not because of any divine whim or I guess it could’ve been Aphrodite being salty because she has a habit of releasing her wrath upon Ares’ loved ones or relatives, usually grandchildren such as Hippolytus, but I think it would’ve been written down had the story actually said it was Aphrodite behind Aerope’s death, but because of something beyond their control. And instead of taking his frustrations on the baby like so many fathers in these stories do, he instead does everything to keep him alive and so Aeropus grows up to be fine ruler, if an unremarkable demigod. A writer could easily use Aeropus as a base for an interesting heroic character… And I guess you can already see where this is going. I already said that Ares would make the most sense as Pit’s divine parent if he indeed has one, so this would make an excellent backstory if that was the case.
I could see the timeline going something like this if this was true - Ares meets KI-universe’s equivalent of Aerope, the two have an adorable romance and are expecting a kid but something goes horribly wrong and Aerope dies, instead of letting Aerope’s family to take care of the kid Ares takes the baby with him because who knows what they would do to a winged baby so many myths have families abandoning their kids for dumber reasons than this so why wouldn’t he take the kid with him + this dude had 3-6 winged kids, one all by himself, so he definitely is the one hogging all the wing genes instead of Aphrodite, he tries single parenting but it’s hard when certain goddess is constantly shooting stinkeyes and paralyzing glares at his direction and it leads into him asking help from Palutena because a winged kid wouldn’t look too out of place among her angel minions. Considering how Palutena and Poseidon were capable of having a conversation in KI:U without any horrible atrocities being committed, I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to imagine her relationship with Ares being along your typical sibling-relationship rather than what Atheanians wrote down Ares and Athena were actually worshiped together in the town of Olympia under titles Hippius and Hippias, fun fact. You could also see it as a favor inspired by how Menrva took care of Maris. Anyway, this deal goes swimmingly for a while until the events of a certain other myth take place, which makes Palutena the sole caregiver of Pit - some unspecified amount of time later que the events of the original Kid Icarus and onward.
Fanfic time over, now to the other myth which could explain Ares’ absence - it’s the one about him and the giants. Long story short, there’s these two giants called Ephialtes (derived from the word meaning nightmare) and Otus (either derived from the word meaning insatiate, doom or horned owl) who’re sons of Poseidon because of course they are, goddammit Poseidon and a mortal woman Iphimedeia, they’re also called by the name Aloadae. They were planning to storm into Olympus to kidnap some wives for themselves, Otus wanting Artemis and Ephialtes wanting Hera what great choices, you complete imbeciles, absolutely amazing. So one day Olympians are surprised to find these two giants piling up mountains on top one another and as expected, there’s a big fight between them because no one comes to the Olympian home turf without facing the consequences. Once the two giants finally leave, the Olympians notice that someone is missing, that being Ares. Ephialtes and Otus probably realized way too late that kidnapping the god of war wasn’t the brightest idea and because letting him go wasn’t an option, they locked him inside bronze jar of which he tried to break out without success. It took around a lunar year for the giants stepmother to rat this out to Hermes, who went to save Ares with Artemis. While she distracted the giants and made them throw their spears at each other, Hermes lockpicked Ares out of the jar and so the three returned to Olympus.
So how could this myth be used while crafting a plot for a future game? I’d say it depends on whether writers want to use Ares as a full-blown good guy from the start or as an antagonist at first - and while I do still believe that Ares wouldn’t be a bad guy on his own free will, who said he’s going to burst out of that jar with that free will still intact? It’s not like we haven’t seen brainwashed antagonists in the series before, Gaol was a one.
So if we have Ares as an antagonist who’s brainwashed and crazy, how could the possible plot be handled? I could see it starting with the two giants resurfacing for something trivial but because they’re being destructive, it catches the attention of Palutena who sends Pit down to deal with them. The giants are dealt with in 1-3 chapters and one way or another Pit finds a large jar and breaks it, releasing the crazed Ares. Neither side recognizes each other and there’s possibly a boss fight which ends with Ares leaving and him becoming a wandering antagonist who causes racket when someone angers him. He most likely isn’t connected to any other antagonist or the main villain, but I could see them trying to recruit him without any success. As for how he was brainwashed in the first place, it could be the Aloadae wanting to get some use out of their prisoner and they decided to make him into an indestructible living weapon either to themselves or someone else - maybe it even was commissioned by the big bad because who wouldn’t want an powerful living weapon who’s loyal to you and only you. Either way it proves fruitless as Pit frees Ares from the mind control and slowly but surely he starts to establish himself as a good guy and an ally to Pit and Palutena.
This would actually go pretty well along with a certain another thing about Ares, that being helmet and symbolism connected to it - you see, mythological Ares was often portrayed to have something I like to call Meta Knight-syndrome. He was said to be a beautiful man with a lovely face, apparently much more prettier than any other male Olympian which could possibly explain why he’s Aphrodite’s favorite boytoy and he wasn’t particularly proud of it - just what kind of self-respecting enemy would take you seriously if you have a face of an angel? But that didn’t stop people from drawing or sculpting him without a helmet, and the result were indeed pretty my goodness is Ludovisi Ares a one beautiful sculpture. Just considering how the art we see of Ares can be categorized into him either with or without a helmet, writers could easily craft a narrative out of this - while wearing a helmet he’s under mind control and once freed he fights helmetless, allowing player to see him as who he really is. Helmet obscuring the face equals bad guy and once it cracks, we can have a very confused ally who cries over the fact that his baby is a big boy now, cries some more because there’s two of them now, may or may not join us to missions if there’s a two-player mode for story or just help with training and also maybe cracks dad jokes few times because humor is a valid coping mechanism. This all kind of reminds me how one other popular trend relating to Ares in art was to have him disarmed with young Eros playing with his armor. Cute!
Somewhat relating to the idea of Ares starting as a brainwashed antagonist turned ally once the helmet is smashed, I could see him having two different themes which illustrate the different natures of him. First one should be something brooding and terrifying, maybe something similar to Gustav Holst’s Mars, the Bringer of War which a really great piece of classical music that has inspired composers all around the world, even at Nintendo. If you haven’t heard it, you certainly have heard at least one song inspired by it metal genre can thank its existence on Mars, no kidding. As for the other theme, I think it should be a warm, calm and welcoming one with a hint of sadness, a complete opposite of the battle theme when it comes to the first expression. I’ve been recently listening a lot of TSFH and Hans Zimmer so if I had to say what kind of energy I’d want this possible theme to have, I’d probably say something between TSFH’s Friendship To Last from the demonstration album Nemesis, Final Days of Rome from album Unleashed and Now we are free from Gladiator. They all have this bittersweet yet beautiful feeling in them I love. Maybe there’s a shared leitmotif or something between the two themes connecting them into each other. Thurus and Aphneius were both titles for the same god after all, even if they were about wildly different aspects of him.
So just like with Apollo, I think there’s only one way to bring Ares into the franchise and in this case it would be making him Pit’s dad. It just makes way too much sense to me considering how Pit has been characterized that it would be odd if there wasn’t any connection between the two. And there’s even couple out-of-universe reasons why I don’t believe he would be the bad guy, the first and most notable being that the names Ares and Mars are already associated with morally righteous characters or at least characters we’re supposed to root for in Nintendo games. Sakurai certainly knows this, Marth has been in Super Smash Bros since Melee as a playable character and his name just blatantly is Mars in Japanese and his English name is just the Japanese way of saying Mars. You don’t bastardize the face of another franchise in your own one, especially if you’re both exclusives to the same company and the other franchise is much more bigger and important than yours is.
Since it would be hard to introduce Ares into the franchise, I would be completely fine with him not being featured in next game at all even though I would find it extremely disappointing. But if you’re not going to have him, at least have a reference to him in form of a weapon like Blade of Ares or Blade of Mars because would you know it, the legendary sword of Attila was also known as the sword of Mars. We’re probably never going to get actual swords in KI but blade has been used as a synonym for them, so there being a blade with said name could work just fine. That or finally add spear and shield combo into the game. But if you want to use the character who would work as the big bad the best into their fullest, maybe it would be a good idea to have Ares as well... All roads may lead to Rome, but not to the arms of Genetrix in this case.
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Call me crazy, but I think that Aphrodite would make the perfect big bad. Does she have that charisma and personality comparable to Hades? Yes she does, and unlike him she had all that in real life - one of her titles was Pandemos, quite literally meaning “of the people”. This made her extremely popular among people regardless who they were or where they lived, and how can you blame them since there’s not many people whom things such as beauty, love and sex don’t matter in some shape or form. Only Olympian who really matched her when it came to popularity was Zeus, but considering how he was the king of all gods it was to be expected that he’d outrank her on the popularity board. She was the most popular goddess in Greece by a longshot and that was also true for Venus in Rome, even if Mars took the place as the second most popular god after Jupiter. Due to her being the mother of Roman founding hero Aeneas, she was viewed as the mother of all Rome and it was used by people as a way to climb up the political ladder. The Julio-Claudian dynasty claimed to descend from her through Aeneas and it didn’t stop there - you can actually trace the ancestry of multiple mythological European figures all the way back to her! Some notable examples of this include Bladud/Blaiddyd, Leir of Britain, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia of Britain and supposedly even king Arthur himself last one is a bit iffy, but all the others are concrete, Aphrodite just flat out is their ancestor through Aeneas. She definitely has the charisma and presentation needed for a big bad because you simply couldn’t be able to pull of any of the previously mentioned things without them and if she could do it in real life, who says she couldn’t do it in a fictional world?
Pretty much only thing about Aphrodite that stays constant is her popularity because in the myths, her characterization is wildly inconsistent - I guess that something one should expect from a goddess who rules over matters such as beauty and love, two things one can never truly understand. However with that being said, there’s trends that stay with her regardless her ever-changing personality. She’s technically speaking an outsider to the Olympian family tree as her most popular and possibly the oldest one as well birth story has her as the motherless child of Ouranos, emerging fully formed from seafoam. Hestia, Hades, Demeter, Poseidon, Hera and Zeus form the first generation of Olympians and Ares, Athena, Hephaestus, Artemis, Apollo, Hermes and Dionysus are principal members of the second generation. By adding Eileithyia, Persephone and Hebe into the mix you get the main Olympian family, making Aphrodite feel like even more of an outsider. She only starts to fit among the family when the third generation is added and speaking of said generation, part of it forms her attendants. The two most important ones are her sons Eros and Anteros, love and love requited, whom she let’s to do pretty much all they want as long as they stay loyal to her. However once that loyalty shifts, she can be quite cruel towards them which is illustrated in the myth of Eros and Psyche quite well - and I’m going to let Aphrodite herself to do all the talking, so here’s a quote from from Apuleius’ The Golden Ass:
‘This is a fine state of affairs, just what one would expect from a child of mine, from a decent man like you! First of all you trampled underfoot the instructions of your mother--or I should say your employer--and you refused to humble my personal enemy with a vile love-liaison; and then, mark you, a mere boy of tender years, you hugged her close in your wanton, stunted embraces! You wanted me to have to cope with my enemy as a daughter-in-law! You take too much for granted, you good-for-nothing, loathsome seducer! You think of yourself as my only noble heir, and you imagine that I'm now too old to bear another. Just realize that I'll get another son, one far better than you. In fact I'll rub your nose in it further. I'll adopt one of my young slaves, and make him a present of these wings and torches of yours, the bow and arrows, and all the rest of my paraphernalia which I did not entrust to you to be misused like this. None of the cost of kitting you out came from your father's estate.’
Let’s file that under yikes. She’s saying this to her injured child and it’s about a girl he loves more than anything but she can’t stand her. And it’s not like Aphrodite dislikes her for any valid reasons, it’s all because Psyche is pretty and Aphrodite took it as a personal attack. This temperament is a stable with her, be the fuss she causes either positive or negative. It goes well in the line of the idea that she was never a child and was born fully formed, as it’s pretty hard to learn those important childhood life lessons as an adult. And do you want to know the best part about this mess? After this massive rant she’s confronted by Hera and Demeter, two goddesses who in all intents and purposes should understand what she’s feeling right now and guess what they do? They call Aphrodite a hypocrite in her face because that’s exactly what she is. Why is she so angry at her child for growing up and experiencing romantic love for the first time when she spends most of her time either being in love or making others fall in love?
Let’s leave the sad lovers behind for a while and talk about Aphrodite in some other myths. There’s not many myths about her that don’t feature romance or sex in some form, but those few are usually about her competitive nature. There’s a myth about Hermes and Aphrodite participating on funeral games yes, this was a real tradition organized by Apollo and she won, her prize being a zither which she later gave to Paris. There’s also a myth about her and Athena having a weaving competition which ended on her losing miserably because as one might expect, challenging the goddess of weaving into a weaving competition couldn’t possibly end well. But since these kind of myths are about things out of her assignments, there isn’t many of them. Most of them are about her helping people with their relationship problems, some examples could be her giving Galatea life on Pygmalion’s wishes and gifting Hippomenes the three golden apples so he could win the race for Atalanta’s heart. But it’s also really easy to earn her anger, some notable immortals who were victims of her wrath are the titan goddess of dawn Eos (she didn’t want to share Ares so she cursed Eos to feel uncontrollable desire towards a new man every day), the titan god of sun Helios (he ratted out her relationship with Ares so she cursed him to forget everyone he ever loved romantically and then made him fall in love with princess Leucothoe - it ends badly and that’s how we got heliotropes), the muse Calliope (Aphrodite saw Zeus asking her help for covering the whole deal about who gets to keep Adonis as a personal attack and so she cursed her son Orpheus to have a horrible death in the hands of Dionysus’ worshipers - interestingly enough this has nothing to do with the fact that Calliope did also sleep with Ares or that she married Oeagrus who’s sometimes said to be Ares’ son, which would make Orpheus his grandson), a minor ocean deity Nerites (he refused to follow her into the land so she turned him into a shrimp) and Pan (Aphrodite and this handsome lad Acheilus had a beauty competition and Pan was the judge - he said Acheilus was prettier so Aphrodite turned the poor lad into into a hideous shark-creature and then cursed Pan to be hopelessly in love with the nymph Echo, the very same Echo who had her eyes on Narcissus). It could even be said that her blessings aren’t going to last for long and by using Hippomenes as an example once again, we learn that in one version of the story she turned him into a lion all because he didn’t pay his respects back to her soon enough. Guileful Aphrodite indeed.
Due to her temperament and general lack of caring about the consequences of her actions, Aphrodite has earned the ire of many gods - just look no further than Adonis, there’s four possible culprits who could’ve caused his death. Because of their contradictory natures, she’s often portrayed as not getting along with Hestia, Athena and Artemis and while there’s not much material for Hestia there’s multiple myths of Aphrodite causing unpleasant situations for Artemis and her hunters, Hippolytus being the shining example of this. The judgement of Paris establishes her relationship with Hera and Athena as a rocky one and the Trojan war has them full-on enemies on opposite sides, Athena even telling the Greek Diomedes during the war that he should avoid fighting literally any god with the exception of Aphrodite - it leads into him throwing a spear at Aphrodite, piercing her wrist and this leads into Aphrodite cursing Diomedes in return. Also in some records such as Cypria Helen’s mother is stated to be the goddess Nemesis, so add her into the list of gods Aphrodite has angered so it turns out the goddess who truly was Nemesis’ enemy was never the one from Blue Sea Star but rather the one who represented Morning Star, how ironic. Her relationship with the male Olympians are a bit better but not always, in fact she has no meaningful one with Apollo at all. Her marriage with Hephaestus was an unhappy one and only after they divorced were they both allowed to be happy, Hephaestus by marrying Aglaea and having a family with her and Aphrodite by continuing her many affairs without any worries. She did scorn Zeus when he tried to get it on with her, but otherwise there’s not much either good or bad blood between them. Besides Ares, Aphrodite did find both Poseidon and Dionysus handsome and had affairs with them, but it’s unclear if they resulted any children - Rhodos has Telchine Halia and Amphitrite as her other mother candidates, Peitho is almost always said to be a child of Tethys and Oceanus instead, the Charites were more often said to be children of Zeus and Oceanid Eurynome rather than Aphrodite’s and Priapus just has no parents set in stone because no telling was seemingly more popular than others. The birth myth of Hermaphroditus starts with Aphrodite telling Hermes to piss off because he doesn’t come even close to her standards, so he asks little help from Zeus to get what he wants and therefore I can’t imagine them having a positive relationship because of this. And after reading so many myths in which Aphrodite targets Ares’ grandkids for whatever reasons, I’m starting to think that he should start running away and quickly. Maybe she really did kill Aerope.
Now returning to the love story with a happy ending which has the most famous victim of Aphrodite’s wrath, Eros and Psyche. It begins in a town with no name given oh, so this isn’t completely baseless in KI where princess Psyche (meaning either soul or breath of life) is having trouble socializing - the people have declared that she’s as if not more beautiful than Aphrodite and they have started worshiping her, denying normal human interaction from her. This obviously pisses off Aphrodite because it has been established that she has the self-control skills comparable to a toddler and so she orders her son Eros to make Psyche to fall in love with something hideous. While he agrees to do the deed, once he sees the beautiful Psyche he can’t help but to fall in love with her and then he chooses to defy his mother, crafting a plan on what to do next. In the meanwhile the loneliness is making Psyche miserable and that doesn’t go unnoticed by her parents, so they go to visit the oracle of Apollo for help. Considering how Apollo is still very much salty at Eros for cursing him to have the worst love life imaginable, his words aren’t all that comforting (another quote from The Golden Ass):
‘Adorn this girl, O king, for wedlock dread, and set her on a lofty mountain-rock. Renounce all hope that one of mortal stock can be your son-in-law, for she shall wed a fierce, barbaric, snake-like monster. He, flitting on wings aloft, makes all things smart, plaguing each moving thing with torch and dart. Why, Jupiter himself must fearful be. The other gods for him their terror show, and rivers shudder, and the dark realms below.’
She and her parents are obviously horrified by this, but they do as they were told to and Psyche is left alone on a cliffside where the god of west wind Zephyrus picks her up. He brings her into a lovely meadow where she takes a refreshing nap and after she wakes up, she sees a beautiful palace and goes in. She’s charmed by the looks of the place and then a disembodied voice tells her that she will be provided by many invisible servants while living in there. Once night falls she’s nervous to meet her husband, but after the first meeting she starts looking forward on their nights together. This continues for quite some time, but in the meanwhile Psyche’s family is starting to get worried about her and she’s in return worrying about them. Eros promises that her sisters can come to visit, but also tells her that she shouldn’t listen them if they sound jealous. Psyche agrees and Eros gets Zephyrus to scoot the sisters down to visit, but as expected the sisters get jealous really quickly and start to make her worry if what the oracle told about her husband was indeed true - what finally broke the camels back was the sisters suggesting that he’s planning to kill her and their unborn child. So when the next night falls, she has prepared herself a lamp and dagger to see if her husband really is a monster - once she draws the lamp near and sees that he’s in fact Eros himself, she’s awestruck and accidentally stabs herself with one of his arrows, making her fall for him even harder. But while admiring him some oil spills from the lamp on Eros, causing him to wake up and leave. Earlier in the story Psyche had said that she’d much rather die than throw this marriage away and she’s willing to live by that statement, so she goes to search Eros and atonement - meanwhile Aphrodite is beating her son in the head by talking how horrible child he is for daring to fall in love and then she imprisons him Genetrix knows nothing in this case. Hera and Demeter call her a hypocrite, which doesn’t ease her anger in the slightest.
Psyche eventually finds her way into a temple of Aphrodite and she calls her two servants to beat the poor girl to make herself feel better. After having a good laugh over Psyche’s suffering, she gives her another beating herself and then dumbs different kinds of grains on the ground, saying that she should sort them by night if she ever wants to see Eros again. Sometimes prompted by him, ants nearby take pity on Psyche and help her - predictably Aphrodite isn’t all too happy about this and she comes up with a much more deadlier task. By morning she tells her that she should get some golden fleece from the sheep living on a grove across nearby river. This disheartens Psyche because she knows gathering the fleas directly is a suicide mission, but she’s consulted by local river deity who tells her how the sheep behave and that instead of approaching the sheep at all she should just collect fleas caught on foliage. She does as was told and Aphrodite becomes even more enraged, telling her to go gather water from river Styx. While she finds her way to Styx without much hassle, she’s overwhelmed by the hopelessness of the situation - luckily for her everyone has come to the conclusion that Aphrodite is being horrible and Zeus sends one of his eagles to help Psyche to get the water.
At this point Aphrodite’s patience is running thin and she gives Psyche a box, tells her to go into Underworld to get a part of Persephone’s beauty and come back with it because this whole deal of torturing her little daughter-in-law has been so hard for her and she needs to look good while going to the divine theatre. After being consulted by a tower on how to actually get into the Underworld without dying, she does as was told and and it doesn’t take long for her to be greeted by Persephone. After refusing to fall into an obvious trap, Psyche told her why she was visiting her and Persephone agreed to help her without hassle - but after returning into the mortal world, Psyche’s curiosity took the better of her and she wanted to see that beauty herself. Turns out it was Stygian sleep fancy words for boxed death and Psyche drops on the ground like a rock, but at this point Eros has escaped his imprisonment goes straight to her. He draws the sleep back into the box, gently pricks her with an arrow to wake her up, the two have a heartfelt reunion and Eros brings Psyche to Olympus, asking Zeus if the two can now get properly married. Everyone agrees, Zeus tells Aphrodite to stfu and they give Psyche ambrosia, making her the goddess of soul. The two have a glorious wedding and some time after it Psyche gives birth to their daughter, either named Hedone or Volupta(s) depends if it’s a Greek or Roman telling the story, the personification of pleasure, joy and delight. I personally prefer the name Volupta, it rhymes much more nicer with rest of the family.
And since we’re at here, that gorgeous painting by John William Waterhouse that everyone thinks has Pandora wearing a pink dress? It’s actually Psyche opening the deathly beauty box. Don’t believe me? Just check Psyche opening the golden box and you see who’s right. He however did create an equally pretty painting about Pandora though.
So now when the story time finally over, what can we do with all of this info? Well, it does tell how perfect of an antagonist Aphrodite makes for an Eros-expy. She has power over him and isn’t afraid of abusing it when she feels betrayed. Compare this to the tales of Icarus and Perseus which really don’t have a main antagonists - Icarus has no personal stakes in the story because he’s a plot device rather than a character and from Daedalus’ point of view, the main antagonist is Minos but mythology doesn’t really treat him as all that horrible person. After he died he became one of the judges of the Underworld and probably sent Daedalus to Tartarus once he died, which illustrates a one seriously big missed opportunity which should’ve been used if Icarus truly was that important inspiration for Pit. Instead it just makes it even more clear how irrelevant Icarus and the narrative about the Minotaur are to KI. As for Perseus, I already talked about how Medusa is a mcguffin while alive and the other ones aren’t much better. Polydectes, Phineus and Acrisius are all dealt with so quickly that they don’t really matter - his only fight that isn’t solved by a handwave is against Cetus and it’s just a sea monster sent to kill Andromeda by Poseidon. Poseidon’s antagonistic potential is a topic I’ve already discussed and the already mentioned possible fusion of the myths of Poseidon sending a sea monster to harass Troy and Ares’ trial covers the idea of Pit saving a girl from a sea monster which is bit funny because in the former one, oracle tells that king Laomedon should let it eat his daughter Hesione to get rid of the monster, so that doesn’t really add anything new here. But with Aphrodite as the big bad it could be rather easy to craft two different but overlapping plotlines, one with a main goal and the other with a personal one. Aphrodite always was Eros’ biggest personal antagonist who treated him as a trophy child and didn’t take it well when he stepped out of the line - how dare her little doll grow up, behave like a man and then decide that he wants to move on to build a family of his own, which now takes the priority over her? Him choosing Psyche over his mother is his defining myth, with the addition of it being the myth in which he finally gains the respect of the other gods. Besides having its message about heart and soul being capable feeling and creating joy while together, it also functions as a coming of age story for its main couple - and when those stories have an antagonist, things tend get really personal.
So going back to those possible two plotlines and goals, what could they possibly be about? I’d say that the main plot line shouldn’t really be based on any myth but instead it should take advantage of her popularity among ancient people, more so when it comes to Venus and Rome. Even as a city, Rome was massive - by the time of 1st century CE it had reached the population of million people, being the first city in history to do that. And this was only the capital of the empire! Rome wasn’t build in a day indeed. Venus wasn’t worshiped by the thousands, her popularity was in the millions during this time period. That’s a lot of power for one goddess and as we all know, too much power can easily hit one in the head - especially when remembering that we’re dealing with a Pantheon composed entirely of manchildren. Give Aphrodite an empire that looks up to her, doesn’t do anything without a last world from her and you’re set with a supervillain who has it all from power to personality. In this case, the reason why Aphrodite should be stopped is that she’s a conqueror who rules by fear, saying that if she was ever abandoned she would curse them and take away all the blessings she has ever granted, leading her empire to ruin. If you want to make her feel even more villainous, don’t even give her an army of her own like Hades and Viridi had but make her use the people of the empire she rules over. There’s nothing more evil than using people who look up to you for protection for your own selfish goals. What those selfish goals may be, writers can be creative with them - maybe she wants to be viewed as the supreme goddess above everyone else, maybe she wants everyone to worship her and isn’t afraid to use extreme measures to get what she wants, maybe she wants to wipe out everyone who could be a threat to her, everything goes. Considering her role on the judgement of Paris, her causing a war or chaos for selfish reasons isn’t out of character. But whatever her reasons may be, there’s going to sparks in the air and fights of massive proportions. Ares may be Pit’s father but Aphrodite definitely isn’t his mother, so she’s not going to show him any sympathy or kindness if he gets in the way of her plans.
This would be the plotline that’s more on the background and focused on Aphrodite’s relationships with Palutena, possibly Ares and the other gods, the main goal is their goal. It’s why they want her defeated. If Palutena is anything like Athena, she can’t get along with her and she understands that allowing Aphrodite to do whatever she wants will have catastrophic consequences even if she herself couldn’t care less about those. If Ares was featured on a future game along with Aphrodite, their relationship would probably be focused on how they feel betrayed by each other. The myth of her cursing Eos illustrates how she sees their relationship open only from her end so she’s very likely still angry at him for leaving her, be it for Aerope or something else entirely. If you want to go with the depressing idea of her being the one who ordered Aloadae to kidnap him, she probably feels even more betrayed because even under mind control he didn’t come back to her like she had anticipated. And if it’s indeed her favorite ex-boytoy’s son with some other lady who has been foiling her plans, her blood quite possibly starts to boil. Ares’ feelings of betrayal would likely stem from Aphrodite trying to kill his child for no other reason than sheer pettiness, along with orchestrating his kidnapping and torture just so she could get her boytoy back. Other gods probably want her stopped for similar reasons as Palutena, maybe with some selfishness rippled in - the consequences of her actions are hurting them and because she doesn’t care, something must be done to stop her. For example, Viridi could possibly oppose Aphrodite because she doesn’t care about how she’s hurting nature on her attempts to viewed as the supreme goddess. Not to say that Pit doesn’t also care about this goal since he’s an empathetic youngster, but I think that the more personal plotline should be his and it’s goal his main motivator during the story.
As for the plotline with the more personal goal, the myth of Eros and Psyche makes the perfect outline for it. Aphrodite is already the main antagonist of the tale, so there’s no need for any massive changes when it comes to her jealousy and want to dispose Psyche. The tasks she gives to her could also be mostly unchanged, if adjusted with something that makes gameplay more immersive assuming we would get to play as her like we got to play as Dark Pit in chapter 22 in KI:U. However what needs to changed is Aphrodite’s relationship with Pit, how he and Psyche first meet and how their relationship is evolves from that point onward since following the myth to a T isn’t an option in this case. I could see Pit and Psyche’s first meeting being a result of Aphrodite’s wrath manifesting on a relatively harmless way, meaning that she already knows about this new, pretty princess that challenges her status as the supreme goddess and she’s not having any of it. As for how her wrath could manifest, it could be a your garden-variety monster attack in the first chapter disguised as someone else’s troops so no one would suspect it was her behind it. The sheer weirdness of it could catch Palutena’s attention so she sends Pit down to investigate it and to get rid of the monsters. While getting rid of them, he meets Psyche in one way or another - maybe she’s trying to escape from them or she’s trying to fight against them, either way Pit comes to her aid and they befriend each other. Maybe she’s featured on a few following chapters as minor character doing something on the background, giving them more possibilities to interact and become better friends - in these chapters Apollo could possibly be introduced along with reintroducing Poseidon, to foreshadow the roles they would play later on. What side plots would these chapters have, it could anything - maybe Pit meets Ares for the first time at this point of the story, but he’s not freed from mind control just yet.
At this point Aphrodite could be getting more angrier but she doesn’t want to out herself as the main villain yet, so she crafts a plan that would eventually lead into Poseidon hating Pit into the point of him wanting to take things into the court. Maybe she tricks Poseidon and Apollo into becoming mad at Psyche’s home city for whatever reason, like how they got angry at Troy in mythology proper. If this was the case, I think that she would keep Poseidon in the dark while letting Apollo fully know what’s going on - if Poseidon doesn’t know the true reason why Aphrodite wanted his sea monster to terrorize the city and why it was killed, he would be much more enraged when it happens. I’ve already established reasons as for why Apollo would dislike Pit, so he probably wouldn’t really need any prompting to cause Pit suffering since he’d still want some payback from that embarrassing noodle incident. So Poseidon sends his sea monster to terrorize the coastline and once citizens start asking help from the gods, Apollo lets the hate flow through him and offers nothing useful - instead he tells them to take the Hesione/Andromeda-approach and let it eat someone to calm it down oh look, it’s a reference to Perseus that’s not about Medusa for once, nice. In this case, it would be Psyche and Pit’s of course not going to let his friend die so he goes to save her, be it with or without Palutena’s approval. In my head I did imagine this as a chapter that would work amazingly with multiplayer, starting with Pit and Dark Pit distracting the monster, then Pit freeing Psyche and them setting out to kill the monster before it causes more harm. Player 2 would have to deal with changing characters on the fly but if Pittoo and Psyche had similar weapons, I don’t think it would be too distracting since they’d be playable on different parts of the chapter. But once the monster has finally been defeated, the joy is cut short by Poseidon interrupting and wanting vengeance for what happened to his monster, ending the chapter. The plot would immediately catch on the next one and what I could see happening on this chapter is that Pit’s taken into the court by Poseidon and he’s not allowed to have anyone defending him, but Dark Pit and Psyche go into his defense anyway Pittoo being the playable character. After a long and treacherous journey they find they way to the divine courthouse and tell their point of view on the events, which gives Pit the sympathy of the court and he gets away scot-free. Poseidon and Apollo may face on consequences at this point and they may even rat Aphrodite out on a subtle way, but the main group doesn’t catch it.
The following few chapters would be breathers before the plot kicks in again, Aphrodite ousting herself as the big bad in one way or another. Maybe she has sent her troops to attack some place, possibly in search for Ares since he would make a great ally on this brainwashed state. Much to her dismay he declines her offers, he and Pit fight and the helmet is smashed, but Palutena recalls Pit before anything can come out of it. The fight continues for couple following chapters, Palutena and Aphrodite are gradually getting more and more mad at each other and maybe she comes down to face Pit herself because the little brat getting on her way is starting to be really annoying now this would make a pretty cool unwinnable boss fight, but Ares comes just in time save him - que silent, cold anger between them, confusion from Pit and Palutena’s end with some extremely awkward reunions and explanations.
What could follow from here is another set more lighter chapters focused less on Aphrodite’s plans to become the supreme goddess and more of the cast getting to know each other better - Palutena and Ares reconnecting, Ares trying to form a meaningful relationship with Pit and Dark Pit, Pit and Psyche becoming better friends, etc etc. Not to say Aphrodite has given up on her plans - she’s still doing things on the background, but it’s implied that what little chaos she currently causes is serving as distraction to hide her bigger plans. Persephone could possibly be introduced at this point of the story, making it clear that she knows about the events of KI:U and that she’s going to get her payback on what happened to Hades in one way or another, possibly drop an implication that she’s working together with Aphrodite. But since everything good comes to an end and so do the breather episodes, plot would go on with Aphrodite kidnapping Pit and getting Persephone to throw him into some dark part of the Underworld, maybe even to Tartarus. And now we get into the fun part of the myth, Psyche’s four tasks!
I could see the plot separating into two directions from here on, first one being Pit’s great prison escape from wherever Persephone threw him into and the second one being the titular four tasks. The prison escape is more focused on traversing the Underworld and Pit trying get out of there while Persephone throws all kinds of obstacles at him - maybe it ends with a ghost gauntlet, since Odyssey illustrated that she can summon ghosts. Arke would make a pretty great boss fight here as well, since she could be classified as a fallen angel. Maybe her motive for going after Pit is to get his wings for herself as a mean to escape, since her own ones were ripped off as punishment for siding with the Titans. But since Pit’s a brave boy, this isn’t enough to stop him and he eventually finds his way out so there could be reunion and a final battle against Persephone.
While Pit’s great prison break is going on, Aphrodite makes an empty promise to rest of the cast that she can give Pit back, with some conditions - but just like in the myth, all she actually wants is Psyche’s death so the danger factor is amped up to eleven. I honestly don’t know how the one about sorting grains could be handled I guess it could work as a puzzle chapter, but the rest work rather well without massive changes. The one about gathering te golden fleas could now take a more direct approach, the one about getting Styx’s water is now missing the helpful eagle and the Underworld trip is largely same with the exception of Persephone not being cooperative. This would be the point where the two plotlines merge together and they take Persephone down together before leaving from the Underworld. Psyche falling for Stygian sleep in this version is up to debate, I say it could work either way. It mostly depends on when she’s going to wake up - if it’s too early it might as well not matter, if it’s after the final battle I’d say that’s too late.
As one might expect Pit’s escape makes Aphrodite furious and she challenges him into a one final battle - that brat has stolen her favorite boytoy from her, satisfaction of getting rid of the annoying princess and also her chances to become the supreme goddess way too many times, she has reached her third-act breakdown and at this point she has nothing left to lose anymore. Ares isn’t going to come back to her, Psyche is not going to die and the people under her empire have started to become less dependent of her, the last thing she can do is get rid the troublesome kid that brought her into this situation. Of course Pit ends up winning, sending the goddess to Aether to hang with Hades where they can now together sulk over the fact that they got defeated by an angel. Pit triumphantly returns to Skyworld where Palutena and others have been waiting, there’s a joyful reunion between all of them and if one wants to follow the original myth at this point, Psyche could gain divinity or immortality for her bravery for standing against Aphrodite as a mere mortal. People have become immortals for dumber reasons in Greco-Roman mythology, so at least Psyche doesn’t become immortal merely because one god thought she was pretty. Have some little banter at the end between the cast and then credits can finally roll in.
When thinking of some nice bonus content, maybe there could be a secret ending player can unlock after beating all the chapters on a certain difficulty, which confirms that everyone is doing well. If we have to deal with another long hiatus that could last for decade or two or eternity, best the game can offer is closure. Pit doesn’t have to a married man with a daughter, but at least show that he’s doing well and ready for a new adventure or that he has had many of those under his belt at this point. All one can do is hope at this point that there will be a new adventure or a happy ending that ties all the loose ends together. Praise Volupta, maybe one day dreams can come true.
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Welp, this turned out to be much more longer and heavier than I originally expected! If nothing else, that would make an interesting fanfic. Anyway, I think I made my point clear - Aphrodite has everything a big bad needs from power to personality and motives to harass the already existing KI-cast. Even if you don’t want to go with the ideas I came up with, there’s so many myths to use and modify in which she could fill the role of the main villain. And just because there’s heavy themes it doesn’t mean it has to be without humor - I mean, there’s a lot of heavy implications in KI:U yet the game still manages to be a comedy gold mine despite those heavy implications. Writers just need to know when to be serious and when levity is needed, good pacing is something that every great story needs. For some reason I could definitely see there being a gag in which Pandora has regained her true form, only for Aphrodite to snatch it away because Pandora was living on borrowed beauty anyway and she’d like to have it back.
Though I must say that I’m proud of all of these plot bunnies I came up with. It was a fun journey to me to research, overthink, adapt and mix myths while trying to imagine who could be the next possible big bad and what the plotline relating to their villainy could be. And I came out wiser from it, so I really can’t be angry over it even if it took so me so much longer than I originally planned. I never thought that me wanting to write about a Nintendo game would make me read this much about history and philosophy yet here I am. Also now when I’m thinking of it, that last one would tie a lot of threads nicely together if they had a plotline like it on a future game - Poseidon gets to be an antagonist, Apollo gets to be an antagonist, Persephone gets to be an antagonist and Aphrodite gets to be the villain. It’s so nice when things work out this well together! Dionysus is left out though, but I guess it’s not all that bad because having too many antagonists would make the plot feel overly complicated.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my thoughts of who could replace Hades as the big bad. You can’t change my mind on Aphrodite being the best possible candidate but if you disagree with me, who do you think it could be? I’m always open for discussion so feel free to talk with me. Now there’s only one question remaining on my head - if a future Kid Icarus game had Arachne, would she be a jorōgumo?
#kid icarus#kid icarus uprising#ki#kiu#pit#dark pit#palutena#viridi#tagging them all since they're relevant at certain points#and all of them expect pittoo are featured in my doodles in some way so there's that as well#does this count as a doodle dump?#bella draws#bella writes#overly long essay#mythology typical violence tw
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Hey! I love your story the gangsters daughter SO much and I was wondering if I could request something based on it?
Where it’s the night before Evie’s wedding and she goes to Tommy’s office to talk as she’s nervous and they have a fluffy moment where he doesn’t think he’s ready for her to get married! ☺️
Cold Feet (Parent!Tommy Shelby x Evie)
A/N: Ok ok ok. First of all anon, how dare you be so fluffing cute?! And second, OF COURSE YOU CAN! I love Evie and I’m always looking for excuses to write for my baby. Also, I’m totally not crying at the thought of Tommy having to let his little girl go and get married and just wanting her to be happy... I just have something in my eye.
Warnings: Swearing, mentions of alcohol, mentions of smoking. Let me know if I missed anything.
Masterlist:
Tommy had always known this day would come.
It was as inevitable as death was for every single living thing on this planet.
No matter how hard he’d prayed that he’d have just a little more time left, his luck had finally run out. There was no delaying it any longer now that the day was almost upon him when his life would change in a way that would alter his world forever.
It was tomorrow, in fact, that Tommy would see Evie shed the Shelby name for another.
True, he could not have chosen a more worthy candidate, and knew Toby would love Evie as she deserved to be loved. That didn't lessen the sting it caused though, to know his days as the only male in her life were now over. Soon, she would no longer be his, no longer living in the same house as him. She would be a married woman, and that filled Tommy with incredible joy, and incredible sorrow at the same time.
This was the curse of fathers.
It seemed only yesterday that she was small enough to not even care about boys, let alone marriage. He remembered a particular conversation with fondness, when Evie had only been with them a few months or so.
It had been in the wake of a row over Ada’s most recent conquest at the time. An annoying boy, Liam had only lasted three dates before being scared off by Arthur, John, and Tommy. Despite being nothing particularly special, Ada had been incredibly enraged, yelling about how she wanted to marry him and that she’d never find love again.
Of course, Evie had found the whole thing hilarious, if not a little confusing. Hence, when she’d sat up in bed that night, as Tommy passed by her room one final time, he couldn’t help but smile at her quizzical expression.
“But, Dad. If she loves him what’s wrong with that? Besides, Mum had a baby on her own… if Ada did end up pregnant would it really be so horrible? She’d have a child, like me, and you all warmed up to me pretty quickly.”
“Well,” Tommy had begun, trying not to laugh at the absurdity of this discussion with his only recently recovered twelve-year old daughter. Polly was always far better at talking about this kind of stuff. “It’s… you see… people tend to only have children when they’re married.”
“Why?”
“It’s just how things are done.”
“Well, that’s stupid.”
Tommy smirked. “Most people would agree with you, but a lot don’t. They can be horrible and cruel, even to women who were in love but weren’t married when they had a kid. So, we’re trying to spare Ada from that. It’s fucking complicated, but at the end of the day, she deserves to be happy, doesn’t she?”
“Yes,” Evie sighed, suddenly staring down at her bedsheets nervously. “But… does that mean Auntie Martha was right? That I have to get married when I grow up? But Dad, the only boys I like are you… and my uncles… I don’t suppose I could marry one of them?”
Tommy immediately bit back his laughter as he shook his head and held her close. “I’m afraid Martha would object to you marrying our John. Besides, you don’t want one of us old men when you can find someone young and handsome who you love very much.”
“But how will I know who that is? Or if they’re good or not?” she asked innocently.
“I’ll help you,” Tommy offered, not without a little hesitation. To even think such a time would exist, when he would have to part with his daughter, when he’d only just found her again… “You can depend on it. Any unworthy bastards will be driven away by me, and the hounds.”
At that Evie spluttered into laughter, before pressing a kiss to her father’s cheek. “Now that, I would pay to see.”
Well, that day had come and gone and Tommy hadn’t released any hounds. No. The only hound in sight was Cyril, and he’d warmed incredibly quickly to the new member of the family.
He hadn’t been the only one either. In fact, Tommy had rolled out the red fucking carpet, welcoming the man into the family. Sure, it hadn’t been without its challenges along the way, but as much as Tommy hated to admit it, Toby was a good man. More than that, he’d proved his loyalty to the family, and to Evie, over and over again.
If he had to part with Evie to anyone, then at least it was to someone as decent as Toby. It made the whole ordeal hurt just a little less as he sipped his whiskey and stared out of the study window.
Despite the late hour, there were still faint laughs and shrieks of delight echoing from upstairs. Ada, Lara, Polly and Lizzie were most likely to blame, having taken charge of Evie’s so called ‘last night of freedom’. Tommy didn’t know what that entailed exactly and he didn’t even want to try and guess. Not given how much champagne they’d lugged upstairs with them earlier, having returned from a busy evening dancing at a local club.
If they weren’t all hungover as hell in the morning it would be a minor miracle.
Still, as long as they got their asses to church on time and didn’t throw up on the minister, then everything would be fine. No. It would be perfect. Tommy had promised Evie that much and he’d be damned before he failed to deliver a promise as solemn as this one.
She’d done the same for him, twice in fact, even if his union to Lizzie had been a far simpler affair than his first marriage to Grace.
At least Evie hadn’t insisted on there being a ‘father of the bride’ toast - even if Ada had… Somehow, Tommy knew his would never be anywhere as good as the ones his daughter had given.
She always had had a way with words.
“Dad?”
Tommy froze.
Speak of the devil and she shall appear.
He was startled by the sound of her voice, echoing from the open doorway, as if summoned by his worry. He’d almost thought he’d imagined it until he turned and saw her standing there, looking a little worse for wear in her finery.
Apparently he’d been right; she’d had a very fun evening.
“Evie?” he blinked, clearing his throat as he tried to compose himself. “What are you doing down here? It’s late and I thought you’d be upstairs celebrating a bit longer. Big day tomorrow.”
Evie smiled, shrugging as she stepped into the office and closed the door behind her. She knew she never needed an invitation, having given up knocking long ago.
“I was but… I don’t know. I just wanted to come and see you, if that’s alright?”
It would always be alright. Tommy hoped she knew that, even if the anxiety in her eyes said otherwise. Then again, he suspected the nervous energy wasn’t directly aimed at him.
Over a decade later, he knew his daughter better than he knew himself. It was why he nodded, gesturing to the seat next to him in a clear invitation. “Of course it is, but won’t the others miss you?”
“Oh, they’re all too busy finishing the last of the wine to miss me right away and… I don’t know why but I needed a minute away from everything. It was all a bit… much.”
“Yeah, well, welcome to my world. This family has always been a bit much,” Tommy teased. That was why they both loved them though. The Shelby spirit was strong and made them who they were. They wouldn’t change it for the world, even if it did drive them nuts on occasion.
And Toby was willingly entering this family, why?
“I’m almost scared to ask what’s being going on up there.”
“Probably wise, Dad. No one should see thing things I have tonight.”
“I thought so.”
A laugh escaped Evie’s lips as she sat beside him, accepting the glass of whiskey he handed her without a second thought. It was simply routine by this point, the two of them caught in a silent routine on nights like this when they needed to simply clear their heads and think.
It was an unwritten agreement between the pair of them. As was the somewhat confessional nature this room had taken on in its time under the Shelby household. So much had happened since they’d first moved in to Arrow House, from Charles and Ruby being born, to losing Grace, to Evie falling in love, Tommy’s ascension to Parliament, losing John and Esme, Lizzie and Tommy’s wedding…
Only a decade or so, and yet Evie felt like a whole novel would never be enough to capture her family’s history or the almost surreal events that had taken place.
“Besides, it’s been a while since we had a talk like this, Dad,” Evie continued, shrugging as she sipped her drink and stared at the room. “Everything’s been happening so fast since Toby proposed. It feels like we haven’t had a moment to breathe, really. You’ve been so helpful, agreeing to everything and allowing us to turn this place upside down. I can’t thank you enough for that, by the way. I half expected you to be like Arthur yelling at the florist earlier.”
“It’s the least I can do, Evie. It’s not every day my daughter gets married - and he yelled so I didn’t have to. Fucking trying to sneak carnations in when the order clearly said Clematis with the centrepieces.”
Evie snorted, failing to hide the fact hearing Tommy Shelby raging about flowers was possibly the funniest thing to have ever happened. Ever. Good thing he hadn’t been there when someone had accidentally delivered the wrong amount of chairs for the tent erected out on the lawn. She could only imagine the carnage that would have occurred.
“My knight in shining armour.”
“Always. No ring changes that, Evie. I’ll always be there for you, whether it be to fend off blind florists or worse.”
Despite the fact he acted as if he was merely joking, Evie knew her father meant each and every word. He always had. Even with their ups and downs, he had never abandoned her, always trying to do what was best for her, even if he went about it the wrong way from time to time.
When she thought back now, to the day she’d first met him in that graveyard, on what had been one of the darkest days of her life, she wished she could tell her younger self not to be afraid. To not be angry or scared of the future before her and the wondrous people that would be in it, thanks to the wonderful man she got to call her father.
“Dad, can… can I ask you a question? About tomorrow?”
Tommy hummed softly. “I don’t know what I can tell you about weddings, but fine. Of course.”
“It’s not about the wedding per say, more the bit after. I just… I’m scared, Dad. I don’t know why but I am.”
The words made Tommy’s heart plummet before he’d even realised what she’d said. It took everything in him not to panic or try and express the pain he felt at the idea his daughter was scared about what was supposed to be a happy day - a happy and expensive one, even if Tobias had money enough to cover a lot of the costs.
“Of what?”
“I don’t know,” Evie whispered, almost as if ashamed to confess it. “I’m so happy and excited to start the life together Toby and I have talked about for years but, now that it’s here? I don’t know. I just … I feel like I’m going to throw up or pass out and I don’t know why. Is something wrong with me? Who gets terrified of their own wedding?”
“Every fucking sane person on the planet,” Tommy countered swiftly, a hand reaching out to take hers. “As someone with experience here, you can trust me when I say everyone gets scared, Evie. Everyone. No matter how certain you are that you love the person or that this is the right next step.”
“But why?”
“Because it’s a big commitment,” Tommy continued, “and it’s a new chapter in your life. That’s exciting but also terrifying. To know you have a chance to start a family of your own? To choose your own path? That’s nothing to take lightly, and if I didn’t think you wanted this, or that you weren’t ready, I would have said something before now. You can count on that.”
He had a point.
“And I know you, Evelyn Shelby. You have never let anything or anyone stop you from going after what you want, even if it’s scary or someone says no. If being with Tobias is what you want, then so be it. You’re a grown woman, as much as I fucking hate to admit it. I think you’ve proven over and over again that you’re the bravest one out of the lot of us, and I’m so proud of you. Your Mother would be too. She’d want you to be happy and to enjoy tomorrow for what it is: the start of another chapter in your incredible life.”
The thought of her absence was enough to make Evie’s eyes sting with tears, as was the conviction with which her father spoke about her. The pride was clear, even if he looked a little scared himself at what tomorrow would bring for them all.
“Thank you.”
Tommy nodded, knowing better than to argue as she threw herself at him, coiling herself around him as she often did. Ever since the first time she’d done it, he’d been unable to resist it. So what? His daughter’s embrace was one of the few in the world that made him feel loved. It was as if her presence alone was enough to restore him, to banish whatever was troubling him.
The thought he wouldn’t just be able to have such hugs so frequently made his heart ache even more.
He didn’t want her to go.
In his eyes, she was still the twelve-year-old girl he’d first met. She always would be, no matter how much she insisted on growing up and being a so called ‘adult’. It was why he planned on keeping her room upstairs exactly as it was now, just in the case she ever needed or even wanted it.
That, and because he physically couldn’t bear to erase any remaining traces of her from his home. Of course, Lizzie had teased him rotten about it, even if she understood. Still young, Lizzie hated the thought of Ruby ever growing up and leaving her for anyone - let alone a husband.
At least they had some time left before that would be happening. Tommy didn’t know if he could survive anymore heartache so soon.
“I love you, so much, Evie,” Tommy whispered, pressing a kiss to the top of her head and holding her close. “You’ll always be my little girl, and you’ll always be welcome here. Anytime, day or night. This will still be your home, and we’ll still be your family. If anything, we’re simply gaining more members, not losing any. Understand?”
“Yes,” Evie nodded, wiping her eyes as she shot him a watery smile. “I love you too, Dad, even if I swear I’m supposed to be the one telling you all this. Isn’t it normally the father of the bride who’s supposed to get all teary eyed and jittery the night before?”
“We’ve never been conventional, Evie. In case you forgot, we have politicians, the Lee branch of the family, and Alfie fucking Solomons all coming tomorrow, for fucks sake. Why should we start worrying about tradition now?”
Evie’s laughter was infectious at the picture of the eclectic scene awaiting them, especially considering how excited Alfie had been at the prospect of attending a Shelby wedding. Oh, Arthur was going to explode at the sight of the Jewish gangster sat in all his finery. That, and when he saw the huge gift he had been promising her for weeks now.
She couldn’t wait.
“True. Well, traditional or not, I’m so grateful for the life we have, Dad. I’ll never be able to tell you how grateful I am that you were the person who showed up at that graveyard,” she confessed. “There’s no one else in the whole world I want to be my side tomorrow. You’ll still walk me down the aisle, right?”
Tommy beamed. “How can you ask that, Evelyn Shelby? I’ve always been right beside you and tomorrow is no different. Wild horses couldn’t stop me.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” Tommy whispered, “simply enjoy yourself and let me and the others take care of the rest. That’s all the thanks we need… and maybe call once in a while, just so I know you’re alright.”
Evie laughed, knowing she would probably still end up here most of the time anyway after she was married. But she agreed, pleased to put his mind at rest as well as he’d put her own. “I really do love you, Dad.”
“And I love you too, Evie. Always.”
#ithebookhoarder#Tommy Shelby#Peaky Blinders#peaky blinder#PeakyBlinders#peaky blinders fanfic#peaky blinders imagine#peaky blinder fanfic#peaky blinder imagine#peaky blinder headcanon#tommy#parent tommy shelby#thegangster'sdaughter#masterlist#request#prompt#answered#Arthur Shelby#alfie solomons#lizzie stark
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