New fic!

Title: Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions
Universe: Watership Down/Oren's Forge fusion/crossover.
Rated: T.
Genres: Drama/Tragedy.
Key character(s): Hemlock, General Woundwort.
Warnings: Alternate universe, canon mixing, crossover, violence.
Summary: Individuals can justify their acts of brutality and cruelty to themselves all they want, but ultimately they who live by the sword shall perish by it.

A03 link: Right here
Fanfiction.net link: Right here 

Road Rovers STARS Headcanons

Gonna try to get the next chapter of New Dogs out this week, but in the meantime, here's a little something to tide readers over.

-- My stories include moments of levity and humor, and some will be straight-up action/comedies, but my brand of humor is for the most part is quite different from the show's itself. It’s less goofy, dated, and referential for one, and doesn’t rely so much on dog jokes or Blitz being Colleen’s punching bag as well as the butt of some gigantic cosmic joke in general. Humor does not trump characterization either. If it’s going to bother you not to see the show’s style of humor, then you don’t even need to be reading my stuff. If you can deal with it though, then enjoy.

-- Hunter, Colleen, and Exile (on occasion) are not the only cano-sapiens who can understand Shag and normal dogs. This is something the show did that I’ve always found really inconsistent and confusing. All Cano-Sapiens can do this, and the same goes for any other sapient or mutant.

-- The first season of Road Rovers STARS (the canon episodes) begins in 1996 (the same year the show originally aired). The stories pick up from there. The way the passage of time in the show was handled, particularly in “Still A Few Bugs In The System”, was weird. Like, that episode actually spanned several years? I’d have to look around to see exactly how long, but when I saw that I thought to myself “Well, I'm ignoring that.”

Actually, the passage of time in many fanfics makes no sense either. Sometimes things apparently happen over the course of several years, but again, nobody ever ages and the characters literally appear to be frozen in time. I'm going to have a timeline that makes actual logical sense.

-- When it comes to criminals, the Rovers are more like real-life police officers and less like Batman. If a villain is threatening to seriously harm or kill someone and cannot be talked down, then the Rovers are permitted to use lethal force to stop them if necessary. Also, EW bought up the idea of the Rovers specifically being ordered to kill on their missions instead of merely arresting criminals in some stories (something that a ton of fanfics skirt around). 

Also, a villain(s) who goes to prison will stay there for a decent length of time. In other words, it’s not going to be like all the jails we see in comic books where criminals are just continually escaping. If a villain does manage to frequently evade the good guys' clutches, then they will do so in a logical, plausible manner.

-- Since they were so poorly handled in the show, the canon Rovers will be getting some much-needed attention and development in STARS, thanks in part to EW. I feel fans get so impressed with their OFCs that the canon characters get turned into side characters. Hunter will not be the center of the universe here though like he is everywhere else.

-- The Rovers’ owners will also get focus here. The bond between human and animals is a special one, and something I feel deserves more attention then what it receives in the fandom.

-- The STARS-verse borrows characters and concepts from certain other authors, namely Evil Writer and George Aguirre (as far as several of the historical elements go), but many of the original fan characters not made by me/Lilikoi/Fox the Writer have been adjusted to varying degrees in order to fit into STARS better. The same goes for some of the aforementioned story concepts. Also, don’t expect to see many if indeed any popular fanon concepts here.

-- I wasn’t going to even touch on this, but because I’ve noticed so many contemporary Rover fans doing this I feel the need to comment. These fans make the Rovers more like real-life dogs given sentience who often still retain/or want to retain the mentalities and lifestyles of regular dogs (IE: giving their children away to human owners to be raised as pets and only visiting them occasionally, as opposed to wanting to raise them themselves).

I go the Disney route and have sapients being sentient even as regular animals (which is what the show itself even seemed to be heavily implying). They just can’t communicate with humans. I think there’s so much to be explored with sapients that fans don’t seem to care about. It just seems so lazy to go, “Yeah, they still live and act like dogs, only they can talk now! Well that’s all, byyyye!” Would the Rovers not realize that they have the power to do things now that they couldn’t as regular old dogs? You don’t have to obey the alpha dog. You can run the pack more democratically now. You don’t have to basically let your children be ripped away from you to be raised by total strangers of a different species anymore. And so on and so forth.

-- In a reverse of the previous rule, sapients are not reskinned humans either.

-- Something else nu!fanbase does that really singes my biscuits: how Parvo’s Mutants are handled. You get people who want them to have expanded roles and be comic relief, or treat them as being interchangeable with sapiens. But the show always presented them as non-speaking grunts and monstrous, corrupted beasts (granted, they did get nerfed over the course of the series). They also look distinctly different from sapients and have never displayed superpowers in the show. I don’t mind having them being capable of speaking, albeit not nearly as well or as clearly as sapients do, but I don’t need them holding long, complex conversations or doing pratfalls. 

A bunch of fans also have the Rovers killing them, which to me is morally wrong because they are killing innocent cats and dogs that were corrupted by Parvo against their will.

The Mutants in STARS are more primitive and aggressive than either sapients, TMNT-style mutants, and mutates are. They have little interest in the opposite sex or the like. They can be cured and changed back into normal animals with the Transdogmafier, as was shown in canon on several occasions (as hard as the fandom tries to ignore this). Parvo goes on to use other animal species as Mutants, including Furo-Mutants (ferrets), Shark Mutants, Urso-Mutants (bears), and Chiro-Mutants (bats). Other villains will end up employing Melo-Mutants (badgers) and Cheetah Mutants for specific schemes.

ETA: I think this was Usami's headcanon, but I like the idea of the Cano-Mutator being the evil opposite of the Transdogmafier, bringing out the worst traits of animals.

-- Here, there's more of a focus on the Rovers' personal lives and interests beyond them just fighting crime, the lulz, and shipping melodrama. They can't fight Parvo forever. I notice 97% of fanfics make it seem like they just sit around waiting for villains to attack. And if fans ever do decide to have them do something other then go on adventures, it'll be about them starting families (especially Hunter and Colleen, because they're the Anointed Ones). Nothing else.

-- Everyone and their grandma can't just break into RRMC like it's nothing. This is a common trope in fanfics that drives me nuts! In STARS, no villain knows where RMMC is. Not saying that'll always be the case, but as of now nobody knows. And even if someone were to discover its location, there are actual security systems that will alert the Rovers and at the same time stop the intruder. Not a glass door with a bell on it that rings whenever people walk in and out.

Latest RR story *finally* ready for public viewing!

The prologue for New Dogs, New Tricks is up on Fanfiction.net and A03! I did say that it was gonna be little bit longer before it got posted because it needed to be proofed a second time. But later I was just sitting there thinking to myself "Man, I'm ready to just move on from NDNT and focus on something new." That's not to say that I hate the story or anything -- had a lot of fun writing for these characters -- but I really wanna move on other ideas now. Fic's mostly done anyway.

Also, as somebody who prefers FF.net to A03, it's pretty sad seeing how the site seems just barely held together with string and chewing gum these days. Seems like the spammers and other issues ran a lot of people off. 

Predatory Drift commentary & notes

Story summary: Infinite the Jackal goes up to Antoine and asks him "Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?"

REFERENCES:  

Predatory drift is a real biological phenomenon that occurs in dogs. I first heard about it years and years ago in a National Geographic show (I think; if it wasn't Nat Geo, then it was Animal Planet) in reference to a pack of Russian street dogs that were shown hunting a cat (I'm no animal expert, but I kinda think they were doing that just because they were hungry). What I've read online made it sound more like the dog could just be up there playing or walking around or whatever when they suddenly switch into this predatory drift. 

It doesn't seem like it affects every dog -- the dogs my family had back when I was growing up never displayed any behavior of this sort. They were all small breeds (two of which were shih tzus). But I had a coworker tell me about the time her shih tzu once stalked, killed, and ate a bird. AFAIK this was a house pet, not some starving stray dog. Wild stuff. So it seems like it can happen to any breed, but it's just more dangerous if it's a medium/large dog that can actually do some damage. It's honestly why I'd be very careful when having a small dog interact with a large one.

Anyways, my nerd brain went "Maybe I could use this predatory drift thing for one of my anthro fandoms", and filed it away for later use.

GENERAL:

- This is the first holiday-inspired fic I've ever written! I had two sources of inspiration:

1.) I knew somebody who said they were working on a Sonic story. One of the things they wanted to have happen was Fiona Fox trying to tempt Antoine over to her side by appealing to his predatory instincts. I (privately) turned to a friend of mine's and told them that this person was probably never going to do anything interesting with that idea, if indeed they actually even went through with writing the whole story at all (I was right, they didn't). I've chanced over any number of fanfics/or ideas before where a writer will inadvertently create an interesting situation with a particular character, but then either fail to follow through or don't want to be bothered to do so because the character(s) either doesn't interest them enough or they dislike them. Some people are just lazy/or simply don't know how to pick up a plot point and carry it.  

So I decided to do something with the idea myself, only minus Fiona because I can't stand that character. The idea wouldn't work in Guardians Of Acorn because that Antoine actually has a support system in place that would ultimately keep him from doing what PD!Antoine did. I kept the idea in mind however, still wanting to use it for a fic. 

2.) A piece of fan art for the movie Lady And The Tramp 2: Scamp's Adventure, where you can see the Angel character holding the leash of another dog in her mouth. She's pulling it back towards a bush, and behind her you can see Buster and a pack of other dogs waiting with these creepy whited-out eyes. I've been trying to track this picture down so I could link to it here, but haven't been able to find it. So if anybody out there knows what I'm talking about, then please link it to me. 

Anyways, I don't even like the movie in question (an understatement), but it is a very striking image. The juxtaposition of having a cute, innocent-looking character seducing someone into a bad situation as significantly more sinister figures, their comrades, watch hidden in the background is just really fascinating to me. I just imagine a Sonic-verse version of this with Antoine in Angel's place and Infinite and the rest of the Jackal Squad looking on behind him. 

So, every now and then I'll watch videos about Sonic-related topics on YouTube if they catches my eye. Well, I started watching one about Infinite the Jackal one day. The creator was a fan of his, and before I knew it, he got me interested in the character as well. He looks cool and he sounds cool, but it doesn't sound like he was utilized all that well in Sonic Forces, and they haven't used him in anything since. :( 

Then it hit me -- why not a story where Infinite takes notice of Antoine and think he'd be a great way to get at Sonic and the other good guys by playing on the fact that both he and Antoine are predators/canines and Antoine's outsider status? I typically don't like stuff where Antoine is a traitor or whatever just because it's very obvious the writer is going this route because they hate his character, but in this case, I thought I could make this into an interesting psychological horror story.

- Let me be clear, I don't like the whole predator/prey thing the way the internet has treated it for the past several years now. You got people who saw Zootopia who seem to actually think it's a literal wildlife documentary. I sincerely wish I was joking. I don't like the whole "predators are stand-ins for minorities" thing, I think it's very silly. Leave it at the internet to take something that could potentially be very complex and strip it of all nuance and thoughtfulness. I think prey animals are well within their rights to be wary of predators, especially in settings where they are more animalistic. I mean, have y'all seen what Cape hunting dogs do to their prey? And this is coming from someone who thinks they're cool animals. 

Then there are the weird furries who make the "I'm a furry/predator" thing their whole identity and lifestyle -- that's extremely annoying. I'm sorry, but I don't believe in encouraging people to just wholly immerse themselves in fantasy worlds instead of just dealing with real life and their problems. That's not healthy (also, I get very tired of being told to respect furries like this when a number of them rank up there as being some of the most disrespectful, judgmental crybullies I've ever had the misfortune of meeting -- right up there with Karens and the like).

But I'll discuss all that further when I get around to posting another one-shot in the future that also deals with predatory and prey animals.

- It's kinda funny, but I got two unpopular canine characters interacting with each other here. :D Granted, I do think Infinite has a bigger fanbase, or at least more people have a more positive attitude towards him, as opposed to all the folks who act like Antoine personally stole their girlfriends and murdered their nanas.

- The appeal of this whole idea to me personally is this -- a character like Antoine, someone who dresses and behaves like a noble gentleman, rediscovering his wild roots and exploring that. The person I mentioned above who'd devised the Antoine/Fiona thing also talked about Antoine's innate instincts (as well as Tails) being suppressed due to living around so many non-carnivores. Which is also interesting, but again, it didn't seem like that was going to be actually explored in the hypothetical story that was never written. Honestly, that idea could've been tackled by just having Antoine and Tails feeling dissatisfied or unhappy, not understanding why, so they both set out together to discover what the issue behind this could possibly be. Boom, you got a potentially interesting plot and character development right there. But I find that I'm way more interested in digging into characters' psyches and developing them, rather than being super self-indulgent like a lot of fans tend to be. I mean, my stuff can be self indulgent, but I also try to marry that with interesting storytelling rather then just stuff like "My favorite character collected all the Dragonballs/Chaos Emeralds/whatever and is now the most powerful, sexiest being in the universe!"

- Yes, walruses and foxes are not herbivores either. But foxes can be omnivorous* (plus, Tails is just a child), while I think an animal that largely eats things like shellfish can still fare better than a canine in Antoine's situation could. Apparently walrus bulls however will kill and eat seals on occasion, but Rotor's probably not going to be running around trying to stab somebody with his tusks anytime soon.

*Yes, coyotes can be omnivorous too, just like dogs, but being carnivores obviously prefer meat. You cannot feed canines a vegetarian diet because they can't get the proteins and such that they otherwise would get from meat.

- Very obviously I was just mushing together different bits of Sonic canon. We have Eggman, not Robotnik, Tails being a more active member of the team as opposed to his role in SatAM, Nicole is just a handheld computer, and no Bunnie/Antoine shipping.  

- Generally I depict Antoine as being part coyote, part dog. But since I wanted to get people interested in PD and avoid confusion, I decided to keep him a pure coyote.

- Dog imagery and references are rife within the story, very intentionally.  I think my favorite of them is this line: But that word – dog – did something. It rolled around his head, got teeth of its own. And compare Antoine's house pet vibe to Infinite's wild, feral dog vibe.

- A couple of major elements in the story are deliberately left vague or up to readers' interpretation. How much of what happened was actually due to Infinite/or his beacon? Or did he light the spark and Antoine just did the rest himself? It's entirely up to the readers. Sally's fate is also left ambiguous. 

- The line "You see me now, don't you?" was originally "I told her I would guard her." I thought the former hit a little harder.

FUN FACTS:  

- Since it was Halloween, I thought it'd be pretty fun to experiment with writing in a style evocative of certain popular horror authors, more specifically Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Ray Bradbury. 

Prior to this, I'd never read a Clive Barker book before or seen one of his movies the whole way through, though I was aware of who he is. I listened to the Midnight Meat Train on YouTube after watching the trailer for the movie adaptation on Tubi, and decided I really like his writing style. I don't mind audio books, but do find that I prefer to either read something on a screen or actually hold a physical book. So I'll probably see can I find the physical book at my local libraries. 

Pretty much have known who King was since forever. I'll go more in depth into my history with his work in a future post, since one of my future one-shot ideas involves a certain character of his.  

My first encounter with Bradbury was watching The Halloween Tree on broadcast television back in the '90s. Listened to a short story of his on YouTube, The Wind, and thought it was pretty good. My ultimate goal is to see Something Wicked This Way Comes (Disney turned it into an awesome-looking movie that I don't think a lot of people even knows exists) as well as read the book it adapts. 

I'm always in the market to read something by any of these three writers.

- While writing this, I listened to some music to get myself in the right frame of mind -- the soundtracks for The VVitch, Wolf, and The Shining, as well as the "Patricide" instrumental from Gladiator for the attack scene (that's not a horror movie of course, but that music/scene instantly sprang to mind while plotting out that particular part in the fic). All four very good soundtracks. I admit I didn't fully realize the role The Shining's soundtrack plays in that film, because it really is discordant and eerie to listen to even by itself. Ennio Morricone described visualizing Wolf's soundtrack as a man experiencing a "dark dream". I also wanted parts of PD to have a dream-like quality. I also had general seasonal ambience music going in the background for mood.

'Great Minds Think Alike' commentary & notes

I almost forgot, but since posting Blitz and Exile's respective character "analyses" it occurred to me that I should probably also repost the notes for the story the both them featured in over here.

REFERENCES:  

- This story heavily references the Road Rovers episode "Take Me To Your Leader", so...

GENERAL: 

- I wrote this story way back in 2014, well before I'd conceived of the STARS-verse, my RR crossover setting. I do consider Great Minds part of STARS. I'm probably going to eventually incorporate it into a one-shot collection I have planned to accompany the longer form stories for this setting, currently titled The STARS-verse: Constellations.

- The title Great Minds Think Alike just magically sprang into my mind one day. It seemed fitting when I saw Blitz and Exile unleashing Muzzle on Zachary Storm's henchmen together, and I'm sure Blitz likes to think he has a great mind. ;-)

- I love the ending with all of the Rovers as regular dogs saving the day, but I feel like more could've been done with this episode. They could've had a situation where some of the other Rovers, not just Blitz and Exile, are at each others' throats or something because of the situation between their masters, then coming together and using teamwork. Or maybe more exploration into Blitz and Exile's relationship. Some nice character development could have come out of that. But nope, instead we get Hunter stopping Storm, as is par for the course in the show. But at least he had the Space Rovers and Colleen's aid, which made things slightly more bearable.

I also didn't like how between Blitz and Exile, Blitz was made out to be the only one who thought his owner was in the right and thus came off looking worse then Exile did.

- In TMTYL, Storm's mind control machine is called the neural brain scrambler. That's a very redundant name, so I just dropped the "brain" part for Great Minds. I also decided to include a mention of Professor Hubert. It was never said how the world leaders were returned to normal after having their personalities altered, or if the effects just naturally wore off. I just chose to say Hubert whipped up some doohickey that restored them to normal. Also, what the heck happened to the neural scrambler? Did the Rovers just leave it on the bottom of the ocean, or did they try to get it, or what? 

Having thought about this, I've decided that for STARS, the neural scrambler will be making another appearance for a later story I have in mind. 

- At first I was going to have Blitz actually talk about how he didn't notice his master's excessively aggressive behavior, but as I thought about it, it seemed more in-character for him not to admit it out of shame. Some characters are open about their feelings, but I feel like a combination of pride plus his whole macho man attitude would keep Blitz from opening up about a lot of things (I go into this more in my analysis for him).

FUN FACTS:

- Something  I've noticed: anyone else find it interesting how aggressive and fearless Blitz is as a regular dog then he is as a Rover? Someone first brought this to my attention when they pointed out how he confronted the junkyard burglar back in the pilot. In TMTYL, he initially seems very willing to fight the "aliens", then, once he was a Cano-Sapien and actually got on their ship, lost his nerve.

New fic!

Just wanted to announce that I posted a new one-shot!

Title: Between A Rock And A Raccoon.
Universe: Steven Universe/Guardians Of The Galaxy (MCU versions).
Rated: G.
Genres: Drama/Friendship/Science-Fiction.
Key character(s): Rocket Raccoon, Amethyst.
Warnings: N/A.
Summary: "They gave me enough smarts to know I'm an experiment, and that's all I am." While visiting Beach City with the other Guardians, a dejected and self-loathing Rocket is approached by someone who understands what he's going through.

A03 link: Right here
Fanfiction.net link: Right here 

I also really need to update my FF.net page. Some of the stuff on there is super out of date.

"It's Halloween -- everyone's entitled to one good scare."

In honor of the spooky season, I've written a little story: click me! Just be warned, it does get dark. BTW, from here on out all my Sonic stuff will only be uploaded to A03 (I need to post that announcement on my Fanfiction.net account as well).

I do have my concerns if readers will understand the intent behind the story. I can see people going "Sally's a martial artist/blademaster/whatever, I don't understand why she doesn't fight back and get away." And it's like, okay, but that's not the point of the story. Predatory Drift is not a traditional straightforward action-adventure story like many other Sonic stories are, it's psychological horror. Think like a Shirley Jackson story, Psycho, The Shining, Hereditary, The Babadook, etc, in that readers are supposed to be feeling a sense of dread and such, especially when the climax hits. That's not going to happen if Sally's up there kung fu fighting, y'know? 

Also, I wouldn't dare post PD on deviantART or FF.net. If I did, I'd more than likely end up having to go into hiding Salman Rushdie-style. 

May 2025 status report

New Dogs, New Tricks (Road Rovers): 80% - 90% complete. I'm in the middle of working on two major scenes. After this there's a third somewhat shorter scene which'll basically serve as connective material between the midpoint and the conclusion.

Once this particular fic's done, there's a one-shot I'm aiming to finish up. Then I'll be moving on to New Dogs' sequel and getting started on plotting out two multiparter fics for two different fandoms.

March 2025 status report

New Dogs, New Tricks (Road Rovers) - 70% - 75% complete. ALSO I went ahead and wrote out a few snippets of dialogue and scene ideas for the follow-up to this story.

Also wrote a little bit for a one-shot. It'd be really awesome if I got both these stories done this year.

Reader reviews and responses, #1

Heyo guys! So if someone's left me an interesting review or has a question about one of my fics and I can't respond via PM or whatever, I'll just yap about it here.

This is in response to Mr. Navit, about my Digimon/Trollhunters story Imposter Syndrome:

It's a shame that this is a one shot and not a full story. This has potential and Patamon being supportive good partner to tk was cute even if he's not the real tk

Firstly, the comment is greatly appreciated, Mr. Navit. :) I'm glad to see IS has been well-received so far. 

While I do find the idea of Digimon and Trollhunters crossing over pretty fun for reasons I've discussed here before, I'm afraid it's looking more than likely that I'm not going to do anything further with this. Partly because I'm just not a super big fan of the Trollhunters... animated universe, I guess I'll call it (I don't know what the books are like), and partly because I already have a ton of stuff on my plate. My apologies.

But -- this is why I will happily give my permission/blessing to you or anyone else who wants to pick up this concept and play with it further. I feel I have to say this because these days people I think are waaaay too overprotective about what are basically transformative works for properties that they don't even own the rights to. Unless someone is actually copying me word for word, I don't care if you want to use a plot idea from me or continue something I wrote about.

January 2025 status report

Happy New Year's one and all, hope everybody had a good one! The rough draft for New Dogs, New Tricks is roughly around 50 - 55% done. The rising action (including a number of the fight scenes and traps the RR face) and climax still need to actually be worked on, but I feel like I'm cooking here.

Since this is the fic I've had the most muse for as of late I've just been leaning into it. I might also start on the follow-up story afterwards just because I'm feeling really excited for it.

Still brainstorming and planning out other things on the side too, like a couple of Disney-related things, the Sonic reboot, and one of my original concepts. One-shots are still hard to do. I've thought about just doing a list of all my one-shot ideas that I'd like to write and the various roadblocks I keep running into with them.

And I still draw, although I haven't done anything in the last few months because of real life obligations. I would like to get back into it at some point though.

October 2024 status report

- Still working on New Dogs, New Tricks.

 - A few months ago I said I had a one-shot for a '90s movie in the works. The rough draft is (mostly) done, but the entire thing still feels... incomplete to me? And I might've gone and got distracted by this anime I used to watch, and want to do a short prompt fill crossing it over with Gargoyles, so, yeah lol. 

- I've been worldbuilding for stuff like my Sonic reboot, a My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic AU, and my original stuff. 

- I'm in the process of working on the next entry for Character Corner.

- Regarding my old New Lease fic, I'm not sure what I want to do with it at this point. I have been seriously considering going ahead and just canceling it. The other Extinctioners-centric story I posted was removed (yeah, fanfics for a hyper-obscure niche furry comic, dry your tears everybody). Long story short, I no longer want to engage or associate with Extinctioners for personal reasons. If anybody cares enough, then I may post a summary of what I was planning to do with New Lease, since I'm doubtful I'll ever return to actively writing on it (even though the main character, who's from a completely different franchise, is one of my favorite fictional characters). 

July 2024 status report

Still hard at work on my two multiparter stories. In regards to how they're going... they're going, haha. I also have an unedited (very) rough draft done for yet another one-shot. This time it's for a movie from the mid-90s aimed at an older audience, so I don't think it'll get very many eyes on it.

And I haven't forgotten about the second half of the Exile character analysis!

February 2024 status report

• I've been working on New Dogs when able to, and I've regained a little bit of inspiration for A Brush With Danger, so I'll try to work on that one ASAP.

• There are still a few more character analysis posts I plan on bringing over -- the ones for Exile, Blitz, and Professor Callaghan.

Imposter Syndrome commentary & notes

REFERENCES: 

- Imposter syndrome refers to a real psychological condition where a person feels anxiety and self-doubt because they basically believe themselves to be frauds and worry about being exposed as such, even though their skills, success, relationships, etc are genuine. I thought it was a fitting title.

GENERAL:

- If you've watched Trollhunters then you'll know why TK reacted so strongly to Otto calling Patamon a cat. XD

- Trollhunters is one of those things that has some cool ideas, but gets bogged down by a lot of goofy writing and cringe/or childish humor, among other issues. I'm actually glad I didn't get any further into the Tales Of Arcadia spinoffs, because it sounds like the whole thing drops even further in quality (IE: the one show with the two aliens and the infamous finale movie).

The Changelings are one of the most interesting elements in the series. I do think they're... well, stupid in terms of their capacity for self-preservation though. They seem perfectly content in following a leader who cares nothing for or respects them, and is openly blatant with his disregard for them, to the point of following him to their own literal destruction in the end. 

Better the devil you know, I guess. I feel this is the sort of environment Changeling!T.K. would look at, then look over at the Chosen Children, and decide he'd much rather give his loyalty to the latter. Also, if you're a Changeling and you fail some sort of mission you're given, the boss will literally eat you. Strickler was the only Changeling who was not okay with any of this (something I think should've been explored further), and even he did a lot of stupid things (though that was more tied to his antics as a villain).

Actually, upon further reflection, I feel like the Changelings both as characters and concepts were wasted. Many of them get killed off the end of the first season.

- I do like that air of mystery that the Changelings still have about them to this day. All we really know about them is that they are trolls the Gumm-Gumms and Morgana La Fay took and altered somehow (it's never stated exactly how). They're linked to a human infant who's been previously abducted, and they take on that human's form and proceed to live their life. I know troll!Enrique wasn't a character that we the audience were meant to really take seriously, but his presence just raises more questions. I assume the Changeling would have grown in size as he grew up as Enrique, but do trolls not have an infant stage, or the infants already able to speak and have adult cognizance? Or is that just something limited to Changelings? Were the trolls that were experimented on young ones, or adults? 

But yeah, I admit to enjoying having some mystery about certain canon elements in a work of fiction. It is cool to see canon explore some things (Godfather II delving into Vito Corleone's backstory, for example), but not so much when it feels like they're just shoveling mounds of crap at viewers. Like I think Ixis Naugus's backstory in the original Archie Sonic comics is hella goofy and just kinda lame. It added nothing to his character and he might as well have just retained his mysterious past.

- The idea of doing a Trollhunters crossover where some good guy actually turns out to be a Changeling in disguise has always floated around in my mind after reading this story. ETA: My bad, I didn't actually share the link. Initially I was going to do a Disney/Trollhunters crossover, but none of the Disney properties I looked at really worked for me. Then one day, Digimon just popped into my head as a good candidate for the other fandom. It just came down to picking which season to use. My top two choices were either the Adventure continuity or Frontier (which is flawed, yeah, but I still really like it. Might be a nostalgia thing).

- I'm going to hold off on doing a character analysis for T.K. for now. I haven't really seen the entirety of Adventure or Adventure 02 in years. I did rewatch some of both seasons on Hulu recently (more Adventure then 02 though). I will say that I quite enjoy the character as he is in Adventure, but in 02 the now older T.K. often radiates this smug golden boy vibe that kind of puts me off him. And the show just kind of leans into it too. When it came to IS, my thought process went to "wouldn't it be funny if somebody that perfect was hiding something?" Looking at both seasons of Digimon through the lens of "what if TK was a Changeling the entire time?" adds a interesting element to things.

The story isn't really about Patamon per se, but looks at both his and T.K.'s relationship, so I don't know if I should do an analysis on him as well, or if I do, just combine his with TK's.

- I would love to see the Gumm-Gumms' reactions to the partner Digimon (especially Gatomon) and seeing them digivolve. Actually, I'd like to see how Jim and co would react as well. 

FUN FACTS:

N/A

New story up!

It's a one-shot merging Digimon Adventure 02 with the Netflix series Trollhunters. You can find it it at both my FF.net and A03 accounts.

October 2023 status report

New Dogs, New Tricks And A Brush With Danger are still being worked on, in addition to a one-shot idea I've had for a few years now. People who've heard me say stuff like this before may be rolling their eyes right about now, because I tend to struggle with one-shots, but the thing is 80% finished. It's more minimalist in terms of description and detail, while on the flip-side there's a lot of dialogue. Hopefully the story won't read like an info dump. I'll discuss it more when it's finished and posted, which'll probably be sometime this month. 

Working on it made me realize I didn't like my writing style for New Dogs, so I decided to rewrite its scenes but keep the dialogue. I can say that the beginning and the conclusion are mostly done.

Also I deleted Into The Spotlight off my FF.net account, and Gold With Envy will more then likely be following shortly. Both are extremely old and do not fit the current look of my AU, plus my OCs in the former fic have evolved significantly. 

Lastly, I'm looking at doing some "just shooting the breeze" type posts for this blog, like talking about my present stance on romance and the whole "shipping" scene.

"Loyalty" commentary & notes

References:

- The plot is based around the Ultimate Spider-Man episode "Second Chance Hero". Shocking, I know.

General:

- I wanted to write something about Norman and his son. A little while ago I decided to try looking for some Norman-centric fanfics on Fanfiction.net. There were none. And one fic I came across depicted him as an incestuous pedophile. If there had been a bunch of positive stories about him out there Loyalty would've been written regardless, but the fact that it's the exact opposite situation just gave me extra incentive to write it.

I'm a fan of the daemon concept that's presented in the books that I'm crossing over with Ultimate Spider-Man here, the His Dark Materials series, not so much the rest of the books (which I suspect is the case for a bunch of people, because when I typically see HDM crossovers, they usually just use the daemon concept and that's all). I liked the first and even the second book as a kid, but the third one really confused me at times and turned out to be my least favorite entry. As an adult, I don't like any of them. 

ETA: Okay, let me go more into why I don't like this series. I don't recall much of the third book, The Amber Spyglass (thankfully), something I can't say for the first two books. 

Stuff I distinctly do remember about it? Well, it had big (excuse my French, but this is the most fitting description I can give) "Screw you mom/dad/grandma, stop showing the pastor my Twitter account!" energy. Lord Asriel and Mrs. Coulter are both despicable characters; they did not deserve redemption. Oh, and Will and Lyra having sex, and that saves the multiverse. 

Will and Lyra are twelve years old. Mmm-hmm.

Looking at reviews for The Amber Spyglass over on Goodreads, I saw critics make some excellent observations. One I'll share here is that Philip Pullman doesn't seem to be anti-religious. He just rejected organized religion and replaced it with a religion he made up for HDM, topped off with some New Age woo. Angels, Dust, witches, daemons clearly represent souls... those are all concepts either from or inspired by religion. If you're allowing room for the supernatural to exist, then you're opening up the door for just about anything, and that includes God.

All that said, the idea of having your personality be represented by a talking animal (I headcanon that they also represent one's subconscious) is a really cool idea. So I figured why not toss two things I like together? It's really fun to think about what kinds of daemons our favorite characters might have.

Fun facts:

- Daemon talk time. I'm pretty sure some people choose animals simply because they like them and think they're cool, not because they actually fit a certain character. For example, I saw a fic once where Harry Potter had a husky daemon. Now, I'm not even an HP fan and don't feel like a husky is really appropriate for him. I don't know what kind of animal he'd have, but husky seems like it was picked simply because the writer liked them.

I also think HDM is too on the nose about daemons."OMG that person has a rat/polecat/snake daemon so they must be the evulz!" "All servants have dog daemons, so that means they're born to serve others!" Wow. So if you wanted to be an archaeologist and your daemon settles as a dog, boom, that's it, you have to go work as a maid or something instead? What? What's up with these British children's books authors treating classism as something perfectly natural and even acceptable? HDM, Redwall, Harry Potter... I'm sure people can toss me some more titles. Even "evil animals" have their good qualities, and the reverse likewise goes for the "good animals". For example, rats are adaptable and pretty smart. Wouldn't things be more interesting and nuanced if a totally normal person had a rat daemon, and they had to go through life being side-eyed simply because his/her daemon happens to be a rat? So I really don't even like how Philip Pullman handles his own concept.

- Onto why the USM characters got the animals that they did in here. Right off the bat I knew Norman's daemon was going to be something predatory. On a whim I looked up the symbolism of the cougar as a totem animal at What's Your Sign.com, It's traits are said to be action, strength, nobility, patience, silence, decision, leadership, guardianship, and self-assurance.

Puma meaning (as well as symbolism of mountain lions or cougars) speaks to us of inspection, observation and scrutiny. In the wild, this creature will stare at an object, unmoving [sic], for what seems like an eternity. Further, she does this with stillness, patience. To those of us who heed the puma as a guide, we would take great care to observer our own lives with the kind of intese [sic] focus the puma does.



People who have identified the puma, mountain lion, and/or cougar as their animal totem are people who typically come into this world with a spiritual knowing. Those who attract this animal totem have a deeper understanding of spiritual things. They are very psychic, intuitive, and are likely to be artistically inclined.

Furthermore, the puma is a very protective energy. If you have this creature as your animal totem, you are blessed to have such a fierce and aggressive guardian with you. When called upon you will be amazed at the resourcefulness and assistance the puma meaning can offer.

In closing, it is important to recognize the puma and it's relatives are cats of sudden, vigorous action. This being the case, those who share the puma as their totem should be mindful of their tendancy [sic] to lash out too quickly, or act out in haste. Call upon the patience and observation of the puma before taking action in order to avoid quick and unsavory consequences. 

Sounds quite a bit like Norman to me.

Harry's daemon was hard to pick. He's sort of generic I guess, and they didn't develop him as much as I thought they could've. I do like him more here then I have in other continuities. I've never disliked him, but he was never someone I got excited about or anything. I think the "rich kid who tries to buy friendship and isn't that great at school" approach has more potential then "he's a geek like Peter too!" I did consider all his qualities before deciding that his loyalty, especially to Norman and his hopes for their relationship to improve, was noteworthy. So Harry was going to have a dog, which, in the world of HDM, would be a startling choice for someone from such a privileged background. I thought I'd play around with the silly "only servants have dog daemons" deal. That choice also helped the story come together.

But what breed of dog? Right off the bat I said no to the German shepherd, the Siberian husky, or anything husky-like due to their overexposure, the husky/spitz types especially, and just being overrated in general (JUST MY OPINION PLEASE DO NOT SEND ME DEATH THREATS). Sighthounds can be very lazy dogs, but when it's time to go, they can go. Sounds like Harry to me. I picked the whippet over it's more well-known cousin the greyhound.

Since Norman's father Amberson was a horrible person in the comics, again, I went with an intimidating animal, the European eagle owl.

Spider-Man gets a spider monkey! It might be uninspired, but I wanted an animal that could keep up with him all over the city and be easy to get around with. Plus, I think a monkey matches his personality. I don't know exactly how old Peter and Harry are off the top of my head, but I do think they're old enough to have settled daemons.

- Several of the daemon's names in HDM canon have a special significance behind them. It's no coincidence that both Osborns' daemons have names starting with the letter A. Astrakhan comes from a book I'm reading about pre-Communist era Russian rulers, and is a city in that particular country. Astra is Latin for "star", and Khan refers to a ruler in Turkic and Mongolian culture. It sounded like a good strong name for Norman's daemon.

I can't recall how or why I chose Aloisa, but it means "famous warrior".

That's pretty much it. My next HDM fusion will more then likely either be about the USM version of the Rhino or Big Hero Six.

ETA: I would like to revisit the "What if some fictional characters had daemons?" concept again!

"To Catch Up With The Sun" Chapter Three notes

REFERENCES: 

N/A

GENERAL:

- I went ahead and made Esteban's Elena regent here. Since Elena has not been officially crowned as queen at this time, realistically, he should be her regent. When he was reflecting on his circumstances at the start of this chapter, Esteban wasn't blowing smoke -- in the real world, nobles really didn't have very many options available to them. The following info comes from someone I was speaking to about this subject:

• They were not allowed to own businesses because it was viewed as "disgraceful", and was even illegal in some places. So either Luisa won't be an aristocrat here, but just someone who comes from a wealthy family, or I dump the chocolate shop thing or whatever it was she had in canon.
  
• They could join the clergy, but that came with issues of its own (what kinds of issues I'm not sure of though), especially if you lived in a Catholic country. 
• They could look pretty and sponge off their relations who did have money. XD
• If they couldn't support themselves or if no one else was willing too, they'd be dirt-poor and turn to things like literal mercenary work, subsistence farming, or even banditry. And most nobles would apparently turn to brigandry before "breaking caste" and shaming themselves by opening up a business. 

So someone like Esteban would be expected to either govern a fief, take on an administrative role within their country's government (like he's presently doing), or join the military, and be a model noble at the same time. The following is something else I was told and which I thought I'd share here:

"I do want to observe that nobility has nothing to do with wealth or power, everything to do with blood and/or title. A noble could be dirt-poor, and a commoner be running the kingdom behind the scenes. (And the noble would probably still look down his nose at the commoner.) Though on the other hand, commoners who gained wealth and influence were often given (or purchased) noble titles."

- I'll discuss the new Grand Council more and why I chose to adjust the membership later on, as they'll officially debut "on-screen" in my upcoming story (hopefully. If I can make it not feel shoehorned).

- Have another shout-out to Sofia from Sofia The First, courtesy of Elena and Esteban! Anytime anyone brought up an issue with the character of Elena on the EoA subreddit, a number of the stans there were quick to yell, "Oh yeah? Well, look at what a Mary Sue Sofia is!" and just trashing her. To me this just felt like them trying deflect all criticisms of Elena, no matter how reasonable and constructive they were. The subreddit didn't used to be that way, and I'm not sure why it turned into such a hivemind of rabid fanatics who flipped out anytime you went, "I liked that episode, but it could've been better." And IMHO, yeah, as STF went on, things with Sofia did get to be a little too much, but what saves her character for me is that she continued being likable.  

But yeah, all the salt made me make sure to give Sofia lots of praise for rescuing Elena and helping to restore Avalor. ;) Plus, the Flores totally seem like the kind of people who'd feel really grateful towards Sofia and her family. Think about what would've happened if Sofia hadn't been called to Avalor. I'm guessing the rest of the fandom doesn't have a weird hateboner for STF, because I do recall seeing a bunch of STF/EoA crossovers on FF.net before. Heck, I'm hoping to do a few in the future myself.

- I'd be all too happy to explain what I was going for with Elena's behavior in the scene where she gets overly excited about seeing birds and the sky (which I suspect put off two readers. ETA: You know, now I have a sneaking suspicion about why one of them reacted the way they did, but I won't get into it here). My line of thought is that having been stuck inside the amulet for that length of time has messed with her head some. Now, she's finally free and gets to see all the things she's missed -- nature and everything else -- again. So yes, she is a bit loopy, but it's not gonna be a permanent thing. By the time the sequel takes place, she'll be more like the Elena we see in the cartoon. It's just my own conjecture, since EoA never discussed what it was like for her in there. I thought it'd be really interesting if there were actually some repercussions or side-effects from that whole experience. Heck, I'm just spitballing here, but maybe she has claustrophobia now.

- Yes, I think Esteban would be facing some citizens who don't quite trust him. In their minds, he was Shuriki's willing right-hand man.

- Man it was hard to end this thing. And it did feel weird, because as events in the show progressed and I heard about what was going on, it seriously dampened my enthusiasm for any protagonist not named Esteban, Francisco, or Isabel. I do feel that by admitting to that here and elsewhere in this blog, if anything even remotely troublesome happens to the rest of the cast in my upcoming fics, some people are going to automatically assume malice on my part towards them. I've seen readers flip when somebody wrote a Pokemon fic in which Ash caught a cold and accused the author of bashing him. Let me emphatically state that I don't believe in character bashing, even of characters I personally dislike. I try to be fair towards them and show that they're human too. And I felt like I was being pretty fair towards the other EoA characters here. 

At other times, if I don't want to be bothered with characters I don't care for or don't need them for anything, they'll either "be on vacation/visiting elsewhere/busy with work/etc" ("Where's Luisa?" "Oh, her nephew took sick, so she's off visiting!"), or I bring my preferred characters around characters that I do like/or don't mind, like I will do with Esteban in my My Little Pony and Disney crossovers. Problem solved.

This goes for anything I write in.

FUN FACTS:

- For my storyverse, I knew I wanted to give Esteban some more hobbies, since he didn't have very many in the show. I immediately landed on the idea of him being an equestrian, since it's something I don't think a lot of people believe he'd like. I've seen a screencap of him with a black horse, but aside from my not knowing what the context of that image is, I have no clue what EoA has him thinking about them or if he can even ride/do so well. Now, I headcanon that if EoA took place in modern setting he'd be a car aficionado (sports cars specifically), but since cars don't exist in canon proper, it'd only be practical for him to know how to ride horses. I thought it'd also be a good way for him and Elena to bond. AFAIK, he didn't have a horse in the show. But I noticed I just enjoy giving my protagonists pets or other creatures to bond with, or giving them a fondness for animals/or certain animals. So in this setting, Esteban isn't simply limited to just being a shipping tool, a "bad guy", or Elena's stuffy ass of a cousin. He is totally capable of forging a loving bond with a "lower animal". 

Atrevido (his first horse) means "daring" in Spanish, while Arpegiar is a musical term: a type of broken chord in which the notes composing a chord are sung or played in either a rising or descending fashion. 

Prior to the film Spirit: Stallion Of The Cimarron, I'd never heard of a buckskin horse before. It's such a striking color pattern. So that's why Arpegiar is a buckskin. Initially he was going to be a breed of horse called a paso fino, which originates from South America if I'm remembering rightly. Then I went to YouTube to check them out in action:

This is their natural gait. Gorgeous animal, but that is not a horse meant for stealth. If Esteban ever wanted or needed to sneak off for whatever reason, he'd probably be better off just leaving the horse at home, lol. So I just went ahead and made Arpegiar an andalusian horse instead. I doubt Canela actually is a lusitano in canon or not, but both her and Arpegiar's respective breeds are sometimes referred to as "Iberian horses." The lusitano hails from Portugal, while the andalusian is Spanish.

Oh, and I guess this is my headcanon on how Elena got Canela. Isabel doesn't seem like she'd really care about horses. I do remember liking the fact that she enjoys drawing though.

- Meet some more of the Flores' servants, Antonio, the (only named) stable hand! I figured it'd be both realistic and kinda funny to give Gabe some competition for Elena's attention. Of course, Esteban cockblocks him too. XD

"To Catch Up With The Sun" Chapter Two notes

References:

- The title of this chapter again comes from a line in the song "Time" ("Home, home again, I like to be here when I can"). The idea is that the palace hasn't felt like home to Esteban in the longest time, but with the return of his family, it's beginning to feel that way again.

General notes:

- I didn't discuss this the last time, but I wanted to explain why I made the choice to write TCUWTS in second person perspective. It's thanks to being inspired by this Steven Universe/Kim Possible crossover, Sky Blue, Ocean Blue. Apparently it isn't a very popular style with some people, but I personally found it to be really interesting and engaging. Second person perspective has a more intimate feel to it, and with the story delving so deeply into Esteban's life and why he is who he is, I wanted to try it out for that specific reason. I did try avoiding the usual mistakes people make with both this and first person POV; I.E.: having Esteban know stuff that he has no business knowing. Everything is entirely from his perspective, so yes, that means that some moments and things are colored by his opinions/thoughts/etc. He can only guess at how someone else is really feeling. The next story in this series will be in one of the assorted third person POVs, I promise.

- I know nobody in the show ever considered the possibility of Shuriki surviving, and some people might think it's too much for Esteban to worry about her still lurking around (whereas we see in the final chapter Elena being very dismissive of the idea), but considering the fact that she destroyed his life, he's seen what her magic is capable of, and her body not turning up, yes, I can see him being that paranoid. 

Also, I think Shuriki would've, for all intents and purposes, made Esteban feel like a hostage in the palace. In the real world, there's been cases of kidnappers holding their victims hostage for years, and overtime feeling comfortable enough to start allowing them a little more freedom.

- Initially I was really confused as to why Shuriki would leave the portrait of Isa and the grandparents Flores just hanging there in the throne room. If she wanted to leave it there just to screw with Esteban, then why hide it? It took my going to the Disney wiki to learn that Alcazar magicked it so that it couldn't be moved or tampered with. Okay, that's perfectly fine as an explanation, but I never would've known that because EoA never stated that anywhere in the show AFAIK. You think that would've been explained or come up at some point.

- I guess the other Floreses (... would you say Floreses? Flori, lol?) never thought to ask about Victor after they returned in the show. Neither they nor Esteban seemed too shocked to see that he had a kid either when he popped up again.

- The show itself and sites like TV Tropes make it seem like Shuriki put Esteban to work running Avalor all by himself. Realistically though, he would not have been the only person doing every single job. Running even the smallest kingdom can be tough and complex, which is why royalty have people working under them to help, such as Tomas (Victor's pop per my setting), and they in turn have people who work for them. This is partly why I brought in Rodolfo as Finance Minister.

- Yes, I do believe that out of the entire family, Esteban is closest to his grandfather. We got that one scene in the show where Esteban and Francisco were hanging out watching the olaball game together (with Esteban wearing face-paint -- that slayed me), or Francisco's being the only one not voting to exile Esteban (although after that, did he or anybody else ever really talk about Esteban and what happened? The overall impression I'm left with is that unless the episode actually had Esteban crossing paths with them [like "Dreamcatcher"], none of the other protagonists ever act like what happened affected them any). Initially I intended to have Esteban interacting with Luisa here instead, but I couldn't think of something they could bond over. Uh, now I just headcanon that they love one another, but just really don't have much in common, especially since Esteban's no longer a cute little kid (TBH, I don't think either of the grandparents were really fleshed out as characters, so I feel comfortable adding my own stuff to them). Luisa and Elena, on the other hand, do seem to have fairly similar personalities, so yeah, I see those two gravitating towards each other more.

 - I wanted to name the song that Esteban and Francisco play together to add more detail, but 1) I am not a musician, and 2) I don't speak Spanish (barely. Certainly not enough to hold a conversation).

Also, real-talk, but I think villains who hate music simply because "Rrragh I'm the bad guy!" are kinda goofy. I may try to further flesh out Shuriki's reasons for hating it in future installments.

- I wonder if anyone ever considers just how rough Francisco has had it. Both his daughters are dead. It seems like the family would have more relatives out there though (something I lightly referenced in this chapter). What about people from Raoul's side? Esteban's father? Don't Francisco and Luisa have any siblings, nephews, nieces, etc? I refuse to believe that they're all single births (hmm... that'd be mighty convenient and pat). Personally, I'm really "ehh" at Christobel's existence (but the episode he shows up in is hot garbage to me anyways). If I ever do decide that I need him, maybe I'll retcon him into someone from Esteban's dad's side of the family or something.

Don't think people really think about the friends Fransisco and Luisa more then likely lost to old age and such during their imprisonment (hey, might as well call it an imprisonment) either.

- This chapter acknowledges something I've never seen an EoA fic discuss (I think the show very lightly touched on it with the "Gabe not liking sports" thing that one time, but didn't go all the way there) -- machismo. Not to hate on people for not exploring it -- could be that some people don't feel comfortable tackling a subject they may not be familiar with or something. Again, I feel it's something that would add more layers to Esteban. I think in this setting, where I approach Esteban as a gay man, he'd wrestle with and be insecure about whether or not he was a "real man". Francisco is the idealized man in their culture -- strong, he was this badass soldier, he has a wife and kids and was a good dad. Esteban doesn't have any of those things to his name. 

Even Francisco himself is unknowingly a victim of this mentality -- I headcanon him as someone who doesn't really like to appear vulnerable because he thinks he has to always look strong for everybody else. But it was a moment where he saw his grandson was really hurting, so he was willing to lower his defenses because of his love for Esteban.

Aww. I really like their relationship.

 - I decided Esteban has the rank of duke here (inherited from his father), the highest rank among Spanish nobility, right under your princes, kings, etc. He needed a place to be duke of, since you just can't have a title and not have it be connected to a locale. Vila Rica was the name of an old town in Mexico that's no longer in existence.

In Spanish, all lords are referred to as "Don", so as part of the royal family, Francisco would also correctly be called "Don Francisco" (BTW, I need to choose a rank for Francisco, since the show never says what he is). If you'd like more info about Spanish nobility, then try starting here. "But OLU, Wikipedia isn't a reliable source." Then go to the bottom of the page. There'll be links to other sites and resources, and they're usually pretty trustworthy.

- I don't think the show ever answered the question of whether or not Esteban is actually of the Royal House/Blood. We know his mother is Queen Lucia's sister, but is his father also a part of the royal line? I just went ahead and said yes (even though that means there probably was some intermarrying among the family in the past in order for that to be the case, like cousins. No, I don't want to focus on that in the fics or elsewhere, it's gross. It was a different world back then, but it's still gross to think about, lol). That gives Esteban a stronger claim to the throne and fuel Raoul's paranoia.

ETA: Okay, so apparently he's only related to Elena through his mother (her aunt). Well, this is an AU, so this won't be the last time I muck with canon. XD

- So the, uh, thing with Esteban and Shuriki actually hails from a short story written by JB Blackwood. However, said story is sadly no longer online. I think it's an idea that makes a ton of sense though. You have this good-looking guy and a psychopathic, power-hungry sorceress -- I can totally see her making gross comments at him and even forcing herself on him. No, neither certainly has any feelings for the other within my works. If someone else wants to ship them in their fics then they can, but I do not. Sorry. Also I could be wrong, but I don't see male rape perpetrated by women getting touched on very much in fiction. Certainly not fanfiction. 

I didn't want to outright say "she raped him", because I like being more subtle then that, but I do worry about being so subtle that readers won't catch it. I've had people miss stuff in my fics before that I thought I'd made pretty clear.

- We don't see Esteban in the scene in "The Secret Of Avalor" where Luisa gives Elena her amulet, but I imagine he most likely was present. As I worked on that part where he's recalling that moment however I had the same question Esteban did in the fic -- why is Elena the only one to ever get magical doodads in the show? Why not him and Isa too (that might make for an interesting AU in another Esteban fic idea I have)? Considering all the malvagos and other crazy magical stuff in Everealm, everybody should be packing some form of proverbial heat. Or something.

- I love writing dream and nightmare sequences. They're the best because you can get so surreal with them. XD

- I admit, I probably should've used the term malvago in the story at some point. I didn't. I'll try to keep it in mind for later fics.

- Suicide is considered a mortal sin in Catholicism. That plus general fear is why Esteban never acted on his old thoughts about jumping off the parapet.

- When I saw that EoA made Esteban thirsty for the throne, my reaction was "Why are they trotting out this old canard again?" I swear, if you're royalty in the Disney-verse, um, go ahead and kill your relatives and castle/palace staff, because A) they will either want to take over, or B) help somebody else take over. My original intention was to drop this element of Esteban's character, as I've always felt canon handled it very badly and awkwardly. However, someone very cleverly talked me out of doing so by spinning it as "ambitious male relative in line for succession, but the king changed the laws so his daughters could inherit the throne instead." I likes me a little juicy royal drama. Plus, now Esteban has real reasons for feeling the way he does instead of... whatever it was EoA was trying to do. Like, he wanted the throne there just 'cuz, y'know "I'm shady and way cooler then Elena, and the audience needs somebody to hate!" Then he stopped wanting the throne (after that Fountain of Youth episode, I believe it was?), but then in the third season randomly decided towards the end, "No. Let's go get that throne after all, because my dream was always to be king!" 

I just. Wut. I wonder would things have been better if Disney hadn't announced they were canceling the series after the third season? Again, did not want to make Raoul into an outright awful man. Between his sister-in-law's kid and his own, he picked his own.

The same person who suggested going that route with Esteban's behind-the-scenes scheming also supplied the idea for Esteban setting aside his own dreams in order to please his family (something which he mentioned once in the show, but which was never further explored -- who's shocked by that, lol?). And I wanted to play around more with Esteban's insecurity over constantly playing second fiddle to everybody else -- Elena, Victor, etc. Again, better motivations for his turning heel like he did, and therefore, makes for a way more compelling story (canon messed up there again). 

- I also envision Victor as pushing Esteban towards the dark side. Let me break it down for the Canon Cops and anti-Esteban folk -- no, that does not mean Esteban is absolved of everything he did. In "The King Of Carnival", the grandparents Flores made it pretty clear (to me) that they didn't like Victor, I doubt they were shy about their feelings before (and with his apparently being known as a frickin' thief around the palace, I'm sure the rest of the family didn't like him either, or had misgivings about him), it pissed Victor off, and he was like "I'll show them." And it was easy for him to light the powder keg that was Esteban, as he was already having issues with his relatives. I don't know, sounds like a Victor move to me.

Again, that is all just my headcanon. If people don't like it, then they're certainly more then welcome to go read something else. Just sayin' -- EoA isn't the first fandom I've been in where people are hella eager to tell you that you're wrong because X, Y, Z/or fancy themselves the morality police.

Fun facts:

- I saw a one-shot which had Francisco teaching Esteban guitar (I'm sorry, I don't know the name of the story). Made sense to me for that to be case!

- I headcanon that iris purple and silver are Shuriki's official colors, given that the palace was prominently decorated with those two colors in "The Secret Of Avalor".

- Until recently, I had no idea that the world Sofia The First and EoA occur on is called Everealm.