#(Might be resetting for my other characters but eh)

[neko-loogi]

Heeeyy, I'm back with a new Helluva Boss opinion post thingy

Okay so, the Mammon episode- it was alright I guess? Tbh it didn't strike me as super awesome or anything, it's just kinda there?

Anyway, let's talk about it a little bit!

So I wanted to start off with Mammon himself, I'm gonna be honest I don't hate him but I don't like him either. I'll admit I do actually like his voice, I'm sure y'all might find it annoying but I dunno, I like his accent and the way he talks is kinda funny. His design tho? Eh, it could use some work.

For instance, his eyes are weird, like every time he was on screen my first thought was always: "Wow, he looks like Robin from TTG". I also hate how he's shaped like your typical "fat" character from cartoons. But for some reason they decided to give him skinny arms but a round body. He's weirdly disproportionate, which is disappointing because they definitely could make a better plus sized character design. But oh well, knowing Viv, she wouldn't even try.

I will admit his true demon form is kinda cool, except that I actually thought he was going to be a caterpillar or something but he's a spider? I swear, Viv has some weird design choices.

Moving on, the episode was cluttered as hell. It had way too much stuff in it, which made the episode feel eternal. Not only that but the episode has 4 songs.. FOUR FUCKING SONGS- When will Viv realize that not every HB episode needs a song? Like is this shit an animated series or a fucking musical? Make up your mind Viv-

Anyway, I'm glad this episode focuses on Fizz, but his character did feel a bit off in certain scenes, but aside from that everything else was fine. (I found that scene of Fizz talking to the deaf imp child while using sign language to be very endearing).

Alright, I'mma point out a few other things real quick:

Ozzie's relationship with Fizz is absolutely adorable and I love them so much. However I don't understand why they portray their relationship as a bad thing? Like, fucking Queen Bee is dating Vortex (who's a hellhound, and they are a lower class than imps) and nobody says anything and she's a sin- so why can't Ozzie do the same??

I also happen to noticed that Fizz and Mammon's relationship is similar to Angel Dust and Valentino's- I just hope they don't completely butcher my boy Fizz, because he's the ONLY character I genuinely like from this god awful series.

Edit: I find it outrageous that Fizz apologized to Blitzo in the previous episode for the accident and claims that yes, he was affected by it but he's gotten over it. Yet here, he's super insecure about it and seeks approval from Mammon. It doesn't make sense- I swear it's like the characters are evolving backwards (as in the character development just resets and they act like nothing happened).

I also just wanted to say that this character made me feel super uncomfortable throughout the episode (which I guess is the point, but honestly they didn't need to add him.) Like, was it really necessary to include this Reddit mod, Discord user incel with an obsessive personality to the episode? He doesn't really contribute much other than to probably trigger people who have dealt with some form of harassment like this, and to make Fizz look super helpless so that Blitzo can defend him.

Blitzo didn't contribute anything to the episode, they didn't need to add him either. Like we get it he's the main character but that doesn't mean he has to be in every fucking episode doing absolutely nothing other than saying a bunch of curse words or shooting someone.

In conclusion, I didn't like this episode that much. I was expecting more to be completely honest.

Sorry if this post was a little long- I wanted to write more stuff but I don't want to burden y'all with reading a lot of shit lmao. Anyway, that's all, love ya <3

[ragnarokalypse]

I am usually a lurker. I don't really post anything...ever, anymore, but I am so incredibly disappointed by this expansion that I felt the need to chime in my sentiments, just to get it off my chest.

I am one of the few people that loved ARR, before the "streamlining." I was hooked in the first 10 levels and the game had me in a stranglehold all the way through Endwalker. Everything after 6.0 was...eh...but I love the game so I stuck with it. I also loved Stormblood, and I've walked away from Dawntrail loving it even more, because hoo boy, does Wuk Lamat give me a new appreciation for Lyse.

I don't have a problem with low stakes. I don't have a problem with fetch questing, building my reputation, and just generally doing menial tasks even when people should be acting with a little more urgency. My beef with this expansion isn't that it's "new", "low-key", "a reset", or anything like that. My beef is Wuk Lamat.

This entire expansion is basically the Wuk Lamat show. The WoL does not really forge any new relationships, they don't really explore anything, they don't really do anything, and when they do, it's hijacked by Wuk Lamat. I swear I think my character was introduced by name to a citizen maybe...once. Instead, we have to sit there watching Wuk Lamat do everything that I want to do in a story that is supposed to be about the character I've spent years investing time and emotional effort into. I want my character to be the one making friends, exploring new cultures, and building a positive reputation with the people. When the first half ended and we FINALLY got to go do something without her, I was excited. I was willing to forgive the first half because it felt like the REAL journey was just getting started.

But nope, back to Wuk Lamat. Back to her being the main character and my character, the character I actually love and have painstakingly developed over years, being sidelined. In the final battle, I was again excited because FINALLY, a good old fashioned WoL vs The Enemy showdown. But what's this? Oh, Wuk Lamat again. In the epilogue, everyone celebrated for three days and three nights to "hail the Dawnservant's victory." Like, what? She shows up in that last 20% and gets the credit? Excuse me? I don't dislike Wuk Lamat even if I do deeply dislike her type of character, but I do resent the massive amounts of space she takes up in what is supposed to be my character's story.

Maybe I'm selfish, maybe it's just a me problem, but I play MMOs to tell stories about characters in fun worlds that I get to craft to my liking. If I wanted to play a game of pre-existing characters and watch/experience their journey, I'd go boot up literally any other Final Fantasy game. I have seen people liken this expansion to World of Warcraft, and I agree, to an extent. However, even though WoW doesn't have your character be center stage, I have always felt like the world was expansive enough for you to tell your own independent stories in the background. I have a whole host of characters in the WoWverse that I've developed over the years, and I never felt like I was held back from being creative because of the overarching narrative choices made by the game because, ultimately, my character was not a central figure and I could do what I wanted.

Here, I'm trapped. I can't say my character is off doing something else because she's literally tied to Wuk Lamat through the entire expansion and the shard key will probably be important later. I went through 3 days of cutscenes and walked away with pretty much nothing that I feel inspires me creatively or gives me any new material to build my character's story. Instead, I'm left feeling like I'm having to struggle to explain why she's being so passive and out-of-character. Is it trauma? Is she drunk? You got me. I'm still figuring it out, and figuring it out is a struggle that I have never experienced in this game. It isn't fun, which kills the creativity even more.

I might have been more forgiving of the story if it were reframed around the characters I actually care about and I got to experience the world instead of sitting back and watching Wuk Lamat experience it for me, but as it stands, I didn't really enjoy any of it save the American old west town where we got to hang out with Erenville, blissfully Wuk Lamat free. I swear they're the only people in the story that actually talked to us and learned our names. I think the best example of how little I enjoyed myself is in how many screenshots I took. I took almost 3,000 screenshots throughout my first Endwalker playthrough. Here, I took less than 100.

I will continue to stick with XIV for a while to see where it goes from here, but if this is the new story direction and philosophy - tell a story through other characters first - then I may just have to sadly resign myself to the fact that my character's story ended with 6.0, and go off to greener pastures where I can craft characters and build stories in ways that are more to my liking.

Overall, 1/10. I can't even rank it amongst other expansions because even the lowest ranked expansion for me is one that I love. Dawntrail is in a league of dislike and resentment all its own.

[eeveearoace]

I know very little about Undertale but I am asking about the AU :3

OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDD THE AUTISM. IS TAKING OVER *deep breath* (also @detentiontrack pspspsps)

OKAY! so, the au is called "save our souls", or "sos", for short :3

it mainly stars the human characters of undertale, which we know. actually not that much about! so i get to be really creative with it :3 i'm even planning to do a special "journal entry" pov thing for a couple of chapters for one character... tehe <3

but! the two main characters are frisk and chara (my beloveds!) chara's a ghost, and certainly not *evil* in this au, but they ARE an asshole. as they should be. but they also care very, VERY much for frisk, but they'd rather die than admit it

OH! and not only is chara a ghost. but they also can't sleep, or go far from frisk <3 and nobody other than frisk (and other ghosts/ former ghosts!) can hear/ see them. which is part of why chara becomes friends with napstablook! (the other part is that napstablook is my favorite character and i love them so much. blooky you deserve so much love.) napstablook gives chara what is basically a ghost ipod so that they can listen to music . their friendship means so much to me

just realized i never said what this au is about. um. uh. whoops ^^' WELL! it's a canon divergent au :3 it follows the neutral/ pacifist route up to the omega flowey fight. but when the human souls fight back against flowey. flowey tries to reset. but things go wrong, and both flowey and the human souls disappear! how mysterious! and unfortunate.

frisk wants to save everyone, because they're a classic hero archetype. so they decide to find out everything they can about the fallen humans before them in hopes of somehow tracking down their souls! and chara, just. comes along. because they have no choice :') but! there's still a problem with this plan - in order to shatter the barrier, they'd need the power of 7 human souls, and there had only ever been 6 human souls collected, so... hm... i wonder what's going to happen there...? :)))

i'm really excited for this au! but also kinda bummed, because it seems like nobody really cares about it? eh. this is a new fandom for me - it might take a bit to build an audience, but i can do it >:) i'm planning to make an upload schedule - probably once a week? - and start posting in early august since i'm going to be really busy in july.

i also wanna make some promo art :3 maybe i'll even post oc reference sheets? but i guess that's another thing. having ocs in your story. can sometimes make people less interested ^^' but i hope people will give them a chance :3

i know this was really long, but tysm owl and gus <3

[am-i-the-asshole-2]

AITA for not wanting to play a new system but playing anyway?

(Everyone here is late teens-early 20s). I have been with this TTRPG group for a few years now (since we were all in high school together), and we started out playing D&D but realized it wasn't for us after a couple sessions and switched to a different game system ever since.

Recently, our DM has suggested we play a new system. Our last system used one dice size (for example, a d20), and different stats meant you would add different modifiers to your rolls. I love this system, and even used it for my own campaign when the DM took a break.

The new system uses variable sizes of dice for every stat (for example, a d4 for strength and a d20 for charisma, with each stat having a different sized dice for each). I have been very vocal about not liking the system on paper for a while now, but our DM doesn't usually respond/say anything in our group chat, which is where we were discussing it.

Recently, our DM ran a Session 0- the way they ran it was basically a backstory as to how all our players met up for the plot. In this session, out of all the 15-20 times I rolled, I got a natural 20 [which amounted to quite literally nothing of value] and every other roll was a 1. I tried other players' dice, but it didn't matter. Every. Single. Time. Things ended up really bad for my character, and me and the DM have to run another session later to let my character join the party because if we don't I'll have to play a backup character.

The DM believes that I am frustrated simply because I had bad luck and consequences because of it, especially because they forgot to give me a part of the system that says that every time you get a 1 you can add an extra dX [whatever dice you got a 1 on] to a future roll. They say that they won't let these carry over between sessions and will reset to 0. This is all frustrating, but I was mainly upset that I wouldn't be able to play this character that I have had prepped and been very excited to play for well over a year, and that has been resolved.

I just don't like this new system. The DM either refuses to listen to me or just keeps me on read all the time, because I have tried bringing it up, with no response. My fellow players all, for the most part, love this new system, even more than the prior system, which drives me insane. I feel like my complaints are falling on deaf ears.

If this was any other project, I would've quit and just stopped doing this. But the campaign that we're doing is a direct sequel, and the main plot for this part is rescuing my prior character, who had her soul stolen and locked away in Hell. We've been chipping away at this campaign series for a while now (playing other campaigns in-between)- it was the one we started with in high school! Everyone else wants me to play with them, so I've decided to stick around.

I feel bad about it, though. I just feel like the more we play this system the more pissed off I'll be, and that resentment might affect the plot or gameplay. One of our prior campaigns was one that I didn't want to play in, but was convinced to join after learning that it was related to our main campaign series. I found out because of it that one of the vital plot points of the campaign was a huge trigger for me, and now I totally hate thinking about that part of the campaign. I worry that the same will happen if I continue playing the campaign, where the whole thing is tarnished and years of memories will be tainted by this arc.

AITA for sticking around and playing anyways?

[aeoki]

Seven Bridges - Hate Control: Chapter 10

Location: Yumenosaki Student Council Room Characters: Mao & Hitsugi

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ< A week later. Yumenosaki, student council room. >

Mao: Alright! Anzu, you’ve made a full comeback, huh!

Hitsugi: Ehehe ♪ Aww, I didn’t do anything special though!

Mao: Yeah, no one’s talking about you right now. But still, it looks like you’re listed as “assistance”, so I guess you’re the one who helped Anzu?

If that’s true, then I gotta thank you. Well, it feels a bit strange for me to say that.

I went over the revised proposal for “Tanabata Fest” that was submitted yesterday very thoroughly to make sure there definitely wouldn’t be any issues cropping up.

But it was great! Now, that’s our Anzu! I was pretty worried seeing how all of the people involved were THIS close to seeing hell, though…♪

But despite “Tanabata Fest’s” usual bright and beautiful appearance on the outside…

You can get up on stage as many times as you like – as long as you’ve got the motivation for it. It’s a pretty physically taxing event, non the contrary.

It finally feels like the “Tanabata Fest” that we know. Maybe I should say it finally feels more like an Anzu-style event.

Hitsugi: Huh? So the “Tanabata Fest” proposal has been revised, huh? What’s it like now? I’m curious!

Mao: Wait, why does it sound like you don’t know anything about it?

Hitsugi: Ehe ☆

…Hmm~ By the looks of it, did my sister have something to do with this? She’s been moving about on her own a lot recently.

It’s fine though! Since I love my big sister!

Mao: ? Anyway, the proposal has been revised to a good standard, so to be frank, the first version of the proposal was so disappointing, it lowered everyone’s motivation levels. None of the preparations have even started at this point.

That’s also why it was possible to do a drastic move and reset the entire “Tanabata Fest”.

Honestly, there isn’t a lot of time before D-Day. I’ll mobilise the Student Council and ask some of my acquaintances for help as best I can.

But I don’t know if we can finish everything on time. So let’s not waste any more time and get to work.

The proposal looks good to me so I’ll accept it once more. Of course, I’ll be increasing the budget as per the contents of the proposal.

Naturally, it’ll be impossible to drop a lot of funding out of thin air like the previous Student Council, but it should cover most things.

Hitsugi: Yaaay! Money! Having no money is the same as being headless! Thanks a bunch!

Thank goodness~ For a second, I thought I had to ask “Uncle” for a favour there.

Mao: ? Do you have an acquaintance that’s rich or something?

Well, I don’t mean to criticise you but it’s sheer stupidity to pay for the event out of your own pocket.

I think a “producer” should allocate an appropriate budget using the proper methods before using it effectively. Wait, I feel like I’ve been kinda preachy lately. That���s arrogant of me.

Hitsugi: No, it’s alright~ Anzu-senpai knows her stuff but I still don’t know anything, so feel free to point out all the parts I need to improve on.

Mao: Right. That’s my job. Well, it looks like Anzu’s back to her usual self so I don’t think there’ll be any time for me to jump in and do that, though.

Anyway, Anzu, you sure had a change of heart out of the blue like that. It felt like you hit rock bottom the other day, but even your facial expressions have more life in them now.

Did something good happen?

Oh? There’s an idol you want to produce? Who is it? I think I might be a little jealous~♪

It’s alright though. You’re not our only “producer” anymore so it makes sense, but it does make me a bit sad.

Oh, I said we don’t have much time, but look at me chattering away like this. I’ll start contacting the right people on “Hallhands” at once.

I’ve also got to let ES know… Who would be the best person to call that can sort it out easily? Guess it would be Tenshouin-senpai, huh. Or maybe Sakuma-senpai?

…Oh, I remembered since I mentioned Sakuma but Kurone, don’t do suspicious things around the school.

Hitsugi: What? Me? What do you mean?

Mao: Ritsu told me to ask you when I had the chance, but I heard you did something to the coffin Sakuma-senpai buried on school grounds?

Well, under normal circumstances, I should be scolding Sakuma-senpai for burying weird things, but he’s helped me a lot in the past, so I feel like I can’t do that.

Hitsugi: Coffin… Ohh~ that one.

I couldn’t get close to it because the security for the secret underground archive is really tight, so I was looking for the coffin that was rumoured to have a similar sealed record.

It did occur to me that it might have just been a rumour, though.

And on top of that, it was buried really deeply in the ground. It was enough to be buried alive by the debris if I wasn’t careful, but it seemed nothing important was in there.

Well, it wasn’t a very fruitful endeavour and wasn’t worth all that work. There’s nothing else I could say.

Mao: I don’t really get it but Yumenosaki has some pretty questionable parts about it, so I don’t think you should get too deeply involved. Don’t blame me if you get burned.

…Just kidding. Guess it’s time for me to act like Hasumi-senpai, huh.

Hitsugi: Oh, please don’t misunderstand! I’m not investigating it just because just for kicks~!

It’s something super, super important! I’m doing it so that I can live as myself! It’s something I must do!

Mao: ………?

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ← Previous Chapter ᠂ ⚘ ˚⊹˚ ⚘ ᠂  Next Chapter →

[swiftscion]

TOA anniversary munday!

Celebrating TOA and the people who contribute to make our group what it is.

Repost, don't reblog. Only fill in what you feel comfortable sharing!

Happy anniversary, TOA! Here's to many more years spent together.

tagging: you. yes, you.

Name: Orokara

Pronouns: he/they

Birthday (no year): February 3

Where are you from? What is your time zone? Canada; EST

Roleplay experience: I have no idea but probably something like 7 or 8 years at this point

Got any pets? Just a few fish, if you can count those

Favorite time of year: Spring! It feels really nice when the days start to get longer

Some interests and things you like: Mythology, music and playlist making, reading, animanga, cooking, random video essays, biology

Some fun facts & trivia about you: I used to moderate a few roleplay groups and a Pixelmon server myself, though those interests all died. I share a birthday with Hilda Goneril. I have an awful habit of starting things and then never finishing them. I like wearing bracelets and golf clothing. I crack my neck like all the time.

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play? Currently, Honkai: Star Rail, League of Legends, and Flight Rising. I'm also a big fan of the Pokemon series (and fan games), Project Moon games, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Ultrakill, and Omori. Currently looking for people to play Stardew Valley with me ehe

Favorite Pokemon type & Pokemon: Ghost and Grass. I used to be a grass-type gym leader on the Pixelmon server i helped run, and Appletun was my ace. Did you know that due to its ability thick fat and partial dragon typing, it actually resists fire moves? Many of my challengers didn't ;) my other faves are Hisiuan Zoroark, and Altaria!

How did you get into Fire Emblem? I liked Ike from Smash Brothers Brawl and on a whim decided to play Path of Radiance one day. It was one of my first emulator experiences. I let Rhys and Soren die on the first map they were available and never reset for them. It was bad.

What Fire Emblem games have you played? All mainlines at least once, plus feh

First Fire Emblem game: Path of Radiance!

Favorite Fire Emblem game: Blazing Blade, Binding Blade, and Genealogy in no particular order

Any Fire Emblem crushes? Kagetsu, Shannan, DIECK, Tibarn, Gerik, Selena/Severa

If you’ve played the following games, who was your first S support? Awakening - I don't remember but most recent is Chrom. Fates - Selena. Three Houses - Marianne. Engage - Mauvier

Favorite Fire Emblem class: Swordmaster but I use early game pegasus knights and thieves religiously. Dodgetanking is my favorite thing ever

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class? Navarre archetype myrmidon

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation? Fear the Deer baby!

If you were an Engage character, which Emblem would you Engage with? Emblem Ike so I can run into an entire pack of enemies and slap the great aether button

How did you find TOA? Got invited after i was struggling as like. the only fe4 fan in a discord group that mostly wrote modern fe titles

Current TOA muses: Larcei, Owain, Sain

Who was your first TOA muse? If you don’t have them anymore, could you see yourself picking them up again? Larcei! Though she has come and gone

Have you had any other TOA muses? Ough I might not remember them all but I think the list is: Lewyn, Elm, Sirius, L'Arachel, Ryoma, Idunn

Do you think you have a type of character you gravitate towards? This might sound crazy considering my muselist but edgy swordsmen... I think people who grapple with feelings of revenge, hatred, and guilt are so interesting to delve into the psychology of. Lif is probably my all-time fave, if that says anything about me

What do you believe you enjoy writing the most? Slow and steady character growth. I like it so much when my muses become long-term friends with other ones. Owain and Julius, Larcei and Edward, Sain and Caeda, etc etc. Gaining a new reason to wake up in the morning and all the implications of that is always a joy to hash out over the course over multiple posts

Favorite TOA-related memory: The time Sirius and Est kept being forced to attack eachother by an arena boss, but whiffed all their rolls. Darcy and I wrote it with this little tongue-and-cheek bit where they kept saying "now isn't the time for sparring" before misdirecting yet another attack and writing Sirius' feelings regarding her, his past in Archanea, and the present state of that arena was real fun. Shoutout to N's Leif for the incredible setting of a really dark cave, too!

How do you pronounce TOA?: Sometimes I pronounce each letter individually and sometimes I say "towah". I am mad inconsistent sorry

Got any delusions that didn’t see the light of day in TOA that you’d like to share? Fuck it have my whole delusion list: Rutger, Fergus, Lif, The Vaike, Lewyn (again), Osian, Melady, Orson, Zihark, Louis, Kagetsu, Libra, Lon'qu

[caerbannogmochi]

Grammatical gender, and how one letter can completely change a sentence

Recently, I've been trying to make a language (a "Conlang") for the setting of my campaign. This conlang, which I will call Paresha, has 5 grammatical genders, 15 characters, and 2 "E" sounds. To explain how this language works (as of This Moment), I will begin with the following sentence:

Lej eh suv-haru jariey[]s

The approximate English translation is "their car betrayed [them]". Note that 1) this language goes in the SOV (Subject Object Verb) order, and 2)... those brackets are a placeholder for a single letter.

In Paresha, every word has a gender, with the agent (most "important" Thing) controlling how certain sentence bits (namely conjugations) are written/spoken. And, like in other gendered languages, this allows for closely related concepts to be expressed with very similar words. The "jariey-" root indicates betrayals, but the specific variant depends on that last letter, which determines gender.

Jarieyis: A betrayal of your expectations, to suffer misfortune. These are, quite simply, times where you Did Not See That Coming. If you show up wet to a party, you might say "The sky betrayed me" if you were overdramatic. Saying "Lej eh suv-haru jarieyis" might mean that our John Doe thought he'd set the parking brake only to realize that his car had been slowly rolling down the hill while he was eating lunch.

Jarieyés: A betrayal you didn't see coming. This version would be the closest to our english "betrayed", but specifically refers to turncoats, that plot twist where the hero's best friend stabs her in the back, and calling out your friend when they spoiled you on it even though they knew you were still watching that season! Saying "Lej eh suv-haru jarieyés" might mean John Doe's "brand new" car just suddenly stopped working, and when he took it into the shop the mechanic realized the entire bottom was held together with duct tape and prayers.

Jarieyes: A betrayal you knew what going to happen, in part because they were suspicious AF. This is what you would use when that "Nigerian Prince" ghosts your grandpa. Saying "Lej eh suv-haru jarieyes" might mean John Doe's car was sketchy as hell, and the only thing that surprises you is how long it lasted.

Jarieyus: A "heroic" betrayal that is dramatic and liberating.

Haru's declaration that she is not her dad's "subservient puppet" is exactly this word's use case. Jarieyus would also be appropriate for when your friend finally realizes they've hooked up with an abusive asshole, so you sneak by to help them ditch 'em while they're at work. Saying "Lej eh suv-haru jarieyus" might mean that John Doe had stolen that car, and someone finally identified the plates and now he's got a court order because his DNA was found on the straw of his McDonald's sprite.

Finally, Jarieyas: A "false" betrayal. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe there was a lot of miscommunication. Or maybe it wasn't really them, or they were trying to protect you. Jarieyas is for those situations. Saying "Lej eh suv-haru jarieyas" might mean that John's car didn't start, but when he took it to the mechanic he just forgot to reset the killswitch he put in so nobody would steal his 'rari.

So there we have it: A reason for grammatical genders.

[theinsanecrayonbox]

well, since i've seen the page in the tags, i guess i can talk about the reveal of who "GC" is in Sabretooth/Exiles #4 (i’ll throw it under a cut though for spoilers cause i wanna try to be nice; i know not everyone doesn’t care about spoilers like i do)

who was it?

Graydon Creed

am i upset by this because it was sort of obvious? am i upset by this because the last time we saw Graydon, Victor had pulled him out of hell, sacrificing his own life and willpower to do so?

no...no idts. at the time of reading i wasn’t sure, and after sitting on it a few days, i’m still “meh *noncommittal shrug*” but i think i’m not. on the one hand, it’s very clear that Lavalle read Death Hunt as homework for this, what with all the references and Birdy in the first half (which is not surprising since it is the best solo Sabretooth mini series); and since this series has kinda been pointing out Victor’s greatest failures that do haunt him/contrasting what makes the man and the beast, bringing up his son does actually make sense. i was kinda hoping that maybe being pulled from hell would’ve kicked Graydon in the butt enough to be less terrible than he used to be...and eh, i guess kinda? he’s now in league with genetic manipulation, when before he was just all “rah rah purity of humanity” so, slight change?? and Graydon has always been terrible, so since we reset Victor’s character growth by ignoring the second half of Weapon X-Force, it’s par for the course to ignore him rescuing Graydon too i guess. though one would question how a previously long standing dead man had the funds to contract out Orchis....also one wonders where’s Birdy since she was supposedly respawned at the end of the first half

ANYWHOS! it’s revealed as Graydon, and that he’s been hunting multiverse versions of his father. Graydon, the one consistent thing in all incarnations is his daddy issues lol. one wonders how or why really...probably won’t be adequately explained considering there’s only 1 issue left for this story.

but onto the more fun part that i alluded to in my other post; lets play “Who’s that Sabretooth”. here’s a numbered version for easier reference;

even with the wiki up, i’m not really recognizing any of these. 

#7 looks like the good guy/blind and one handed clone from X-Men Forever (it’s the triangle face). 

#9 does resemble Liev Schreiber i admit...but it’s also clearly a black man and the only black Sabretooth i know is Miles’ dad from “What if Miles was Wolverine” and he was not a Victor Creed.

#13 looks to be a child version

#3 also looks child/teen to me, but the pale skin would suggest vampiric?

#14 looks like it might have the usual head guard (or maybe that’s heavy shadowing on the cheek)

i’m no all knowing expert, so feel free to weigh in. but again, the fact that none of them are easily or readily recognizable makes me wonder if they were just made up for this. that’s not necessarily a bad thing, since you know dead and all, but then again it’s eth multiverse just because you killed one alternate version doesn’t mean that was the only one of that specific kind. without the reader recognizing and connecting, it’s just a random display of heads for shock value...which yeah ok, that was the goal i give, but still.

[thehylianidiot]

No Clue What This Is, But Why Not?

tagged by @legendoftheotherside

Rules

Post the names of the files of your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you ask with the title that most intrigued them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it. If you want, tag as many people as you have WIPS.

Don't have a lot of WIPs compared to a lot of other people, but thought it would be fun. So here's of the stuff I'm trying to work on and hopefully will finish one day (ha).

So here's the doc titles (many of which are subject to change)

Fairy Tail

The Other Four Idiots, Plus A Cat: My current time-waster cause I like roleswap aus. So I threw a bunch of characters into a blender. After all, who better to go taking the spot of heart-on-sleeve battle junkie with a penchant for friendship speeches than their emotionally constipated nerd brother?

To Slay a Demon: My rewrite oneshot for the Gray vs. Natsu fight, because I may have been the teensiest bit disappointed with it and got some inspiration.

The Little Raindrop of Magnolia: In an AU where Gray and Juvia start in different guilds, focuses on young accidentally-makes-flash-floods Juvia growing up with a support system.

These Are Not the Reincarnated Mortals You're Looking For: You know where at the end of Fairy Tail it was implied that Zeref and Mavis somehow reincarnated? As in were there, in the background, as the main series went on? You also know how many cults were and are still in Fiore? Let's combine these facts and make a comedy!

Consequences of Neo Eclipse: Anyone else think resetting time is a terribly shortsighted idea? In which Zeref wins, time is reset.... and he realizes he might have forgotten a few details after a few centuries.

Stars Align (And Then They Fade): In a totally-won't-end-badly retelling of 400 years ago, Anna goes on a quest for the Celestial Keys. And much like her descendent, she has to deal with her insane teammates.

I also had a few whumpril ideas, but none of them clicked on their own. Maybe they will be incorporated into future fics.

Legend of Zelda

Lost My Cap: A Minish Cap AU/retelling where Vaati gets rekt by his own hubris and has to clean up his own mess. With his old mentor. You can imagine how well this will turn out.

Believe me, I wanna try to make a big story incorporating characters from all across the series sometime. I just need to mesh all the ideas coherently in headspace still.

Genshin Impact

Just a Prototype/The Puppet God: There's one point about the consequences of absorbing divine knowledge capsule in Chapter 3 Act 5 that stuck with me. A few details in the follow-up interlude quest didn't help any. Thus, that last battle could go way different if say... there was in fact enough time for all divine knowledge capsules to be absorbed.

Crossovers

Untitled FMA/FT Project: I found out that Fairy Tail's Natsu and Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood's Greed shared the same dub voice actor and the idea spiraled from there, okay? Still piecing together the details, but I got some scene ideas.

Hmm... who to tag? (please ignore if you folks did this already, but feel free to @ me in a comment and I will try to read through it)

@genavere

@inkperch

@classysassy9791

@kiliinstinct

@pencilofawesomeness

@tokkias

Eh, 6 is good nuff.

[muirmarie]

i am Thinking (i am scheming)

recovery

strip poker (i mean this is what it says on the tin, tbh. mccoy is so emotional he's actually incredibly hard for kirk to read, meanwhile kirk can read spock like a gd book. spock is solely focused on at least beating mccoy. mccoy isn't playing to win, he's playing to make them lose. rampant cheating is involved.)

golden hour (mccoy gives spock an old camera. spock becomes obsessed w/ being able to capture emotions in the viewfinder that he won't allow himself to say. james t kirk in the golden light of the dawn. you could make a religion out of that.)

vulnerability (*eta - operation annihilate where vulcans don't have a second set of eyelids, and mccoy works himself half to death for three weeks to figure out a way to cure him anyway, and then they all have to deal with the fallout. (this'll probably be the next one)()

sandwich (mccoy is in the middle because i yam who i yam. *eta - this might be a 5+1 space forgetties stories actually tbh. aka 5 times spock and kirk thought they were dating mccoy, and 1 time where mccoy gives in to the inevitable - OR maybe i'll move that to something else and use this for frottage LMAO we'll see idk idk*)

why does janice keep bringing 3 meals to kirk's quarters (this is for NON-sexy reasons initially!! and then it turns out the entire ship is taking bets on when they're going to admit to being in a relationship. they extremely are not. but then they're hyper-aware of how everyone's perceiving them. and then they still aren't. and then they are.)

a fourth wheel (hmmm 4/5(chapel?)+1 one of the rest of the main crew feeling like a fourth wheel on various things. the 1 is when they're all hanging out together and just glad to see the triumvirate happy)

cave(s) (might use the story i'm actually writing right now tbh. alternatively the dubcon all my yesterdays that i've been thinking about. mccoy doesn't want spock like /this/. but he doesn't stop him. doesn't try to stop him. doesn't want to consider the idea that if he tried to stop him, he might not be able to. doesn't know how they could walk away from that. far better not to try.)

mccoy makes breakfast (eh probably self-explanatory - *eta - i know what i'm doing w/ this. bones can never tell jim no.*)

late night walk (i have been on too many late night walks to not have a sketch of an emotion for this.)

chained to the bed (...mccoy is going to be the one chained. but proooobably in a. hmm. in a less than friendly situation. and then rescued. i don't have a plot for this, i just know who i am.)

scotty doesn't know (i mean honestly the comedy of scotty just being like "love hanging out with the guys" while the guys keep smooching and he keeps missing it entirely? writes itself. [narrator: it did not write itself])

free space (is that gonna be the spock & mccoy can hear each other's thoughts story??? all signs point to yes. this one will be long.)

bdsm (mccoy does NOT want to hurt kirk, and it's spock who has to kind of sit him down and be like. remember how you're so big on releasing emotions? have you considered this is what jim needs help with? and mccoy genuinely turning out to to be the best, most loving dom? and GENERALLY spock is just. chillin. supportively. but then one time he. needs. it as well. i have never written anything like this before, but i think i can swing it.)

flexibility (*eta - ummm mccoy is mistaken for a courtesan (a highly respected profession on this planet) and due to translation hijinks this isn't discovered right away, so there's some shenanigans, meanwhile mccoy is living his best life getting makeup tips and teaching the planet's courtesans yoga (which is where the prompt comes in lmao))

create or destroy - obsessed w/ this, have no idea what i'm gonna do with it tho

war (*eta - some thoughts here*)

justice (something something the justice tarot card. something something the balance of the scales. something probably sketching the outline but only in relief. something something group character study)

rager (lmao hell yeah. make that vulcan do a keg stand!!!! idk i'll figure this out)

time loop (mccoy dies and kirk breaks his hand on a wall. kirk dies to save mccoy and mccoy breaks his hand on spock's face for not stopping him. spock dies, and he doesn't have to see what happens next, because the day resets. the day keeps resetting. mccoy keeps dying.) (time loops my genuine beloveds)

planet vulcan (*eta - tentatively thinking a sequel to it ends or it doesn't, where they do take their trip to vulcan, both for shore leave AND to pick up ambassador sarek and amanda to bring them to [spoiler for the original fic] for talks - and fyi [spoiler] was RIGHT he IS gonna be [spoiler]*)

hayride (i bet there's a corn maze, too. i bet jim gets hay fever. i bet bones keeps teasing spock about bobbing for apples, and then to his surprise spock actually does it, and mccoy takes one look at spock's damp hair and stretched mouth and throat bobbing as he swallows, and just about dies. kirk is EXTREMELY handsy w/ both of them on the hayride (he's a little drugged up from the meds re: the hayfever). they somehow convince mccoy to get his face painted. there is some sort of game of skill/chance and spock wins them both a small stuffed toy.)

going to a banquet (*eta - actually this has to be tarsus iv related, doesn't it??? yeah.* - actually wait this could maybe be a sequel to 'do you love your neighbor' - i've said before i think a sequel where the crew of the avery gets to be big damn heroes could be fun, and having them at a banquet with mccoy is just......yeah - yeah you get me*)

sun dog (oooof two halos of reflected sunlight on either side of the sun?????? you give this to me???? you give me james t kirk as the sun and his two best friends on either side of him??? mythology, maybe. space mythology. the stories they tell of you when you're dead. the ways you survive. the ways you don't survive but your story does. your love does. the story of your love. it survives.)

caretaking (if i don't find a way to make this h/c with a hurt bones then truly what am i even doing here. taking care of the caretaker. that's the stuff. - *eta actually i might make this that (inherent consent issues, mccoy/everyone, mccoy/spock/kirk) mccoy gets a magical healing cock one tbh. maybe not tho since even tho it ends triumvirate it really is a love letter to bones/everyone. we'll see*)

Here's your updated Mcspirk Bingo Card! Please don't forget to tag the blog in any creations you post. :)

*_*

Thank you again for doing this!

[ourthrxne]

( I might just go with simple tagging for everyone and everything related. So like Michael doesn’t have an IC tag but I could use Michael IC instead. 

Kinda wish I could reset what tags is remembered for a fresh slate, pfft. I’ll just deal with it, I guess. )

[tuiyla]

How well written do you think Blaine, Finn and Quinn are?

What a wild mix!

I feel like there should be a comprehensive look at all the main characters and where they are compared to each other in terms of "well-writtenness". Someone should take the initiative but that's a very multi-layered thing. And even with these characters again I could go back to consistency, development and well-roundedness but I feel like they need to be defined a lot more for me to properly explain where these characters sit. The fact that I should really work on other posts gives me an excuse to save y'all from all that and just summarize it briefly.

Blaine is an interesting case of what I'd call retroactive character building, meaning that he was essentially a prop for Kurt's story in season 2 and then went from there, only gaining true depth season 4 onwards. I think the stuff he gets there is solid enough but he doesn't have a clear trajectory and suffers from the writers trying to find substance to match the amount he sings, not the other way around. I feel like he could have benefitted from taking some of his songs' time away from performing and using it to build his character instead. Or make the songs actually relevant, which a lot of the time they aren't. By the time he becomes one of the central characters I think he's a strong enough character to carry that but I'd say he's mid-tier in terms of good writing just because of the way he starts out, with little thought put into who he is and because there isn't much of an arc to build him around outside of Kurt.

Finn, well. Could be a good case study to see what good writing actually means but to cut a potentially really long tangent short, his writing is... it's pretty bad. The issue is that writers don't actually seem to know who this character is. They steer him in one direction while pretending he's going in another. What we get doesn't match how he's framed. If people thought Rachel got away with too much, oh boy, get ready for Finn. And it's not only immensely frustrating in the overall story, it's to the detriment of the character. His growth, when he does have it, feels shallow and unearned. His true arc begins in season 4 and sadly never really gets finished. Finn is hard to judge because his story was tragically cut short by real life interfering so I can only really take into consideration the first three seasons. And Finn's writing in those seasons involves the most frustrating things Glee ever did, imo. He's going in the "pretty bad, very frustrating" category - correction, his writing does. This isn't my feelings on Finn as a ch just how he's actually written, which unfortunately is also pretty frustrating.

And Quinn, oh boy. Remember how I said consistency was one of the factors? Yeah. Quinn is the antithesis of well-written. Any enjoyment fans get out of her character, which is valid btw, comes from a) what Dianna put into it and b) the bright spots in a very dodgy narrative. Quinn is barely ever written by the end, she's just... tossed here and there. Reset when the writers feel like it. Make no mistake, I think we can make her work as a character and I happen to enjoy making her work very much. But this is where we really can’t credit the writers with much of anything. To be entirely clear I’m not calling Quinn a bad character; I’m saying the writers did a bad job with her and any greatness Quinn might have had was accidental and not their achievement. I know people would consider season 1 an exception to this, but eh, idk. They didn’t exactly treat her well there either.

[triptuckers]

Drained - Anakin Skywalker

Request: nope Pairing:  Anakin Skywalker x reader Summary:  The war is taking a toll on everyone, and you’re tired of it. Warnings: mentions of minor injuries (not reader) Word count:  1.3K A/N: I’m 2 followers away from 600 🥺 have this Anakin x reader because I love him so much, enjoy reading! 

Weeks. Months. Years. Time didn’t even feel real anymore. The war is still raging on, despite the Jedi’s best efforts to end it. You can tell everyone is growing tired of it. Though no one’s said it out loud, you can tell at least half of the smiles people give you are fake. 

You can’t help but to think it must be easy for the clones. Most of the times, you can’t even see their faces because of their helmets. They don’t have to smile reassuringly at everyone they see. 

But you’re a Jedi. You’ve got a handful of clones under your command. And they need to see there’s an end to this war, that they can win it, that there’s still hope. You can’t show the signs that are so obviously there. 

The only one who ever sees them is Anakin, and you even try to hide them from him. He has enough to worry about. The last thing you’d want, is for him to worry about you as well. You’re a grown woman, you can handle yourself.

You stretch your arms above your head as you walk through the halls of the Temple. Most Jedi used their time at the Temple to get some rest in between missions. You tried to do the same, but most of the times you were at the Temple, either Obi-Wan or Anakin and Ahsoka were on a mission. Resting was not easy when you are worrying about them.

Right now, you’re merely waiting for Master Yoda to tell you he’s got another mission for you. Anakin and Ahsoka are on their way back from a mission, and Obi-Wan got a nasty blaster hit on his last mission, so it was only logical you would be assigned to the next mission.

You’re on your way to the gardens. Your mind is often restless, and meditation is the best solution to it. Though you like your quarters, there’s something about the gardens that you can’t find anywhere else. 

You’ve almost reached the gardens, when you see a familiar figure in the distance, also heading for the gardens. You jog to catch up with them.

‘Ahsoka!’ you say, and she turns around. ‘When did you come back?’

‘Hello Master Y/L/N- I mean, hello Y/N.’ she says, correcting herself. You didn’t like to be called “Master Y/L/N” by your friends. ‘We only just got here.’ she looks at you, and answers your question before you’ve asked it. ‘Anakin is in his quarters. His robes got ripped he needed to change.’ 

‘Thanks!’ you say, and you turn and walk the other way, leaving the gardens behind you. 

You and Anakin had developed a habit of checking up on each other when one of you came back from a mission. It had started years ago, back when you were still Padawans. Somehow, it became a second nature to you. 

Everyone knew you and Anakin were close. Always checking up on each other, inside jokes, being able to communicate without words. Everyone also had the very strong feeling you and Anakin are a lot more than close friends, but because they couldn’t prove any of it, and nothing ever went wrong, no one would act on their suspicions.

You knock on the door of Anakin’s quarters and wait. A few moments later, it opens, revealing a very tired looking Anakin. He smiles at you and steps aside so you can enter. 

‘You look like hell.’ you say. ‘Good to see you too, Y/N/N.’ he says.

You walk up to him and raise your hand to his cheek, where a cut stretches from his temple almost to the corner of his lips. 

‘I’m fine.’ he says. ‘It’s nothing, just a little cut.’ ‘Hmm.’ you hum, and Anakin slightly rolls his eyes. ‘I know what hmm means.’ he says. ‘I was careful. No unnecessary risks. Sometimes stuff like this happens, you know that.’ ‘Yeah, I know it does.’ you say, dropping your hand from his cheek.

‘Thought you’d be on a mission when we got back.’ he says, moving to sit on his bed. ‘That makes two of us.’ you say. ‘I’m only waiting for Master Yoda to tell me where I’m going. I was on my way to the gardens to meditate, actually. But then I ran into Ahsoka who told me you were here.’

‘I think a nap would suit you more than meditation right now.’ chuckles Anakin. His eyes travel over your tired eyes and the heavy bags under them. ‘No offence, but you also look like hell.’ he says.

‘I’m fine.’ you say. Anakin raises his eyebrows in doubt. ‘Really.’ you say with a smile. 

Anakin looks at you. ‘I can see you’re smiling, but I can sense you’re not fine.’ he says. ‘How can I help?’

You look at him for a while. He’s waiting for your answer as you look at him. And then it’s like everything hits you at once, like a huge wave. Tears fall from your eyes and you feel your knees give out. Anakin catches you before you can hit the ground.

‘Hey, hey, hey, what are all those tears about?’ he says as he pulls you into his lap, wrapping his arms around you. You try to say something, but only sobs escape your lips. 

‘Shh.’ says Anakin softly. ‘It’s alright, I’m here, I’ve got you. Let it all out.’ 

You don’t know how long you sat there, until you finally pull back a bit from Anakin’s embrace to wipe the tears off your cheeks. You move to stand up, but Anakin doesn’t let go of you. You look at him and he smiles at you.

‘Let’s stay like this for a while.’ he says. ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’

You sigh and let your head fall to his chest. ‘I’m just so tired.’ you say. ‘Of this war, of fighting, all of it. I just want it to be over. I want to walk around the temple and annoy Obi-Wan like we used to do when we were younger. Use my free time to improve my lightsaber skills or just walk around Coruscant and go for a drink. Feels like all I know is war. It used to be different.’

‘I understand.’ says Anakin. ‘These days it feels like this war might never end. But it will. We’ll just have to hold on a little longer. At least we’ve got each other. And it’s alright if it gets too much sometimes. We’re all tired, you’re certainly not alone in this, Y/N.’ says Anakin. 

You sigh and lift your head from his chest. ‘How do you do it, Anakin? How do you hold on?’ you say.

‘Well, mostly because of you. I hold on for you.’ says Anakin. ‘Artoo!’

You look up when you hear Artoo approaching you, beeping happily.

‘Show her, buddy.’ says Anakin. 

Artoo beeps again before showing a holo. It’s an old picture of you and Anakin that Ahsoka took years ago. You look at it and smile. It was taken before the war, and both you and Anakin are smiling brightly. You two look so young. Unaware of the war that would start, sending you all across the galaxy.

‘They once reset Artoo’s memory, and I was scared to death that had gotten erased as well.’ says Anakin. ‘Thanks Artoo.’ The blue and white droid beeps once and takes off. 

You turn back to look at Anakin and smile. 

‘Now, that’s a real smile.’ says Anakin and he stands up, pulling you up with him. ‘You didn’t have to show me that, you know.’ you say. ‘Hey, you asked me how I hold on, that’s how.’ says Anakin. ‘Remember years ago, you made me promise to come back to you? I care about you, Y/N, and if it’s up to me, I’m never going to break that promise.’

‘You’re really amazing, you know that right?’ you say. ‘Eh, I try to be.’ says Anakin, making you chuckle. You move closer and wrap your arms around his torso. Anakin rests his chin on your head.

‘Can I stay here tonight?’ you ask. ‘I’ll leave early in the morning. It’s just that your presence is soothing.’ ‘Of course.’ says Anakin. ‘We could both use a good night’s sleep.’

A/N: If you want to request something, make sure to read my house rules Here’s the list of characters I write for. Everything that I have written can be found on my masterlist. Please don’t repost my work, as I spend much time and effort on it!! Thank you for reading! Much love, Jo

[lesbiansanemi]

Hey I just remembered you watched Mirai Nikki a while ago, did you finish it? I really wanted to hear your thoughts on it

Oh! Yep, sure did! I finished it... a few weeks ago? I think? Idk lol

Ultimately, I do not have a ton of thoughts on it? My best friend liked it, so I watched it because he's always watching things I like so I like watching thing he likes lol. I honestly didn't know anything about it going into it except that Yuno was a yandere. So the whole plot line being the fact that someone wanted to become god was a pleasant surprise

I don't have much to say about the plot itself. It was pretty straight forward. I think the pacing was a little wonky, which was why it took me a bit to finish the series, considering how short it is. Usually I can mow through something of that length in a day or two. It just took me a bit to get genuinely hooked, because the first part of it was a little slow, and the first few encounters with other diary users were a little repetitive. My attention wasn't truly grabbed until the part with all the dogs, and then I was like "oh okay this is starting to get genuinely interesting now" and then I was hooked hooked as soon as Yuki's parents died and he went off the deep end and started justifying killing people because if he became god he could just bring them back and reset everything. That was genuinely really interesting.

I also figured out the plot twist of Yuno being from a different timeline really early on? I mean, they basically put that in the intro, so I think you were supposed to, but as soon as they found a third body with her dead parents I was like "oh yep, this Yuno came from a different timeline and killed the Yuno from this one so she could get to Yuki." It wasn't a bad plot twist, and it is good for plot twists to have clear hints, but it might have been a little too predictable for the tone of the series.

Um... of course there is Yuno and Yuki's whole relationship? It obviously is super unhealthy, and while on one hand that is extremely obvious, there are times the anime seems to try and make the audience genuinely root for it, and frame it in a cute, loving light which was... not great? I also just have a lot of beef with "yandere" characters, considering how they're violent caricatures of borderline personality disorder, which is bad obviously. It's not that Yuno herself isn't an interesting character, but given the context and the whole "trope" of yanderes and how those characters contribute to those harmful stereotypes of BPD, she makes me a little :/ I couldn't really thoroughly enjoy her because of that. Like we all know I love a fun, unhealthy, codependent toxic relationship in fiction, but given all of this ^^^ yeah, not for me, I have to admit

And then everything at the end with Murmur was.... so very strange? Idk, very rushed, and felt out of place, I would have preferred that not happened and she not meddled in the game at all.

I did like a lot of the side characters though! My favorite was... fuck, I can't remember her name, but the bomb lady with the eyepatch! She was cool! And her little romance with the detective guy was fun, I genuinely really liked all of that. The couple that made was a diary user was also nice too, I liked them, and their deaths kinda hurt

Overall, I don't have a lot of super strong feelings about the series one way or the other. It definitely wasn't any pinnacle of fantastic storytelling, but I don't think it was horrendous by any means. It had some really interesting aspects, even if most of them weren't explored to their fullest potential. The fan service was a bit much at times, but when is that not true of fan service so eh, not much to say in that department

But yeah! Those are my (albeit jumbled) thoughts about the series :D

[eldragon-x-moved]

hmmmm .....flowey

How conventient that I didn't decide to go for Asriel the previous ask because yeah, this might mix together with Asriel

Fav thing: I've recently seen a post talking about how golden flowers seem to represent grief in Undertale, which makes sense all things considered. And seeing how Flowey, the character who literally is a golden flower, is consumed by grief which becomes a major motivation once Chara gets reawakened by the player, is really interesting. Flowey/Asriel in general is an interesting antagonist who kinda reflects the player, but I think my favourite thing is how (poorly) he deals with having lost Chara and how the final battle in the true pacifist route makes it increasingly obvious that despite how creepy he acts as a flower, how many cruel things he has done across timelines, at the core, he is a child who hasn't properly processed the death of his sibling and himself. It also adds onto the huge pile of consequences Chara's death had. On the flipside, it's nice how he is able to move on in the end, even asking the player not to reset the true ending.

Least fav thing: The only thing I could think of rn is that we only see him at the very beginning and the end of the game, but I don't think that's a writing flaw so disregard that.

Fanon pet peeve: This is really just Asriel but the way he's often treated like this innocent child who can do no wrong is eh, considering he has hurt and killed other characters in different timelines. I'd argue that it had something to do with him lacking a soul as a flower, sure, but he expresses regret and acknowledges his actions in this state, so I think it's valid to take it into account.

[keelywolfe]

FIC: A Lonely Impulse of Despair (standalone)

Summary:  They knew about the anomaly and the resets, but forewarned is not always forearmed.

Notes:  I got this idea into my head that what-if all the skeletons knew at least something about the anomaly and the resets and this is where it went. Read the tags!

Tags: Spicyhoney, References to Undertale Genocide Route, Dark, Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Rough Sex, Lemony

Read it on AO3

or

Read it here!

~~*~~

Snowdin always lived in darkness, broken only by the lighted lamps along the streets, powered by the core. There was no sun underground, no illusion of dawn and dusk. It was morning simply because the clocks stated it to be so, and that morning, Edge left his home to walk down the empty streets to the shops at the far end of town.

The other houses in town stood vacant. There was an occasional window lit, flickering light casting shadows out onto the snowdrifts, but their former inhabitants were gone.

There was no sign of any violence in those homes. None of those windows were broken, the doors undamaged. He’d gone into one where the door was standing open and found dishes in the sink, a pie sitting on the back of the counter for an upcoming dessert. Half-folded laundry sat in a basket, books and toys strewn about as if they were only waiting for their owners to return.

Edge touched nothing, only left and closed the door carefully behind him.

On this morning, snow was falling in a silent flurry. The flakes were piling up on streets that were no longer cleared daily by the Bun family. It was barely a hinderance. His boots cut easily through the loose drifts as he walked, alone, down to the other side of town.

There were children here once. Not so carefree as the ones he’d seen in the other Universes but even here on clear days they played in the snow until their parents called them back inside as the more dangerous night hours came.

A ridiculous notion. The illusion of safety during the day hours was just that, an illusion. There was no difference in the Underground and every minute of any day could bring treacherous events.

From a distance, Edge could see the lights were still on in the store. He’d left them on the day before when he’d come this same way. The store was the closest building to the edge of town that led into the woods surrounding it. If anyone were still out there, those lights could guide them into Snowdin.

The bell over the door rang as Edge pushed it open, a cheery warning to no one at all. The shop was as empty as the homes. The shelves had never been fully stocked at any time in Edge’s memory and the meagre offerings lining them were thinner than ever. There were no more fresh baked goods and only a handful of dried food remained. Most of the commodities left were canned, their lids coated with a thin layer of dust.

(dust, so much dust, how could it be)

Half of the remaining stock would have fit in Edge’s knapsack. It would make more sense to take all the food there and bring it home with him. Spare him the walk out in the open, keep him with necessary provisions for a time. Sensible.

Edge only took enough for the day and carefully noted what remained so he would know if anyone else came scavenging. Monster food would not rot or spoil, but eventually, he was going to run out of rations.

He gathered up the day’s supplies into his knapsack and went back outside into the swirling snow. He didn’t follow his half-buried tracks back home, instead going around the outskirts of town along the perimeter. None of his traps were disturbed, there was no indication that anyone had traveled this way. Just as it had been yesterday and the day before and the day before that. No signs, no people, no other Monsters.

There was nothing in the woods but hungry shadows that beckoned and cajoled for him to join them. Come to us, they said, there is nothing left for you in that town but emptiness and death. Come with us into the swirling snow and listen to secrets that only the mountain knows.

Edge ignored their call. He stopped at the borders of Waterfall where the snow began to melt into sludge and turned back, heading into town along the main road. He was nearly home when he caught sight of something that stopped him in his tracks. A figure in a familiar orange hoodie was sitting on his front porch steps, casually disregarding of the signs to ‘keep out’ and ‘beware’ that were strung on the barbed wire fence around it. There was a lit cigarette in his hand and Edge watched him lift it to his mouth and take a long drag, the exhaled smoke lost in the falling snow.

He hitched his knapsack higher on his shoulder and resumed his stride. Stretch didn’t look at him as he approached. “hey.”

Edge said nothing.

“you’re still here,” Stretch said. He tapped ash from his cigarette, exposing burning red at the tip. “thought maybe you’d’ve headed into new home.” He tipped his head back and looked up at what was not sky, but the high ceiling of a cave deep beneath the mountain that was both their prison and their home. “might be other refugees there keeping ahead of—” He hesitated, then added in a voice like hollow ice, “the anomaly.”

The anomaly, yes. The Human child whose soul offered no salvation, only death and dust.

A child, that was what Edge saw in that one brief instant when he came upon them on the road leading into Snowdin. An innocent child, and in his shock, he didn’t consider how they’d gotten past the Dogs or the traps. He didn’t notice the dust coating their clothes, didn’t even notice the knife in their hand. All he saw was the striped shirt, the round, cherubic face and in that instant, he was so taken aback that he paused. That moment of hesitation was all it took.

If Edge saw them again, he wouldn’t hesitate to strike them down, Edge told himself. He would cut that angelic head from their striped shoulders with a single cutting blow and leave them dead where they stood, even knowing he would never get the answer to his one question.

Why didn’t you kill me?

He told himself that was what he would do the next time and knew it wasn’t true.

It never was.

Stretch finished his cigarette and flicked the butt into the snow. “doesn’t help much to know this,” Stretch sighed, “but what the hell. you’re gonna forget this all. one morning you’ll wake up and it’ll be an all-new day. you’ll forget everything, the kid, the pain.” His grimace twisted into a crooked smile. “you’ll even forget me, for a little while. silver linings, am i right?”

“Why are you here?” How many days had it been since he’d last spoken? Edge wasn’t certain, but to his hearing, his voice was harsh with disuse, painfully hoarse.

Stretch rolled his shoulders in an approximation of a hug. “checking in. no one’s heard from this ‘verse in a couple weeks. wasn’t too hard to figure out what was going down.”

Not a difficult guess at all, he was sure. They all knew about the resets, all of them. They knew an anomaly came and what it did, and the price Monsters paid for their hubris was death. He’d known what was coming, he’d been braced for it since his brother took him down to the basement and showed the machine, the path to the other worlds where skeletons with faces that resembled their own lived in towns that were not their home. Anomalies, they explained, resets where time flowed backwards and took memory with it.

He’d known and he’d still failed, failed, because he hadn’t expected death would come with the face of a child.

“Come inside.” Edge didn’t wait to see if Stretch followed.

Inside, Stretch paused on the doormat, glancing around the living room. “keeping the homestead clean, i see, i—whoa!”

His breath left him in a grunt as Edge took hold of his sweatshirt and swung him around, shoving him up against the closed door. The faces were inches apart as Edge gritted out, “Why are you here?”

There was no fear on Stretch’s face, only that same irritating smirk beneath a deadened gaze. “told you, wanted to check on you.” He shrugged again, this time tight and nervous. “no one else was gonna. no one’s real sure what’ll happen if the reset comes while someone from another ‘verse is in town. probably shouldn’t even be here, but, eh, guess i ain’t too bright.”

The question of what would happen if you were in a different universe when the reset occurred had been asked before and it was one without an answer. There was simply no way of knowing if anyone had already tested it. For all anyone knew, they might all once have had an elder brother who tested the theory and found the price was a high one. “You might be leaving your brother alone.”

“heh.” A soft laugh, but Stretch’s gaze shifted, moving to look past Edge at the wall on the other side. “ain’t like i’ve ever been able to save him, anyway.”

Edge didn’t step back, but he loosened his grip on Stretch’s sweatshirt, let him slide a little down until his feet were firm on the floor. “If you’re here to try to convince me to leave Underfell—"

“nah. wouldn’t do that to you. see, i’d ask and you’d say no but you’d feel bad about it.” Stretch shook his head. “nah, you already don’t want to travel, i’m not about to send you on a guilt trip. who’s to say it’s safer, anyway. maybe you’d come over to visit and when the reset hit here, it’d drag you back on home through time and space. not my idea of fun.”

“Is that why you’re here?” Edge demanded. “For fun? Come to see Underfell at its safest?” He stepped back enough to wave a hand towards the window as mockingly as Mettaton on their latest game show. “Please, feel free. Wander through the woods, stroll down main street. But I warn you, the scenery will disappoint. There’s nothing out there. I’ve looked. There’s no one, nothing.” His voice was rising, going shrill and Edge shut his mouth, teeth clicking together painfully.

Patiently, hinting at petulance, Stretch said, “i told you, came here to check on you. it’s hard to be the last one around, all you can do is sweep up, put the chairs on the table, and wait for them to turn the open sign on again.”

Edge searched his face. Their skulls were more malleable than simple bone, their magic gave them life and Stretch’s skull was creased from worry, wearing his exhaustion like a skin. Beneath his sockets were grey shadows that spoke of sleepless nights.

They’d never gotten along, he and Stretch. Something about the other skeleton grated on him past the fact that he despite his face, he was more like Red—

(don’t, don’t think about him, don’t)

--than Edge. Not his twin, but a reversal, a twisted mirror image come to visit from the other side of the looking glass.

Despite his smiles, right now he looked more like Edge than ever, blank and bone-weary.

There was nothing inside Edge. Even his soul was empty, its contents drained by loss, cold and bitter as the snow that danced as it fell.

Yet, deep in the dregs of soul’s ashes there was a single spark left, and Edge reached for it, desperate for any lingering warmth. He leaned up and kissed Stretch, their teeth grinding together almost painfully.

Between their mouths, Stretch made a startled sound, but he made no attempt to pull away. He stood there with his shoulders pressed to the door and let Edge take his mouth, their tongues meeting in a furious tangle. He tasted sweet and did not flinch from the jaggedness of Edge’s teeth, licking daringly at the points in a silent, mocking challenge.

The spark inside him flared, kindling caught, and Edge tore away, panting. Before Stretch could offer a word, taunting or otherwise, Edge took him by the wrist and dragged him stumblingly over to the sofa. He pushed Stretch down, bent him over the threadbare cushion of the arm. Tall as he was, if he’d chosen to struggle, it would have been difficult to pin him. Instead, he sagged willingly down against the sofa arm, let it angle his pelvis upward even as he shifted in a deliberate writhe of offering.

The gray that had haunted Edge’s vision for days receded, like a shroud pulled from over his sockets. He took hold of Stretch’s ridiculous, saggy pants and yanked them down to his ankles to rest on top of his dirty sneakers. Beneath them he was bare, his magic forming in his pelvis. The bright orange filled his sight to overflowing and the slit of his cunt glistened like a taunt.

Without warning, Edge pressed two careless fingers to the opening, slipping both inside and Stretch lurched under him, a strangled cry escaping him. He was merely damp, not nearly wet enough for what Edge intended.

He kept a hand at Stretch’s hip to hold him still and dropped to his knees to bury his face against those soft folds, pushing his tongue in alongside his fingers. A sudden buck nearly threw him off and Edge held him down more firmly, slicking his tongue up that cleft between his scissoring fingers, wetting him thoroughly. Stretch whimpered, shivering, his hips rocking back desperately against fingers and mouth both.

“oh, fuck,” Stretch whined. His breath came in ragged blurts, catching and resuming in a shattered cadence. “edge, your mouth…fuck!” His fingers were curled into the sofa cushion beneath his skull, gripping tightly as Edge pushed his tongue deeply inside, tasting a sudden blurt of honey-sweet wetness that allowed his fingers to move easier.

Slowly, Edge stood, letting his fingers slip free and wiping them on his pantleg. He stood there a moment, taking in the sight in front of him. The quiver in Stretch’s shoulders, the perfect arch of his spine beneath his rucked-up sweatshirt, his femurs spread as wide as his hobbling pants allowed. The shift of his hips was as eager as the wet pussy between them and wordlessly, Edge unzipped his trousers and pulled out his cock. He spit in his hand and spread the wetness on his shaft before lining up. He held there a moment, pussy lips parted around the broad head and the slippery opening clenching around it as if trying to suck him inside.

Over his own unsteady breathing was a constant stream of obscenity and begging, words spilling endlessly from Stretch. With a long, slow thrust, Edge pressed inside, ignoring Stretch’s increasingly desperate pleading and the urgent rise of his hips. When he was hilted inside, their pelvic girdles grazing against each other, Edge was forced to pause, closing his sockets at the unbearable intimacy of it. Edge couldn’t remember the last time he’d touched someone else, but it was before the anomaly (child) ever came here. Even the person he was closest to, his brother, never touched him, not since he was small and they curled up together to sleep, less affection and more to share their body warmth.

The slick tight heat surrounding his shaft was an overload to his touch deprivation, the rippling clench dragging a ragged cry from him as he tried not to come in an instant. Edge took a steading breath, licked his teeth and tasted his own sweat mingled with the sweetness of cunt, and only then did he move.

“nnngg, god!” Stretch sobbed out, his limp body battered against the sofa as Edge found a rhythm, pounding into him with a metronome-steady pace. His scant ectoflesh offered little cushion, their pelvic bones clacking together achingly. Edge ignored the discomfort, thrusting harder still and listening for protests that did not come.

Beneath him, Stretch covered his mouth with a hand, stifling himself even as he pleaded for more, for harder, fuck me harder, you bastard. His other struggled to reach beneath him, his skinny fingers briefly jabbing where they were joined as he sought out his clit. Edge felt it from within as he found it, the strangling clench of his cunt around him, and choked on a curse as he fucked in hard, his driving rhythm faltering, breaking, as orgasm struck him. He was empty inside, but he filled Stretch with the heat of his come, spilled in thick, hot pulses as Stretch whined and quivered, accepting his offering.

Withdrawing was difficult, made harder by both the spasming clutch of cunt and his own reluctance. In the end, Edge snatched himself free with the haste of someone (a child) pulling off a band-aid from a barely healed wound. He watched the crimson spill of his magic as it followed, wet streaks dripping down to paint the inside of Stretch’s femurs. Stretch didn’t move, his breathing still coming in hitched gasps as he laid in a half-crumpled drape over the sofa arm, his long legs still splayed, leaving him used and exposed.

Edge tugged his pants closed, his zipper loud in the silence. “You need to go.”

“heh.” Stretch stirred, his sockets slitting opened as he shifted enough to look over his shoulder. “kicking me out already? your afterglow sucks.”

“Be that as it may, you can’t be here when it resets.”

Perhaps something of the kindled spark in Edge transferred to Stretch somehow, in his kiss, in his come, in his words, he didn’t know which. There was some emotion in the smirk Stretch offered him, his gaze less empty as he asked, “worried about me, edgelord?”

“Yes.” The raw honesty was all he could muster.

Stretch exhaled, long and slow, turning his face briefly into the cushions where they’d all sat once, crowded together on the cushions to watch silly movies that were scavenged from the dump. With a low grunt, he slowly pushed up to his feet. He staggered and Edge caught him by the arm, holding him up as Stretch reached awkwardly for his pants, hauling them up over his stained femurs.

“yeah, i should probably go,” Stretch said. He didn’t move, his hands fluttering nervously to his pockets as if to reach for his cigarettes then aborting, moving aimlessly before returning to his pockets before repeating (resetting) again. “listen, you won’t remember this after and my memory is gonna get all smudgy again, but.” For one moment, Stretch’s gaze was entirely unshielded. Edge couldn’t decipher what he saw in his eyelights before he took reached out, taking hold of Edge’s face between both hands as he leaned in to kiss him, softly. A brief, gentle meeting of mouths still sore from the brutality of earlier, then he pulled away. “maybe we can do this again sometimes.” Unguarded eye lights above a crooked smile, then Stretch turned away as he added, carelessly. “hell, could be we already did.”

“Stretch.” He paused at the door, browbones raised, and Edge blurted out, “Do you think they remember what they’ve done? After a reset, do they know?”

A brief silence, then Stretch said, slowly, “to be honest? i’m not even sure it’s the same kid every time.” Stretch shrugged, a loose roll of his shoulders as if his ligaments still weren’t too tight. “maybe somewhere out there someone is sharing a controller. anyway, your bro should be sending ‘em back to the start menu soon enough.”

“Yes.” His brother. If he was still alive and don’t, don’t, don’t.

Stretch left without another word, the door closing softly behind him, and Edge gathered up his knapsack from where he’d dropped it to get his supplies.

He ate directly from the cans and tasted nothing.

Afterward, Edge curled up on the sofa that smelled of their sex, his cheekbone resting on the faded fabric close to the still-damp stains as he waited for the world to end or to begin again.

Whichever came first.

-fin