#...yeet them into one post...???

[eyrieofsynapses]

why Aurora's art is genius

It's break for me, and I've been meaning to sit down and read the Aurora webcomic (https://comicaurora.com/, @comicaurora on Tumblr) for quite a bit. So I did that over the last few days.

And… y'know. I can't actually say "I should've read this earlier," because otherwise I would've been up at 2:30-3am when I had responsibilities in the morning and I couldn't have properly enjoyed it, but. Holy shit guys THIS COMIC.

I intended to just do a generalized "hello this is all the things I love about this story," and I wrote a paragraph or two about art style. …and then another. And another. And I realized I needed to actually reference things so I would stop being too vague. I was reading the comic on my tablet or phone, because I wanted to stay curled up in my chair, but I type at a big monitor and so I saw more details… aaaaaand it turned into its own giant-ass post.

SO. Enjoy a few thousand words of me nerding out about this insanely cool art style and how fucking gorgeous this comic is? (There are screenshots, I promise it isn't just a wall of text.) In my defense, I just spent two semesters in graphic design classes focusing on the Adobe Suite, so… I get to be a nerd about pretty things…???

All positive feedback btw! No downers here. <3

---

I cannot emphasize enough how much I love the beautiful, simple stylistic method of drawing characters and figures. It is absolutely stunning and effortless and utterly graceful—it is so hard to capture the sheer beauty and fluidity of the human form in such a fashion. Even a simple outline of a character feels dynamic! It's gorgeous!

Though I do have a love-hate relationship with this, because my artistic side looks at that lovely simplicity, goes "I CAN DO THAT!" and then I sit down and go to the paper and realize that no, in fact, I cannot do that yet, because that simplicity is born of a hell of a lot of practice and understanding of bodies and actually is really hard to do. It's a very developed style that only looks simple because the artist knows what they're doing. The human body is hard to pull off, and this comic does so beautifully and makes it look effortless.

Also: line weight line weight line weight. It's especially important in simplified shapes and figures like this, and hoo boy is it used excellently. It's especially apparent the newer the pages get—I love watching that improvement over time—but with simpler figures and lines, you get nice light lines to emphasize both smaller details, like in the draping of clothing and the curls of hair—which, hello, yes—and thicker lines to emphasize bigger and more important details and silhouettes. It's the sort of thing that's essential to most illustrations, but I wanted to make a note of it because it's so vital to this art style.

THE USE OF LAYER BLENDING MODES OH MY GODS. (...uhhh, apologies to the people who don't know what that means, it's a digital art program thing? This article explains it for beginners.)

Bear with me, I just finished my second Photoshop course, I spent months and months working on projects with this shit so I see the genius use of Screen and/or its siblings (of which there are many—if I say "Screen" here, assume I mean the entire umbrella of Screen blending modes and possibly Overlay) and go nuts, but seriously it's so clever and also fucking gorgeous:

Firstly: the use of screened-on sound effect words over an action? A "CRACK" written over a branch and then put on Screen in glowy green so that it's subtle enough that it doesn't disrupt the visual flow, but still sticks out enough to make itself heard? Little "scritches" that are transparent where they're laid on without outlines to emphasize the sound without disrupting the underlying image? FUCK YES. I haven't seen this done literally anywhere else—granted, I haven't read a massive amount of comics, but I've read enough—and it is so clever and I adore it. Examples:

Secondly: The beautiful lighting effects. The curling leaves, all the magic, the various glowing eyes, the fog, the way it's all so vividly colored but doesn't burn your eyeballs out—a balance that's way harder to achieve than you'd think—and the soft glows around them, eeeee it's so pretty so pretty SO PRETTY. Not sure if some of these are Outer/Inner Glow/Shadow layer effects or if it's entirely hand-drawn, but major kudos either way; I can see the beautiful use of blending modes and I SALUTE YOUR GENIUS.

I keep looking at some of this stuff and go "is that a layer effect or is it done by hand?" Because you can make some similar things with the Satin layer effect in Photoshop (I don't know if other programs have this? I'm gonna have to find out since I won't have access to PS for much longer ;-;) that resembles some of the swirly inner bits on some of the lit effects, but I'm not sure if it is that or not. Or you could mask over textures? There's... many ways to do it.

If done by hand: oh my gods the patience, how. If done with layer effects: really clever work that knows how to stop said effects from looking wonky, because ugh those things get temperamental. If done with a layer of texture that's been masked over: very, very good masking work. No matter the method, pretty shimmers and swirly bits inside the bigger pretty swirls!

Next: The way color contrast is used! I will never be over the glowy green-on-black Primordial Life vibes when Alinua gets dropped into that… unconscious space?? with Life, for example, and the sharp contrast of vines and crack and branches and leaves against pitch black is just visually stunning. The way the roots sink into the ground and the three-dimensional sensation of it is particularly badass here:

Friggin. How does this imply depth like that. HOW. IT'S SO FREAKING COOL.

A huge point here is also color language and use! Everybody has their own particular shade, generally matching their eyes, magic, and personality, and I adore how this is used to make it clear who's talking or who's doing an action. That was especially apparent to me with Dainix and Falst in the caves—their colors are both fairly warm, but quite distinct, and I love how this clarifies who's doing what in panels with a lot of action from both of them. There is a particular bit that stuck out to me, so I dug up the panels (see this page and the following one https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-30/):

(Gods it looks even prettier now that I put it against a plain background. Also, appreciation to Falst for managing a bridal-carry midair, damn.)

The way that their colors MERGE here! And the immense attention to detail in doing so—Dainix is higher up than Falst is in the first panel, so Dainix's orange fades into Falst's orange at the base. The next panel has gold up top and orange on bottom; we can't really tell in that panel where each of them are, but that's carried over to the next panel—

—where we now see that Falst's position is raised above Dainix's due to the way he's carrying him. (Points for continuity!) And, of course, we see the little "huffs" flowing from orange to yellow over their heads (where Dainix's head is higher than Falst's) to merge the sound of their breathing, which is absurdly clever because it emphasizes to the viewer how we hear two sets of huffing overlaying each other, not one. Absolutely brilliant.

(A few other notes of appreciation to that panel: beautiful glows around them, the sparks, the jagged silhouette of the spider legs, the lovely colors that have no right to make the area around a spider corpse that pretty, the excellent texturing on the cave walls plus perspective, the way Falst's movements imply Dainix's hefty weight, the natural posing of the characters, their on-point expressions that convey exactly how fuckin terrifying everything is right now, the slight glows to their eyes, and also they're just handsome boys <3)

Next up: Rain!!!! So well done! It's subtle enough that it never ever disrupts the impact of the focal point, but evident enough you can tell! And more importantly: THE MIST OFF THE CHARACTERS. Rain does this irl, it has that little vapor that comes off you and makes that little misty effect that plays with lighting, it's so cool-looking and here it's used to such pretty effect!

One of the panel captions says something about it blurring out all the injuries on the characters but like THAT AIN'T TOO BIG OF A PROBLEM when it gets across the environmental vibes, and also that'd be how it would look in real life too so like… outside viewer's angle is the same as the characters', mostly? my point is: that's the environment!!! that's the vibes, that's the feel! It gets it across and it does so in the most pretty way possible!

And another thing re: rain, the use of it to establish perspective, particularly in panels like this—

—where we can tell we're looking down at Tynan due to the perspective on the rain and where it's pointing. Excellent. (Also, kudos for looking down and emphasizing how Tynan's losing his advantage—lovely use of visual storytelling.)

Additionally, the misting here:

We see it most heavily in the leftmost panel, where it's quite foggy as you would expect in a rainstorm, especially in an environment with a lot of heat, but it's also lightly powdered on in the following two panels and tends to follow light sources, which makes complete sense given how light bounces off particles in the air.

A major point of strength in these too is a thorough understanding of lighting, like rim lighting, the various hues and shades, and an intricate understanding of how light bounces off surfaces even when they're in shadow (we'll see a faint glow in spots where characters are half in shadow, but that's how it would work in real life, because of how light bounces around).

Bringing some of these points together: the fluidity of the lines in magic, and the way simple glowing lines are used to emphasize motion and the magic itself, is deeply clever. I'm basically pulling at random from panels and there's definitely even better examples, but here's one (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-16-33/):

First panel, listed in numbers because these build on each other:

The tension of the lines in Tess's magic here. This works on a couple levels: first, the way she's holding her fists, as if she's pulling a rope taut.

The way there's one primary line, emphasizing the rope feeling, accompanied by smaller ones.

The additional lines starbursting around her hands, to indicate the energy crackling in her hands and how she's doing a good bit more than just holding it. (That combined with the fists suggests some tension to the magic, too.) Also the variations in brightness, a feature you'll find in actual lightning. :D Additional kudos for how the lightning sparks and breaks off the metal of the sword.

A handful of miscellaneous notes on the second panel:

The reflection of the flames in Erin's typically dark blue eyes (which bears a remarkable resemblance to Dainix, incidentally—almost a thematic sort of parallel given Erin's using the same magic Dainix specializes in?)

The flowing of fabric in the wind and associated variation in the lineart

The way Erin's tattoos interact with the fire he's pulling to his hand

The way the rain overlays some of the fainter areas of fire (attention! to! detail! hell yeah!)

I could go on. I won't because this is a lot of writing already.

Third panel gets paragraphs, not bullets:

Erin's giant-ass "FWOOM" of fire there, and the way the outline of the word is puffy-edged and gradated to feel almost three-dimensional, plus once again using Screen or a variation on it so that the stars show up in the background. All this against that stunning plume of fire, which ripples and sparks so gorgeously, and the ending "om" of the onomatopoeia is emphasized incredibly brightly against that, adding to the punch of it and making the plume feel even brighter.

Also, once again, rain helping establish perspective, especially in how it's very angular in the left side of the panel and then slowly becomes more like a point to the right to indicate it's falling directly down on the viewer. Add in the bright, beautiful glow effects, fainter but no less important black lines beneath them to emphasize the sky and smoke and the like, and the stunningly beautiful lighting and gradated glows surrounding Erin plus the lightning jagging up at him from below, and you get one hell of an impactful panel right there. (And there is definitely more in there I could break down, this is just a lot already.)

And in general: The colors in this? Incredible. The blues and purples and oranges and golds compliment so well, and it's all so rich.

Like, seriously, just throughout the whole comic, the use of gradients, blending modes, color balance and hues, all the things, all the things, it makes for the most beautiful effects and glows and such a rich environment. There's a very distinct style to this comic in its simplified backgrounds (which I recognize are done partly because it's way easier and also backgrounds are so time-consuming dear gods but lemme say this) and vivid, smoothly drawn characters; the simplicity lets them come to the front and gives room for those beautiful, richly saturated focal points, letting the stylized designs of the magic and characters shine. The use of distinct silhouettes is insanely good. Honestly, complex backgrounds might run the risk of making everything too visually busy in this case. It's just, augh, so GORGEOUS.

Another bit, take a look at this page (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-15-28/):

It's not quite as evident here as it is in the next page, but this one does some other fun things so I'm grabbing it. Points:

Once again, using different colors to represent different character actions. The "WHAM" of Kendal hitting the ground is caused by Dainix's force, so it's orange (and kudos for doubling the word over to add a shake effect). But we see blue layered underneath, which could be an environmental choice, but might also be because it's Kendal, whose color is blue.

And speaking off, take a look at the right-most panel on top, where Kendal grabs the spear: his motion is, again, illustrated in bright blue, versus the atmospheric screened-on orange lines that point toward him around the whole panel (I'm sure these have a name, I think they might be more of a manga thing though and the only experience I have in manga is reading a bit of Fullmetal Alchemist). Those lines emphasize the weight of the spear being shoved at him, and their color tells us Dainix is responsible for it.

One of my all-time favorite effects in this comic is the way cracks manifest across Dainix's body to represent when he starts to lose control; it is utterly gorgeous and wonderfully thematic. These are more evident in the page before and after this one, but you get a decent idea here. I love the way they glow softly, the way the fire juuuust flickers through at the start and then becomes more evident over time, and the cracks feel so realistic, like his skin is made of pottery. Additional points for how fire begins to creep into his hair.

A small detail that's generally consistent across the comic, but which I want to make note of here because you can see it pretty well: Kendal's eyes glow about the same as the jewel in his sword, mirroring his connection to said sword and calling back to how the jewel became Vash's eye temporarily and thus was once Kendal's eye. You can always see this connection (though there might be some spots where this also changes in a symbolic manner; I went through it quickly on the first time around, so I'll pay more attention when I inevitably reread this), where Kendal's always got that little shine of blue in his eyes the same as the jewel. It's a beautiful visual parallel that encourages the reader to subconsciously link them together, especially since the lines used to illustrate character movements typically mirror their eye color. It's an extension of Kendal.

Did I mention how ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL the colors in this are?

Also, the mythological/legend-type scenes are illustrated in familiar style often used for that type of story, a simple and heavily symbolic two-dimensional cave-painting-like look. They are absolutely beautiful on many levels, employing simple, lovely gradients, slightly rougher and thicker lineart that is nonetheless smoothly beautiful, and working with clear silhouettes (a major strength of this art style, but also a strength in the comic overall). But in particular, I wanted to call attention to a particular thing (see this page https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-12-4/):

The flowing symbolic lineart surrounding each character. This is actually quite consistent across characters—see also Life's typical lines and how they curl:

What's particularly interesting here is how these symbols are often similar, but not the same. Vash's lines are always smooth, clean curls, often playing off each other and echoing one another like ripples in a pond. You'd think they'd look too similar to Life's—but they don't. Life's curl like vines, and they remain connected; where one curve might echo another but exist entirely detached from each other in Vash's, Life's lines still remain wound together, because vines are continuous and don't float around. :P

Tahraim's are less continuous, often breaking up with significantly smaller bits and pieces floating around like—of course—sparks, and come to sharper points. These are also constants: we see the vines repeated over and over in Alinua's dreams of Life, and the echoing ripples of Vash are consistent wherever we encounter him. Kendal's dream of the ghost citizens of the city of Vash in the last few chapters is filled with these rippling, echoing patterns, to beautiful effect (https://comicaurora.com/aurora/1-20-14/):

They ripple and spiral, often in long, sinuous curves, with smooth elegance. It reminds me a great deal of images of space and sine waves and the like. This establishes a definite feel to these different characters and their magic. And the thing is, that's not something that had to be done—the colors are good at emphasizing who's who. But it was done, and it adds a whole other dimension to the story. Whenever you're in a deity's domain, you know whose it is no matter the color.

Regarding that shape language, I wanted to make another note, too—Vash is sometimes described as chaotic and doing what he likes, which is interesting to me, because smooth, elegant curves and the color blue aren't generally associated with chaos. So while Vash might behave like that on the surface, I'm guessing he's got a lot more going on underneath; he's probably much more intentional in his actions than you'd think at a glance, and he is certainly quite caring with his city. The other thing is that this suits Kendal perfectly. He's a paragon character; he is kind, virtuous, and self-sacrificing, and often we see him aiming to calm others and keep them safe. Blue is such a good color for him. There is… probably more to this, but I'm not deep enough in yet to say.

And here's the thing: I'm only scratching the surface. There is so much more here I'm not covering (color palettes! outfits! character design! environment! the deities! so much more!) and a lot more I can't cover, because I don't have the experience; this is me as a hobbyist artist who happened to take a couple design classes because I wanted to. The art style to this comic is so clever and creative and beautiful, though, I just had to go off about it. <3

...brownie points for getting all the way down here? Have a cookie.

[harbingersecho]

READY AIM FIRE

[olessan]

HEWWO???

(source)

[koushuwu]

PRESENTING: HYUNA [insp]

[shadyvoidhologram]

I was laying in bed overthinking, as you do, and started to go on a depressive doom spiral. And then, to distract myself I started thinking about the things I like.

[Spoilers and some gross details incoming, you know what Mouthwashing is about]

So, eventually I started thinking about Curly being in a similar headspace as I was, laying down, incapable of doing anything, constantly in pain and hearing time and time again how quickly things are going to shit and that it's all your fault.

Him replaying his mistakes over and over on his head, imagining the many ways things could've gone a different way if only he had done something instead of ignoring the issues to "keep the peace".

Remembering every interaction that led to the accident, Anya's confession, his friends poorly disguised resentment, him ignoring and filtering details of his crew's mental state, her taking the gun, the notice, Jimmy.

Him being a coward and disguising his hate of confrontation with the guise of being a good friend.

And then comming back to reality, to is burning flesh. To the blood, shit and bile staining the bandages, robe and bed, to watching and hearing his friends suffer and die, unable to do anything.

When the kid dies, in the midst of all the emotional chaos, he feels some sick sense of relief knowing that probably Swansea will deal with both of them quickly and it'll be over at last.

Then Jimmy finds the gun.

And he can't help but laugh. He remembers the conversation they had and he cackles bitterly because not even in death can her wishes be respected. She trusted him and he failed her even after she was gone.

Soon enough it's just the two of them left.

Through muffled ears he hears Jimmy rambling, talking to himself, asking questions and answering right after, he sees him moving the bodies around. When Jimmy carries him from the infirmary to the common room table he's still as stone, not a sound leaves his mouth, he doesn't look at the bodies thrown on the chairs around the table, he doesn't even breathe.

But all of Jimmy's attention, hatred, idolatry, and envy are on him only. Eyes glossy, cut pieces of a one sided conversation and a tentative smile on his lips when he reaches for the slightly dented knife.

He screams until his lungs close and his throat burns. When he's fed parts of himself he cries and throws up until he is forced to swallow and keep it down.

He's dehidrated, half delirious from the blood loss and emotionally checked out when Jimmy picks him up and tells him they can still fix this, he knows what to do. That he's going home.

Sure, he thinks, he wants to go home.

When he's placed on the cryopod he just stares at Jimmy talk to himself at him some more, about being heroes and everything being all right now. Then he steps out of sight.

It's on the silence after the loud bang when his brain starts working again, he's completely and utterly alone on a crashed ship of a company that's closing it's doors, with a now depleted shipment that wasn't even important enough to guarantee a search party, and no way of fending for himself in the case of 20 years passing and no one coming, even less if the power gave out before that.

As the cryopod finally starts to cool, the few tears he has left fall from his remaining eye.

He hopes he doesn't wake up to see what happens next.

..ok see y'all when I wake up-

[moongothic]

...I... I do not know what on earth compelled me to make this nor why, but I will not be taking criticism at this time

[daphnalia]

i have made so many drawings of yeet and killa and the worst part is that NO ONE WANTS TO SEE THEM ARHEHAA🗣️🗣️💥

but anyways when have i ever cared about that

[spaceyderg]

Venom being curious on what Miguel's LED suit tastes like 🤔

[floralstorms]

Oh yea... Posting stuff. I forgot. Well. I'll start with this Ig. Probably going to post the rest chronologically (oldest to newest) too, at some point that I'll try to make sooner than ..not

[winepresswrath]

Oh so you are one of the jiang' soupbot' yanli who will throw jiang cheng under the bus for little xianxian. Cool

this like the time someone accused me of only caring about Wei Wuxian's feelings. thank you for the laugh anon but also are you lost.

[babacontainsmultitudes]

So I made this post a little while ago regarding dndads characters and the tma entities and didn't really include any explanations cause that would have been very very long for a somewhat niche post. But, if you'll humor me, I feel compelled to make the quickest case for Vast! Taylor cause I'm thinking about him lol, and specifically without even getting into personality traits, I just want to point to Taylor's track record and note that he (off the top of my head):

Climbed to the top of the tallest tree he could find and shot a clone of himself off of it

Had to be physically held back from jumping off the highest floor of a twelve story building

Did a high-dive into an ocean of paper and abandoned Normal in said ocean of paper.

Had the chance to at least partially spare Scary from the damage of a very high fall. Didn't.

Submitting this as evidence to the court, people of the jury thank you for your time.

[demon-of-the-ancient-world]

Athelstan would be the kind of person who Never Gets Sick and is always kinda smug about it until he does actually and is down for the count for like 2 weeks and he feels like a corpse he Is Not Happy

[moongothic]

It is interesting though 'cause, since we have no fucking True Clue what the hell Crocodile's actual real End Goal with Cross Guild is right now (does he want to get One Piece and fight the Strawhats+Shanks, does he want to get Pluton from Wano (and/)or does he want to destroy the World Government?? We don't know), that we just have a fuck ton of theories on what could happen, but no way to really tell what the actual direction this entire plot thread is going to be

And one I've seen a lot of people suggest was Cross Guild recruiting more of the former (/OG) Shichibukai into their ranks

And I just find that idea so fucking interesting

Because this is where one needs to remember that Oda based the OG Shichibukai on the Seven Heroes from Romancing SaGa 2. The Seven Heroes were a legendary group who once in the past saved the world from a great evil (before disappearing and turning into an evil for the game's protags to defeat). Just reading the descriptions you can see how each of the OG Shichibukai match up to one of the heroes respectively. And the inspo would be fine and dandy by itself, like just some fun trivia about what inspired Oda. But the Seven Heroes were specifically created and lead by Wagnas, with Noel as his right-hand. Wagnas happens to be the character Crocodile matches up with, and Mihawk just happens to match up with Noel. And here we have Crocodile starting a new organization with Mihawk by his side, with unknown true goals. And we do have that one World Government that needs to get overthrown so the world can be "saved". So like.

Suddenly, the idea that Cross Guild could recruit some of the other former Shichibukai (to maybe help take down the World Government?) doesn't sound too out-landish at all

Especially because Moria alone is already like an actual contender for someone who could maybe join Cross Guild. Like, assuming he's alive and made it out of Fullalead with Perona. 'Cause with Absalom dead and Hogback gone with the wind, Moria should have like nothing else left but himself and Perona. And while knowing Moria he's going to be Very Happy about reuniting with Perona, like... where's he gonna go? What's he gonna do if the two escaped Fullalead? But because Perona and Mihawk already know each other, Perona could very easily become a bridge to getting Moria with CG, especially if he's still wounded etc from the escape, Perona would want her boss' to survive and she'd trust Mihawk to help probably. And god knows, if Blackbeard tried or even succeeded at stealing Moria's Fruit, the man could have some legit good intel on Blackbeard (and how he steals powers) that he could then share with CG, something Crocodile could appreciate. Also, if Crocodile and Mihawk want to ensure the Marines are too scared to come after them, getting Moria in their ranks would help with that.

Then there's Kuma. And. Well. Assuming Kuma doesn't kick the bucket in the next few chapters. If Kuma is still somehow alive and his soul/memories can be put into a body (some people have been suggesting his memories could be implanted maybe into a Pacifista or that giant robot on Egghead or maybe even his Seraphim, or maybe just memories could be returned back into his original body), and if he'll still have the ability to near-instantly travel across the planet then I'm putting my money on him returning to the Revolutionaries to be honest. But if he loses that ability, I don't think he's going to be sticking with the Strawhats to be honest. That said, he'll still need somewhere to go (with Bonney?), and with the rest of the Revs on the other side of the Grand Line... Cross Guild could, potentially, be the nearest, safest place for him, if for no other reason than the other former Shichibukai might be his safest bet right now. Especially if Crocodile ever did have any involvement with the Revolutionaries. But indeed, this assumes Kuma isn't Turbo Perma-Dead Forever, which remains to be seen.

I know a lot of people love Doflamingo and would love to see him back. Personally I want him to stay in jail, where he deserves to be. <3 Also I don't think Crocodile would ever want Doflamingo working for him, let alone go out of his way to travel to Paradise to let him out (though if they did, they could also release Weevil while at it, since he's also stuck in Impel Down) (But honestly, unless someone else goes to break Weevil out and Doflamingo just escapes while he's at it, don't think he's getting out)

Quick honorable mention to Law, since he is also a Former Shichibukai. His crew got nuked by Blackbeard but I doubt he'd join Crocodile and Mihawk for any reason, especially if he's still in the race for One Piece (assuming Cross Guild isn't) (Like Buggy is but Buggy might skedaddle for all we know)

But with the Shichibukai, this just leaves us with Hancock.

Thing is, last we saw her she was still in Paradise, wanting to reunite with Luffy. It is entirely plausible she could (or may already have) set out for the New World if she feels like she has to leave Amazon Lily to protect her home-- which she might have to, considdering without her warlord status the Government has gone after her. But indeed, if Hancock is on the run and heading to the New World, surely she'd want to find Luffy. So why would she ever join Cross Guild? She doesn't like men (aside from Luffy), so surely she wouldn't trust that disaster crew with a clown for a mascot. But again. This is where "what the fuck is Crocodile's end goal" comes in again. Because if he wants to destroy the World Government and wreck the Nobles' out of orbit... Well. I don't think convincing Hancock to go back to the place where she was kept in slavery for years would be easy. But also. Perhaps, just perhaps, she could be persuaded into committing some delicious revenge under the right circumstances (whatever that might be).

IDK man, there's potential here, things could get so interesting with Cross Guild and whatever the fuck Crocodile is planning (vs how Buggy's mutiny rolls out)

It is kind of funny though, how like the best case scenario for Cross Guild Shichibukai Reunion would be like. Kuma and his daughter. Moria, Mihawk and their collective daughter. Crocodad and his sharp boyfriend. And Luffy's wannabe fiancée. (The clown is optional)

[daphnalia]

she could and would 1v1 willy stampler

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

old sketch i found! ofc Zevran is the one who does Kala's tats lol

[randomnameless]

Does that mean Mercie and Supreme Leader could be distant cousins potentially? Guess it might be an idea in that 10000 year lore.

You have no idea how many cans of worm this AU opens anon -

AU where Dimi marries Mercie, and the resulting Blaiddyd heir has... a crest of Seiros :(

No one understands why, maybe it's a Hresvelg curse for destroying Adrestia?

With time, the Crest of Seiros is known as the Crest of Hresvelg (to Rhea's chagrin) and is now seen, in the Kingdom's folk legends, as a curse that befell humanity when it became too greedy.

AU where it's Papa Martritz's line that is a branch line from the Hresvelg House -

Ionius not managing to roll for crested heirs with his different wives jumped on the occasion to destroy House Martritz (even if it has a heir! in the over, but it exists still!) and put an end to eventual pretenders to the Imperial throne, if his "lady friends" can't give him an adequate crested heir :(

And even if the baby survives, it has a chance of not getting a crest of Seiros, and by virtue of not being a noble born baby, people might believe it's just a random bastard and not a legitimate threat to his dynasty

(Imagine if Baron Bartels got his seiros crested bby with Mercie though - hopefully, Emile made sure that plan would never see fruition!)

Ultimate combination AU : Mercie and Emile can tolerate Zanado fruits

Just like Constance!

Somehow, before being turned in a pincushion, lizard!Lycaon befriended Lamine's 9th daughter, who returned North when he "suddenly died" and Hildegard I (who descends from Willy's human children, the ones he got when he had his crest but from human women!) took his succession.

The resulting kid had no pointy ears but was "human passing" enough (only 1/4th Nabatean!), then said kid got kids - sometimes with a crest of Seiros, sometimes with the crest of Lamine - and their kids got kids - and they ended up in Adrestia, becoming Mercie's mom family.

Mercie will notice something strange because her parents recipe (that was influenced by her mom's cooking) always featured putting slices of fruit in the shape of a star on his various cupcakes - but then, those disgusting fruits Flayn, Seteth and even Lady Rhea nibble on occasion, when sliced, look like stars ? Granted, she never tried to eat any since everyone knows they're inedible! She tried to put a slice on a cupcake and ate it, to Annette and Dedue's surprise, she didn't threw up like everyone else, nor collapsed, even if Annette scolded her "Mercie, what are you even doing?! Those things can't be eaten!"

Overhearing Mercie's recipe history, Seteth frowns like never before - Lycaon used to hold hands with a scion of Lamine who joined their side (he told Seiros the Warrior to watch out because he was too young to hold hands, she ignored him, again!).

This will make Billy start to question themselves, if Rhea considered Mother like her daughter, and Mercedes is the child of the child of the child of the child (etc) of Rhea's son, is Mercedes their sort of nephew?