#<- it is!!! I’ll decide which ones to use but it’s gonna give a general idea of what their lover looks like!

[moonstruckme]

roomate jamess 😭😭😭💓💓🤍😭😭💓

I agree !

part 1 │ part 2 │ part 3 │ part 4 │part 5 │ part 6 │ part 7 │ part 8 │ part 9 │ part 10 │ part 11 │ part 12 │ part 13

roommate!james x shy!reader ♡ 733 words

James gets the text just as he arrives home: Are you hungry?

He grins, putting his car in park as he types out a reply. 

I’m wounded. We’re coming up on our one-month roommate anniversary, and you still don’t know I’m always hungry? 

This makes a grand total of four texts between the two of you. You’d conversed a bit more on Craigslist before agreeing to let James move in with you, but barely. Your radio silence is much like your actual silence, but he’s happy to be making a dent in either. 

Your response comes while he’s fishing his keys out of his pocket. Sorry. Want thai?

James laughs, opening the door and toeing off his shoes. He calls in the general direction of your room, “I hope you’re joking about being sorry.” 

He’s hoping for maybe a reply via text, so it comes as a pleasant surprise when you appear on the stairs. You move like a ghost; if he put you and Remus in an old manor together, James is half sure it’d qualify as a haunted house. 

You’re in your pajamas, which means you must already be done with work for the day. James has noticed this is one of your habits; once you’ve decided you’re staying in the house, your outside clothes hit the hamper and you’re living in fuzzy socks. These ones, standing halfway up the staircase, are blue with white stars. Something about seeing you in full cozy mode makes James’ stomach twinge. 

“Do you want Thai?” you ask again, longer and in person. Several decibels quieter than he’d just been.

“Sure.” James gives you a smile, flopping backwards over the arm of the couch. He was going to cook pasta for dinner, but he’s a bit tired anyway and agreeing to the first bonding opportunity you’ve offered him takes precedence. “Do you wanna use my card, or should I pay you after?” 

“Don’t.” You wave him off, already typing on your phone. “I’m getting it.” 

“Not happening,” James replies. He starts digging in his pocket for his wallet, unearthing a half dozen gum wrappers and a receipt from last March. “But in theory, to what do I owe the honor?” 

Your eyes flit to him, something like accusation in them. James feels his eyebrows lift. “I know you don’t have that many leftovers,” you say. 

So, you’re onto him. “I cook a lot,” he replies with a shrug. “If there’s extra, someone should eat it.” 

“But why not you?” 

“Why not you?” he counters. 

You look suspiciously as though you might be biting down on a smile. A real one. “The point is, I owe you at least a meal. Do you want to see the menu?” 

“Sure, thanks.” He reaches out a hand. You come down the stairs to give him your phone, but once it’s in his hand your eyes narrow mistrustfully, fingers tightening on the device. 

“If you try to pay,” you tell him, “I’ll hide the money in your room so you don’t find it until you move out.” 

A laugh bubbles up out of him at your serious tone. “We live together, babe. I think I’ll come across it at some point.” 

“Not with your room as messy as it is.” 

Damn it, you’re right. “Fine.” James holds up his hands in surrender, credit card between his fingers. “But when I make dinner tomorrow, just eat it while it’s hot, yeah? Let’s do away with the pretense.” 

You sigh through your nose, sitting down beside him with one leg curled under you. You’re attempting something that’s probably supposed to be a glare. James would hate to have to tell you how unintimidating it is, but he may if you keep it up much longer; it’s almost too adorable to take. 

“I appreciate it, but you really don’t need to cook for me,” you say. “I eat plenty when you’re not here.” 

“I’ll believe it when I see it.” 

“That’s the point, James.” You roll your eyes, looking halfway amused. Shit, the day he actually makes you laugh he’s gonna have to bake a cake. “You’re not here to see it.” 

“Do you wanna watch a movie while we eat?” He passes you back your phone, having added his order to your cart. “They’ve just added a slew of new movies to Netflix. Also, for tomorrow, do you prefer pasta or chicken?” 

[unhealthyvendetta]

ೃ⁀➷ HOW YOU THINK’S THE KIND OF THING I’LL NEVER UNDERSTAND

✧˚ · . overview. you break it off with gojo due to his carefree attitude and he's livid. part two

⇢ ˗ˏˋ caution. gojo x reader, no use of "y/n", angst, heartbreak, fem reader, eventual fluff, obsessed gojo, not proofread ࿐ྂ

wc: 1.3k

ׂ╰┈➤︵‿︵‿︵‿︵︵‿︵‿︵‿︵︵‿︵‿︵‿︵︵‿︵‿︵‿︵

"What the fuck?" Satoru muttered under his breath before springing up from his bed.

"Let's break up, it's better for the both of us. I know you're busy so I have to text it to you." Your text read. You decided to break up with your boyfriend due to his nonchalance and neglect.

Just as you placed your phone down, it started ringing. Who was it? I doubt it's your boyfriend ex.

Oh, but it is.

You felt a little anxious and declined the call, but just as you did, it rang again. What's with this guy? You reluctantly tapped the green button on your phone to Satoru looking at his phone with an upset expression. "Why?" Satoru asked.

"You don't even talk to me, why are you calling me?" You replied as you set up your phone to see him.

"So? I've been busy." Satoru replied.

"Busy doing what? Your location says you're currently at home and haven't left for a mission in a while." You replied with an annoyed expression, "What's the point of lying?"

"God, you're so controlling. Can you stop stalking me?" Satoru replied with sass.

"Do you even care about me? You never call but when I wanna break up you spam call me." You yelled at him. "If I didn't we wouldn't be together, stop being so insecure." Satoru shot back, "If I knew you were so needy I wouldn't have came up to you." He said.

His words hurt, deeply. You just sighed and hung up the phone, surprising Satoru, but he didn't call back.. which hurt even more.

See, Satoru.. he figured you'd come around eventually. He was gonna take you back and things would be normal, right? Wrong. You stopped showing up to his meetings, stopped showing up to the school, you could not be caught in Satoru's general area.

He was confused, was he really dumped? The strongest sorcerer? Dumped? It just sounded grammatically incorrect.

People started asking where you were and Satoru did not want to let the world know that he got dumped by a normal girl. He never told anyone you both broke up, keeping it a secret from everybody.

One day you went out in public and one of Satoru's student's came up to greet you, "Hey! How are you? Is Gojo helping you get better?" They asked, leaving you confused. "Gojo? Better? What do you mean?" You asked.

"Gojo told us you were sick and you weren't going to his events anymore," The student replied.

"Oh, really?" You replied, feeling furious.

Before the student could reply, you walked towards your apartment and called Satoru. He picked up immediately, "What? Aren't we broken up?" He asked with attitude.

"I thought so, but you've been going around telling people we're still together and I'm just sick. So you tell me," You replied as you unlocked your apartment door.

Satoru didn't reply, he was caught in a lie. "What did you want me to do? I can't tell people I was dumped by you, that's embarrassing." Satoru replied.

"What the fuck? Just pop out with another slut like you usually do," You scoffed. "You're jealous, I feel it." Satoru responded. "No, I'm annoyed. I don't want to be associated with you." You refuted. "Just last week you were complaining about how I never give you attention, don't complain now." Satoru scoffed.

"God, you're annoying. Stop telling everyone we're together, okay? That's all I want from you." You replied.

"Stop acting like you don't want me anymore, you were so needy and now you're all distant." Satoru quipped. "Well maybe you should've treated me like your girlfriend and not a fan girl that you have to tolerate." You snapped.

"Women are so complicated," Satoru groaned. "And men are so incompetent," You shot back before hanging up the phone. What the fuck was his problem?

You knew he was an ass, but this was a new type of ass.

Whatever, who needs him? You've been eying your colleague Nanami for the past week, and you might as well try and make a move, right? You knew he went to the local bakery on Fridays, so you decided to stop by to get his attention.

As expected Nanami was there, purchasing bread. You waited outside trying your hardest to look like you were actually doing something when you spot a certain white haired individual you unfortunately knew too well.

"Satoru? What the hell-" You started before Satoru cut you off with a kiss. God, you haven't been kissed by him in what felt like forever. You just wanted to- no, oh my God.. Nanami should be coming out the shop any second!

You pulled away reluctantly and saw Nanami walking away from you and Satoru, shit, he already left?

"Satoru, what the hell?" You yelled at him.

"You can't go out with Nanami," Satoru responded, his eyes filled with anger and jealousy.

"Yes I can, maybe he won't ignore me for weeks like you did!" You scoffed. "And don't kiss me, we're broken up." You added on. "Oh come on, you and I both know this 'break up' can be solved with a conversation." Satoru replied.

"When will you realize that not everyone wants you? That your nonchalance and lack of care isn't hot, but people put up with it because they love you?" You insulted him.

"I know your ego get pretty flimsy whenever someone doesn't want you but you need to grow up. Consider this a wake up call to not be a fucking asshole." You continued before walking away to you car, this time Satoru didn't stop you.

You forget to ask important questions, like how he found you, how he knew what you were up to.. God, you were livid.

You just tried to ignore Satoru and tried going out with Nanami, but you couldn't even speak to him. Satoru was definitely pulling strings per usual, trying to control you. You decided to block Satoru's personal number, that wasn't someone you needed in your life, you just wanted peace, but Satoru just wanted you.

He was regretting ever letting you get away, he needed you in his life and without you he was unstable, he would apologize but there was no amount of apologies he could utter on his knees for you to take him back at this rate. He's an asshole, and he knows that. And God, he wished he could stop being one.

But old habits die hard, okay? So he's outside your apartment, lockpicking the door. It's 10:57 PM on a Friday night, he knew you always partied on Fridays.

He sat there and waited for hours in your living room, he was going to force a conversation with you if you didn't wanna talk to him willingly.

You get home several hours later, and see Satoru at your door.

"Oh my God! You fucking loser! Get out!" You yelled as you pulled up your dress.

Satoru just stared at you, what he once had all to himself. His eyes were filled with longing and desire. "I'm sorry, I know I was an asshole, I know. But I don't know what to do. I just want you back, please. I don't know why I treated you like that, and I swear I'll treasure you like the gem you are."

You looked a little shocked, "Don't just throw this onto me on a Friday night, I'm tipsy." You replied and took off your heels, "Get out Satoru."

"Please. I love you so much, I'll give you everything. I will make time for you, please." Satoru begged. "Get out," You replied as you walked towards your bathroom to take off your makeup.

"I really don't want to lose you," Satoru replied. "You already did," You scoffed.

"I'm not done." Satoru sighed before leaving your apartment, and you wouldn't remember any of this by tomorrow morning.

[cr4zy-cycl0n3]

Yo! I'm doing a Heroes of Olympus rewrite!

I'm not a huge fan of how some scenes go in canon and how the characters esp the gods are handled in Hoo, and after reading one too many rewrite/AU fics, I've decided fuck it, imma make my own.

I'm changing quite a few things, like:

- making Piper's memories not be tampered with and as a result be way closer to Leo (credit to Heroes of Juno by @queenjunothegreat for this idea!)

- MOTHERLY HERA/JUNO WHO PSEUDO-ADOPTS JASON FTW also parental Lupa but that'll be more apparent in a Jason prequel/sequel(depends on how I wanna format it) I’ll write after TLH is done

- slowburn valgrace instead of comphet jiper

- Leo and Piper QPR(+Jason when Piper stops being his #1 opp). Jasipereo ftw babyyy

- the whole series is just gonna have a good deal of focus on the Lost Trio. I'm not gonna shaft anyone ofc but my favorite punching bags characters are just gonna get extra love :3

- Jason's gonna be considerably more feral cuz CMON MAN WAS RAISED BY WOLVES(this is more prominent in the later books cuz in TLH he was alr feral, going at 2 giants with his BARE ASS HANDS)

- Jason has more bite cuz DAMMIT HE DESERVES TO BE ANGRY/BITTER AND CLAP BACK. HIS LIFE IS SHIT, LET MY BRO BE MAD

- more exploration into Jason's character cuz man was shafted so hard :(

- exploration of characters' powers in general, def buffing the Big Three kids to be as strong as Percy cuz holy cow he's OP. I love Percy and his OP-ness, but the other Big Three kids should be just as OP

- Zeus is the God of Justice, which we don't see much of in PJO's characterization of him, but Jupiter is Roman and hence is much more strict in the RRverse, so consequently I think his domain of law and order is more central to Jupiter than his greek counterpart, so I'd like to explore Jason having powers related to that and being an absolute powerhouse when it comes to debates and politics despite hating them

- characterizing the Gods differently from canon as I'm a Hellenist and writing them as they are in canon makes me like. Kinda uncomfortable. I will be using mythic literalism as that is what PJO/HoO's based on and I'm not rewriting the very foundations of the series, so they will still have committed the things they did in mythology, though I'm keeping them largely unaltered from the Og greek mythos and unsanitized as this isn't intended for a young audience like PJO is. Their behavior won't be exactly like their depictions in myths nor how they actually are irl, it's a mix of both(Ex: Zeus has still done heinous shit so he won't be as great as he is irl, but he isn't supremely petty and bitchy like he is in PJO.). This uhh. Will probably mean that PJO events would go differently which would influence HOO but if I think about that too much I'm gonna wanna do a PJO rewrite too and akbhdhd so just imagine that everything that goes on in PJO goes as canon (for now at least) for some reason or another.

- Octavian and Jason are were best friends cuz I said so. This change is inspired by To Storm and Fire(a Heroes of Olympus rewrite) which I am in LOVE with. The antagonistic side characters(like Drew and Octavian) got very little development or character exploration so l'm definitely giving them that in my rewrite!

- The Seven feel and are much closer together

- delving more into the sevens' trauma pre-camp, might also do a one/two shot for each of them. Jason’s a given cuz I’m writing a whole ass fic or even series dedicated to his past, Leo and Piper definitely, probably also Hazel and Annabeth, not sure on Percy and Frank cuz for Frank I’m def going into the trauma that comes with growing up in an Asian household but don’t have too many ideas on how to execute that, and for Percy I don’t have all that many ideas in general outside of the little we know in PJO(I used to think we knew a lot but honestly, we really don’t? Like we know Poseidon left, Sally had to work a lot, Gabe sucks, and he got kicked out of 6 six schools in 6 years and the reasons, but we don’t have any concrete details. There might be more in HoH, I haven’t read it yet so lmk if there is). Open to any ideas for this!

- camp is. Tense. It's been only a few months since the war, grief is still fresh, and Jason being tall, blonde, and blue-eyed with a scar ain't helping 💀 some people think Silena was a hero, others think she was a villain, some people sympathized with Luke, others despised him, there's a lotta differing views.

I have loads more ideas that I won't get into here cuz the post'll get way too long, but l'd love to hear what you guys think! What scenes/characterizations should I change? What topics would you like to see handled differently? What should I add? I'm open to any and all suggestions!

Currently outlining TLH, will start posting it on my ao3 once I have the first chapter and 4-5 buffer ones written so I'll prolly start posting it in a month or two? Idk, depends on my workload irl and if I get hit by writer’s block. Maybe less, maybe more, who knows. I'll be writing a bunch of shorter stories for specific moments, time between books, and namely a prequel/tih sequel focusing on Jason's past and who he was before Hera wiped his memory. Open to any suggestions for additional works too. Feel free to drop any questions and suggestions bout the rewrite here or in my ask box!

[bunnylovesani]

A Birthday Affair 2

Summary: Past midnight is when the real birthday celebrations start and the best gift you could’ve asked for is to get stuffed. Full of cake, of course. You just better hope Padme doesn’t wake up.

Content warnings: P in V sex, oral sex, cheating, generally immoral activity lmao

WC: 3.2k

“Would you stop whining about it already? Give me a fucking minute to put on my shoes and I’ll get you the stupid replacement.” Anakin yells in Padme’s direction, on his way to buy you another birthday cake after the last one went up in flames.

“It’s not for me, it’s for her!” She points at you and Anakin sighs, giving you an apologetic look.

“Yeah well, she doesn’t seem to be half as fussed about it as you are.” He grabs the keys by the door and throws on a navy blue baseball cap. “Be back in twenty.” He seems to say only to you and the act of defiance doesn’t go unnoticed by Padme.

“God, what a jerk. I don’t know what’s gotten into him lately but he seems to be even more unbearable than usual.” She steps out onto the terrace of your shared apartment and you follow her. “You spend every day with us, tell me- has he said anything to you? You know, about us?”

You shuffle on your feet nervously and let out a huff. “No, nothing.” You decide to keep your lies simple and easy to follow.

“That’s even worse!” She whines. “He doesn’t mention me at all?”

“I didn’t say that.” You deflected nervously.

“So he does talk about me?” Noticing your hesitance, she puts her hand on your shoulder reassuringly. “Relax, you can tell me. You’re my best friend in the whole world, I’d never get mad at you for telling me the truth.”

“I got something that’d test that theory.” You think as you scratch the back of your head.

“Look Padme, I don’t know what to tell you- I mean he doesn’t talk badly about you, but he doesn’t mention you all that much either.”

She pauses for a moment and takes a step back, observing you closely.

“So what do you guys talk about then?” She shoots you a scrutinising glare.

“W-what?” You kick yourself for how suspicious you’re coming across.

“You heard me. We’ve been roommates for a good couple of months now.” She paces up and down the terrace. “When I’m at work and you two are alone, what do you talk about?”

“Oh, you know. The usual. Nothing special.” You reply honestly. Up until this evening, you hadn’t crossed any boundaries with Anakin- unless you count your fantasies. In which case you’d crossed them multiple times in multiple different positions.

She looks at you with narrowed eyes, processing your response for a moment before she releases a heavy sigh.

“I’m sorry, I’ve been feeling a little paranoid recently.” She slumps down onto a plump deck chair and breathes in the cold night air. “He seems distant, like he’s not really here with me, you know?” You take a seat beside her, not sure whether it would be more morally reprehensible to comfort her or to change the subject.

“I don’t know Padme, it’s between you guys- I don’t wanna get involved.” You hear the irony in your words as soon as they leave your lips.

“Of course, ‘m sorry for being such a downer- and on the eve of your birthday too! I’m gonna throw you the biggest rager tomorrow, I’ve invited so many cute guys - just for you.” She rambles excitedly and you bite your lip in guilt.

A short while later, Anakin comes home to a very lukewarm reception from Padme, who complains that the cake he bought isn’t good enough- it wasn’t the right size, the right flavour or the right colour. You thought it was perfectly fine.

After a brief but heated argument, Padme decides to call it a night and retreats into her bedroom down the hall.

“I’m sorry about her.” Anakin whispers, treading lightly over to you. “She’s acting even more insufferable than I’m used to.”

“Funny, she said the same thing about you earlier.” You smile, knees feeling weak when he returns it with his own twinkling grin.

“I can’t wait until it’s you I get to go to bed with, not her.” He speaks softly, reaching up to brush his knuckles against your cheek.

“Me neither, but we can’t do things like that anymore. Not until you deal with Padme.” You vowed, looking over his shoulder.

“I know, I know, I’ll deal with that soon-“

“Anakin! Come to bed!” Padme interjects with a high-pitched and entirely repellant screech.

He rolls his eyes so far back into his head you wonder if they’ll ever come out again.

“I’m coming!” He yells, throwing his arms into the air with a measure of agitation you’d never seen before.

“I gotta go, angel. I’ll see you in the morning yeah? My pretty birthday girl.” He grabs your chin lightly before planting a peck on your forehead and retreating into the bedroom with an indignant sigh.

You stayed up for a little while longer, deciding to tidy the mess of pillows and plushies strewn along your bed. As you readjusted your teddies, you let out a dreamy moan at the memory of your romp earlier this evening. You snake your hand between your thighs as you sit down, feeling deliciously sore- head spinning with the reminder of how right it felt to have him buried inside you. Only being granted the pleasure of having him once wasn’t anywhere near enough- you felt like you were going through withdrawal, unable to form a single thought that wasn’t about him.

Resigning yourself to a long sleepless night, you slipped your most expensive silk nightie on and crawled under the covers. Glancing over to the clock on your nightstand, you saw that it was 1 minute past midnight- officially your birthday. You wondered if Ani got you anything nice, focusing on hypothetical presents rather than allowing your guilty conscience to creep in.

Speaking of creeping in, you hear the door knob squeak with a careful twist and a festive pyjama-clad Anakin enters your room.

“Ani! What are you doing here?” You whisper, motioning to securely close the door shut.

“Sorry, I couldn’t wait- just had to come see you. Happy birthday, baby.” He hands you a charming white gift box wrapped tightly in a pink silk bow, his large palm making it look tiny.

“Can I join you for a minute?” He gestures towards your bed and you’re torn.

“Oh Ani, you shouldn’t have. I-I don’t know, what if she catches us?” You try to reason but your attention has been stolen by the pretty box, which you eagerly pluck out of his hand.

“She’s out cold.” He perches at the foot of your bed. “You hear that? Sounds like a grizzly bear operating a chainsaw.”

You giggle at his words and peel back your covers, inviting him to lay beside you.

“Or a congested walrus.” You add.

“Driving a bulldozer.”

“Well now you’re just exaggerating.” You laugh into your pillow while Anakin shushes you, playfully hitting you with your teddy.

Clutching the box as you untie the delicate ribbon, you pull out a polished gold necklace with a satiny heart pendant- engraved with the letter A.

“Ani, I love it! But-“

“I bought this a week ago.” He interrupts. “My heart belonged to you long before you gave me your body. I want you to wear it and the next time I see Padme, I’ll tell her everything.”

“Really? The next time?” You ask incredulously. You’d expected this to drag on for a lot longer.

“First thing in the morning, angel.” He reassured you soothingly and you melted into his arms.

“Okay, help me put it on.�� You tittered excitedly as he clipped the necklace in place, the delicate pendant lingering over your collarbones.

“Thank you. It’s perfect.” You held it in your hand and planted a soft kiss on his lips. Pulling away slightly, you darted between his dreamy eyes and his parted mouth, trying to resist temptation.

Before you could give in first, Anakin gripped your jaw with his hands, pulling you in impossibly close to kiss you deeply. You sucked on his tongue, moaning at the subtle taste of vanilla cake frosting and minty toothpaste.

“No, wait. We shouldn’t.” You proclaim breathily, though you know your empty words were nothing but a pitiful attempt at making you feel like you’d at least tried to abstain.

“Then why does it feel so right?” He silences you by pressing his lips against yours once more, all resistance fading away under his gentle touch.

You squirm under his weight as he climbs on top of you, kissing and sucking his way down to your thighs, which he pins open until the sides of your knees are lying firmly against the bed.

“Can I taste you, sweetheart?” He asks in a hushed tone, rubbing his thumbs against your soft skin.

You nod in response, hoping that on some level not speaking would make this whole thing less sinful. Anakin doesn’t press you for a verbal response, taking no time at all before he pulls your panties off and delves his tongue into your pussy. Your hand flies over your mouth as you slip out a breathy moan, the warm feeling of his mouth enveloping your clit overwhelming you. His nails dig into your fleshy hips and his grip around your thighs strengthens- swollen veins protruding through his forearms as the adrenaline courses through his blood.

You whimper into your heart-shaped pillow, gnawing at the frills as you feel the tip of Ani’s tongue working circles into your sensitive bud.

“You taste so good, baby.” He raises his head and you take in the sight before you: lips parted, wetness dribbling down his mouth and half-lidded eyes glaring at you lustily. “I can’t wait angel, ‘m sorry.” He mumbles, getting on his knees and dragging you down by the legs. He doesn’t bother removing his plaid pyjama bottoms, simply pulling them down and letting his cock spring up over the waistband, achingly hard. You can practically see it throbbing, the tip a glistening dark pink.

“Can I? Please, baby.” He whines, rubbing his tip along your soaked folds. You nod once again but he seems unsatisfied.

“Talk.” He demands simply. “It still counts as fucking even if you didn’t say a word.”

You frown at him, not appreciating how he just burst your bubble.

“Fine.” You huff and he raises an eyebrow.

“Are you giving me attitude?” He comes closer, tip kissing your entrance. “‘cus now would be the wrong time to do that.” He hisses and slides right in, filling you up all at once and giving you no time to adjust to his size. You mewl and writhe beneath him, gripping the sheets as he puts all his body weight on you and covers his hand firmly over your mouth.

“Do you want her to hear us? Shut up and take it.” He spits venomously as he gives you deep and slow thrusts, his cock reaching all the way up to your guts. You moan helplessly as he holds you in a near headlock, silenced with his strong arms and legs pinned wide open to make way for him. Your legs tremble as your pussy greedily accepts his length, squeezing it with its plush walls.

“Slutty little pussy, ’s gripping me so tight.” He grins against your neck. You’re not sure what it was about sex that brought out such a dominant and mean side to Anakin- but you weren’t complaining. The sound of arousal filled the room, your wet slickness gushing against him as his balls slapped against your ass. Hearing the lewd sounds, he slowed down a little, cautiously guiding his cock into you in such a way that would elicit the least amount of noise.

Just as you fell into an entrancingly good rhythm, a knock was heard at the door.

“Hey, you sleeping? Anakin’s gone somewhere.” Padme’s sleepy voice reverberates through the door.

You look to Anakin for guidance with an expression of panic but he looks completely calm- doing nothing besides slowly removing his hand away from your mouth, still sheathed in you. You consider not replying and pretending you’re asleep but quickly realise the light of the lamp shining under your doorway is a dead giveaway.

“Um, I’ve just gone to sleep now.” You answered with bated breath, wondering why Anakin hadn’t pulled out yet. “Has he really? Dunno where he could’ve gone.”

As if this exchange wasn’t challenging enough, Anakin begins fucking into you again, a wild smirk plastered on his face as he thrusts in and out.

“Ugh can I come in?” She whines, no doubt wanting to rant about her failing relationship. The hunk on top of you reaches down and starts rubbing your clit, staring into you with great amusement as you unsuccessfully attempt to bat him off.

“Uh- um, no Padme I’m sleeping, ah we’ll talk tomorrow!” You tremble, hoping your words didn’t come out too shaky.

“What are you doing in there? Are you okay?” Suddenly the door swings wide open and Padme walks in on the sight of her boyfriend on top of her best friend. You only catch a glimpse of her face for a moment- a screwed up expression of horror and disgust- before she turns around and reaches for the vase on top of your chest of drawers. Anticipating her reaction, Anakin towers over you protectively as Padme hurls the glass vase in your direction- the water spraying over you both as it flies over the bed, smashing into a million tiny pieces against the wall.

“You fucking whore!” She screams. “And you! You jerk! How could you fuck my best friend?!” Anakin throws an unphased glance her way for a moment before turning his gaze towards you, brushing his hand against your face gently and locking your lips in a soft kiss. The look of adoration he gives you, ignoring Padme completely, reassures you that you are the only one worth his attention.

“Oh, I’m gonna be fucking sick.” She splutters as she walks out of the room, slamming the door shut and mumbling curses to herself.

“Ani, get off! I need to go talk to-“

“You don’t need to do anything other than be in this moment right now, with me.” He pins you down by the wrists and glares at you, pushing in until the very base of his cock is flush against you. You want to fight him, to get up and chase after your friend but the pleasure has made your legs numb.

“You can leave when I’ve made you cum.” He rasps, resuming his heavy thrusts and you can’t do anything other than cry out his name- no point being quiet now that she knows, right?

“That’s it baby, let everyone know who you belong to.” He moans, brows upturning and mouth parted. He looked so pretty like this, damp curls brushing against his forehead and plump lips formed into an inviting o shape. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head and your throat ran dry as you felt the tip of his smooth cock gliding roughly against that spot that drove you crazy.

“Fuck Ani, ‘m gonna -“ The words flew out your mouth as your release took you by surprise, seizing your whole body in ecstasy and eliciting a torrent of guttural moans from your pretty lips. He buried his face into your chest, groaning against your bare tits as he joined you in cumming, painting your walls with his seed.

Ani was nothing if not a man of his word- so he rolled off you straight after, freeing you to leave.

“I would advise against what you’re about to do.” He speaks calmly, covering his lower half in your sheets and stretching his toned arms out before placing them beneath his head.

You ignore his comment, throwing on a bathrobe and leaving the room to see Padme- furiously stuffing articles of clothing into various bags. A nauseating fear overcomes you when you realise you have nothing to say to her.

“Don’t.” She snaps, noticing your lingering presence. “Don’t even come near me. You are dead to me.” You twiddle your thumbs standing in the doorway of her room, not sure what you were expecting.

“I’m sorry Padme, I really am. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.” You mumble, barely above a whisper.

“You didn’t mean to slip and fall on his cock?” She has angry tears pouring frantically down her round face. “That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that happens by accident.

“I meant I didn’t mean to hurt you.” You clarify gently.

“Well, you did. Oh my God, I can see his cum pouring down your leg.” She points in disgust and you cross your legs. “Is that what I saw earlier? I thought you spilt water or something, God I’m so stupid.”

“No, you’re not, this is all-“

“You’re right. This is all your fault, you dumb fucking slut. You’re nothing but a brainless whore.”

“That’s enough.” Anakin emerges, dressed in nothing but his boxers, a thin veil of glowing sweat coating his toned abdomen. “This was all my fault. If you have anything to say, you say it to me.” You cower behind him, thankful for his protective presence.

“Oh, I have plenty to say.” She barges past you both, carrying her bags out into the hallway. “A year’s relationship thrown away for a quick fuck. With that skank.”

“Don’t call her that.” He gruffly responds and you can’t help but think he’s being harsh.

“Spare me. What are you, her guard dog?” She scoffs, tears dried and replaced with a scornful bitterness. “You’re going to regret this. When the novelty wears off and you realise she means nothing to you, you’re going to come crawling back.”

“That’s highly unlikely.” He looks unperturbed, amused even - strangely nonchalant over the dramatic events unfurling before him.

“Yeah, we’ll see about that.” She jibes, throwing her coat on and getting ready to launch another venomous attack your way when she’s interrupted.

“I love her.” Anakin states simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“You what?” Padme stops dead in her tracks, looking aghast.

“You what?” You parrot softly and he turns to face you, tenderly taking your face into his gentle hands.

“I love you.” He repeats, not an ounce of shame or regret in his words.

“I-I love you too, Ani.” You grab onto his wrists and gaze into his eyes with an adoring vulnerability.

“Rot in hell, you crazy motherfuckers.” Padme peels her eyes off the appalling sight before her, grabbing her bags and leaving the apartment with a thunderous slam of the bolted door.

You watch her leave with a troubled countenance painted across your face- but Ani never takes his eyes off you.

“I guess it’s just us now.” He smiles peacefully and you feel all your worries melt away.

“I guess it is.” You smile back, wrapping your arms around his strong neck and joining your lips in a passionate, cathartic kiss.

It’s not that you didn’t like Padme, nor that you were the kind of woman to choose a man over her friends. It was just him. You couldn’t help it- from this day forward you knew you would always pick Ani over anything else in this universe. Without a shadow of a doubt, he was your soulmate.

@crazy4hotmen @erinkeifer @mortalheartache @arzua10 @mugwump327

Part 1 here

[messylustt]

Can you write about an arguement with ethan because he got jealous and then reader and Ethan give eachother the silent treatment for days but then ethan folds first and BEGS for her attention :) thank you so much

i love desperate men

desperate jealousy — ethan landry + reader ( scream ) : an jealous argument leads to a rather desperate ethan.

contents : just a heated kiss and some jealousy. wc 2.0k.

you nod, smiling at this guy you met in econ. you got paired up for an assignment, him taking the seat beside you.

throughout the discussion of topics he had slowly began to move closer, copying your smile. “are you sure we should do that topic?” you ask, relaxed in your seat.

he shrugs. “i mean it’s easy enough to get good marks.”

“true.” you say. “but that usually means that everyone else is gonna do it.” you randomly gesture at the students. “professors usually look for work that’s different.”

you had been so used to working with ethan—having been allowed to choose your own partners in the past. but this lesson your partners were chosen for you, leaving you with a guy—though cute, still wanting to find the easier way out.

as you carried on discussing, ethan watched from his seat next to some girl—his partner. “ethan.” she tries to get his attention. “i think we should do this topic.” she points at one of the possible selections.

but ethan just hums, keeping his gaze on you and the guy. he wasn’t too thrilled about the partners being different. he liked working with you, you both had similar minds. thoughts and decisions flowed easy.

“ethan.” the girl tried again, finally earning him to look away from you and to her. “why are you so distracted? i thought you were the smart one in this class.”

ethan keeps his almost solemn expression, but forces himself to face the assignment and try to engage with his partner.

at the end of the lesson, you got up from your seat. “so does that topic work?”

the guy—james—nods. “yeah, that should work. whose house should we do it at?”

“oh, i was just thinking we work in the library when we’re both free.”

james looks slightly disappointed. “but i’m usually quite busy doing other…stuff in the day. going to one of our houses in the evenings would work better for me.”

you slowly nod. “alright. um, my house is free…tomorrow evening. does that work?”

james nods, shooting you a smile. “i’ll see you then.” he says, heading down the hall. you both having walked to the exit throughout the talking.

you go to turn down the opposite way when you jump, ethan standing directly behind you. “ethan.” you breath out a sigh of relief. “hey.”

but ethan’s gaze is narrowed, glaring after your assignment partner. “are you…alright?” you slowly ask, raising a brow.

ethan shifts his gaze to you. “shame we didn’t get to work together.”

you nod. “yeah, it felt weird discussing topics with someone else.” you chuckle, adjusting the books in your grasp. “it took awhile to convince him to not do something generic.”

“hmm, same with my partner.” ethan agrees, a small smile edging his lips.

“what topic did you choose?” you ask, to which he answers, following with “we’ve decided to work in the library. not too happy bout that…with her of all people.”

“why not?” you tilt your head. “i offered the library to james but he insisted we work at one of our houses.”

ethan pauses, brows furrowing. “one of your houses?”

“yeah.” then you further mutter. “shit, i should probably clean up.”

“your house? you guys are working at your house?” ethan can’t help but let his annoyed tone slip.

you meet his gaze, a slight furrow to your brows at his tone. “yeah…”

he clenched his jaw. “you should…change that.”

“change that?” you repeat.

ethan nods. “you shouldn’t let someone like him into your house.”

“why not?” you’re genuinely confused.

“oh come on…” ethan clicks his jaw. “he’s a dick. i bet he only wants to get into your pants.”

you slightly raise your brows at his blatancy. “i’m sure you’re reading into it too much. he’ll just come, we’ll work, then he’ll go.”

“you’re not dumb, y/n.” he says pointedly. he had grown more annoyed at your persistence. “you have to have clearly seen that he was flirting with you.”

you shake your head. “we were just talking about the assignment—“

“his body language gave him away.” ethan interrupts.

you narrow your gaze. “were you watching us?”

ethan pauses for a moment. “i just…wanted to make sure he wasn’t doing that thing that you always hate.”

ah, yes, ‘the thing’ being taking full control over the assignment and making decisions without proper discussion. “well, that’s sweet…” you drift off. “but he was fine. If anything he was leaning more to the side of doing nothing.” you chuckle.

“see.” ethan is still persistent, and you’re not sure why. “he clearly won’t help you. you should change partners.”

“ethan.” you say slowly. “what’s gotten into you?”

he runs his tongue along his teeth, as he looks away a moment. “i just don’t want him taking advantage.”

you sigh. “ethan. i’m fine. he’s fine. i appreciate the concern though.” you smile. you hadn’t realised how much of a friend ethan had become over the lessons.

“do you?” he suddenly says. you’re slightly taken a back by his tone.

“ethan—“

“do you like him? is that it?” he can’t seem to control the words from slipping. his mind whirring with different possibilities.

you step back, not liking his expression. “i really don’t know why you’re acting like this.”

ethan steps closer again, his heart pulsing with anger. “do you like him?” he repeats. he’s talking down to you, and that aspect has a slight scowl forming on your face.

“so what if i like him?” you’re beginning to walk away. of course you don’t like james. but you didn’t appreciate ethan’s misplaced strong feelings about the situation and the way he displayed them.

ethan swiftly grabs your arm harshly. “seriously?”

you’ve had enough with whatever this is. so, you rip your arm away, and quickly head down the dispersing hallway.

;;

ethan fucked up. he shouldn’t have gotten angry over something he didn’t have a right to get angry over. and now you weren’t speaking to him. not that you talked much outside of classes. but when you were in them, you’d always sit beside each other.

and now you sat with james, not sparing ethan a glance. ethan gritted his teeth. it had been two days since you last spoke. you had had your ‘session’ with james at your house, and ethan was dying to know what had happened.

what had you two talked about? did you…do anything?

ethan had at first reciprocated your ignorance, not moving to speak to you either. but he had begun to grow desperate. he missed your voice. he tried to keep back, mad at you for entertaining this loser of a guy. but his control was slipping.

he glanced over at you as your head stayed down, writing notes, most likely, from the lecture. ethan tilted his head, watching as you tapped your pencil in thought, your leg moving up and down.

then he saw james walk in late, moving to take the seat beside you. but ethan quickly moved from his seat, grabbing his books as silently as possible as he took the empty seat.

you turn your head to stare at him, brows furrowing. you still didn’t know what had made ethan so angry before.

you shift your gaze back to the front of the lecture hall. ethan set his books down, the lesson continuing. james had to take ethan’s previous seat, and ethan couldn’t help but let a small smirk edge his lips.

he then glances back at you. you kept your head turned, your hair moving to hide the side of your face. ethan reaches his hand out, tucking your hair behind your ear so he could see you.

you turn to look at him, confused now. ethan’s gaze wandered your face, his eyes hooded with interest. you quickly turn your head away, staying silent.

ethan’s hand was still hovering by your ear. he then leaned closer to you, whispering, making your entire body stiffen. “can we talk after class?”

you lean away, acting as though your mind is occupied with the lecture. ethan grits his teeth. “y/n.”

you say nothing. and ethan’s resolve continues to crumble. “talk to me.” he tries to bring your face around to look at him, by a grip on your chin. but you yet again tilt your head away. you had always been stubborn. you were waiting for an apology and maybe this is what the ‘talk’ was about. but you’d rather hear it now, not him bringing you somewhere quiet.

ethan—like always—stayed persistent. “please.” you finally caught on to the desperation in his tone.

meeting his gaze, you could see his heavier breathing, his eyes focused entirely on you. you gulp, as you swat his hand away from your ear.

but he grabbed your moving hand instead. “i’ve had enough of the silent treatment.” he whispers.

you move to get your hand out of his grasp, but he just moves it under the table, holding it by his thigh. you try to move away again, but ethan just tightens his hold, looking back to the professor.

“ethan.” you hiss. “what are you doing?”

ethan’s lips curve up, his grip tightening around your hand, knowing he came out successful. “you spoke.”

you grit your teeth. ethan’s hand began to travel up your arm, keeping you at his side as he stared, only half reading the words written on the board. you shivered, his fingertips dragging across your skin.

“i’ll let go…if you say yes.” ethan says, keeping his taunting strokes along your skin.

“seriously?” you whisper.

“mhm.” ethan hums. you notice the professor walking closer to look at everyone’s progress so you quickly say “yes…alright, yes.”

ethan grins, letting go of you just as the professor nears.

;;

when the lecture ended, you began to pick up your books. ethan did the same, watching you closely. once he saw that you had your bag slung over your shoulder, he swiftly grabbed your wrist, pulling you to a more desolate part of the hallway.

you turn to him. “look ethan, i’m just conf—“

but you cut yourself off as you realise how close ethan stood. he had begun to step closer, his hand reaching out to touch your hair again. you lean away. “and you’re not helping my confusion.”

ethan’s brows furrow at your action. “i didn’t like you not talking to me.” he admitted.

you eye him. “it’s not like we talked much.”

“you started talking to james a lot more.”

you sigh. “look, if you’re gonna be all weird again, then please—“ you go to step away, but ethan quickly grabs your arm, stopping you.

“don’t go— just…” he breathes. “i’m…sorry.”

“you’re sorry?” you reiterate.

“i shouldn’t have…gotten mad.”

you slightly turn back to him. “no. you shouldn’t have. why did you?”

ethan gulps, his grip ever so slightly tightening around your arm, thinking you were gonna try and leave again.

“ethan?” you try but you can tell he’s in his head, thinking a mile a minute.

“i have to go.” you sigh, beginning to walk away again, but this time ethan yanks you back, his hand moving to your waist as he smashes his lips against yours.

you gasp, eyes widening. “eth—“

but you’re both stumbling back, ethan stepping forward as you stepped back, his mouth eagerly moving against yours.

a breathy sound left his lips, as he found your tongue. your eyes had rolled closed, your back hitting against the wall. ethan couldn’t help but let his hands wander your body, slipping under your shirt to graze against your bare hips.

your back unintentionally arches into him, making ethan press harder against you, one of his hands slipping to cup part of your jaw and ear, tilting your head how he wanted.

when you break for air, your chest is heaving, butterflies having swarmed your stomach, you speak. “ethan…i didn’t…i—“

“shut up.” he breathlessly whispered, eagerly capturing your lips again. her lips do taste like everything sweet—ethan thinks to himself, as he grinned against your mouth.

© messylustt.tumblr please don’t steal, copy or translate my work onto other platforms.

[impactedfates]

Gayly crashes inside here/J

Anyways may I request a Jing Yuan with [platonic] bio-child reader.. Who has the most chaotic personality ever [ft sharing the same braincells as Yanqing] thank youuu

— 🫶🏻 Anon with a teddy bear gift 🧸

A/N: THANK YOU FOR THE GIFT, I’LL TREASURE IT FOREVER 🧸 I HOPE YOU’LL LIKE THIS

Genre/Trope: Platonic + Family (JY, You and Yanqing!) + Crack

Format: Bullet Pointed Scenarios/HC

Warnings: None

Extra: Reader is a teen in this // Single Father JY again but he loves his kids // Yanqing will be your younger brother for this // Reader works under Fu Xuan // Not fully proofread // Some mentions of modern day stuff but time is still taken in the HSR Universe

Loveable Headaches - Platonic Dad! Jing Yuan x Reader

Jing Yuan really does love his children, both you and Yanqing...but you two never seem to give him a break do you? From your brother always buying swords to you deciding to dramatically gasp about the future, causing them to be scared when all that happened was that they trip over a pebble the next day...

On a day where he wished he could be sleeping having done all his paperwork (or...most of them) Fu Xuan comes barging in dragging you behind her, glaring at the man. And although making people scared of their future is rather bad when you're a diviner...he can't help but chuckle sometimes Fu Xuan tries to make him lecture you.

Fu Xuan: General Jing Yuan, your kid started laughing when they saw someone's future. Jing Yuan: Is that so? What did they laugh at? Fu Xuan: A poor guy who got jump scared by a ca- Jing Yuan: Wheeze Ah ahem I mean, they did?

When you and Yanqing are hanging out together. It's either Yanqing being the responsible one and leading you out of trouble, or the other way around. Not one time have you two shared a brain cell and thought logically. At rare times, both of you would have no brain cells and Jing Yuan would have a Cloud Knight knocking at his office and bringing the two rascals who scared the trainee knights.

When Mimi first grew up and the family realised she was in fact a lion, you climbed on her back and began riding her around like a horse.

[Name]: Go Mimi go!! Jing Yuan: Sweetie…please get off her. [Name]: What why? D: We're both feline great Jing Yuan: *Trying not to laugh* G-good one…but you're gonna get hurt.

You and Yanqing probably on more than one occasion tried to go into R rated films when you both were younger. Unluckily for you, everyone knows the Generals kid.

The Dozing General loves his naps and sleep but he also loves you!...But if he hears you playing "We Will Rock You" at 3am in the morning with pots and pans one more time-

Honestly you give Fu Xuan a headache too sometimes. We already said you laugh at a divination you give that scares the other person but you also tend to act disgusted, concerned or any negative emotion when reading future moments...this can either lead to you telling them what happened which is usually such a small thing or you not telling them, simply stating "Can't say, ruins the future"

You probably stole a bunch of things from his room, it worked out for a bit as he wasn't sure where everything was going but you revealed yourself as the lil thief when you tried to steal his heavy sword. (It's a sword right? Or smt??)

You made Jing Yuan wear a powerpuff girls outfit once for Halloween. If he was a powerpuff girl or Dr whatever his name was I forgot, is up to you.

Jing Yuan seems like the type of guy to give kids the big chocolate bars for Halloween, so he needs to hide them from you and Yanqing before Halloween is here or else the kids won't have any as you snatched them with your lil brother.

I see that when you and Yanqing were younger, you tried dressing up as each other, wearing wigs and each other's clothing to try and trick Jing Yuan...however, your clothes were too big on Yanqing, and his clothes were too small on you.

Yanqing tried to jump scare you once when you were using the hose for something, needless to say. Yanqing came back in the house absolutely soaked.

Perhaps one day, the two of you dressed up as Jing Yuan, he found it so adorable!! He took so many pictures of the 'Mini Generals'...he may or may not have attempted to take a day off, gesturing to the 'Mini Generals' and how they would do the work.

Fu Xuan: General…they're kids, they're not ready for your job Jing Yuan: Kids! That want to be me, why not train them? Fu Xuan: General Jing Yuan: Ah, no fun Madam Fu, I'm going I'll do my work, I'll do my work.

He questioned if you were a dog in disguise when you were like 5 tbh. Cuz you bit a lot of things, heck he once came into a meeting with you hanging off his arm...by biting him...doesn't hurt him but he did question where you learnt that.

Yanqing was adopted as a kid, when Jing Yuan first came home with the lil guy, and introduced him to you as your younger brother...you tried to make him fly by throwing him off the kitchen counter, to which THANKFULLY Jing Yuan has the quick reflexes to save Yanqing, he scolded you of course. And hey, good thing Jing Yuan did save your brother as you wouldn't have your partner in crime otherwise.

Idk if I made the reader chaotic or not but hopefully this was alrightwfiof.

Sorry for slow updates (I say as if I didn't mention I'd also be concentrated on other things). I'm going to some resort or something for a school tour(?) and apparently it has no wifi/signal, so wish me luck...gotta bond with my classmates.

[thrpr0phetuseek]

[ they nod, shifting to place a kiss beneath his jawline before settling back into his hold. It was unclear, but they gave sort of low noise as he ran a hand through their hair, wrapping their arms around him and snuggling closer. They knew this wasn’t likely going to be the end. There are questions still hanging unanswered and eventually it’ll be time to explain; it’s only right. But in this moment, all that mattered was their lover, not the things left unsaid. They could dwell on that for the rest of their afterlife, but mortality would inevitably catch up to the king, and they knew better than to waste time on nonsensical things. In this moment, in the surrounding silence, all they intended to do was be with their love, and enjoy all the time that they could together ]

[ they were sat peacefully by the shore of the mingling rivers, swaying lazily with no lingering thoughts. This had been how they’d spent the past few hours — though time is irrelevant in the underground, everyone knows this — getting up and wandering tipsily when they felt the itch to move, settling down for however long their body would let them before they were spat out to wander again. It peaceful, if not irregular, and the prophet could not think to ask of a better way to spend such a quiet time. Well, nearly could not ]

“ . . . Muse?”

<< @thrpr0phetuseek =} >>

"Hey there, love." Odysseus greets the call, slinking out from the water to move towards the peophet. Upon getting close, the king's face scrunches, catching whiff of the alcohol lingering on their form. Even if they faint, they unfortunately couldn't escape it, not with heightened senses.

With a quiet, almost inaudible hum, he plants himself by Tiresias' side, not yet shifting out of his seabound form. The prophet was still one of the few people he felt he didn't have to be on edge around; let alone hide certain features he had learned to humanly mask.

"Red wine?" He asks, playfully poking their side, though it was also meant to give them a general understanding of where he was sat.

[jihyoruri]

So since you put out the very generous offer of wowyn and other idols interaction I'd like to make a request please

It could also be snippets but I'd like to know how other idols first react to how different she is on and off stage

It could be any idol of your choice but i just wanna know you know for science 😏

(okay I decided to do winter shes a very important relationship when it comes to yn, this is also during eleven era so yn’s personality wasn’t really out there yet to the public.)

☆ NOT WHAT SHE WAS EXPECTING kim minjeong x wow!yn (little bit of jimin x reader)

minjeong let out a deep sigh and turned to jimin, “do you know yn form ive?”

jimin gave a pointed look, who doesn’t know yn?

“yes.” jimin responded, adjusting herself in her seat, “she’s aeri’s best friend.”

“yea, I know she’s aeri unnie’s best friend but we have never met her.” minjeong said, her voice filled with annoyance.

jimin furrowed her eyebrows at minjeong, confused on why the girl is so annoyed, “does it matter that we’ve never her?”

she short haired girl shifted uncomfortably, “no…” she trailed off. “it’s just I’m a little interested in her that’s all, and it sucks that aeri unnie hasn’t introduced her to us.”

now it was jimins turn to be uncomfortable, how does she tell minjeong that she’s interested in the girl that she’s interested in? how does she tell her that she knows why aeri hasn’t introduce yn to them yet?

minjeong spoke up again, “maybe I should just go up to her and ask her for her number, maybe I can take charge.”

jimin raised one of her eyebrows take charge?

“I mean it shouldn’t be that hard.” the girl continued. “she seems pretty easy and fragile.” winter said with a small smile, “I mean she was the cute one with the bow in eleven.”

Jimin looked at her like she has gone insane, “maybe you should just talk to aeri, ask her about it, you know?

“ask who about what?” both girls snap their head in the direction of the voice, only to see aeri and and figure behind her.

minjeong’s eyes widened when the girl comes from behind aeri, it was yn in all her glory.

her gaze trails yn, from her face, to her silver long chains on her neck to her crop that looks like it was straight out of a 2000s emo movie to her low rise jean skirt that’s topped with a belt with a gigantic star all the way down to her plat forms.

this is not what she was expecting.

“oh.” jimin got up from her seat, “nothing we were just talking about asking yizhuo what she wants for dinner, since you’re supposed to be sleeping at somi’s.”

she says walking towards the to girls, “which leads to me asking why are you here?”

“I forgot something.” aeri said before pointing to the door, “somi’s in the car, and yn decided to accompany me like the sweetheart she is.” she teases pinching yn’s cheek only for the taller girl to slap her hand away.

aeri laughed before heading to her room, “I’m just gonna get my thing quick.” she walks backwards and gives yn a pointed look before turning around.

when she left the room, jimin gestures for minjeong to get up.

“hi.” she says to you, “I’m jimin and this is minjeong.”

your gaze slowly scans both of the girls before answering.

“I know.”

both girls are stunted with how your voice sounds it’s a complete contrast to how it sounds when you’re singing it’s raspy.

“It’s nice to meet you both.” your gaze lingering on jimin for longer than minjeong would like.

so she speaks up.

“I really like eleven.” she says loudly.

she tenses when your eyes switch from jimin to her, “thank you, I really like your music.” you compliment back.

“thank you.” both girls say at the same time, minjeong giving jimin a small glare.

“okay!”

aeris voice gets all of your attention, “I have it.”

“next time, double check your things.” you tease the older girl, walking towards her.

“shut up.” she looks at jimin and minjeong, “I’ll try and call you guys later we’re going out to eat so you won’t hear from me.” she says.

“got it.” jimin says giving her a thumbs up.

you put your arm around aeri’s shoulder and start walking towards the door, “come on babe.” you say teasingly.

“bye guys.” aeri says and all you do is give them a nod.

minjeong watches from the window as you and aeri walk out into the night into a black car, who she’s guessing is somi’s.

maybe it’s gonna be harder than she thought.

[fulgurbugs]

I love the octodeck SO SO MUCH, would you be willing to share your design choices?? Like I would've expected the noble/rogue classes to be the basis for separation by suit, on top of the black/red divide between octo 1 and 2 characters

sure! i’ll actually go card by card and explain all my choices tbh, so strap in for a long post

first up, spades! my girlfriend was the one who suggested the games be the split between red and black suits, so starting from there we hashed out out placements for suits. honestly, we didn’t choose for much reason other than vibes, so the design choices weren’t much about classes/gameplay. spades is the higher ranked suit, as well as having a symbol with a sharper motif. for this, it felt like olberic and primrose were good fits, with olberic being the oldest/most battle hardened of the OT1 cast, and primrose having a sort of rightful queen motif (and she’s dangerous with a dagger.) with ophilia and tressa being chosen for jack, we decided to put tressa as spades (this one is very slightly gameplay related, she is kind of the best so we gave her the higher suit) and therion got the ace. i explain a lot about the card placements here, so following this paragraph i’m not gonna rehash it too much.

anyways, now here’s some of the design thoughts about these guys!

Tressa: for these earlier spades cards, which were the first suit i sketched, they definitely started with the lightest backround elements. i went in on a second pass and added some more detail, but tressa was the first card i drew and she had no backround at all at first. decided that a pirate ship/sea and treasure were good motifs for her

Primrose: i absolutely loved drawing her card, but then again i love drawing primrose in general. for primrose, i decided her backround elements would be birds and petals. birds are a prevalent symbol in her story, with the crows being her enemies, and primrose herself is a kind of caged bird. initially, i wanted to give her an asymmetrical card that had one half with 3 black birds (crows) while the other half had white birds (freedom). i didn’t end up liking any of the sketches for the black birds, so i decided to just do the white birds instead. still really love this card!

Olberic: olberic was a tough one to pick a backround for. i ended up going for just some vaguely mountainous shapes, but also decided to add in the gate of finis, since it’s located in hornburg. my goal with this card was to make him look regal without looking royal. i think the sword also came out really good, i really like the way the mirroring on this card came out

Therion: Therion was the first ace i drew, and i decided that since ace cards aren’t face cards, i have free rein to do whatever i wanted. and what i wanted was to not have to worry about the mirroring. so all of the aces ended up with this kind of “guy floating in space” idea, which i think is pretty fun without being overly complex. i didn’t want to over complicate the ace cards, since typically they’re pretty minimal looking. my original idea was to have each of our aces holding or interacting with their suit symbol in some way to make it interesting. the spade kind of looks like a dagger, if you stretch it out, so my original idea was to have him wield it as such. however, none of my sketches read clearly, so instead opted to have them instead present their suit as a kind of compromise. since ace cards are not face cards i also opted not to define their faces.

here’s the clubs! when i was getting to the coloring stage, what i decided to do to make things interesting visually was to use a different palette for each suit, while still keeping it clearly black suit/red suit. for the black suits, Spades got the cool grey palette, and clubs got the warm gray pallete!

as for individual notes…

Ophilia: oh boy she gave me a lot of trouble. this was mostly due to the lighting on her lantern, and trying to convey it in grayscale. i think i did a pretty decent job!

H’aanit: decided linde counted as a backround element for the hunters. i don’t have too much to say about this card other than it took me a while to grayscale it so that everything was silhouetted to an acceptable degree to me lol

Cyrus: i had a lot of trouble picking out a backround for him. i thought maybe a library or something similar, but i ended up going with this pretty generic sunny pathway to represent the bright lands in general. the big chunky brush makes rendering small details in the backround difficult (not impossible) so simpler is better if i can swing it.

Alfyn: going back to the interacting-with-suit-symbol idea, my original idea was that the clubs symbol kind of looks like a clover, so alfyn could be kind of inspecting it like an herb or something. however, the pose i first drew was too similar to cyrus, and again the symbol did not read clearly, so i scrapped it lol.

one fun thing about the way we ended up sorting the suits was that each set had 2 pairs that had team up attacks in the ot2 extra battles (olberic/tressa, therion/prim for spades, alfyn/ophilia and cyrus/h’aanit for clubs.) this was by complete accident.

now we reach the red suits! for hearts, i opted to use warm/orangey shades. onto the individual notes!

Agnea: i wanted her braid to be nice and visible in the composition, so i kept her backround elements light. just fluttering petals to fill some space i just love drawing agnea in general tbh

Partitio: i got a good way through coloring this one and decided i absolutely needed to make his coat yellow. it’s too iconic to the design. luckily, the warm red pallete accommodates it pretty well. it’s definitely a more orangey shade but with all the red it reads quite yellow. i gray/redscaled everyone specifically to avoid having to figure out color palettes for everyone that were cohesive and read well, while also making clear distinctions between suits, but partitio had to be a little bit of the exception. i did decide on warm red for hearts for him specifically perhaps….

Ochette: this was the first card i actually executed an asymmetrical design on! one side has akala in the background, the other side has mahina. they’re both right side up, but they can’t coexist. thought it was fun! this is also one of my favorite cards now that it’s finished. i did NOT like it at the lineart stage, but loved it after the color!

Osvald: osvald as the ace of hearts has been a fav placement according to my sources (tumblr tags, comments, etc) my original idea was to have him more ready to start blasting one true magic love super mega laser with the heart at the center of that, but i think having him hold/present it a little more gently is also fitting. maybe like it’s more fragile, even tho being the ace makes him the strongest card of his suit (love can make you blast lasers)

diamonds! these guys got the cooler red/pink palette.

Throné: i’m sure the snake motif needs no explanation, but the idea here was that she was entangled by the snake, like it’s holding her down.

Castti: castti also got a unique color added to her card, though it’s much less noticeable than partitio. the raindrops in her card are purple! (uh. should i exclamation point that? three cheers for horrifying evil super mega toxic rain?) i added clouds to go with the rain, but also a vine that deteriorates or recovers as it goes, whatever way you want to look at it.

Hikari: another asymmetrical card. one side hikari, one side his shadow self. i also offset the mirroring on this card a lot more, and allowed the drawings to extend down into each other more than than the other cards in this way, hikari and his shadow self intersect, but aren’t quite mirror images as much as the other cards. (does that make sense?) as for his backround, i put the castle town of ku. this one was difficult to get to read right, but i think i got it pretty decent.

Temenos: my original idea for this one would be that temenos is interacting with the diamond like the mirror shard, but again, i scrapped that idea. instead, he presents it like the other aces. not too much to say here

jokers! i got a couple suggestions for what to do for jokers, (kit, al, lyblac, oboro, arcanette) but definitely most common was people saying to incorporate caits/octopuffs in some way. i liked this one the best because jokers are wild cards, and they’re also kind of silly, so making them villains or major story characters didn’t quite feel right. with these cards, i decided that i could use any colors i had previously used to color them, so they get to be both gray and red tones. due to the variety of warm and cool tones, i actually had a ton of color to work with, and they almost even look like didn’t i gave myself color limitations on them!

for the cait card, i stared with a more accurate orange cait, but decided that i’d rather make it gray since the octopuffs were gonna be orange (or pink). besides, the cultured cait is gray so it’s fine. as for the octopuffs, i ended up just picking two that i liked and using those. i tried adding more smaller ones as backround elements, but didn’t end up liking how it looked.

and then finally, the backing! there’s a couple things going on here, and this was definitely super fun to draw because doing something more ornamental like this is outside of my usual wheelhouse. i started with the concept of the circle with the 8 base class symbols, in OCTOPATH order of the first game. in the middle is 4 flames, like the 4 that protect solista in OT2. on either side i drew octopuses, because. octo. i ended up giving them the little horns too, making them massive octopuffs. then, to round it out, i added little chubby caits to the corners, and then a smattering of stars to fill out the space, since i liked the way it looked. surrounding the flame, the stars indicate night, a sort of subtle nod to the nightfall endgame in OT2, while the stars being out imply that at least for now, it’s a normal night. the chubby caits have some teeny tiny jewels and treasure surround them, and the sparkles ended up looking like more stars, so i just added more. as the the border, it’s basically just random ornamentation lol.

and that’s it! (for interesting cards, at least. doubt anyone cares about the unchanged number cards) hope you liked the long read, i just like talking about drawing lol

[imonthemoonitsmadeofcheese]

Surgery

In which the Drifter requests medical assistance from Eris Morn.

Now with art from @h3xxthev3xx !!!

Link to Ao3 if you prefer to read it there

ACCESS: RESTRICTED DECRYPTION KEY: 7CP9SXMO2G$IKO-006 REP#: 062-DERELICT-AUDIO AGENT(S): AUN-326 SUBJ: RECENT VIP#1316 and ERI-223 INTERACTIONS - MULTIPLE RECORDINGS

RECORDING 77455.8 [BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]

“Hey, Moondust!”

“What is it, Rat?”

“Serious question for you. I’ve been thinkin’-”

“A challenge for you, I’m sure.”

“Aww… you ruined it.”

“Ruined what?”

“Can’t tell you now. Maybe later.”

“Clearly it wasn’t that important.”

“Oh it was, but it can wait.”

“Speak plainly. What do you want?”

“Nope. Not telling you now. The moment is gone.”

[END TRANSCRIPT]

...

RECORDING 77456.4 [BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]

“Hey, Three-Eyes.”

“I am returning your call. Your message said it was important.”

“Yeah, so, um… you do dissections, right? Cutting stuff up, like, medically? For science?”

“Generally, yes.”

“So you’d be good at using tweezers to pull bits of shrapnel out from being embedded in human flesh, right?”

“What have you done?”

“I was working on a grenade idea, more of a mine, really, and it worked! It worked real well, actually. I’m proud of it. Misjudged the range a bit, though. Made myself into a bit of a pincushion. Was wondering if you’d be willing to help me out.”

“You have a ghost. Use it.”

“Nope. Not gonna happen. But, if you’re busy, that’s fine. I’ll deal.”

“I… do you even have antiseptic there? Bandages?”

“Yeah, a bright light and tweezers too, just need you to be the hands.”

“I am on my way.”

[END TRANSCRIPT]

...

RECORDING 77456.5 [BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]

“Ow.”

Plink.

“Do you prefer I stop?”

“Nope I prefer you keep going.”

“Then stop squirming.”

“It hurts.”

“You have punctured over one third of your body with foreign objects. Of course it hurts.”

“Ow.”

Plink.

“Upon cursory examination, that appears to be a shell casing.”

“Yeah I threw some in there. Ow.”

Plink.

“And this one… a finishing nail? From carpentry?”

“Yeah, tossed that in there too, whatever I had lying around, really. Ow.”

“A metal screw. Not pointed. For fastening metal, most likely, but rather small. From electronics, perhaps?”

Plink.

“Probably. I wasn’t paying much attention when I stuffed the thing. Oh dammit.”

“This one is curved and deeply embedded. I am trying to be gentle but if I do not pull it out, it is just going to work its way in deeper. It looks like broken glass.”

“Yeah I put some of that in there too. Ah shit. Fuck!”

“I have extracted it.”

Plink.

“That was probably the worst one. Just a few more and this leg will be done. Do you need a break?”

“Nope. Let’s get it over with.”

“I would let you squeeze my hand through the pain, but I need both of mine to remove what you’ve done to yourself.”

“Yeah, I know, thought’s real sweet though. Sweeter than you normally are. You must feel sorry for me. Ugh.”

Plink.

“Have you decided whether or not you will ask me what you were going to ask me before?”

“Nope. Now is definitely not the time. Ow.”

Plink.

“I am curious as to what has you so reserved. You are not normally bashful.”

“Ow.”

Plink.

“I don’t… I don’t even know what that means. But that hurts.”

“I spoke too soon. This one is another that is much deeper than expected. You are bleeding quite a bit. I recommend we stop.”

“Is that the last one?”

“In this leg, yes. I have not yet examined the rest of you.”

“Get it outta me.”

“Can I convince you to reconsider your ghost?”

“No. You take it out or I will.”

“The cleanest way to remove this will be to cut it out of you.”

“Then do that.”

“Why are you so stubborn about this?”

“Because I am.”

“Will you at least get your ghost to give you something for the pain? I am hurting you considerably.”

“No.”

“What about alcohol?”

“I have plenty of that, yeah.”

“Where is it?”

“Second door on the left, back cupboard up high has the strong stuff.”

“Do you have a preference?”

“Whiskey.”

“In a glass?”

“Nah. This ain’t a glass kinda situation.”

“I will return.”

[END TRANSCRIPT]

...

RECORDING 77456.6 [BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]

“I told you I didn’t need a glass, Moondust.”

“This is for me, when I’m done. The rest of the bottle is yours.”

“I mean, the whole thing is mine, but fine, Doctor Three-Eyes, you can take your cut.”

“I shall, and the alcohol too. Now drink some of that while I clean up the rest of you and prepare the incision site.”

“You say such sexy things when you’re working. What? What’s that look for?”

“You are not normally this careless. What actually happened?”

“I am not in the habit of lying to you, Moondust. In fact, I don’t even know if I can. You see through everything. I do not think I have ever successfully convinced you something was true when it was not.”

“You are not in the habit of lying to anyone. You simply do not state the full truth, constantly deflect conversations, and allow people to believe whatever they want to be true without ever correcting them. It is what makes your methods of deception so effective.”

“You… you really do know me, Moondust. Ain’t no one ever been able to get in my head like you. Ow!”

“Drink more. You are still too sensitive for me to proceed.”

“Get me drunk, in a compromising position, and then stick things into me. I see how it is.”

“Keep insinuating that I’d behave in such a manner as to take advantage of you and you will be left to extract this distorted… spring? on your own.”

“I’m sorry. That was actually out of line. I trust you more than anyone. You know that. I was trying to make a joke and worded that way wrong. Didn't come out as flirty as it did in my head.”

“You are in considerable pain. “

“Don't forget the blood loss.”

“Drink more alcohol you… clumsy fool.”

“That has to be one of the gentlest insults you’ve ever thrown at me. You are being nice to me. What I was trying to say before was more that you are at this point literally trying to get me drunk. I might say anything.”

“Any confessions of undying love will not be held against you when you are sober.”

“Well there goes that plan out the window. How am I supposed to tell you of my undying love so you won't believe me when I'm drunk and I can deny it later if you don't feel the same way so it isn't awkward?”

“I have faith in your ability to be forthright and lewd without chemical assistance. And you have yet to show any reservations about being awkward in my presence so I doubt that is an issue. Also, drink.”

“Yes ma'am. Oh shit that stings.”

“Disinfectant usually does.”

“So let's say, hypothetically, I was truly madly deeply hopelessly in love with you, what would be the best way to go about getting you to love me back? Hypothetically.”

“Let me see the bottle. Not enough. Drink. Hypothetically, your premise is flawed, rendering the logic of the entire question unanswerable.”

“Come again?”

“There is an inherent assumption in what you have asked, hypothetically, which would itself be, again hypothetically, incorrect.”

“And what's that?”

“The assumption that I do not care for you already.”

“Wait what?”

“More. Drink.”

“Did you just say what I think you just said?”

“I said nothing. We were speaking hypothetically.”

“Ah, because I could have sworn you said you love me. Totally am starting to feel a buzz though so that may have been wishful thinking on my part.”

“Clearly someone who shows up in the middle of the night to remove foreign objects from your flesh because you are too stubborn to get help from your ghost does not have any affection for you in the slightest. You obviously imagined that. Do you have scissors?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I'm cutting off your pants.”

“Now I know I'm dreaming.”

“Hmmm…”

[END TRANSCRIPT]

...

RECORDING 77456.8 [BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]

“Are you ready?”

“Ready as I'll ever be to have a beautiful woman scar me for life.”

“You have more than one life. This is a non-issue.”

“Point.”

“I am beginning now.”

“Fuck.”

“Pausing for a moment here. I've got the object. I have a mostly clear path to pull it free.”

“Ok.”

“I'm going to have to wiggle it. This will be painful.”

“Eris Morn, mistress of pain, I submit to your will. Hurt me you beautiful three eyed witch.”

“Is it the alcohol or the pain that's making you so eloquent?”

“Probably both, plus that undying love.”

“Hold on to something that is not me. Three… two… one...”

[INTERMITTENT SCREAMING 43 SECONDS]

“Did you just freeze my ass with stasis?”

“To stop the bleeding, yes. You have needle and thread?”

“Yeah desk over there, bottom drawer.”

“And I'll find a pot within which to boil water within your kitchen area?”

“Yeah.”

“A clean pot?”

“I ain’t the one that leaves a burned wok lying around unusable for a month. I use my pots. They’re all clean. Trust.”

“Be still until I return.”

“You’ve got me frozen to the table. I couldn't move if I wanted to.”

“You're a resourceful creature. I'm sure you'd find a way if you wished to be free, but please don't.”

“I'm staying put. You say stay, I stay.”

[END TRANSCRIPT]

...

RECORDING 77456.8 [BEGIN TRANSCRIPT]

“You keep doin sweet gentle stuff like brushing your chin against the top of my head like that I’m gonna start thinking you like me or something.”

“It is difficult to express reassurance to you any other way when my hands are coated in your blood.”

“If I’m good will you nuzzle my head again? Or is it if I wiggle? What gets me more head nuzzles, Moondust?”

“Be still, Rat. You are messing up my stitches.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re weirdly good at sewing human flesh?”

“No, but I accept the compliment.”

“It barely even hurts where you’re sewing. You really are good.”

“Thank the alcohol.”

“I’m thanking you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You know, there ain’t no one else I trust like this.”

“I know. It is an honour to have your trust. One I do not take lightly. I know how rarely it is given.”

“If by rarely, you mean pretty much not at all, yeah.”

“Are you going to tell me what you were going to ask me?”

“Now’s really not the time.”

“I think we have cleansed the last of your blood off of most surfaces and ourselves.”

“You patched me up real good. You make a fine surgeon.”

“Usually my subjects are not still alive.”

“You gonna stay and finish that drink?”

“I had forgotten. Yes. I shall. But first would you like help to your bed?”

“You and me in my bed? I like this.”

“Avoid putting weight on that side. You can, and will, rip the stitches if you exert it too much before you’ve healed.”

“I like this side of you, all sweet and nurturing. If I’d known you’d be this nice to me I’d… nah that was stupid and I won’t be doing that again.”

“Thank you.“

“Still proud of how well it exploded though. Gonna give some of them to Devrim to put around the farm. Should very effectively shred anything that comes to mess with the civilians. I really didn’t think I was in range. You know how careful I am.”

“I know. Sit. I will return.”

“You gonna come back and cuddle me? I’d like that.”

“No, but if you wish, I will sit with you while I finish my drink.”

“I’ll take what I can get.”

"I'd expect nothing less"

[SILENCE 8.25 MINUTES]

“Woman of my dreams, bringing me the bottle after putting me to bed. You really are the best, Three-Eyes.”

“Sit up.”

“Ok. Oh hello. You let me lie in your lap like this, you must feel sorry for me.”

“No. There is nowhere else to sit.”

“I disagree, this is half-way to cuddling right here. You like me. Ain’t no one sit like this with someone they don’t like.”

“I sewed your skin. That’s considerably more testament to me liking you than this, and this is at least comfortable for both of us.”

“It’s real nice. ‘Specially when you touch my face like that.”

“Hmmm…”

“I propose a toast.”

“To?”

“Why, to the most excruciating and intimate experience you and I have shared to date. The night Eris Morn sewed up the Drifter after he blew himself up.”

Clink.

“Hmmm…”

“You like it?”

“It tastes like… wood and paint thinner.”

“That’s just the first few sips. Flavour changes as you go.”

“Hmmm…”

“You should visit my bed more often, Moondust, it’s nice.”

“If you wish I will return tomorrow and change the bandages to make sure you aren’t getting infected.”

“I’d like that. You know… you could… stay.”

“And sleep with you in your bed?”

“Yeah. Don’t tell me that doesn’t sound real nice to you too. Not when you’re running your fingertips through my hair like that, like you’re already considering it.”

“Perhaps now is the time to ask me what you were going to ask me?”

“You sure those eyes don’t give you mind reading powers?”

“One does not need to read your mind, when they can read your body language, and between the lines of what comes out of your lips. You have not been discrete.”

“No, I have not. But, if you already know what I was going to ask you, what’s your answer then?”

[SILENCE 3.75 MINUTES]

“That… is worth getting blowed up for.”

“Please do not. Multiple lacerations and shrapnel from improvised explosive devices are not a prerequisite for my affection.”

“Can you let me know what the pre-”

“The pre-”

“The p-”

“You know, Moondust, it’s been a very long time, literally longer than I can remember, since someone was able to make my head spin with just a few kisses.”

“That is more likely being caused by a combination of shock, blood loss and alcohol.”

“Nah. Had all three lots of times. This is all you.”

“You’re trembling.”

“Yeah, it happens.”

“Let me get you under the blankets.”

“I ain’t cold. It’s just you feel so good. You feel so fucking good. Wait, where you going?”

“To take off my boots. Move over and get under the covers so that I may join you.”

“Oh hell yeah, you’re just making all my dreams come true right now.”

“Be careful of your stitches or you’ll bleed all over both of us and your bed.”

“Worth it.”

“Behave yourself or I will leave.”

“Yes ma’am. Ah shit, Eris, I can’t handle how soft and warm you are when I’m this drunk. I’m gonna cry.”

“You are inebriated and injured and I am choosing to stay. Alcohol induced emotional outbursts are to be expected and are a reflection of your trust, which is precious to me. I consider it an honour to hold you as you cry.”

[END TRANSCRIPT]

[quibbs126]

Abyss Monarch/Octopus x electric eel

Got another one done today, this is Firefly Squid Cookie

I was gonna say that this one was the first to have a “new” character at the time, aka one that only existed after I started, but no, apparently that honor goes to the request for Scorpion/Prune Juice

Though interestingly enough you can tell that this was from the beginning of the Wandercrab update because the anon isn’t sure whether the name is Abyss Monarch or Octopus, since we weren’t really sure the name situation until the second half. I also vaguely recall saying this anon had foresight since this was before abysseel blew up

Anyways sorry, let’s get into Firefly Squid herself now

So Firefly here works as the lighthouse keeper in Wandercrab, as well as generally just checking to make sure the lights work. She has a particular affinity for light, possibly due to her own bioluminescence

She’s generally a very chill lady, someone you can just talk to about your struggles while she patiently listens and gives you advice. Plenty of residents go up to her while on the job (since that’s what she’s usually doing) to do just that. She’s not one of particular high energy though, choosing to spend her off time either relaxing over a drink or taking naps

However, you should never try to approach her when there’s a particular absence of light. You may see something you’d rather wish you hadn’t…

Anyways, now let’s discuss design

So Firefly Squid’s name comes from the firefly squid itself, which I got as a suggestion. It’s a cephalopod like Abyss Monarch, and it glows like Electric Eel (or at least the Cookie himself). I also learned today that it’s apparently edible, so I guess it fits in even more with being living food

The original name I was going to use was Blue Ring, named after the blue ringed octopus, because octopus, as well as yellow and being incredibly venomous. But I got the suggestion Firefly Squid and I ended up really liking it, so I switched over

Firefly squid:

I’m especially noticing now, she looks a LOT like Abyss Monarch and not much like Electric Eel. My bad I guess. If I ever make a second one (though I don’t know how likely that is since Electric Eel fankids tend to have a VERY limited available list), I’ll make that one look a lot like Eel

She originally had hair that was more zigzaggy, but it didn’t look right to me and I eventually changed it, and now it’s almost entirely Abyss Monarch. I did at least try to make the gradient lighter at the bottom more like EE and have the yellow of the tentacles be from his yellow, but it’s not that noticeable

Her hair was also red for most of the coloring process, since that was the color I could find firefly squids

I did eventually decide to change the colors, since Abyss Monarch and Electric Eel don’t necessarily adhere to the colors of their respective animals, but I still ended up going mostly blue. I did try to hue shift it to a more purplish blue though

I was kind of just messing around with her design. I’m not really even sure what that pattern on her pants is. Yeah it looks like just a pants design, but I only decided that at the end and the shape is on the same layer as the rest of the lineart, so that was a lot of fun trying to color so it doesn’t look like that

I also feel like relatively, she looks pretty normal compared to her parents. Other than her glowing rings on her hair she doesn’t really have much going on in her design, or at least nothing out of the ordinary. She just looks normal. That’s kind of why I added the eye thing on the sketch, to maybe imply that there’s more going on with her, but that’s probably more like an in post fix

I know I spent most of this design section complaining, and while on some level, her design has issues, when I look at it without thinking about them, I really do like how she turned out

And that’s it for Firefly Squid, I hope you like her!

[stargazer4501]

While working on the headshot rough drafts for the AU variants of Neue, I’m also brainstorming on some concepts for, I guess a reimagining of a few AUs. This is not me trying to “improve” the original AU, it’s just me wanting to have some fun & doing my take of other AUs.

This is gonna be a veeeeeerrry looooong post.

The main 2 I’ll be working on are Horrortale & Dusttale.

I wanted to get opinions & suggestions for these concepts before delving too deep into these ideas. Please tell your thoughts on this & if I need to change/improve on.

Horrortale will be more appearance-based, meaning that I won’t be doing a lot of story building & it’s more of just redesigning the characters to look more “monstrous”. Basically they’ll be more animalistic or feral & their bodies would have gone through heavy changes to “adapt”.

*This is literally an excuse to draw the characters as big & scary horror movie style “monsters”. I guess this would make it similar to the Underworld AU, but the story or origin for the change would be similar to Horrortale, but takes place even further after the Neutral Route*

For right now, I’ve been calling this AU of an AU: Feral!Horrortale. But a few others are Dwellertale/Underdwell, Undercave/Cavetale, Carnitale & or Undermaw.

I’ve written a few ideas for their overall appearance based on Nocturnal & Cave-Adapted animals. I won’t list all of them otherwise this post will be way too long, but here are a few:

Eyes

Will become bigger

Pupils will become extremely dilated

Will become blind, either with cloudy Pupils or losing their eyes completely

Mouth

Jaw becomes much stronger

Able to be unhinged

Senses

Becomes extremely sensitive to light

Scent of smell & hearing will become much more heightened

May develop echolocation due to loss of sight

General Appearance

Depending on location, those in colder areas will become bigger, while those living in hotter areas will become smaller

Aging will slow down, longer lifespan

Psychological Changes

Will become much more aggressive & animalistic/feral

Start to communicate through nonverbal communication: clicking, chirps, barks, croaks, etc.

These are just a few of concepts for this version of Horrortale.

For Dusttale, it’ll be more story-based, but will have some illustrations here & there. The main differences is that Vani would be from this version & would detail an alternate ending for Vani, also this version would include Sans being “hired” to work for Nightmare.

Now before I go on about the basic concept for this AU, I’ll need to explain a few things first:

Sans’s Killing Spree: I don’t know if in the original he killed all monsters (I kept getting mixed answers or no answers at all), but in this version he only killed most monsters. There were a few that were able to get away & hide before Sans could get them; Sans only wanted to get enough EXP to reach LV 19 or 20 (I can’t decide which one yet). Vani, & probably characters like Monster Kid, Napstablook & Mettaton (Ghost Form), would be one of these survivors.

*As a side note: Papyrus in this AU is an actual ghost & not a hallucination, but I’ll go over that in another post*

Frisk & Chara: In this AU, Frisk & Chara are basically “organic” A.I. attached to a “Real World Anchor” aka Frisk’s body/vessel. Chara was the original concept for the “Fallen Human”, but was scrapped due to them being too “independent & free-willed”. Frisk is the current concept prototype for the “Fallen Human”, made from original data & a blank template; however bits of Chara’s A.I. was used as filler for missing information within Frisk’s A.I., this causes Chara to appear as a glitched phantom (good example of this would be Glitchtrap from FNaF Help Wanted). Chara has little to no control over Frisk, instead they can only give “suggestions” to hopefully influence Frisk’s actions.

The Player: The Player is depicted/described as a higher entity or deity, they could be seen as the “Angel” sent to create peace between humans & monsters (this is based off the theory that the rune we see throughout the game is a depiction of 2 monsters, a human & an angel). The Player at the beginning of the route will have minimal control over Frisk, mainly able to give “directions or actions” that Frisk should follow. But the more EXP that is gained, the more control the Player will have over Frisk. This could cause a total takeover with the Player “ejecting” the A.I. from the anchor aka vessel.

How Did Vani Survive: In the most simplistic way of describing: she can’t die, her soul will automatically heal itself/her. Now in further details: Vani was born with (what I’ll be calling for now) a glitched soul; this causes the soul to look, well glitched out. However it has an ability to automatically heal itself & its body, but not through the usual way; via magic or healing items. Whenever Vani takes damage, the soul will “reload” her back to the point/time & placement right before she takes damage; however the world around her is not affected or altered by this ability, to everyone around her: she looks like she’s “lagging” or “glitching”. Fortunately, or more like unfortunately, this ability is automatically & Vani is unable to “deactivate” it; it use to be super over efficient (would activate if Vani took 1HP or less), but started to calm down has Vani got older (would activate if Vani loses half or more). Even if her HP reaches 0, the soul will activate its ability & essentially “resurrect” Vani; this is what happened when Sans was trying to kill her.

Ok now that that’s out of the way, the basic concept of this AU is…

BRINGING BACK THE DEAD!!!

Or Vani & the remaining monsters tried to improve on the artificial DETERMINATION to resurrect the fallen monsters. But it still causes them to melt, but can gain stability by “merging” with other monsters or inanimate objects (sticks, plants, sturdy clothing, etc.).

This obviously a huge info dump, but I’m super excited about this & I wanted to get everyone’s opinion or suggestion before I go too deep in.

[adhd-coyote]

Jumping back in to ask for "Asset Allocation" please!

Hehehe, this is one of the ones I'm working on with @darknight-brightstar, my beloved Rat!

This doesn't have more than various snippets that hop around the timeline, as we're focusing more on other WIPs before we start actually writing it, but here's one of the snippets from when we'd first come up with this idea.

The air in the Negotiator was far different from the air in the Warren. The Warren, safe as it was, was always thick with underlying anxiety and stress. The halls of the Negotiator held none of that. It was relaxed, almost comfortable. And yet Thorn was more on edge than ever. “Here we are.” They arrived at Thorn’s quarters. Cody punched a code into the keypad. “Code is the default four zeros, I’ll show you you to change it in a sec. Only people with the override code are myself and our CMO, Helix, in case of emergencies.” Thorn filed that confusing information away and followed Cody inside. It was bigger than his quarters in the Warren, but just as sparsely decorated; a desk and a bunk with three blankets. “‘Fresher’s through there,” Cody pointed. “You’ve got the standard water ration for showers.” What was the standard ration for ships? Because whatever was normal for Triple Zero sure wasn't holding here, so far. Unless. "What did you have to do to get three blankets?" Something flickered across Cody’s face, but it was gone before Thorn could identify it. “Nothing,” he shrugged. “We had extras, and ships tend to be colder than most are used to." "Extra? Okay." He didn't believe it. Thorn knew the debt for them would be called in eventually. "What else do I need to know?" “I’ll show you where the offices are later, once you’ve had a chance to settle in. As for mess hall, I can take you now, if you wanna eat. Or I can send someone else to guide you later, if you'd prefer to rest.” Time to rest? To adjust? Was life on ships so comfortable? "I guess I could eat." He knew better than to give up free food. “To mess hall we go, then. You’re gonna love Spice’s cooking, trust me.”

This is one of our rougher ones, for Fox at least. After Commander Appo dies, much earlier here than in canon, Chancellor Palpatine decides that instead of promoting a Captain or sending a new Commander from Kamino, he'll just give the 501st one of the Corries' Commanders. And, while he's at it, he'll send two more to the 212th and 91st, to help out High Generals Kenobi and Windu. Thire goes to the 501st, Stone is given to the 91st, and Thorn is assigned to the 212th Which leaves Fox the only remaining Commander on Triple Zero. Poor guy.

[mayflora-18]

Incorrect CoD Quotes #5

Sherlock: *gets stabbed*

Sherlock: Oh, look at that.

Sherlock: I’ve been impaled.

Nikolai: 😱

———

Nikolai, singing: I have loved you since we were 18.

Price: We met when we were, like, 23.

Nikolai: …

Nikolai, singing: I’ve been stalking you since I was 18!

———

Ghost: You have exactly three seconds to explain why you just woke me up.

Price: Because it’s morning and you should be awake.

Ghost: Oh… Interesting… I didn’t know you wanted to die today!

Price: Simon, you can’t kill me.

Ghost: It’s too late, I’ve already decided how.

———

Sherlock: I really like Eminem.

Soap: I prefer Skittles.

Sherlock: No like the rapper-

Soap: WHY WOULD YOU EAT THE WRAPPER?!!?

———

Sherlock: I have never seen two stable best friends. Always one of them has to lose their shit.

*Ghost and Soap look at each other*

Ghost: Wait, you’re telling me one of us is actually supposed to be stable!?

Soap: Ah, shite!

———

Soap: Who did you look up to most as a child and why?

Gaz: Uh, my parents because they were taller than me.

———

Soap: There are 1 million 13 thousand 150 words in the ENTIRE English Dialect and yet there is not a single combination of them that describes my URGE to HIT you WITH A CHAIR!

Graves: *pissed off*

*Soap pulls out a black umbrella from who knows where and opens it in front of Graves, showing him a hand that was giving him the middle finger*

———

Laswell: What was Plan A?

Ghost: Don’t fuck up.

Price: And what was Plan B?

Soap: Don’t fuck up Plan A.

Price: And what did you guys do?

Gaz: Fucked up p-

Sherlock: You fucked up Plan A.

———

Rudy: Ale, get out of the house. Valeria is here!

Alejandro: Well, tell Valeria to hold up because I’m doing some important shit.

*Alejandro starts playing music*

Alejandro’s phone: “You used to call me on my cell phone”~

Valeria: What the fuck?

———

General Shepherd: If you don’t like me at my worst, then you don’t like me at my best.

Price, holding a gun to Shepherd’s head: I don’t like you at all!

———

Sherlock: In every group of friends, there is the dumb one.

*Ghost looks at Soap*

Soap: Really

———

Laswell: When did you get here?

Price: I spent the night.

Laswell: …But I remember you leaving before I went to bed. You said “Good night, I’m going home!” And then you left.

Price: Yeah, but then on my way out I tripped and fell down the stairs.

Laswell: Oh my god, were you hurt?

Price: Nah, I just didn’t feel like getting up.

———

*at 7am*

Sherlock: Why is Gaz running?

Sherlock, yelling: Are you ok!? Is somebody chasing you!?

Gaz, yelling back: I’m running on purpose!

Sherlock: You’re running on purpose? It’s 7 in the morning!

———

Ghost: ArE yOu ReAdY tO DiE????

Sherlock: No??

Ghost: ThEn I’lL cOmE bAcK lAtEr!

———

Soap, slurring: You do realize that humans were really supposed to be on this earth to eat fruit-

Price: Is he drinking?

Soap: -in the wilderness butt naked-

Nikolai: I love it when he’s like this.

Soap: -and fuck, right?

Sherlock: He’s definitely drunk.

Soap: All this hard work shit is shit we brought ourselves.

———

Price: Where are you, Laswell? This place is fancy, and I don’t know which fork to kill myself with.

———

Soap, talking to Graves: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Graves: …

Soap: No, a summer’s day is not a bitch.

———

*Sherlock walks outside with a coffee in her hand*

*She sees JTF Ghost Team fighting Shadow Company*

Sherlock: god it’s brutal out here *sips coffee*

Rudy: Aren’t you gonna help us?

Sherlock: uhmm no *walks back inside*

Soap, shaking his head: You had to ask.

Rudy: 😰 She is a psychopath!

———

Alejandro: Keep your eyes closed, I have a surprise!

Rudy: Did you do the dishes?

Alejandro: I said surprise, not miracle.

[licorice-and-rum]

On Fascism, DEs and Dumbledore - the actual essay lol

Hey, guys! Sorry it took me so long to write this one, I really had some themes to mature before I could put all of my thoughts in writing but I finally feel like I’m ready to talk about what I want to. Before I begin, however, I want to point out a few things:

First of all, I ask all of you to enter this with an open mind because not everything I’ll say here is exactly popular opinion in the HP fandom. And, although I recognize that my perceptions and interpretations are frayed by my own background and way of thinking, my literary analysis is still based off, on some level, of academical knowledge. It doesn’t make it true, of course, but I believe it’s a solid base to have.

Second, this is, in no way, an attack on people who like the Death Eaters (Barty, Regulus, Rosier, Draco, and so on). These people are not the problem I’m talking about here because, to begin with, the characters they like are not exactly the Canon version of them, and then, because a work of fiction doesn’t determine a person’s character.

It's completely normal for popular works of fiction — and that’s especially true in Literature — to have their characters remodeled to fit a better narrative to the time they are inserted in. It happens with Fairytales, it happens with classical books — Sherlock Holmes is one of the greatest examples I can give —, it just happens. And the new interpretations are an attempt to almost self-insert: is a mirroring of our interpretations and experiences in those characters we like so much.

That said, I still have a problem with how normalized it has become in our society to make a sad backstory to fascist-like villains and that’s where I would like to start this rant/analysis. This issue is not focused on the Harry Potter characters, however: it has happened in Star Wars (both with Anakin and more recently with The Acolyte), in The Hunger Games (with Snow, although it wasn’t the intention) and many other big films/books/series in the industry.

It has a reason: we’re living through late-stage capitalism, which means capitalism is in shambles and it needs a “emergency button” of sorts, something it can use to establish some kind of control back. That’s why we’ve seen so many far-right parties win elections lately: it’s a normal thing for people to be attracted to fast and simple solutions when things are bad, even though they might not be solutions at all.

Anyway, I digress: the point is, when fascism (capitalism’s emergency button) arises, it needs to have a cultural support so that people can assimilate it better, accept it better so it can maintain itself. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not, by all means, saying that a bunch of men sat down on a white room and decided that now they would start creating Art that endorses/romanticizes fascist narratives, of course not.

This is a natural process, it happens because we, as a general rule, already lean into right wing theorical thinking by living into a capitalist mode of production. So, when capitalism collapses, many of us pull our values farthest into capitalistic mindset because that’s what we understand as secure, as stable. And this translates into art through some favored tropes or classical narratives, such as the Chosen One or the “the system is not corrupted, the people running it are” narrative.

Both of those tropes fit into the Harry Potter series in obvious ways, of course. But lately, I’ve been noticing a really particular characteristic of these narratives/tropes that are used to endorse fascism, which I believe has to do with the time period we’re at right now and who the target-audience is, and that is what I called the “individualization of narratives”.

I’m not gonna be arrogant here and say that I’m the only one who noticed this, of course not, but I haven’t found any works on that, so I’m gonna describe, in my own words, what I think this phenomenon is:

The individualization of narratives, as I call it, refers to the details some characters’ backgrounds have when they are into the “dark side”, the side that is supposed to be the fictional version of fascist-like groups. And those details — or lack thereof — are done in a way the reader can fill in the gaps in such a way to identify and empathize with them.

Again, that’s is not the problem, this happens to every character ever, it even happens with celebrities. Our brains are wired to fill in gaps in a person’s personality or character when we don’t have all the information, it’s a natural reaction. Problem is that, as it’s becoming popular to write a villain with a purpose, a “morally gray” character if you will (although I take issue with how that’s portrayed, which I’ll treat more carefully when I talk about Dumbledore), the fascist-like narratives that became so popular with post-war people, gain a new meaning.

That’s not the doing of the Art itself, it’s just a reflection of political issues that are already here but that are also perpetrated and continued by Art and material cultural production, just like anti-socialism dystopian books were in the Cold War scenario, for example. However, it’s undeniable that this movement serves a purpose, a political purpose, and that is to endorse fascism and fascist narrative. Let’s not get over ourselves here: again, this is not the evil doing of some unknown entity, it’s just a natural process of the current political climate reflecting in cultural production.

But it still serves a purpose, and what I aim to do with this essay is to demystify a bit this movement in Harry Potter. But first, we have to understand what fascism is:

Capitalism, which begun more or less in the 1600s, is a mode of production (a mold to which our society fit to work within capitalism’s needs of existence). It is based on profit, which means our society is shaped to produce that profit, everything in a society is shaped to serve this purpose, from the industry to our perception of reality — it’s all a capitalism-based ideology.

Again, reminding: that’s not a secret plot to convince people, it’s a natural process of building identity within reality. It happened in feudalism, and before that with Ancient Empires, and so on and on. There’s nothing inheritedly evil in this process.

However, capitalism is a mode of production that demands, in order to continuing to exist, more than society can provide, so it collapses from time to time. The Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the following Great Depression is one of the most striking examples of capitalism collapsing, and it’s not by happenstance that fascism arose right after this collapse.

As I said before, fascism is capitalism’s emergency button: when systems collapse, that’s where they get more vulnerable to radical change, and the extreme hardships the masses had to endure after its collapse in the 1930s could easily signify a chance for a change in the modes of production throughout the occidental countries of Europe — something that couldn’t happen if capitalism was to survive.

What I mean by bringing all this to the essay is that I want to be very clear with what fascism defends and what it means: it’s the supremacy of not only a country, or exaggerated nationalism, it is also the management and upkeeping of a society’s very structure. And, to be even clearer: that society is white, rich, and patriarchal-based.

There’s a reason why fascism is considered a white-supremacy political movement: because it defends capitalism. And capitalism was built over the need of cheap work force.

Many of you may have thought slavery when I said that, and you’d be correct.

However, with the times progression, that changed into a new form of exploration: because of the past with slavery and exploration of resources of colonized countries, it became easier — and also a natural progression from the dehumanizing of non-white communities to justify slavery — to just cheapen the work force by making non-white communities poorer, more vulnerable and more desperate to fulfill their needs.

That forces those communities — and third world countries as a whole — to accept the money and the exploration of not only first-world countries (colonizer countries) but also big corporations. I could go on and on about all the effects this policy has in non-white communities, from police brutality until the banalization of the violence in large scale (such as the Palestinian genocide) but I want to stay within the scope here.

This justification of slavery, the dehumanization of non-white peoples, is one of the main pillars of capitalism, and as such, it’s the main pillar of fascism. In Harry Potter, the intention is that those characteristics don’t present themselves in race but in blood — not that Rowling is very successful with this, considering the amount of veiled and not-so-veiled racism in her books but whatever.

Now, as I see it, Harry Potter is not a good portrayal of fascism and that has a very clear cause: Rowling’s lack of understanding of what fascism is to begin with, or how the root causes of it affect the system of the wizarding society.

As someone who have studied it, I can say that the blood purity issue wouldn’t be present only in some rich people’s minds, it would be structural to the wizarding world, in a way that would present itself in hardship for muggleborns to get jobs, in jokes that are not funny, in opinions that are degrading, in isolation and discrimination in a day to day level. And of course, there is some of it in the HP books, but it’s not treated as a structural issue — it’s treated as an individual problem.

And that’s where the real problem begins: if we treat fascism as a problem that stems from a person’s own choices instead of a political and collective movement that elevates to a highest level the structural issues that are already there, we fall into the trap of minimizing the problem because, if someone is a fascist because they’re evil, the next question to make is: why are they evil?

Currently, what we’re doing with our villains becomes a problem in these situations: in an attempt to individualize our villains, we make them human. Human in the sense that we can empathize with them, we can understand them. And, for a fascist-like narrative, that’s extremely dangerous because it makes us unconsciously start to endorse their trajectories and choices when we absolutely shouldn’t.

Fascism is not equivalent to rebelliousness.

“Oh, the good side is not so good because they treated this character bad and now he had to turn to a fascist group and decimate people because he’s traumatized.”

See how, when I say it like that, it sounds ridiculous?

But of course, you probably know that. Again, I’m not accusing people who like those characters of endorsing fascism, what I am saying, however, is that the political climate of today is doing it and it’s reflecting on our art production. What I am calling for is for people to recognize that their view of those characters as they really would be if they were anywhere near reality is not only flawed, it’s entirely wrong.

Snape, Barty Crouch Jr, Evan Rosier, Draco, Bellatrix, the Blacks as a whole — they are not the abused little teenagers who had no choice but to join the Death Eaters. They are fascists, they have always been fascists, even when they suffered. And sure, to some of them, there is more to their characters than this but the truth remains that they, in some capacity, not only endorsed a fascist narrative, they actively perpetuated it to the detriment and the suffering of marginalized peoples.

And none of them had a good, believable, and more importantly, complete redeeming arc.

Our interpretations of them are cool, I love it, I prefer them to many HP characters, to be honest. But that doesn’t change the fact that, if HP was a little bit more real, a little bit closer to reality, those characters wouldn’t be bullied teenagers forced into fascism as a means to become powerful enough to escape their abuse — as if that makes it so much better —, they’d be incels, they’d be bullies themselves.

And that’s not an opinion: we, as a fandom, tend to forget that the DEs are the ones with real societal power in the wizarding world. Most of them are purebloods, most of them are rich, most of them are friends with rich and pureblooded wizards, and they are privileged. They are not ostracized as we like to imagine, they are royalty.

For them, to fight for blood purity is to fight for their own benefit, is to fight to maintain the pillars that keep them unaccountable for their behaviors and privilege whilst at the same time, pushing marginalized people — muggleborns, fantastical creatures, even half-bloods — to a dehumanizing condition. And they don’t feel sorry for this.

Now, the truth is that this is partially Rowling’s fault: her lack of understanding of how deep the issues she’s portraying really run makes it possible for her to interpret her own characters as redeemable because they somehow exchange sides when it fits them.

That’s mostly seen with the Malfoys: neither Draco, Narcissa, nor Lucius ever change sides because they see the suffering of others and think of it as wrong. They change sides when Voldemort’s cruelty starts to weigh on them — their change of loyalties are not coming from empathy for marginalized peoples or decency, it comes from self-preservation.

Kind of the same thing with Snape (I wrote some essays focused on Snape, so if anyone is interested, here’s the first, then the second).

Now, of course, that’s not to say those characters weren’t abused on someway or suffered but that’s the thing: no abuse in the world justifies the persecution, torture and killing of innocent people. To offer a counterpoint, the marginalized peoples the Death Eaters persecuted are also traumatized in some, they also can have had abusive parents and/or families but that is not taken into account when we talk about the Death Eater’s own traumas.

The narrative that the Death Eaters were abused their whole childhoods is so strong today in fandom that most people don’t stop to think that those teenagers probably were horrible people. Yes, maybe horrible because some of them were abused, I’m not denying that, but still horrible, which means they wouldn’t accept help. To hold them responsible for their own doings and their own privileges would seem for them as a persecution against them — just like fascist-like narratives often portray pro-LGBTQ+ or non-white policies and/or narratives.

It is also one of the reasons I take issue with the Slytherin portrayal of abused kids ostracized by the rest of the school. It’s really just isolating fascist narrative and only partially based on truth but I don’t think I want to stretch this conversation now (I can write more about it later if you want though).

So no, respectfully, I refuse to accept that those people — mostly men and rich people, I am forced to point out — would be anything but disgusting, and that’s where I take issue with some behaviors within the HP fandom. Because we’re being influenced by almost two decades of fan fiction and the current political climate, it’s very often that I find people who are sincerely incapable of dissociating fandom to canon.

Hence, the actually infuriating villainization of Albus Dumbledore.

Now, that’s a topic that makes me impatient AF. Not only because it is based on a strong fetishization of who Dumbledore really was, and what he could and couldn’t do, but also because it is a clear example of most people’s inability to differentiate between what they’re reading for fun and what they are internalizing from that media.

Let’s begin with that: Dumbledore is not some evil mastermind, and he is not equivalent to Voldemort. He is a flawed character, that’s true, but he is not a villain. And to think so is to play into the narrative that, because the “good side” fails, or makes wrong decisions, or even actively makes bad decisions, or immoral decisions in times of war, that is somehow equivalent to the “bad side”.

It is not.

That narrative is the same narrative that allows Israel to build an equivalence between Hamas’ violent acts and their own when in truth, as reproachable as some Hamas’ decisions may be according to various perspectives, their violence is a reaction to heavy and even more violent oppression.

What I mean is, even if Dumbledore failed in some of his decision-making in the Harry Potter books, even if we may believe we could do better, Dumbledore is a true morally gray character. But first, to make the point I want to make, we have to understand him:

For this, I will first separate his two identities as they appear throughout Harry Potter: as the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Dumbledore plays a role as a leader and role model, but he is also a person with flaws and mistakes like anyone else. These are the two main “faces” of Albus Dumbledore for this defense post, so now let's analyze them more closely:

The first "face" we see of Dumbledore is that of the leader, and this is primarily because of Harry who, at eleven years old, sees Dumbledore as the kind of man he would like to emulate. This also happens with many other wizards throughout the story: it's clear to anyone that most of the people within Harry’s personal circle like and admire Dumbledore, while those who despise him are often the “bad” characters (Lucius Malfoy is probably one of the earliest examples of this).

Although that doesn’t mean they are somehow starstruck by the headmaster: Sirius, Snape, the Weasley parents, Moody, even James and Lily, they all question Dumbledore and his decision making at some point in the books. They end up following through more times than not, that’s true, but trust in someone is different than blind-faith. Those characters accept Dumbledore’s leadership because they trust him, not because they think he’s some type of a god.

However, we see things through Harry’s point of view, and Harry is a child who has no parents, no model figures, no one who really supports that role to him until his eleventh year. It's easy, then, to see how the leader face Dumbledore presents is one of someone the characters (and readers) can trust not to fail, and even easier to view him as someone with great power. This is the fandom’s biggest mistake in viewing him.

Shall we now remember a bit of Dumbledore’s history and delve into his personal side?

As a young man, he met Grindelwald and, according to J.K. Rowling, fell in love with him, as well as with his goal of seeking the Deathly Hallows and becoming the most powerful wizards of all time. 

In the last Harry Potter book, in the King's Cross chapter, Dumbledore himself confesses to Harry how the desire for power blinded him to what was truly important, how power was his greatest weakness, and therefore what made him unworthy of it. This is why Dumbledore remained as the headmaster of Hogwarts when he could have so easily become more important in the wizarding community (besides, of course, his love for the students): to keep himself away from power.

Here's the quote (It might be a bit different in the original, considering I’m translating it from Portuguese):

“‘I was gifted, I was brilliant. I wanted to escape. I wanted to shine. I wanted glory... Invincible Masters of Death, Grindelwald and Dumbledore!... The years passed. There were rumors about him. They said he had obtained a wand of immense power. Meanwhile, I was offered the position of Minister for Magic, not once, but several times. Naturally, I refused. I learned that I could not be trusted with power.’

‘But you'd have been better than Fudge or Scrimgeour!’ said Harry.

‘Would I?’ asked Dumbledore heavily. ‘I am not so sure. I proved as a very young man that power was my weakness and my temptation. It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.’”

This is what the fandom most fails to understand: the admiration of wizards for Dumbledore makes him influential, but not powerful, and this becomes especially clear during the end of The Goblet of Fire and throughout The Order of the Phoenix.

One of the first signs of this in the fourth book is when Fudge refuses to believe Dumbledore about Voldemort’s return: let's remember that, until that point, Fudge sought Dumbledore’s advice for his decisions as Minister of Magic precisely because the headmaster had the respect of much of the wizarding population. But when Fudge, who has the actual power, puts his foot down and says that Dumbledore no longer has influence over the Ministry’s choices, Dumbledore lacks the power to deny it, to stop it.

If he did, it would be safe to say that he would have used his power over the Ministry to convince everyone that Voldemort had indeed returned, and more, to mobilize the Ministry against Voldemort. But none of this happens simply because Dumbledore does not have that power.

Thus, it becomes easier to differentiate power from influence.

It’s Fudge’s power that causes the Ministry as an organization and the wizarding media to turn against the Headmaster, and Dumbledore doesn’t have the power to stop it, but he has enough influence to still be heard by part of the wizarding population. It’s Fudge’s power that leads to Harry’s expulsion from Hogwarts at the beginning of Order of the Phoenix, but it’s Dumbledore’s influence that convinces the Ministry to agree to a trial, and it’s his influence that moves the people present to listen to his defense of Harry during that trial. If Dumbledore had power over these events, Harry wouldn’t even have had a trial — something the Headmaster categorically calls an absurdity.

Therefore, Dumbledore doesn’t have power; he has influence, and there’s a difference between what he can actually do and what the fandom seems to believe he can do. Dumbledore has no power over the Ministry; he can’t boss anyone around except, perhaps, the Hogwarts staff and the Order of the Phoenix, a group whose members agreed to make him leader.

What he really has are people willing to listen to his advice and thoughts, as well as inclined to follow him, but that doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily do everything Dumbledore says (Sirius, anyone?).

It’s important to separate these two concepts for this analysis to continue because it will make Dumbledore’s actions make much more sense in this discussion. That said, let’s now begin to analyze “The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore”:

The main criticisms I see regarding Dumbledore revolve around Harry’s life and the decisions the Headmaster made concerning him.

Before I begin, however, I want to point out that, despite Dumbledore’s flaws, he is still a leader (just like Harry), and as a leader, he bears responsibility for the lives of the people he has chosen to protect (just like Harry). It’s important to keep this in mind so that I can highlight a few things later.

So, let’s start with when the prophecy is heard and Voldemort begins hunting Harry instead of Neville. It’s important to emphasize here that, once a prophecy is made in the Harry Potter universe and the people the prophecy is about start acting according it, it’s going to happen; there’s no way around it, or at least that’s what we’re told as canon. That’s why, as soon as the prophecy is made and Voldemort actively choses to hunt them down, everyone knows that Harry (or Neville) will be the one to face Voldemort, and one of them will die — hopefully Voldemort.

Although he’s the one to whom the prophecy was made, Dumbledore has no control over it: there’s no way to avoid the fact that Harry (or Neville) would face Voldemort at some point in their lives once Snape overhears it and tells Voldemort. All he — and everyone else — can do is give the Chosen One the tools and knowledge necessary to face Voldemort with the best possible chance of winning — which he does later on by becoming Harry’s primary mentor.

Then the Potters are “chosen” and go into hiding in Godric’s Hollow, making Peter the Secret Keeper. Some more information on this choice: Dumbledore offered to be the Secret Keeper, but James and Lily refused and preferred to choose Sirius. However, they switched to Peter without telling anyone, not even Dumbledore. This is another thing I see the fandom complaining about a lot, but it’s explicitly canon that no one besides Sirius, James, Lily, and Peter knew about the switch.

This wasn’t because they didn’t trust Dumbledore, but because Albus was in the middle of the storm as one of Voldemort’s biggest targets. The Potters didn’t reject Dumbledore as their Secret Keeper because they didn’t trust him (they wouldn’t even be in the Order if that were the case, don’t you think?), but because they were thinking primarily of Harry’s safety, and placing their family’s safety in the hands of the second biggest target of Voldemort in that war simply doesn’t seem like a wise move.

So, there’s no reason, even up to the third book, for Dumbledore to suspect that Sirius is innocent and try to intervene to get him some kind of trial or chance to explain himself. There’s no indication that Dumbledore had contact with Sirius before he was sent to Azkaban, so how could the Headmaster be blamed for that?

Again, it’s important to emphasize that Dumbledore has influence.

Even if he wanted Sirius to have a trial, there’s no evidence that he could make it happen, since everything pointed to Sirius as the culprit — remembering that there’s a big difference between a trial for underage magic and the murder of thirteen Muggles, plus the whole Secret Keeper and high-profile situation. In fact, it’s also good to remember that as soon as Dumbledore learns the truth, he does everything in his power — even sending Harry and Hermione back in time — to save Sirius from being kissed by the Dementors.

But going back a bit, a week after Peter becomes the Secret Keeper, he reveals the Potters’ location to Voldemort, and on Halloween night in 1981, Voldemort goes to Godric’s Hollow and kills James, then Lily, then tries to kill Harry but fails.

This event needs to be broken down into two parts. The first is about Lily’s protection: when she chooses to die even though Voldemort gave her a chance to live, Lily protects Harry, and that’s the reason he survives that encounter with the Dark Lord, who also “dies.”

Since the fourth book, there’s a very specific characteristic of this protection that’s seen many times but never explicitly stated, which is the fact that Lily’s protection has a blood-related nature. In other words, Lily’s protection is especially tied to blood, which is why Voldemort chose Harry’s blood to resurrect himself: because in that way, he also “has” Lily’s blood and, consequently, her protection, which frees him to harm Harry in a way he couldn’t before.

And this is the point I want to reach: Dumbledore chooses the Dursleys to raise Harry not because he wants him to suffer, but because Petunia is the only one who carries Lily’s blood and, therefore, the only one who can ensure that Lily’s protection — the thing for which her sister died — continues to work. The blood Petunia shares with Lily even prevents Voldemort, even after the resurrection ritual, because her blood makes Lily’s protection even stronger.

And it’s good to remember that this measure ends up saving Harry in The Philosopher’s Stone — Quirrell and Voldemort couldn’t touch him because of Lily’s protection, guaranteed by his living in the same house as Petunia — and keeps him safe in the Dursleys’ house for sixteen years, until Harry turns seventeen and the protection finally stops working, even though he still lived with Petunia.

Once again, people overestimate Dumbledore’s ability to act: he had no control over the nature of Lily’s protection; he acted to keep Harry as safe as possible within what he could actually control.

Unfortunately, the choices presented in that situation were either to leave him protected from Voldemort’s assassination attempts or spare him the suffering of growing up with the Dursleys.

Neither choice was ideal, but this is where Dumbledore’s leadership character comes in: Harry’s responsibility to face Voldemort was no longer a choice, even though he was only a year old, because of the prophecy. So, it makes much more sense for him to protect Harry from the greater threat (Voldemort) while ensuring that Harry would have more time to develop and grow before having to face him again.

Dumbledore didn’t make the choice to give Harry to the Dursleys joyfully, wanting him to suffer, but thinking about giving him more time and more opportunities to be a child than he would have had if Lily’s protection weren’t ensured. Obviously, this doesn’t work out very well because the Dursleys are especially cruel to Harry in a way that Dumbledore hadn’t really foreseen, something he himself admits in The Half-Blood Prince:

“‘[...] Harry, whom Lord Voldemort has already tried to kill on several occasions, is in much more danger than on the day I left him on your doorstep, fifteen years ago, with a letter explaining that his parents had been murdered and expressing the hope that you would care for him as a son.’

Dumbledore paused, and although his voice remained light and calm, and did not betray his anger, Harry felt a certain coldness emanating from him. He also noticed that the Dursleys huddled together almost imperceptibly.

‘You did not do as I asked. You have never treated Harry as a son. In your care, he has only known neglect and often cruelty...’”

But it’s important to note that Dumbledore didn’t have good options regarding Harry’s custody; he didn’t have the power to change how Lily’s protection worked; he was working with what he had, which wasn’t much.

The second part of this event focuses more on Voldemort and Harry and is probably the most controversial regarding Dumbledore: the creation of the Horcrux inside Harry and how this is somehow seen as Dumbledore’s fault — hence the famous phrase about being “raised like a pig for slaughter,” but... let’s be honest? What, exactly, could Dumbledore have done against the fact that Harry became a Horcrux?

Once again, here’s the exaggerated view of Dumbledore’s power that the fandom seems to have: he had no control over what happened to the Potters in Godric’s Hollow on Halloween night in 1981. He had no power over Lily’s protection or the Horcrux in Harry. He has no power over Lily’s protection, nor over the Horcrux in Harry. The only thing he has the power to do is to act in a way that ensures his plan guarantees Voldemort’s ultimate defeat and thus saves the entire wizarding world.

I hate it when people say Dumbledore “raised Harry like a pig for slaughter” simply because he knew that Harry would have to die for the Horcrux to be destroyed, as if he had any other option in the matter. Harry’s fate was sealed as soon as Lily’s protection saved him and a part of Voldemort’s soul entered him; Dumbledore bears no responsibility for what happened that night.

So what Dumbledore can do regarding Harry having to die is exactly… nothing. He literally has no power to change this fact, no matter how much he wants to — and he does, because he loves Harry, as he himself says in Order of the Phoenix. But Dumbledore is still a leader, and he still needs to think about the best plan of action to ensure that people continue to have hope and that they can truly see that hope — of being free from Voldemort and his reign of terror — come true. And if that meant Harry had to die to destroy the Horcrux, then that was it. Period.

But it’s also important to point out that Dumbledore didn’t force Harry into anything: by the time Harry receives the information that he needs to die to ensure the salvation of everyone and Voldemort’s mortality, all the people who know this — Dumbledore and Snape, in this case — are dead and unable to do anything if Harry decided to simply run away and leave everyone to fend for themselves because he didn’t want to die.

But, as I pointed out before, Harry is a leader. And he fully accepts the responsibility of this role the moment he decides to face death: he goes to Voldemort willing to die by his own choice, wanting to save those who matter to him, those who trust him to end Voldemort. Not because Dumbledore ordered him, but because he — Harry — is a leader, and a leader sacrifices himself for his cause when necessary.

Saying that Dumbledore was the “cause” of Harry’s death, besides being wrong, also takes away from the greatness of Harry’s choice in that situation. Harry is the protagonist of his own story, and he is always making decisions based on his own mind and beliefs (going after the Philosopher’s Stone, entering the Chamber of Secrets, sparing Pettigrew, going after Sirius in the Department of Mysteries, pursuing the Horcruxes, etc.), so it’s completely unfair for people to place the responsibility for his choice to die on Dumbledore’s shoulders just because the Headmaster gave him the information that Harry was a Horcrux. Harry always acted according to his own mind based on the information he had been given — why would it be any different with the Horcrux inside him?

It simply wouldn’t be. Dumbledore gave the information, but it was Harry who decided what to do with it.

Furthermore, it’s worth noting that Dumbledore didn’t tell Harry about having to die to destroy the Horcrux inside him earlier because (a) Harry was a child, and (b) Dumbledore didn’t want to take away Harry’s hope. Additionally, after the fourth book, there was still the possibility that Harry could survive because, by performing the resurrection ritual, Voldemort intertwined his life with Harry’s, thus giving Harry a chance not to die when allowing the Horcrux to be destroyed. So why would Dumbledore tell a teenager that he would have to die at some point in the future… if there was a chance Harry might come back? It seems (to me, at least) like an unnecessary cruelty to place that burden on someone for so long.

So the biggest issue I see with the fandom in relation to Dumbledore is the belief that he had power over things that were completely beyond his reach. Dumbledore was a leader doing the best he could with what he had, within the limitations presented to him and his own experience.

Moreover, it’s admirable that Dumbledore had such a dark and flawed past and acknowledged each of his mistakes, always acting to ensure that he wouldn’t repeat them. It was the events of his adolescence that led him to always remember to value what truly mattered: love and people. He grew through his own pain, through the consequences of his own mistakes; he never forgot or repressed what happened to Ariana — which would certainly have been much easier — but instead, he used that painful event to become a better person.

That’s a morally gray character, that’s someone who had been stuck between a rock and a hard place and did what he thought was best, that’s a character who did the best he could with what he was given. And I really don’t like how fascist-like characters are more often than not considered more complex because of trauma than characters like Dumbledore.

But I guess that’s a bit because we can actually empathize with them better by being convinced that they didn’t have a choice, or that they were somehow forced into those choices even if they really didn’t want to and that might be the case, but to be honest, after seeing what fascist narratives do to marginalized people, I can’t say I care much about it. Anyway, be my guest to comment on my analysis but please be kind, I won’t engage in rage baits nor Zionists, Free Palestine loves <3

[simplepotatofarmer]

sharing is caring

a short rivals duo fic for my 'hey loyal write this' challenge based off this art by @youreanidiom

“Why do you always wear that stupid crown?”

The question caught Techno by surprise. Not the subject matter – it was exceedingly like Dream to ask a question that was a mix of genuine curiosity designed to get a rise out of him – but the fact he had asked it at all. Often, Dream fell worryingly quiet, for hours at a time, staring into space. This quiet was sometimes broken up angry, loud outbursts that bordered on mania.

Techno preferred the vaguely insulting question, if he was honest.

“For your information, Dream, I don’t always wear it,” he said.

Dream rolled his eyes.

“You know what I mean,” said Dream, tacking on a muttered ��god’ that was barely audible and which Techno decided to ignore.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, man.” Giving a snort, Techno sat down on the couch, an arm’s length away from Dream. “I dunno, I always thought it was kinda cool lookin’. What, are you jealous?”

“Pfft. No.”

“Sounds like somethin’ a jealous person would say.”

A strangled, offended sound escaped Dream that could have been a laugh if you knew Dream well enough.

“I’m not—I’m not jealous, Techno! You’re such an idiot.”

“Mm hm. Suuure. Sure, you’re not, I believe you, Dream,” Techno said. Now that attention had been brought to the crown, he could feel it sitting on his head, lighter than most would’ve expected but maybe he was used to it. Reaching up, he took it off. The metal was warm and scuffed in places.

“Fuck off.”

“I’ll tell you what.” With a groan, Techno stretched, watching Dream out of the corner of his eye. “Since I’m such a nice and generous friend, I’ll let you borrow it.”

“What? I don’t want your stupid—”

Techno placed the crown on Dream’s head and he fell silent immediately. The expression on his face was one of utter confusion, mouth partly open, no trace of the annoyance that had been there a moment before. Dream leaned back against the couch.

“I hate to say it, but it doesn’t look half bad on you,” Techno said.

A grin tugged at the corners of Dream’s mouth.

“Yeah, whatever.”

*******************************************

Dream hadn’t looked at the mask since leaving the prison.

It was tucked under the orange jumpsuit, put away in a chest that Techno had gently told him that he could access whenever he wanted. Dream hadn’t wanted to – he was tired and they all had seen his face – but he had considered it when everything was a little too overwhelming. There was something comforting about being able to retreat behind the mask.

A shudder ran through Dream when he opened the chest and saw the torn and stained jumpsuit, a hot metallic taste in his throat. Quickly, he pushed it aside and grabbed the mask, practically slamming the chest closed.

The mask was cold and heavier than he remembered.

“You better not be stealin’ from me.”

Techno’s voice was light, teasing, and still Dream jumped, fumbling with the mask and whirling around to look at Techno. His grin had faded, expression softening, and Techno held his hands up.

“Sorry, man.”  

Dream ignored the apology as he moved to sit on the couch.

“I wasn’t—I wasn’t stealing, it’s mine.”

“I know, Dream, it was a joke,” Techno said, sitting as well, giving Dream enough space without sitting on opposite ends. “I was just teasin’ you.”

“Yeah, well, your jokes suck.” Dream fidgeted with the mask. “You’re—”

Techno cut him off.

“Alright, someone needs a timeout.”

He placed the crown on Dream’s head.

“Ugh,” said Dream but his shoulders sagged.

It took Techno all his self control not to burst into laughter.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. So, are you gonna tell me what’s up with the mask?”

“No.” When Techno raised an eyebrow, Dream clarified, “I was just—God, here. You keep giving me your stupid crown, you can have this.”

Dream held the mask out in Techno’s direction without looking at him, eyes glued to a beam on the ceiling as if it was the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. Techno took the mask.

“Aw, that’s so sweet, Dream, you givin’ me your creepy mask,” he said and despite the teasing words, his voice was soft, expression bemused. Without prompting, Techno put it on. The straps were too small and his snout too big to wear properly and it sat crooked on his head. “How do I look?”

Dream finally turned to him.

“Like an idiot.”

If it hadn’t been for the smile on Dream’s face, Techno might have been offended. Instead, he laughed and gave Dream a pat on the shoulder.

“Takes one to know one, man.”