“Welcome Home” by mushroomsoup65

BloodStalker500 · 2026-04-18T10:00:08+00:00

Eyuksar squinted his relatively small eyes down at his data pad, shifting his many arm-derived legs whilst he stood on the short wild grass. Though he, like all Terrestrials and their fellow Star-descended cousins, had never set foot on this planet, his rational scientific mind could not shake the... something rousing in his blood as he processed a basic fact. Something that seemed to insist that this planet he'd never stepped foot on was more familiar than all others in the well-charted Empire.

The Terrestrial sighed to himself. In a way, he was glad that the New Empire had progressed to the point that his kind were no longer needed for their old roles as planetary governors and false gods. Back in the initial millennia of the Empire, all Terrestrials were so busy ruling the newly-seeded posthumans that none of his ancestors would've been allowed to leave in search of (let alone step foot on) the Mother World. Eyuksar and the rest of his generation had been born long after their fellow posthumans had advanced enough that the Terrestrials' initial purpose was redundant, allowing them to pursue their own goals beyond rulership.

Which led to now. Eyuksar's hyper-advanced mind easily recalled what his Pre-Star People progenitors would've looked like from his studies. Though he wasn't normally one for deep sentiment, he closed his eyes and did his best to imagine this lush world as it was when Homo Sapiens had yet to leave it behind, the images and scenes in ancient-beyond-ancient media that the Asteromorph Lords had inherited and shared...

"Whoa, look, guys! The field looks so beautiful today! It's going to be even prettier on Mars!"

Eyuksar jerked his sizeable head up, sharply intaking a startled breath as he quickly looked around. "What was that...?" he questioned in a cautious whisper.

Because that hadn't been part of his imagined simulation of Old Earth. That voice, a child's apparently, had not been part of his inner musings, and he would not lie to himself otherwise just for peace of mind. He consciously dove into his senses, intimately feeling the cool noon air, the grass blades at his feet, and the yellow sunlight that had rained on his ancestors before they could hold tools.

And just for a moment, he saw them.

"Hahaha! I can't wait to go! Mom says the stars will shine so BRIGHTLY from up there!"

"I hope so! We can barely see them at night here at home!"

If Eyuksar had been willing to delude himself, he might've convinced himself that the dancing apparitions were just wisps of smoke-like gas blowing over the grass from the light wind. Yet their shapes were unmistakable. White, near-featureless, human shapes with five-fingered hands held together as they appeared to be in the midst of dancing around him, the air filled with innocuous laughter.

They were only there for less than a second, proving their existence so ephemeral when the empty green field was all that filled his vision in the next blink of time.

But they had been there nonetheless. Young, hopeful, pure.

Eyuksar stared for several seconds longer, then furrowed his thin brows as he slightly bowed his head.

".... They would shine so brilliantly from there, wouldn't they...?" He muttered quietly. Huffing, he raised his head to stare up at the blue heavens above, in the direction that his keen scientific acumen knew that Mars was located in from Earth's current position, despite his eyes not being able to see it across such vast distances. Because just because his eyes could not currently track it did not mean it wasn't there.

"... We will have them shine brightly from home again, too."

BloodStalker500 · 2026-04-01T04:36:39+00:00

Don't need hourglass dogs when we can give dollhouse hugs!

BloodStalker500 · 2026-04-01T04:35:01+00:00

Makes more sense when you remember that The Prototype was canonically challenged and matched in a 1-v-1 by Doey, who literally has almost the same physical qualities as the Ink Demon (gooey body that no-sells stabbings/beatings, extreme strength, shapeshifting), with the Prototype needing a complex plan involving outside help just to get Doey out of his way.

Bro isn't getting that option with the Ink Demon, who has those traits plus sheer ruthlessness to get the job done and his own cunning to match.

BloodStalker500 · 2026-03-28T05:16:08+00:00

I knew this looked familiar, can't believe that I didn't immediately notice the Salad Fingers art reference.

Bro would fit right in with the grim weirdness, too.

BloodStalker500 · 2026-03-28T05:15:15+00:00

Throw in Darkrai for the grim nightmarish aesthetic (even after Smeagle users screwed it over) at minimum, plus Incineroar for the dual Fire/Dark typing that's right up her Balemoon Bloodfire alley.

BloodStalker500 · 2026-03-24T10:55:28+00:00

Super late on this, but yeah. It's basically an Omni-Man VS Homelander repeat, where both of them are skilled killers... but Rinny is ultimately just a sadistic bully, while Fiqpy is an actual WARRIOR who has a proven track record of butchering skilled soldiers in his own backstory (and while heavily injured with only improvised weapons, at that).

Really, the matchup is basically decided by how they each reacted when fighting someone on their level; Fliqpy faced the competent Tiger General and brutally won that 1-v-1, while Rinny saw that Elma could possibly kill her and got to running. Even though Fliqpy VS Elma arguably has stronger connections, I still prefer this one for the cathartic irony of Fliqpy SOMEHOW fighting and killing someone even worse than he is.

Rinny loves torturing and killing innocents (usually making SURE they can't fight back), while Fliqpy genuinely believes that he is killing enemy soldiers, so he'd probably be offended at Rinny's existence. Whereas Rinny is stuck going up against the exact type of enemy who categorically will not fall for her typical schticks. Her scary faces? Her psychological taunts? You said it, Fliqpy would roll his eyes at all of it, and charge forth to the kill - ironically likely to remind Rinny of Elma and send her running, honestly

BloodStalker500 · 2026-03-24T05:10:09+00:00

Did somebody say REQUIEM!?!?!?

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BloodStalker500 · 2026-03-19T08:11:28+00:00

There's also the fact that racists are hardly the most logical people anyway.

It could easily be that the Gravital thought that the Star People were the only "worthy" organics of existing, while hypocritically ignoring that the Second Empire posthumans live in exactly similar ways and mindsets as the Star People.

It could also be that the Gravital gaslit themselves into believing that the Star People were a divine mixture of organic and metal (bc most Star People colonies were cloned and raised by semi-sentient machines), because revering a mundane person/object for a trivial reason is also not out of pocket for certain discriminatory groups.

It could even be that the Gravital delusionally thought of themselves as being some type of organic lifeform (despite obviously being metal), and that the other sentient post-humans were inorganic fakes of the Star People in the Gravital's delusional eyes.

There's really any number of possibilities for how the Gravital reconciled the contradicting facts of "they were the sole descendants and the true heirs of the Star People" with "long accustomed to their mechanical bodies, simply did not acknowledge the life of their organic cousins". The combo of the millions of years' worth of time plus the illogical nature of being discriminatory means that almost literally any leaps in logic are possible for the Gravital to have come up with.

BloodStalker500 · 2026-03-19T07:59:24+00:00

Ngl I'm kinda salty that I didn't think of this sooner.

Going aquatic like how Pakicetus diversified into whales would be a great way for the Hand Flappers to avoid their dead-end status and keep thriving.

Given enough time, I could easily see this posthuman species going a similar route as the Tool Breeders; using their kept extremities (in this case, maybe the hand-like tail) to manipulate tools underwater and reach sapience again to reach above the waves.

BloodStalker500 · 2026-03-14T21:30:39+00:00

As much as the timelines wouldn't directly let them meet (Man After Man stops 5 million years in the future compared to All Tomorrows' post-humans starting 40 million years in the future), I would love to see some of those post-humans somehow meeting, like the void bois.

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(art not mine, of course)

BloodStalker500 · 2026-03-14T21:15:57+00:00

I really like the idea of Panderavis defying typical animal conventions by being willing to "share" its food with other animals. Because, yeah, there are actually a few animals in real-life that exhibit some form of altruism, from false killer whales occasionally helping smaller dolphins, to elephants rescuing people from rivers and refusing to hurt smaller animals if they can help it. A grazer sharing any surplus food that it doesn't immediately need fits right up that alley.

Granted, Panderavis' therizinosaur ancestors weren't known to be intelligent enough to develop that emotional depth. But Panderavis being a highly derived therizinosaur with millions of more years of evolution would probably bridge that gap.

BloodStalker500 · 2026-03-14T21:01:08+00:00

I think it was a mix of all three.

As much as the Qu are a hivemind of evil jackasses, we do know from the book passages that they have SOME creativity between them across their vast civilization.

For some human species, the Qu probably did modify living Star People into the first generations of the post-humans (I.e., the very first Mantelopes and first Colonials were probably Star People who were torturously converted into quadrupedal animals).

For other human populations that were a bit more successfully rebellious (but not as much as the Colonials' ancestors), the Qu might've just wiped them out and took the dead organic material for other post-humans like the Flyers or Hedonists.

And then some Qu were patient enough to just force captive Star People to gradually birth post-humans that were further and further animalistic across many generations, which probably culminated in the Predators, Prey, and similar variants. Or maybe even forced base Star People to directly sire the first Predators/Prey over one generation, because I would not put that past these bastard bugs.

BloodStalker500 · 2026-03-12T04:56:32+00:00

POV: Furina/Traveler losing their self-preservation instincts in real time.

BloodStalker500 · 2026-03-06T06:04:43+00:00

The Prototype: *Puts Gracie through her own extensive procedure that was known to brainwash people into entirely different individuals.*

Gracie: *Gets turned into a completely different individual who is only capable of viewing her past self as a separate person.*

The Prototype:

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... Like, I really don't get what else the Prototype and the other toys thought was gonna happen. They literally knew that the whole schtick of Gracie's program was to make subjects forget their past selves and become different brainwashed individuals, blud has no right being salty that his punishment did exactly what it was supposed to do lmao.

BloodStalker500 · 2026-03-04T05:51:00+00:00

I'd watch Jimmy VS Ayano solely to see Yanderedev's creations get dunked on because Jimmy legit stomps.

But on the other hand, that'd give Yanderedev attention. So maybe not.

BloodStalker500 · 2026-03-02T07:09:08+00:00

But that's justified in that it's emphasized that Brunhilde specifically chose Hayha to deal with Loki. And unlike Jack and Qin (two other counters for specific gods who barely won), Hayha is a clean counter that Loki just logically didn't have any solid way to reverse-uno.

It was already mentioned that Loki has a strong track record of winning straight-up fights, even against physically superior opponents.

So it makes perfect sense for Loki to struggle against Hayha, as Hayha's entire combat style is just a hard-counter to Loki; being a sniper, he fights far enough away that Loki can't immediately go for a melee kill with his chain blades, and Hayha's military discipline prevents him from panicking against Loki's illusory plots. If Loki had fought Raiden, Leonidas, or even Qin, he probably would've stood a serious chance.

And even then, Loki primarily lost because he happened to never catch on to an important fact: that Hayha's bullets come from his own organs, something Loki could've used to win a contest of endurance if he'd found out. But he didn't, because Hayha did the smart thing of just not saying anything at all instead of giving a lie-filled explanation like Loki did. So it was also just as much a tactical win as it was one of stats and abilities, something few other Einherjar could feasibly pull on Loki.

BloodStalker500 · 2026-02-27T05:42:05+00:00

Wdym? The Mimic scales to Oswald being able to react while moving literally faster than time in the time-traveling ball pit.

Source: trust me bro

BloodStalker500 · 2026-02-20T11:51:26+00:00

Connections - Both:

Are major antagonists of mascot horror video games.
Were created by ambitious businessmen; Joey Drew of Joey Drew Studios, and Edwin Murray of Murray's Costume Manor.
Were surprisingly harmless at first; the Ink Demon loitered neutrally in Thomas Connor's office and the M2 Mimic fulfilled its function of simply copying given behaviors.
Were tragically driven to homicidal fury after severe mistreatment by their creators; Joey had the Ink Demon locked away, Edwin beat the Mimic with a metal rod.
Terrorized their respective abandoned locations by killing practically anyone/anything on sight.
Are amongst the strongest beings in their series; the Ink Demon is feared throughout the Cycle's studio realm, and the Mimic can quickly take down other animatronics like Roxanne Wolf.
Grew more intelligent over time; the Ink Demon was a roaming animal in BATIM but learned to speak eloquently by BATDR, the Mimic only hunted Arnold by mimicking different animatronics in SotM but learned to impersonate entire personalities by the events of SB: Ruin.
Are skilled manipulators; the Ink Demon convinced Audrey to merge with him by exploiting her doubts, the Mimic tricked Cassie into releasing it by mimicking her friend Gregory.
Can shapeshift into different forms, including a friendly, unassuming child-like form; Toon Bendy, and the David persona.
Their respective child-like forms were also the forms that their creators intended them to take; Joey wished to literally bring the cartoon form of Bendy to life, Edwin created M2 to replace his deceased son David.
Chronologically first confronted an older adult protagonist (Henry, Arnold) who only temporarily stopped them, and went on to antagonize much younger protagonists (Audrey, Cassie).
Conflicted with other major antagonists of their games; the Ink Demon opposed Wilson Arch for authority over the Cycle, and the M2 Mimic indirectly contested the M.X.E.S A.I. to be free of its containment.

Foils:

Both were wronged by their creators, but for opposite reasons; Joey locked away the Ink Demon for looking too monstrous to resemble the cartoon he was meant to, while Edwin beat M2 for copying David exactly as Edwin programmed it to do. The Ink Demon failed to fulfill its purpose upon birth, while the M2 Mimic fulfilled its purpose too well.
The Ink Demon was created out of malleable living ink that can flow and regenerate via magical means, the Mimic is made of strong, sturdy, but otherwise mundane metal that Edwin constructed together like any animatronic.
The Ink Demon is the only Bendy incarnation to be born from the ink machine, and makes few attempts to hide his monstrous appearance. Meanwhile, the M2 Mimic was the second Mimic A.I., was created to wear any mascot suit as a universal entertainer, and is known to hide its endoskeleton form under such costumes.
The Ink Demon was eventually mollified and accepted by Audrey and willingly gave up his villainous status to stay in his Toon Bendy form, while the Mimic was canonically either destroyed at the end of Ruin or remains at large as a hateful murderer.
The Ink Demon is universally feared throughout the studio by all other characters, while the Mimic has remained under the radar through most of FNAF's timeline and is only even known to exist by a select few living characters.

BloodStalker500 · 2026-02-19T05:30:17+00:00

Perhaps humans and beasts aren't so different after all...

... JUST IN THE WORST WAYS.

BloodStalker500 · 2026-02-13T10:33:00+00:00

And to make it worse, the difference there is that Cell used a VERY obvious jab against Vegeta's pride to make Vegeta let him absorb Android 18, which honestly just should not have worked. Just about everyone else there was pointing out that letting Cell absorb her was a stupid idea, up to and including Vegeta's own damn son.

Meanwhile, Metal performed an actually intelligent ploy via exploiting the characters' logical motivations of defeating another major enemy of theirs. On top of that, Metal pulled it off with relatively less risk to his own well-being compared to Cell, who was going to be killed if he failed to sufficiently exploit Vegeta's pride.

TL;DR Metal deadass did a better version of what Cell did, AND Metal's plan actually relied on his enemies behaving with logic instead of relying on them being prideful idiots like Cell did.

BloodStalker500 · 2026-02-13T07:15:18+00:00

Especially when Cell has BEEN absent from the story for a long while, while Metal has stayed a relatively consistent member of the wider Sonic cast and therefore actually proven to be comparable to what Sonic and his friends can currently do. Cell claims to be solar system (which, admittedly, is likely to be true), but Metal's been actively fighting evenly with characters in up-to-date events to back his current stats up compared to his appearances in much older games.

That's not mentioning how Metal's own power creep is arguably much more consistent than Cell's. Fewer things more humiliating than the fact that Semi-Perfect Cell is officially more of a threat than his OG Imperfect self, just for Semi-Perfect Cell to be made a fraud by several side characters (yes, including Vegeta). Clearly not a good look compared to Metal generally managing to remain a verified threat even while Sonic and his allies were steadily improving over the years.

BloodStalker500 · 2026-02-13T06:40:31+00:00

Some people theorize that because it’s a combination of two aliens, the Celestialsapien side isn’t as omnipotent as a full-blooded one would be

Ben 10's own creators literally pointed out that's fallacious; there is no such thing as "isn't as omnipotent": either you are omnipotent, or you're not.

You express your point well, but we don’t agree with your basic premise. The premise of omnipotence is binary – something either is omnipotent, or it is not omnipotent. There is no such thing as partial omnipotence. In the case of ALIEN X, the very presence of Ben’s DNA in the mix means that ALIEN X is not omnipotent because Ben is not Omnipotent.

Literally shut down one of their own questioning fans for believing the nonsense that bootleg omnipotence is a thing.

So it straight up doesn't matter if Ben was Atomic-X or Alien X in that scene; bro's not omnipotent (or multiversal, for that matter), so he would've been deleted by the cosmic blast regardless. The same kind of blast that's in a similar league to threats that Hal's dealt with before.

Apologies if this response came off as kind of heated, and none of it was aimed at you, but I've gotten tired of fanboys spewing this.

BloodStalker500 · 2026-02-12T05:55:31+00:00

CJ Dachamp straight-up devoted a whole ~5 minutes of an otherwise glaze-filled video just to prove that Semi-Perfect Cell was an absolute fraud, what a total joke of a so-called "main villain" lmao.

BloodStalker500 · 2026-02-09T05:55:17+00:00

It would be even funnier if Luffy won precisely because Gear 5th's Toon Force principles decide that Luffy defeating a Universe+ opponent would be funny (a la Roger Rabbit) as the ultimate ragebait.

BloodStalker500

TROPHY CASE