#Actually really surprised how good that joke comic turned out

[alicornze7]

-EMERGENCY INTERRUPTION POST/hj-

idc if it’s 4 days late have this April Fools special!!

this took longer than it should but it’s more of a treat for myself so win-win

I don't actually have an official persona so have this lil’ guy I made in 6th grade instead (he's gonna represent me until I design my actual sona)

Close-ups :

this drawing single-handedly destroyed my workflow

-we will return to our regular posting schedule shortly-

[gallavichsreddie1128]

Like You Deserve (Wolverine)

Description: Y/N wants to dom Logan

Warning: Smut

Word Count: 2,032k

Request: What about sub Logan smut?

Wade and Y/N had lots in common but one thing that stood out against the others was that they both wanted to Dom Logan ... .well Wade was never going to get the chance, Y/N made it her destiny to. Logan wouldn’t swallow his pride easy but Y/N saw the looks that he gave her when he thought she wouldn’t notice. Her suit was like deadpool but sexier so her whole body was on display for him to gawk at. What better way to get Logan to agree to submission than a party?

Wade of course threw the party and Logan was trying to cut back on the drinking so he wasn’t drinking anything that could affect this experience. Y/N decided not to drink anything either so it left them as the only 2 sober people at the party. “How much you wanna bet that Wade’s gonna try to fuck Vanessa tonight?” Logan asked. Y/N looked at him, “With her boyfriend right next to her? Yeah probably.” They watched as Wade tried so hard not to flirt with her in front of her boyfriend. “Yeah I can’t watch this.” Logan cringed and stood up. Y/N stood up as well, “We can go somewhere quiet and chat.” She offered. 

Her bedroom was everything he thought it would be. It was all types of movies and comics, her room smelled so nice thanks to the candle she lit beforehand. Almost as if She had planned this. “So is there a reason you aren’t drinking?” He asked her. She usually drank at parties but today she wasn’t and he found that odd. “Just wanted to take a break.” “Bullshit.” She looked at him, surprised.

“There’s an actual reason you aren’t drinking.” She sighed, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” She said. He turned his whole body towards her while laying on her bed. “Hit me.” She wanted to be like Wade and actually hit him rather than tell him. “You would certainly get it out of me drunk.” She said and looked over at him. “Or you could just tell me.” She shook her head, “I can’t believe you’re gonna make me say it.” She whined.

He got off the bed, “Fine then don’t. I’ll leave.” He said and went to leave her room. “I wanna fuck you.” She blurts out. He steps dead in his tracks and turns to look at her, “That’s it?” What did he mean by that? “Well I mean that literally. I wanna fuck YOU.” “You wanna be in control?” He asked as if she was joking. She nodded and her face got really red. “Yeah as hot as you are, No.” He said and she stood up. “You won’t let me dominate you? You don’t think that would be hot?” She asked. “Our first time fucking isn’t going to be you in control. It’s gonna be pounding into you like you deserve.” He said to her.

A few months later Y/N was handcuffing him to the bed, “What was it that you said to me before we got together? You wanted to fuck me like I deserve? Well baby boy I wanna fuck you like you deserve.” She purred and got off the bed to see him. He tried to hide his hatred for being chained up.

Y/N stared at his abs and muscles that were on full display for her to see. “Gosh baby you have such a perfect body.” She said and walked and started tracing his abs. They were perfect and hairy. “I just wanna hump every inch of you.” She purrs and he tenses up at her touches and words. Her fingers travel to his hard on that was clothed. It was the only part of him that was clothed.

The second her fingers traced over his hard on he hissed. “I barely touched you baby.” She teased and gripped him. He held back a pathetic moan of need as her tiny held what she could. She leaned down and licked up his abs making his breathing heavier. “Mmm you taste so good.” She said and took off her clothes. His eyes widened at her naked body as if he had never seen it before. He had tons of times but it never failed to amaze him.

Once she was naked she took her panties that were wet and shoved them in his mouth. “Just a little taste for later.” She winks at him. She straddles his body and moves up to his abs. They were hard and perfect for what she was about to do. She gasps as she runs her wet pussy over his abs getting them wet. He watched as she did this slowly teasing him but herself too. Each time her clit touched his abs she moaned a little louder each time. He wished that he could just take a hold over her and fuck her on his abs but he couldn’t.

It was long after that she was tired of teasing herself and started humping his abs fully. Her hands placed on his chest as she got a steady rhythm going. His eyes were glued to her face as he watched her pleasureful expressions. Her body thrusted against his as she gasped and moaned. “Fuck for so long I’ve dreamt and humped my pillow just imagining your abs.” She whined as the bed shook with her thrusts. He moans against the panties at her words. She removes her panties from his mouth and puts them in hers as she continues to ride him. “Fuck baby girl you look so hot.” He groans and her head falls back. The panties fall from her mouth as her jaw drops from how close she is. “Baby please wait and cum on my cock or my face. I don’t care.” He was begging. Something she never thought he would do. His abs felt amazing but his dick would feel better. She stops her humping and throws her panties somewhere in the room.

With wobbly legs she stands up and pulls down his boxers. His hard dick is leaking at the tip and begging to be touched. He was so big and each time she was still nervous about his size. She crawled back on him and took his dick in her hand. Though her hand couldn’t wrap all the way around it, it still felt good. Fuck it felt amazing to him. Her hands were like silk and he loved the feeling of them on him. He groaned and threw his hand as she started jerking him off, “That feel good bub?” She asked, teasing him and mocking his pet name for everyone. “Fuck darlin’ your hand is amazing but you’re pussy is better.” She giggled at his words. Fucking giggled. He loved that sound more than anything.

“Or I could make you cum so many times. Milking you dry.” She said and his eyes rolled at her answer. “I have you exactly where I want you Logan. I need to take advantage of that.” Her hand was speeding up the pace. His hips bucked up until her hand as he groaned. “The first time I cum has to be in that pretty little cunt. I won’t accept it any other way.” He grunts and she laughs. “Oh you won’t? I don’t think you have much say in where you’re cumming.” She says and speeds up her hand. He was so close to his orgasm but he didn’t want to cum like that.

“No fuck please let me cum in your pussy.” He begged her. There he was again, begging her. Her hand stops, “You’re very lucky that I wanna cum all over your cock.” She says and moves to position herself. She rubs his tip all over her pussy making them both gasp. “Let me inside please.” “Impatient little thing aren’t ya Wolvy? You’ll get what you want.” He was by no means little but that wasn’t what he was focused on. She was teasing him and it was starting to hurt. Before he could beg anymore she finally took him in and oh did it feel amazing. Her pussy swallowed him whole and he loved every second of her taking him in with caution.

Her jaw dropped as he ripped her open like it was the first time. Both of them are already edged and ready to go. Her pussy was leaking around him. His eyes couldn’t leave the sight of her taking him in until he was gone. “Fuck you’re so big.” She whined and let herself adjust to him. Though he was being an impatient fuck and thrusted up into her causing her to moan loudly. He smirked at her reaction but the glare that was present on her face told him he was in trouble. “You weren’t supposed to do that Wolvy.” She said and if it wasn’t for the fact that every time they had sex she had to adjust to him she would have gotten off him.

“Please baby. I need you to fuck me.” Oh wow. The begging was one thing but to tell her to fuck him. He had lost it, truly. She let herself slowly grind on his dick and even though he was whiny and telling her to stop teasing him, she enjoyed it. “I would be pounding into you now.” He groaned and she laughed. “I have never seen you so whiny and bratty. It’s almost like that’s why I’m doing it.” She started riding him a little faster. He wanted so bad to grip her hips and drag her on his cock. She could tell that he wasn’t happy with her pace but he was deep in her and hitting spots that even without him “ramming�� into her, it still felt good.

She could cum from this pace but Logan needed more. Her head fell back and she let out little moans as her hips sped up a little more but not much. “You’re so deep.” She gasped out. He started growling like an animal and she looked down at him. “Aww baby is this not good enough for you?” She asked with a fake pout and sighed. “You’re lucky that I wanna cum.” She said before dragging herself on his dick and riding him the way he wants. “Fuck yes.” He groans, loudly. She whined his name and placed both her hands on his chest. His eyes never left her fucked out face.

“You’re so fucking pretty baby.” He groaned and if she could she would roll her eyes at him. He wanted her to let him touch her. “Let me mark you baby please.” He begged and she was high on pleasure to care so she stopped and grabbed the keys to the cuffs and undid them. The second his hands were free he gripped her hips and dragged her on his cock so fast it took her breath away. “Yeah that’s it baby. Fuck you look so good on top.” He praised her and her pussy fluttered around him at that.

He chuckled, “Yeah you like that? I know she did.” He looked down at her pussy that looked so full of his cock. “Logan fuck if you keep talking like that I’m gonna cum.” She whined. “That’s the point baby.” She felt herself on the edge but she wanted him to cum first. “Logan I need you to cum first baby.” “Never. My woman will always cum before me.” He groans and holds himself back. “Cum for me darlin’ drench my cock.” She gasped and let out a loud moan of his name as she orgasmed all over him.

He bit his lip and followed right after her. “Fuck baby.” She cried as she rode out her orgasm. His eyes never left her face to see how fucking pretty she looked as she came all over him. She collapsed on his chest and he hugged her. “You did so good, baby. You made me feel so good.” He said out of breath. She yawned and closed her eyes, “I love you Logan. Thanks for that.” He smiled and kissed her head, “Love you too bub.”

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #28 – The Dead Take The A Train by Cassandra Khaw and Richard Kadrey

Oh I wanted to love this book so very much. On paper it’s basically made for me – incredibly messy fuckup of a heroine, cosmic horror through the idiom of wall street corporate sharks, grimy and gory urban fantasy full of knifing people in back alleys, the works! For the first fifty pages or so, I thought I was in love – which just made the disappointment as the wheels came off all the more bitter.

The book follows Julie, ‘barbed wire magician’ (it’s at least as unpleasant as it sounds), professional monster hunter, and all-around personal disaster. Her life takes a turn for the even messier when a) her best friend/comically oversized unresolved crush shows up at her door begging for help running from her abusive husband and b) unrelatededly but more or less simultaneously, her ex-partner-and-also-boyfriend, looking up to clean up embarrassing loose ends on his rise up the elldritch corporate ladder, baits her into trying to summon a guardian angel from a sabotaged tome and ends up releasing a metaphysical parasite that starts murdering its way through the city’s occult underground. From there things just get messier.

Drilling down as much as I can, my issues with this can be summed up as it feels like a first draft. There’s stuff there on the page – character arcs, relationships, bits of scenery and action setpieces, even themes! - but it’s all just..there. Exaggerated line sketches no one ever went back and turned into full illustrations. It’s most painful with the characters – every one of them is a caricature, precisely and exactly what they first appear to be with the same beats hit again and again every single time they appear on screen. Which more or less for the quirky supporting cast but like – we get multiple chapters from the perspective of the aforementioned abusive husband, and something like a fifth of the book is from the POV of the sleazy corporate striver ex. At no point does either one get the slightest bit of nuance or pathos – Tyler’s chapters in particular end up reading like bad SCP field reports, with so much self-destructive instituional backstabbing and betrayal it all ends up being slapstick.

Sarah the love interest gets a special anti-shout-out here. Like, I know I’m just picky about and have a low tolerance for romances, but I swear – the single most important dynamic in the book in terms of both wordcount and narrative signposting is her and Julie’s romance, and it is just So. Bad. Every single scene she’s in is dedicated to rubbing your face in how fragile and traumatized and selfless and adorable and good-hearted and damaged she is, and the entirety of the romance is essentially one of those jokes about how lesbians will spend six years living with each other awkwardly waiting for the other to ask them out but stretched across 400 pages. I spent half the book patiently waiting for any hint of hidden depths or surprising twists to her character, but nope! Just a perfect domestic angel.

The setting actually has something of a similar issue. It feels like an exaggerated pastiche of urban fantasy, assuming the reader is already familiar with all the tropes and conceits and making only the most perfunctory possible gestures towards exploring or justifying them. This can absolutely work, but if you’re doing it you kind of need to use the genre as the background or setup for something else that the book is actually about – deconstruction or satire or character study or Wacky Hijinks or something. When what’s gruesome action and drama is supposed to be the star attraction, the grounding and verisimilitude of the world is actually pretty key.

A really tight, tense plot could have absolutely redeemed the whole but, well, nope. The literal entire plot hinges on Tyler, in the course of one conversation several drinks in at a crowded bar, baiting Julie into looking for a particular type of tome from a particular store so she’ll try the ritual he had swapped out with one to curse her – but then also that he didn’t know what the ritual he swapped in actually did. The big evil wall street law firm has a corporate culture that should have collapsed about 48 hours after it was founded, and absolutely nothing about it makes sense for a place with lasting institutional power. Everyone’s morality and perceptiveness changes as the plot requires. The pacing feels like they had to pull a happy ending out of their asses at the 2/3 mark and shove the rest of the book into a sequel. It’s just, it’s bad!

Also the prose starts at fun and evocative and keeps pushing into Lovecraftian levels of adjective-addiction, and neither the A-Train nor the dead are actually at all important to the story.

Just, argh. This could have been good! The first 40 pages were a really fun schlocky monster-of-the-week story! The first ritual summoning the Proctor was basically perfect! I wanted to love this!

[smorbee]

iBook Pyramid Behind the scenes!

This is a long one. Also keep in mind we made this a year ago so were going completely off of memory at this point BUT we do have the files. Unfortunately we didn't save specific versions of it really early into its creation so all the blender files close to being finished.

We have an intense appreciation for funky old computers. People correctly identified inspiration from the Thinkpad 701C. Less obvious in the final design but something that almost certainly influenced us as well was the 12-inch powerbook g4.

There is something very satisfying about nearly-square shaped laptops.

Others mentioned the JVC 3100R pyramid TV which, you'll be surprised to learn, we had never actually seen until after working on this project. The resemblance is uncanny and yet, entirely coincidental. Honestly if we had seen this thing, it probably would have had an effect on our design because the way that hinge is set up is beautiful. Our thought process was simply just comically emulating the form factor of a modern laptop but with a giant CRT.

We're pretty sure the idea started out as simply wanting to design a full profile keyboard into a macbook-like laptop because funny, and at some point the butterfly keyboard came to mind and we said Screw it and implemented that into it as well. Heres the keyboard separated into the different sections.

Sorry to say that the keyboard does not actually contain any switches. (You'll see that this computer was modeled to be viewed a limited angle)

Heres the keyboard from the top.

Once we got going with it, the whole thing was turned into a big joke of course, clashing many different eras of technology into one. Such as this massive beige tank of a "laptop" having a single USB C port as its main I/O.

And same with the software. This is the texture for the display, Which was taken from our real (unfortunately not crt based) macbook setup at the time. Except not quite, as the original screenshot was 16:10. We simply edited the image to make it 4:3. This is running mac os 12 with a majority of the icons changed to early osx equivalents.

We'll be real and admit the animation is not very intricate, theres no real "rig" for the model, parts are just parented together because we did all this in about 2 days. That said, we had loads of fun animating it still, trying to imitate the motion of someone struggling to lift the heavy top up before it swings open with an inaudible, but easily imaginable "Thud". Making the whole body shake and the trackball jump slightly was the finishing touch to make it complete.

The wire for the trackball was made using a circle with the screw modifier and then applied to a curve. Here's what it looks like with each modifier applied sequentially.

And then making the trackball itself a handle for the curve, we can have the cable be dynamic. (Yes, we notice that the trackball in fact has no mouse buttons. No good explanation for that, I think we just forgot lmao.)

For the screen, we make use of a location transform on the UV mapping for the satisfying detail of the screen distorting from the impact, which we swear we've seen before but no matter how hard we (safely) bumped our CRT monitor we weren't able to recreate it. Nonetheless even if its not entirely realistic we wouldn't remove it for anything.

speaking of which, an utterly useless detail considering the resolution and distortion of the final renders and yet we added anyways just for our own amusement is that the display has a shadowmask, simply done by just multiplying it over the base screen texture.

Combined with a glass material over the inner part of the screen, it utterly destroys low sample count renders of the screen and makes the project at least 3x as prone to crashing so thats cool! (it crashed on us while we were writing this section)

We've learned since in future projects that trying to optimize polygon count and materials is still very important even for offline rendered content. We can never be truly free from the constraints of memory limitations 😔

the final step was getting a more authentic less "polished" look in the compositing. This step can get very complicated based on the specific look were going for, but for this render its really just basic color correction and some blurring and sharpening steps. We used the default fake jitter node in blender at the time, though in more recent stuff we use the non-denoised image with filters applied to it instead, so its less uniform between images and more uniquely degraded looking.

Though we'd do a number of things differently now were still pleased with the final result. especially in animated form.

Heres an overview of the scene:

This is the bezeled apple logo in polygon form. Its simply an alpha texture with a normal map:

Thats all for now! Thank you for reading!

[studentinpursuitofclouds]

hello! o/

not sure if you're still taking requests, but if so, i'd love to req. the bachelors with an artist s/o!

thank you for your time either way!<3

Finally! My reblog of that anon summoning post actually work- I mean hi, anon! 👋 Yes, I'm still taking requests ☺️

I hope you don't mind if I write about SVE bachelors too. If you don't know about SVE mod, don't worry, I'll separate the bachelors' answer to vanilla game and Stardew valley expanded mod so you don't confuse them.

Thanks for the ask! Enjoy!

Stardew Valley Bachelors with artist!Farmer s/o:

Alex:

Alex knows that his partner is incredibly talented, so he wasn't surprised when he found out that the Farmer turned out to be a great artist. Another fact about Alex's partner, he will tell everyone and brag about how good his s/o is.

Sometimes he will joke that the Farmer pays so much attention to the object of drawing that he can even become jealous.

Alex doesn't hesitate to flex in front of the Farmer, showing his muscles and giving them a reason to draw him in all his glory.

Despite his pride, he blushes a little when he sees how beautifully his s/o drew Alex. Comment from s/o that in reality Alex will always be prettier anyway will turn the athlete into a tomato.

He really likes your summer seascapes.

It still remains a mystery to him how s/o manages to combine farming and painting at the same time.

Alex always supports your hobby, even if he doesn't understand some types of art like abstractionism.

Sam:

Wow, he didn't know that they draw so well, it's so cool!

Constantly asks for permission to look at the Farmer's sketchbook, if they don't mind of course.

Sam will be delighted with how beautifully and in detail his s/o draws the characters of his favorite comics and video games.

Sometimes Sam will ask Farmer to draw something funny on his hand. It looks like a beautiful tattoo. Jodi politely asks the Farmer to stop drawing in her eldest son's arms, as Sam refuses to wash his hands before eating, afraid to wipe the drawing off his skin.

He will hang all their drawings on the wall to admire during relaxation or musical rehearsal.

Some drawings he will keep in a special box as a treasure.

Please don't show him food and drink still lifes - their s/o paints food so beautifully and believably that he immediately wants to eat something. He laughs at Farmer's joke when they warn Sam not to inadvertently eat the painting itself.

Sebastian:

Cool

His s/o is full of mysteries and talents, isn't it?

Sebby will be interested to hear how and when exactly the Farmer began to get involved in drawing.

He'll be pleasantly surprised if his s/o shows him a science fiction comic they've drawn. If the Farmer wants to publish the comic and concept art on the Internet, then Sebastian will create a dedicated site for their publication.

His entire monitor is plastered with stickers drawn by his s/o in the form of cute frogs. No matter how many times Abigail and Sam tease him about it, he will not remove the stickers.

If the Farmer draws digital arts, Sebastian will always put them on the desktop of his computer.

For their s/o birthday, Sebby will give them a nice electronic sketchbook.

Sebastian sometimes gets nervous when Robin comes into his room, because he is afraid that his mother will accidentally throw out one of his s/o drawings. Robin seems to know that the drawing on Sebastian's desk should not be touched, but Sebby still sometimes hides them in the table, just in case.

Elliott:

Marvelous! Wonderful! Elliott didn't expect to meet another creative soul. The valley is indeed full of talented people!

Even the most ordinary sketch, which, according to his own s/o, is unremarkable, Elliott keeps as the apple of the Eye.

He will be happy if the Farmer offers to draw illustrations for his new novel he's writing.

While he is touring for his another book signing, Elliott will search for handmade sketchbooks and expensive paint sets as gifts for his precious s/o.

Elliott loves how beautifully they portray the landscape of their farm. He will hang this picture in a beautiful frame on the wall in the most prominent place in the house.

One day, after a few strong drinks, he will jokingly offer s/o to draw him half-naked. The poor writer will immediately blush if the Farmer seriously agrees to this idea. The portrait came out beautiful, but they both decided to keep the painting a secret. There are some paintings that are not created for prying eyes.

Elliott will put up a new closet in his room for all his s/o paintings, drawings, and creative figures.

Harvey:

Harvey isn't surprised when Farmer says they can draw. They are talented in everything they undertake.

Harvey is used to their doodles on his workbook and notes. The Farmer in the clinic is a frequent visitor, and sometimes they cannot restrain their creative impulse. Harvey doesn't mind, but please don't draw in his documents!

Every time s/o fills Harvey's lunch box for him at work, they leaves notes with cute and motivating drawings. Today is a note with a pun, tomorrow it is a painted kitten in a cup that wish Harvey a good day. Harvey smiles warmly every time at the sight of such small messages from his loved one, which set him up in a good mood.

He constantly massages his s/o hands when they starts to ache from frequent drawings and farm work. No hard work today, doctor's order!

Was very surprised when he found a whole stack of papers with sketches of his portrait. The Farmer says that Harvey is his main muse, so there is nothing to be surprised about.

He is amazed at how accurately they draw model aircraft.

A little embarrassed when his s/o asks him to pose for a portrait. The Farmer tells him to just be himself the way the Farmer loves him, and Harvey relaxes, once again noting how talented his s/o is.

Shane:

Heh, neat.

"Can you draw a dick on the wall at Joja Market?"

Shane please

He constantly smiles when his s/o shows him a book of sketches. Shane could listen to them forever.

Shane himself is not a fan of great art, but will listen with interest to the Farmer about different styles of drawing.

Stickers and funny pictures with farm animals are his favorites. He especially likes how they drew cute chickens.

What, this chicken sticker was inspired by Shane's favorite Charlie? Shane is about to die of happiness.

His s/o sat with Jas on more than one occasion and helped her with posters for contests and events. + into the piggy bank of good memories for Shane.

The Farmer always asks Shane for fresh sketch ideas. Shane usually says he's untalented when it comes to imagination, but he always comes up with a funny and crazy idea for new s/o drawings.

"So, you haven't changed your mind yet about drawing on the Joja wall di-?"

SHANE NO-

Stardew Valley Expanded Bachelors with artist!Farmer s/o:

Vicror:

:O

There is a whole book with Victor's portrait. And they are all so beautiful, why did his s/o hide it from him?!

Well, they didn't hide it, but Victor would like to know that his partner is the next Leonardo da Vinci!

Victor does not hesitate to give you a huge set of high-quality expensive paints, colored pencils and sketchbooks.

He is very glad that the Farmer and his mother have a common interest. Olivia and Victor's partner often arrange private drawing lessons at home, remembering to constantly call Victor and show him the paintings on the canvas. Great family time!

Although Victor is more knowledgeable in design and drafting himself, he doesn't mind getting some advice from his s/o.

He jokes and wipes the Farmer's hands and face if they don't notice they're covered in paint.

Usually, Victor is a little shy about asking the Farmer to draw something specific, such as landscape with a bridge. But his s/o seems to read Victor's thoughts and in a week gives Victor a beautiful picture with famous bridges. Victor will be surprised more than once how good and accurately they draw.

He also often shares his drawings of bridge designs with them and asks for their opinion.

Magnus:

Not to say that he is a fan of art, but the way s/o draws natural landscapes is very mesmerizing. The painting is like a window to another world!

With permission from his s/o, he casts a quick cleaning spell on them, as the Farmer always manages to stain themself and their clothes with paint.

Magnus and his s/o often go to the forest, where they find a beautiful scenic spot. The Wizard sits in the lotus position to meditate, and the Farmer sits nearby and quietly draws a new picture. It may seem unremarkable to some, but Magnus appreciates such calm moments more than anything.

"Can you pose for me please?" Wait, what? They want to draw him? Why not.

Magnus comments that he looks better on canvas than in reality. For which he receives an angry look from the Farmer and the answer that on the canvas they are unlikely to ever depict their favorite wizard as beautiful as he is in reality.

Merciful Yoba, Farmer, why are you so perfect in everything?

Lance:

Farmer, adventurer and artist... My my, their s/o is an incredible person.

He repeatedly notices how they buried their noses in the diary and make notes about adventures with beautiful illustrations.

A little jealous of his s/o time management: the Farmer has time to do farm work, protect the valley, and paint at the same time!

Nevertheless, he suggests at least sometimes to rest and not to overestimate their strength. Tired hands will affect the ability to hold a weapon firmly, which can end badly in a fight with monsters.

Lance is hard to embarrass, but when their s/o shows him sketches of Lance himself, the brave adventurer's cheeks turn a little pink. They painted him like an Olympic god.

"You are like an Olympic god, I could not miss such beauty and not draw you" Thank you very much, now Lance's cheeks are now rosier than his hair.

[random-meme-bot]

My sister and I just finished binging the entirety of "Scott Pilgrim Takes Off" and I need to ramble about it.

SPOILER WARNING

It was REALLY good!!!

The show lowers your guard with this fake sense of familiarity, the first chapter is basically an adaptation of the first comic (just really condensed so it could fit mostly everything important in a bit over 25 minutes) up until the show removes the carpet from under you and decides to kill Scott during his first battle with the league of evil exes.

From there on out the show reveals that it's not actually an adaptation, it's actually an entirely original story that's just based on the same world and characters.

And Oooh Boy was it good, having Ramona be the main character of the show was a very welcome surprise, and the show instead of being about Scott growing as a person and facing his past as well as Ramona's it's about her being forced to face her past and grow, and the show pulls this off really well, we found ourselves actually investmed on the exes and their stories, a group of characters that before were mostly just generic bad guy.

Not all of them are great though, I found Todd's & Wallace's romance plot to work a lot worse than the plot he had in the comics with Envy, his entire thing in the comics was that he let power get on his head and because he thought he was better than everyone else he cheated on Envy and broke Vegan code, 2 things that in the end lead to his downfall.

In the show he's actually a nice dude who gets a crush on Wallace, cheats on Envy not because of ego but love, and only breaks Vegan code after Wallace dumps him, he's way too nice of a guy, and on the other side of the spectrum during this whole plot they decided to turn Wallace into a villain for some reason, he's the one who is actually taking advantage of Todd and when Envy confronts him about it he pulls the "fight my stun double's" thing from the second evil ex(movie only) and forces Ramona to fight them for no real reason since she had nothing to do with this love triangle.

The other Evil Ex who I didn't like as much was Gideon, who they tried to make a sympathetic villain but it just doesn't work, like you cannot tell me this is the same guy who made a weapon that traps you in your head with your own problems as a means to keep Ramona captive in an abusive relationship. (The Glow also doesn't get referenced even once in the show which I thought it was a bit weird)

But apart from those two and Wallace for a bit, I loved every character in the show and their portrait.

One thing to note is that I feel the show basically requires that you to be a fan of the franchise to get the most out of it.

There are a ton of twist that only work if you already know the story, a bunch of jokes and references to the comics/movie/game get lost, and the main twist villain is basically a metareference to the whole discourse about how movie Scott didn't grow as a person and how awful he is yet still got the girl.

Also the twist that it was future Scott doesn't work without previous context because before that twist we only got one episode to get to know Scott.

To wrap up this very messy rambling about a new story based on one of my favorite comic series, my least favorite movies, and a game that was OK (beat em ups aren't my thing but that's not really the games fault).

Amazing show and definitely worth a watch if you're a fan of the original story 8.5/10

Would recommend waiting until you've read the comics and watched the movie before checking the show if you aren't that familiar with Scott Pilgrim 6.5/10

[shipcestuous]

Today I found myself thinking about how different authors try to downplay or erase incest in godly ships in Greek mythology retellings... stuff like, "the gods don't have DNA so it's different for them" or "gods are manifestations of cosmic forces so they only consider themselves related but aren't in a biological sense." One example I think is pretty funny in its execution is the webcomic Lore Olympus.

Now, I admit I've never read it, but from what I understand, the main characters, Hades and Persephone, aren't uncle and niece. Hades is brothers with Zeus and Poseidon, but Persephone was created with magic by Demeter, who was also created with magic alongside Hera and Hestia, her non-biologically-related sisters.

However, Persephone looks A LOT like Hades' mother, Rhea, to the point that people who like the comic sometimes say Hades is getting to "do it all over again" and have a better and healthier version of his parents' marriage (Hades himself looks a lot like his father, who is still Kronos, and yes, he still ate his kids) while people who dislike it (it's pretty divisive, and idly digging into all the drama is actually the one reason I know all this) joke about him just having Oedipus complex.

I think at one point (maybe before Lore Olympus was picked up by Webtoon?) Rhea actually had a much different design, but then the author retconned that to make her more similar to Persephone. And while Rhea is essentially a giantess, being a Titan, and Persephone is usually short and petite, Persephone can ALSO become a giantess, when she unlocks her full power or something like that. I think I've even heard that Hades REALLY likes it when she does that...

Anyway, in the same series, there's also two, or rather three, other examples of "related in myth, unrelated in the comic" that I think are quite unexpected and interesting.

One is Hestia and Athena. As I said above, Hestia isn't related to Zeus, and tbh, I'm not sure if ATHENA even is at this point, but in mythology, they're aunt and niece, being respectively Zeus' sister and his daughter. Here, they run some kind of support organization for young goddesses, where all new members have to take an oath of chastity and swear off relationship for some reason, but they actually have a forbidden secret relationship themselves.

Another, even more surprising one is Kronos and Hera... which leads directly to Hades and Hera right after. From what I understand, during the Titanomachy, Hera pretended to switch sides and ally herself with Kronos, but really, she was a double agent gathering intelligence to help Zeus and the others. To do that, she seduced Kronos, but then, he developed some sort of creepy, obsessive "love" for her. I think Rhea had been killed by Kronos or otherwise died by that point. Anyway, after Zeus freed his brothers and confined Kronos in Tartarus, Hera and Hades bonded over the trauma Kronos had inflicted on them and started a relationship, which I'm pretty sure continued for a time, in some on-and-off way, even after Hera married Zeus to become his queen.

Oh, and here's a fun bonus! Aside from all of this, I've heard of some much rarer, pseudo-incestuous, "unrelated in the myths, related in the comic" type weirdness, too...

You know the myth of Hades' concubine Minthe, whom he set aside after marrying Persephone, but who kept claiming Hades would leave Persephone to come back to her one day, until either Persephone or Demeter turned her into a mint plant for it in a rage? Well, in Lore Olympus, Minthe is Hades' girlfriend at the beginning of the story, but they both have issues and they aren't a good match for each other. Which is possibly why they have an open relationship, with Hades visiting strip clubs and whatnot and Minthe having a side thing with Thanatos, who is the son of Nyx and Erebos in the myths... but here turns out to be Hades' adopted son after Nyx left him in his care as a small child.

I distinctly remember seeing a panel showing that Hades had bought a ring for Minthe, so he must have been planning to propose to her before he met Persephone... which means that Thanatos was having an affair with a woman who could have soon become his own stepmother! Personally, I like to imagine what might have happened had they kept it up even with Minthe becoming Hades' wife... but that's just me, lol. In the comic itself, Hades eventually asks Minthe to have a more committed relationship despite already having feelings for Persephone himself, so she breaks it off with Thanatos, and he then moves on to Daphne, the same one Apollo falls in obsessive love with in the myths... yep, lots of unexpected ships, it seems!

But, imho, this is also interesting because Daphne is ANOTHER character who looks kind of a lot like Persephone. And, as an outsider looking in, it almost seems like a pattern for Thanatos to me... first going for his dad's girlfriend, then for a girl who's very similar to his dad's new girlfriend...

From what I think I understood about Thanatos' own subplot, Hades was a very neglectful and cold father to him because he was afraid that if he'd let himself grow close to him, eventually he'd somehow end up treating him the way Kronos had treated HIM as a child. But as a kid, Thanatos couldn't know what was actually going on in his head, and obviously he was still upset about Nyx abandoning him, so he started acting up, and then their relationship worsened from there. And so, my incest-shipping brain can't help but wonder... what if going for Minthe and then a Persephone lookalike was a subconscious way for Thanatos to try and feel closer to Hades, or maybe finally get his attention, if his affection was just too difficult to obtain...?

I think it's very unlikely I'll ever actually read Lore Olympus, because it seems longer than I usually like when it comes to romantic dramas and I've read some things about the way it handles its plot and characters, as well as certain sensitive themes (some of them showing up in the very same subplots I mentioned here, which would be the most interesting to me), that really put me off. But there's an AU of it more or less living rent-free in my head where Hades was in angsty unrequieted love with Rhea and Thanatos is now in angsty unrequieted love with Hades.

... And Hades/Persephone and Hestia/Athena are uncle/niece and aunt/niece, Kronos/Hera is father/daughter, and Hades/Hera is brosis, naturally. Because why not be as self-indulgent as I can while I'm at it, after all?

All of the incest with none of the incest? That's what this sounds like to me, lol. I do find the erasing of the incestuousness in various adaptations to be amusing. I just ignore it!

Some of these relationships in Lore Olympus sound pretty interesting. But they would be a lot more interesting if they were related!

[romancomicsblog]

5 Non-MCU Characters I'd love to see in Deadpool & Wolverine

Superbowl Sunday saw the return of everyones favorite Merc with a Mouth Deadpool in the trailer for his upcoming new movie Deadpool & Wolverine.

And as usual, Marvel hooked me.

Some fans have seen it as a return to form for the MCU, others as business as usual for Ryan Reynolds, and some just couldn't get over the little bit of Wolverine we got.

Myself, I was mainly focused on one thing. Aaron Stanford.

For those not in the know, this clip from the trailer shows Aaron Stanford returning as minor villain and asshole Pyro from the original X-Men Films. He was a sidekick to Magneto, and has a rivalry with Iceman in those movies.

The return of Pyro from the X-Men films confirms what most fans expected: we will see old heroes and villains from the Fox era, not just Wolverine.

And while a few have been already revealed through casting news or set photos, there are plenty more in store for us, I'm sure.

This got my head gears turning, so I decided I'd look back on the old Fox films to see who I want to return, even for the briefest moment or cameo.

None of these have been confirmed officially, so you are spoiler free from here on out. But I must warn, once I put this ideas in your head, you may be mad if they don't show up.

5. Animated Deadpool Voiced by Donald Glover

*sigh* The project I wish existed.

In 2017, Donald Glover was in development and given the green light on an animated Deadpool show. The show was to premiere on FX in 2018. However, for unknown reasons it was cancelled, and never debuted, leaving fans and Donald Glover displeased.

After the success of films like Spider-Verse, and Glovers involvement with Marvel, having him come in for a scene where he fights with or against Ryan Reynolds Deadpool could be a fun nod to the fans and maybe give the project the boost it needs to somehow come back.

But alas, I'm still hoping Spider-Verse will bring back Spectacular Spider-Man, so what do I know?

4. X-23

If there is a character ripe for a spin-off from the old X-Men universe, it was definitely X-23.

It's surprising to me she hasn't been revealed as a main member of the cast. She's a character I think few people talk about anymore, but was a crucial part of the film. I'd say Logan is up there and one of the best superhero movies.

Dafne Keen and Hugh Jackman made Logan such an impactful moving film. I'd love to see where the character has gone since Logan, and see how them reuniting effects the film.

Not to mention if she fought Deadpool, it would be one hell of a good (and kind of funny ) fight.

3. Apocalypse

Do I like this character? Absolutely not.

Do I want him here just for the Moon Knight jokes? Yes.

I actually think theres a good Apocalypse in Oscar Isaac somewhere. Having Deadpool and Wolverine at one point face the X-Men's Thanos sounds pretty cool, and Isaac is a great comedic and dramatic performer who deserves another shot.

I wouldn't mind a CGI version that looks more comic accurate, like Beast in the Marvels.

But again. I really just want Deadpool to say "So are you Steven or Marc?"

2. The Human Torch

Similarly, I want the Captain America jokes.

But if there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that Human Torch was by far the best part of those Fantastic Four movies.

There's just so many things you can do with it!

We can have him in the frosted tips, in a new Fantastic Four uniform. Maybe even have him fight Pyro, stop a fire guy with a fire guy. Or have him come out from behind a train like Captain America in Infinity War, but it's Johnny.

Having Evans play across Reynolds even for a bit would make so many fans happy and get more cheers then No Way Home.

Besides Evans has done a cameo in a Shawn Levy film starring Ryan Reynolds once. He can do it again.

1. Legion

The rumored main villain of this film tends to have a very particular vendetta with Charles Xavier. So why not use his son to acquire power?

Legion is the acclaimed show from Noah Hawley starring Dan Stevens as David Haller, a mutant with schizophrenia and basically unlimited power.

Dan Stevens is incredible in this show, and I think bringing in such a powerful X-Men character would make for some fun interactions and extreme stakes. Not to mention the insane visuals, all while delving deep into the psyche of both are protagonists.

While I doubt all of these characters show up, if one or two do, I'd be extremely happy. We'll just have to wait and see.

Thank you so much for reading! Please consider following, and check out my socials and other sites here! And let me know: Who do you want to see in Deadpool and Wolverine?

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Did Dobson not take any writing classes or anything and that's why his writing is so terrible? He loved talking about how much he knows about animation, and even made comics about that, but he doesn't seem to know anything about good writing; not how to make and time jokes, not how to develop characters, now how to plan a decent story. Just things he personally finds funny that no one else does (I think there was even an AZP where he said it was based on "an inside joke"...with himself, and then proceeded NOT to explain what the "joke" is) and being angry over something but not thinking about how to make an actual argument. Did he consider himself "too good" for writing?

Good question and I would not be surprised if Dobson took no writing classes at all. To be fair, I am not really a fan of the concept of writing classes much myself (I think they help teach you certain technical concepts, but the true meat of writing a good story is related to the emotional investment and a balance of your own personal biases and reader's expectations) but they can help in some manners to teach you basics.

That said, I think the bigger issue has always been, that Dobson had no basic understanding of a good story, period. This is a guy who looked at the 2017 Mighty Morphin Power Rangers reboot movie and thought it was good, but could never really "explain" why he was emotionally invested enough in it to label it that way. A guy who hated Legend of Korra to the core, but praised it once Korra turned into a carpet muncher, while ignoring any of the plotbeats such as Kuvira as a villain, the character development of certain characters etc. because that was "uninteresting" and distracting to him.

and the thing is, while I can point out what the issue tends to be with Dobson's writing in the actual works themselves -lack of character depth, of focussing the pacing on actual current events in the story, overabundance of puns, constantly trying to emulate more popular things in your work instead of trying to have an original touch to it, lazily expecting immediate success and popularity just for doing something etc.- I can not really explain or understand myself, why Dobson was embracing this surface level, shallow approach of "writing" and creating your own work/world. Simply because there is too little on the internet really painting to me a clear picture of WHY he would always prefer such simple minded entertainment over some even slightly more "sophisticated" stuff.

[nagichi-boop]

I'm Not an Idiot (ROTTMNT fanfic)

I was held at gunpoint and told to write this because I was being mean to myself. /j

Jk, I actually had this idea and was given an excuse to write it. So without further ado...

— x —

April scowled at her homework, impatiently tapping her pen against her head. Leo, who was sat reading a comic nearby, looked up to see his friend struggling.

“You good over there, April?” he asked curiously.

“Yeah, I’m dandy,” April answered sarcastically. She stared at her work for a few moments before before sighing loudly and leaning back in her seat. “This homework is impossible! Why did teach give us this during our holiday week? It’s not fair.” She took a deep breath. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be this ridiculous over this.” “Nothing ridiculous about it,” Leo replied sincerely. “Do you need help?” “I might need it,” April admitted. Leo stood up and had just made his way to April before she continued speaking. “Do you think you can get Donnie for me? It seems like something he is best able to help me with.” Leo tensed up a little.

“Sure thing,” Leo smiled through gritted teeth, then began to walk away. He stopped. “By the way, you need to divide by 4 to isolate x.” April looked up in surprise, but before she had the chance to say anything, Leo had already left the room.

After briefly visiting Donnie in his lab to deliver April’s message, Leo went to his room and flopped on his bed face first, burying his head in his pillow. He grumbled into it frustratedly for a while.

“Leo, are you okay?” Mikey asked as he peered around into Leo’s room, startling Leo.

“How long have you been there?” Leo responded, turning his head to the side. “I didn’t hear you walk up to the room.”

“Not too long,” Mikey answered, then smiled proudly. “I have been practicing my sneaking.”

Leo frowned, then turned his head to face the wall. “I’m not in the mood for jokes right now, Mikey.” Mikey paused for a moment before speaking again.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really,” Leo huffed in annoyance. After the room fell silent, Leo began to feel guilty. “But…I guess I wouldn’t mind some company.”

“You sure? I can leave you be if that would be better for you.” “It’s fine,” Leo insisted, speaking more softly than he had before. Mikey walked into Leo’s room, sitting down and leaning beside his bed. They remained quiet for a bit before Leo began to feel restless. “If I tell you what’s wrong, you won’t snitch to anyone?” “Of course not,” Mikey assured. “Dr Feelings doesn’t share information about his patients.” “I don’t want to talk to Dr Feelings,” Leo bemoaned. “I want to speak to Mikey.” “Oh,” Mikey responded, a little surprised. He smiled again. “I can do that, too.”

Leo remained silent for a while, trying to compose his thoughts. “I guess…I’m just a bit annoyed that people seem to underestimate me all the time.”

“What do you mean?”

“April was doing her homework earlier and didn’t even ask if I could help before she told me to get Donnie for me,” Leo clarified. “I mean, I know I’m not very smart and Donnie is definitely in a better position to help April, but for some reason it still annoyed me.”

Mikey hummed thoughtfully. “It sounds a little like imposter syndrome to me,” Mikey commented. “Which…is a poor name for it.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, it’s more of a narrative that someone has rather than a syndrome, which suggest it’s an affliction that-”

“No no,” Leo interrupted. “I mean what is imposter syndrome?”

“Oh, my bad,” Mikey apologised, playfully poking his tongue out. “It’s a term people use to describe someone who believes they’re not qualified for something, even if there is plenty of proof to support the opposite. Everyone in the world could tell that person they are great at something, but they won’t believe it themselves. So in your case, you believe you’re not smart despite the opposite being true.” “Oh yeah?” Leo spoke, forcing an insincere smile. “What proof do you have of that?” “How many times have me, Donnie and Raph rushed into a situation that you insisted wasn’t safe? Who was is that accurately guessed what his brothers did when we fought against Shredder? Heck, who was it that tricked Big Mama in order to get the mystic collar?”

“I did,” Leo reluctantly acknowledged. “But you all still treat me like an irresponsible kid.” “That has less to do with you than it does us,” Mikey confessed. “Sometimes being aloof makes people make assumptions. They assume you’re irresponsible, stupid, immature; those kinds of things.” Leo spun his head around and looked down at Mikey. “That doesn’t mean that’s the truth, it’s just how others see it.”

“That was…awfully accurate and specific,” Leo remarked. He then paused and thought about it, then his eyes widened in realisation. “Wait, are you talking from personal experience?”

“See, you are smart!” Mikey chimed playfully.

“I’m sorry we’ve made you feel that way, Mikey,” Leo apologised remorsefully.

“It’s alright,” Mikey spoke half-heartedly. “I guess we are both a bit guilty of it, huh?” Leo sat up and began to pat beside himself, inviting Mikey to sit with him. His younger brother jumped at the opportunity, quickly standing and then taking a seat beside Leo. To his surprise, Leo placed his hand on Mikey’s head and gently guided it to his shoulder, then moved his hand to Mikey’s shoulder for a side hug. Mikey’s happy façade slipped a little and he closed his eyes to take in the moment.

“So you really don’t think I’m dumb?” Leo croaked insecurely.  

“Far from it,” Mikey replied without hesitation. “I know you insist you’re just the face man of the group, but I think we would all be genuinely lost without you.” They went quiet as Leo rested his head atop Mikey’s.

“I’m sorry for treating you like a kid sometimes,” Leo softly spoke.

“I mean, it’s not always a bad thing,” Mikey admitted. “I can go a bit off the walls sometimes. And you cut me a lot more slack than Raph does,” Mikey pouted.

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Leo sighed. “But he’s not doing it maliciously. Raph just feels a heavy weight as the eldest sibling because he feels responsible for our safety.”

“But that’s not his problem,” Mikey spoke up, unaware of his volume, to which covered his mouth in shock.

“I know, but what we do and think isn’t always rational,” Leo noted. He then tensed up a little. “And, well…being put in the position of responsibility, I sort of understand how he feels.” Mikey looked up at him sadly. Leo took a deep breath, then smirked at Mikey. “I guess I’m glad I have such competent brothers.”

“And we are lucky to have such a smart leader,” Mikey grinned back. The two of them leaned closer into each other, smiling contently.

“Alright,” Leo suddenly spoke up, interrupting the silence. “Enough of this mushy stuff. What’s say we raid the arcade while Donnie is busy helping April?” “Are you sure you’re okay?” Mikey questioned out of concern. “I am here to listen if you have anything else on your mind.” “You’ve helped me plenty,” Leo confirmed. “But maybe I’ll take you up on that offer another day if that’s okay?” “I’m always down to listen to you,” Mikey assured.

“Thanks, little bro,” Leo spoke as he pet Mikey’s head. He then shot up off the bed, stretching his arms above his head before smirking smugly at Mikey. “Okay, enough stalling. Let’s race to the arcade. Last one there has to give up a slice of his pizza at dinner.” “Oh, you are so on,” Mikey contested. The two brothers grinned at each other knowingly, then immediately sprinted out of room on their way to the arcade.

— x —

I haven’t proof read this btw lol

[bluem00n007]

Hello!! First off, I'm really sorry for not responding back to you earlier from my last ask. I got really busy with irl stuff that I didn't get the time to reply. But if I can still send in my answer, you don't need to apologize about the leash thing with sirius!! I should have realized that sooner lmao, but thanks for clarifying. Also, you definitely have a point that arcturus has so much potential to be a good, bad, or grey character. Besides his constellation, there's also his special magic, how he takes such a long time to get back to mc when he excuses himself from them, and the Shepard thing. These could be building up to something big later on in the story, and I'm equally terrified and excited. Side note though, I saw your comic about vega and vanessa and it was so good!! The layout felt so clean, not to mention the way you drew out their emotions was a critical hit to my heart!!

Also also, if you don't mind me asking on your opinion on this, what do you think are the effects of mc being imprinted with the sorcerers? Besides the boost in power ofc.

Apologies for the long text, hopefully I didn't bother you with this. Take care!!

OMG HEY ANNON!!! It's so good to see you again!!! ^w^)/ And please, don't apologise for not replying before, real life takes priority and I hope you are doing well

The Sirius thing was such an innocent mistake and well, it is a saying that not a lot of people are familiar with and use, so I really get what caused the confusion, Arcky, I think if he does indeed turn out to be a villain, would he be with the void on purpose or was manipulated, hm another Tumblr user, who's user I am forgetting at the moment, but all credits to them for this pointer, basically what they said was Arcturus is the protector of the bear, Summoner is represented with the bear constellation, so I think the void did wipe his memories and are now using him as a way to get closer to summoner, I mean so far everyone lives the way their constellations do

Also thank you so much!!!! I was really hoping you would see that comic TvT and I feel really happy that it was impactful, I don't know how to actually put this in words, sorry of if I can't say it properly, but yeah, I am really happy!

Now I think the best way to explain an imprint is that it's a very magical form of "red strings of fate", more so a promise to protect the parties imprinting and a way to ensure it than anything else, like the pact in obey me, it's a power scaler(?) Like you make pacts and if you learn how to use them, you can draw power from demons and make them do what you command, that's not what I think an imprint is, like Spica said, it's an oath to protect

For the imprints, so far we know bits and pieces for what makes them special, firstly they allow partners to feel each other's feelings, you have any idea how hard it would be to hide crushes? Jokes aside that means that there must be a while lot of trust between people before they imprint, Spica did a gigachad move, respect, because he just let us imprint with him without knowing us much

If we take Alpheratz's words at face value, multiple imprints are not possible, or at the very least not common, he looks so surprised that our heart was entwined with others, that or he was just surprised at how many imprints we had even before a week at Contell, this could be explained by the time loop theory, which if you didn't know about, is that Sirius is a time loop character, goes back in time, which creates a different timeline, the good stuff, that explains why summoner has so many pacts already, if the bonds carried over everytime, but honestly speaking, that actualy leaves more unanswered questions, why was Sirius surprised he got summoned? Why did us coming to Bound arlyn ruin his plans? So I am a little skeptical of this theory

I think that is what makes summoner a summoner, plus the entire potential of being able to summon stuff that are not under the same relam as constellations, hence so special, but then why these 6 specific guys? Which is why it's not a 100% disagree on taht, just skeptical

Third and personally my favourite, angst warning and it is a little morbid, so don't read this if you are uncomfortable:

3

2

1

you can't harm an imprinted partner or you get harmed yourself, it has so much angst potential (I love angst actualy) out of everyone, Sirius has the heighest potential, imo, to use this if he ever finds himself in a clutch, not because it's an easy way out for him, mind you, but most likely because it's the best way out for summoner in case the void catches them in a clutch (yes I do live for angst) plus if the time loop theory is correct it's not much of a risk either, plus storytaco has a reputation of having a high chance to kill any character, even MC has no plot armour

Sorry for the long reply, I kinda get in the whole flow TvT

[sammysdewysensitiveeyes]

Please give me more "Morph comes back wrong after Sinister" headcanons.

Thank you for giving me an excuse to talk about Morph! I don't really have super dark headcanons, just Morph having to come to terms with the fact that they'll never be quite the same person that they were before Sinister resurrected them and put them through a mental wringer. But it's going under a read-more, because I have way too much to say about this minor character.

In the show, Morph comes back with what appears to be two distinct personalities, like Good Morph and Dark Morph, and they are both fighting for control and maybe not fully aware of each other. Dark Morph was like a warped version of how Morph used to be, they are cracking jokes while attacking their team-mates, while Good Morph is just scared and confused. Btw, it's honestly impressive that Morph manages to basically run rings around all their teammates when they first infiltrate the mansion, while obviously having some kind of mental breakdown, and making up half their plan on the fly. They've got the advantage of surprise, but damn, they almost take everyone out, and only get found out because Wolverine can smell them.

Dark Morph seems to have come about because of trauma + Sinister fucking around. I kind of headcanon that previously, Morph was one of the peacemakers on the team. They probably had to be, in order to be close friends with Wolverine, and their joking around seems to be more about defusing tension than taking shots at people. At least prior to Sinister it was, Dark Morph gets nasty and they pull no punches. (I thought Morph was antagonizing Gambit in the first episode with "Don't worry Gambit, I'll go like this," but when I rewatched awhile back, I noticed Gambit actually grins in response. So maybe Morph was actually trying to joke away the tension of "Sorry I got picked for the mission and you didn't.") Exiles Morph also has being something of a people pleaser in his backstory - he spent childhood using his powers to maintain a human-looking form, and basically turn into whatever made the people around him happy. So I could see this being part of TAS series Morph's personality as well. I think Dark Morph happened in part because Morph could NOT deal with the feelings of resentment and anger that naturally arose from being abandoned on a mission. (And I'm sure Sinister gave them the worst possible explanation of what happened. "Your team left you lying on the ground like a piece of trash," rather than "Your team had to run because they were getting their asses handed to them by Sentinels.") I think Dark Morph was the feelings of anger and hate that Good Morph didn't want to accept or acknowledge, which was then exploited and exacerbated by Sinister.

I also think that Xavier's method of "fixing" Morph after they are rescued involved Morph having to confront and accept Dark Morph rather than just locking them away in their mind. Morph had to accept that there is a dark part of their psyche that is capable of doing terrible things, just like anyone has. (As Jean said, "We all have our dark days.") And the solution was basically the two personalities merging back together into a whole psyche. Of course, comics Xavier would probably just lock away Dark Morph like a band-aid solution, and Morph would have to deal with it later, but TAS Xavier actually seems like a decent guy. Just like TAS Beast, who is probably the best version of Beast at this point, he's become such a monster in the comics.

Morph still "hears" Dark Morph sometimes, like a nasty little voice in their head, but that nastiness is reintegrated into their psyche, not a separate personality that could take over. They don't like it, but they've learned to deal with it.

Morph absolutely had moments, especially when they were on the run after the team's first encounter with Sinister (first two episodes of Season 2) when they considered just ending it all. They felt that they had come back irreparably broken, that they should have stayed dead and their continued existence was a danger to their teammates. I think in those moments, Dark Morph was the one who intervened and keep them alive.

I actually have a vague idea for an X-Men 97 episode where Morph is temporarily possessed by Proteus (who in TAS is just a trouble kid who calms down after his father shows him some love). Exiles Morph was taken over by Proteus for awhile, and it was discovered that Morph's unique body type as a shape-shifter does not burn out like other hosts. So I can imagine something similar happening in TAS. Proteus, with a kid's logic, puts Morph's mind in some kind of pleasant dream, and assumes that's fine because Morph is "happy." And Dark Morph is the one to break through the dream and get Morph to properly "wake up." Dark Morph gives Morph a little speech about how they are a necessary part of their psyche. Basically, "You need me, I'm the one that protects you, I'm the one who gets angry on our behalf when you are too weak-willed to do it." If the writers want to be really "artsy" about it, the episode could start with Morph already in the dream, and follow their perspective. Dark Morph keeps trying to break through, and Morph is terrified, thinking that they are losing their mind again, only to wake up from the dream and realize that Proteus has taken over their body. Then Morph and Proteus talk things out, Kevin to Kevin, and Proteus agrees to leave, because TAS likes happy endings where things work out.

Courage mentions Morph dealing with nightmares at the beginning, and although that episode focuses on Sentinels, I'd imagine that most of Morph's nightmares are all about Sinister. Sleep paralysis incidents with Sinister looming over them, dreams of being trapped back in Sinister's lab. Dreams of Dark Morph taking over and doing unforgivable things, like killing a teammate, and Morph waking up and having to spend a good hour or more calming down and convincing themself that it didn't really happen. I think the nightmares definitely continue, Morph is just better at brushing it off and managing a decent night's sleep. Morph is also often unsure about whether the dreams are memories or just dreams, because their memories of their time with Sinister are fractured and incomplete.

Speaking of which, I think Morph has an incomplete memory of what happened when Dark Morph took over, and that makes things even worse. They KNOW that they hurt their teammates, and they are deeply sorry - but in some cases they have no memory of what they did.  And they are haunted by the idea that they might have done even worse things, but will never know because they can’t remember.

I think in Courage, Morph was very much over-compensating and trying to jump back into the "funny guy" role that everyone expects from them, to convince everyone (and themself) that they are totally okay and can go back to "normal." I'd like to imagine that in X-Men 97 Morph will be a little more serious and subdued. They still crack jokes, because that is part of who they are, but they've recognized that they can't ever go back to the person they were before the Sentinel attack. And that's okay, the new Morph can also be "normal."

Sorry, this was less dark headcanons about Morph coming back "wrong," and more Morph has to reckon with coming back deeply traumatized and undergoing a long process of healing while accepting that they will never be quite the same. I don't necessarily want Morph to be a traumatized ball of angst in X-Men 97, I want to see them as a normal team-member, just going on missions and making bad shape-shifting puns. But I also want to see a more serious and mature Morph, who has come through some bad shit and recovered.

Also, I think Morph and Jean would totally bond over dying and coming back to life, as well as having to face their own dark sides. It's the "We died and also committed atrocities" club.

[xian1na]

buncha words 'bout some spring animes #4

I shuffled some things around this past week, although I’m starting to regret it. I decided to skip Heavenly Delusion for an episode or two - it’s a mystery show, and a pretty dense one too, so it’s more bingeable than some of the other shows I’m watching. Plus, I don’t know, I feel like I don’t have all that much to write about it, other than “I’m enjoying it, go check it out”. That said, I really regret not watching it now because frankly, I was a bit disappointed with some other shows I watched instead and am now considering dropping something from my list. Well, let’s jump right into it.

Oshi no Ko (ep. 5) - I’m just gonna go ahead and say it right away, I didn’t like episode five at all. Not that it was bad. If you’ve been reading these posts from the beginning (and btw if you have - thank you so much!!) then you know that I was a bit on the fence on the whole series. There was usually at least one thing in each episode which piqued my interest despite everything I didn’t like. This time though? Nothing. I think poor Pieyon is what finally settled the matter. The moment he showed up I was like ‘ah, a comic relief’ and then watched the whole rest of the episode with a completely straight face, cringing the longer it went on. There was one funny joke when Kana asked him how much he earns, and the rest of that, the song, the voice (the VA did a great job but GOD was the voice irritating)? Completely missed the mark for me. And there wasn’t even any good cliff-hanger which would make me hope something great could happen next time. I think this series’s just not for me.

Hell’s Paradise (ep. 6) - I think it’s interesting that Jigokuraku is frontloading so much character stuff in the beginning. That’s not how it usually is, isn’t it? Usually we get a character, we learn what their basic deal is and then we get a major character development and emotional climax at the end of the series. Here, we spent so many episodes learning what Sagiri’s deal is. There is a lot of emphasis on characters’ spirituality, philosophy and all that. The question is, is it any good? Arguably, no. I’m definitely missing on many references to Buddhism but I feel like all the characters constantly monologue at each other about themselves, instead of simply be themselves. I quite like philosophical discussions (to an extent) but the way it is in this show doesn’t feel like an invitation, like food-for-thought, but just weak writing. But, well. It seems that the characters are finally about to find some plot. Just in time, really, we don’t have that many episodes left. I’ll probably keep watching, but I don’t have high hopes.

Skip and Loafer (ep. 6) - Skip and Loafer, meanwhile, is just as good as always. Episode 6 focuses on Mitsumi and Shima, their little miscommunication and making up. I really loved the moment when Mitsumi realized the reason she berated Shima for skipping school was that she missed him. Gosh darn they’re just so CUTE.

My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999! (ep. 7) - A Yamada-centric episode for a change, didn’t expect that but it was nice to see. I like that even though we saw things from his perspective, it was still very distinctly HIS perspective - not really focusing on words but rather vibes, images and suggestions. It’s a nice contrast to usual episodes. And there was some real nice direction in this episode too. It’s kinda interesting that Yamada has enough emotional intelligence to handle Akane’s ex well but is completely clueless whenever women/girls show interest in him (and gosh, so many adult women hit on this poor boy). I wonder if there’s a reason for that, or is it just the writing being a bit inconsistent.

Insomniacs after school (ep. 1-3) - Yeah, I actually watched something new this week. To be honest I’m a bit surprised at the direction this series took in those first three episodes. I thought it’d be about Nakami and Magari’s nightly adventures in town but for now it turned into an astronomy club anime. It’s a cool idea - that the kids can take something that was a huge problem for both of them and use it to their advantage - but I’m not sure how exciting it will be to watch. I’ll definitely give this series a couple more episodes though.

And in the backlog section:

The Witch from Mercury (season 1, ep. 10-12) - OMG SHE SQUASHED A MAN LIKE A TOMATO SULETTA BABY ARE YOU ALRIGHT!!!???

Spy x Family (ep. 8-9) - I’m not a fan of ‘haha this person is REALLY weird about their sibling’ kind of jokes, but I gotta say, these episodes were still hilarious. Maybe because Yuri is even dumber than Yor is. There was also some real nice development of Yor and Loid’s relationship. Next time, dodgeball. I am apparently supposed to look forward to Bill Watkins (age 6) the greatest dodgeball player of his generation. Can't wait!

And that’s the end of this week’s post. I’m sorry if I was too negative in the beginning but I wasted way too much time on watching series I don’t really care about in the past and I’m trying to be more selective now. Anyway, that’s it for me, thanks so much for reading and see you next week.

[frostehburr]

Ranking the Tera Jewels from Pokémon Scarlet/Violet

So I was going over things to do for the year when I started thinking about Pokémon Scarlet, because I have Scarlet specifically and didn't have interest in Violet, and how the Tera Jewels look.

Basically, there are some I like and some I dislike. Therefore I decided to write down my opinion about them like any other sane nobody on the backwaters of the internet.

Remember that this is my opinion and I have absolutely zero influence so shouting and screaming at me accomplishes nothing.... Anyhow...

18. Dark

As I was playing Scarlet and doing the blinding terastalizing thing over and over. I began to wonder what the Dark tera type jewel would be like.

I had seen the Grass, Fire, Water, Electric, Rock, and Ground jewels so my expectations were high.

Would it be a moon? A thief mask? That weird demon masks that appears in everything Japanese themed?

Oh, nope, it's just a comic action bubble with an impish grin on it...

You know, there's so many options they could have gone with the Dark type. Instead, we get a sign post that goes "hey I evil now hehehehehe"

I thought Dark type was supposed to be intimidating or ominous. I feel nothing with this comic book print piece. Not even amusement like what actual comics give people. All it did was make a lame appearance after a massive flash and disappoint.

Guess they were invoking DC comics energy for this tera jewel.

17. Flying

The second I saw the gift Pikachu I knew this tera jewel was specifically made for nostalgia bait.

Much like the Dark tera jewel, there was a metric ton of options that could have been made and they went with the dumb one. I'm not calling it lazy. Lazy would have been a single sphere and called it a day. Give them props for putting strings on the three spheres they made!

I joke, but this tera jewel does feel low end. Not really the worst that could have been but still sort of lame.

Also, it's funny to terastalize Drifblim into a flying type so it ends up being a balloon with balloons attached to it.

16. Fairy

Listen... just because I rank something low doesn't mean I do not like it. In all honesty, the fairy tera jewel is something I would've picked out for the fairy type. and... that's the main issue with it.

Yes, fairies are all cute and bubbly and oh so adorable so a regular heart shape is the best and possibly only option for the type.

Can you think of something better? I can't. Mainly because my brain has been absent for a numbar I can't count on my fingers. So however long it's been is no concern of mine.

Where was I going with this?

Oh yeah, hearts and fairies are good together. However it's cliche and that's why it gets slotted in the lowest ranks.

15. Fighting

Speaking of expected, a boxing glove was something I did not expect for a tera jewel and said "oh of course it'd be that"

This is the same issue the fairy type had. It's something that is so cliche and expected that seeing leaves me meh.

What? You want more emotion? This is a list about crystal headgear colorful fantasy creatures wear in what is considered a kid's game. Being meh is the only emotion you're going to get out of me here.

At least it wasn't that anger symbol all anime from the 80s/90s had. Then I would've had emotions for this one.

14. Ice

Should be a surprise to no one at all that I don't really like the very expected obvious choices for tera jewels. Which is exactly why Ice, one of my favorite types, is so low.

All it is is a snowflake. Terastalizing turns my pokémon into snowflakes which turns me into a snowflake which makes me triggered.

Ice was already kind of a useless type in battle since ice is weak to practically any type that attacks.

Meaning I was wrong in my ranking and Ice is actually 18 for being bad in battle.

That was a joke. This list isn't based on battle effectiveness or functionality. It's based on what I think looks good and I like snowflake because snowflake pretty!

13. Grass

You know what else is pretty? Flowers.

Crystal flowers are very pretty and sparkly and I bet they smell nice too. Maybe... I don't know my skull is hollow.

It is a very common tera type, though, so you're going to see it too many times to care. I know I had after terastalizing my starter, a Deerling, a tera raid Starly, a Foongus, and that thing that is not a Tentacool. Yeah, 7.5 out of 10, too much grass!

12. Ground

This is the ultimate test to see how long before I make a very specific reference to that Japanese cartoon everyone loves... I can smell the pitchforks already.

Anyhow, the ground tera jewel is different from the rock tera jewel because the rock is a building while the ground is what the building is built on.

What really surprised me was the fact that the ground type was given the most colorful tera jewel in the game. Yes, even more color than the flying tera jewel.

It also didn't appear as often... for me at least. The only thing I saw it on was Clodsire/Whooper. And, come on, we all agree that this tera jewel is adorable on Clodsire.

It's like a little hat! My little Clodsire has Za World on its little head!

ah, hit that JoJo reference...

11. Fire

Yo, I head you like chandeliers so we put chandeliers on all your fire type pokémon so they never burn out.

And it looks good. Pretty crystal chandelier is top tier design. Excellent choice! I was expecting a candle but its third evolution works much better.

In actuality, this one was tied with the next one because they looked similar and I put this one lower because I have bias against fire.

"Oh wow, the person with Frost in their name and has Ice type as one of their favorites hates fire. How cliche."

Yes. That is correct. You can dump me down to the pits of your "random person from the backwaters of the internet" list if you want.

I'm already burnt out on this list and need a refreshment.

10. Water

Ha ha, refreshment like a beverage like a glass of water. Get it? I explained a joke so it'll be funnier.

No. That's stupid and I feel gross for doing that. I'm super sorry you had to read that.

Like I said, this one was tied with Fire because they look similar. Not the same but similar enough.

Also, is this supposed to be a fountain or a spring or a spout?

Whatever, it looks good and pretty and cool and that's all that matters.

Downside is this one appears on a LOT of pokémon and I do mean too many to count. I already made the IGN joke so I'll have to do the unthinkable and come up with an original joke!

ok, I can do this, um...

... ... ... ...

9. Electric

Ding! I have an idea!

Moving on to the next entry! How clever.

This one gave me the most giggles because it's just a light bulb.

It's stupid and unoriginal but so funny I can excuse it. Plus the fact they managed to lower to opacity to make the bulb itself translucent in the crystal effect is astonishing.

How'd they pull that off? Must've been a month of work just for that. And they had less that a year to develop it? Legends Arceus came out in January 2022 so yeah, less than a year.

Someone force these people to go on vacation.

I like the light bulb. It's funny and makes the game brighter because I smile over it. and then go blind because of the brightness.

8. Poison

I was expecting like slime or a trashcan to be the tera jewel for the poison type but nope, it's the classic skull and cross bones.

The skull and crossbones had been used as a universal sign for mess around and die. Which is most fitting for poison types.

And, yes, it is one of the many obvious picks I threw a bunch into the lower section of the list for. But the poison tera jewel has the benefit of being a crystal skull that shines like a diamond.

It looked prettier than the other obvious picks so I put it up higher for being the best looking obvious choice I didn't expect.

7. Ghost

This one is an actual nostalgia bait but it didn't have to fold in on itself like how the flying type did.

The ghost tera jewel is the ghost sprite from generation one. That's cool and totally draws me in even though my first pokémon game was Silver.

A funny thing to think about is thinking of the tera jewel ghost possessing your pokémon when they terastalize.

Call me morbid or something but I got mild amusement from thinking that. Add it to a nuzlocke and have it so your dead pokémon come back for revenge battle.

6. Bug

What could bug possibly get for a tera jewel? What entomologist decided which bug was best to represent the entire bug type pokémon?

Turns out it was a butterfly... and it's the cutest thing ever.

I first saw this when I battled the bug gym with an over leveled team that swept the gym in less than half a minute. That's including the time it took for the terastalizing animation to finish.

That gym leader had a bug bear, HA!

But I briefly saw the oh so cute crystal butterfly on that Teddiursa and wanted one.

I don't know how good bugs are in battle but I don't really care either because something I said earlier that I don't recall at the moment. All that matters to me is that crystal butterfly is something I want and I want to purchase crystal butterflies off etsy.

5. Steel

You ever get an axe logged into your head and you suddenly become a steel type pokémon? I can only claim the first half of that sentence but the point still stands.

This is an axe... that is embedded in the skull of your pokémon.

There's nothing cute, pretty, or cliche about it. It's just so gosh darn hilarious I made a steel tera type team just to have that specific tera jewel appear.

The steel type is a defensive behemoth to boot so it's like giving your pokémon a MASSIVE BRONZE SHIELD whenever you jam that axe in their head.

I'm not a competitive player nor have I ever cared about the battling that much. I just find it hilarious thinking of all the actual competitive players using pokémon with axes in their heads to get those steel type resistances.

4. Rock

For the rock type, I 100% expected it to be a Kirby hat. You know, the one that is basically a pile of rocks and lets Kirby turn into various stones.

Well color me yellow because seeing the Parthenon be the tera type jewel shocked me!

At least it looks like the Parthenon to me. And oddly enough, it's a perfect unexpected fit.

See, the Parthenon is made of marble which is pretty much fancy stone. The high class kind of rock that has no time to squabble with the garnets or amethysts.

This one was a real treat to see. Pokémon often uses landmarks for various spots in their games. And while I'm certain that temple that becomes Spear Pillar in Legends Arceus was meant to be the equivalent to the Parthenon. I do hope for a region based around Greece and/or Italy.

Or we'll just stick to teasing it.

3. Psychic

I... don't like the psychic type.

They were over powered in generation one. Render poison types useless due to being tied with faries in generation 6. and have some of the most unpleasant designs... ok, last one is personal but I'm right on the first two!

Yeah, and of course the pure fairy type, Florges, gets terastalized to be psychic in the psychic gym. Who's gym leader is a makeup artist with her own brand of makeup. She's interesting but this isn't about gym leaders.

We're here for the tera jewels! And what does the psychic type give us?

A massive glowing crystal eye!

Wow... I know it is cliche, expected, and obvious to pick the standard psychic eye to be the tera jewel for the psychic type. However... the eye is textured (similar to the poison tera jewel) and actually glows to make it stand out far more than the rest of the tera types in general.

I'm downright mesmerized by that eye. It's unlike any of the other tera types I've seen.

I was so mesmerized by that eye I forgot why I don't like psychic pokémon for a couple minutes...

Then the confusion reminded me oh too well.

2. Dragon

Now this... this is art.

The dragon tera jewel is, well, a dragon.

Chock this up to the no Sherlock Whover.

At this point, I'm not excusing the obvious picks. We're on the second to last entry and I'm getting very tired of writing. So Let's just sum it up.

Yes, it's a dragon. A dragon that sits on your pokémon's head.

Like Remy from that movie about rats that run a restaurant.

It is also a very very nice color. Doesn't sparkle much but still good color and design.

This tera jewel just radiates awesome energy and I love it.

Normal

Yeeeeah.... so Normal isn't something that is known for uniqueness or having anything tied to it.

At the end of the day, normal is so bland and uninspired that there's literally nothing you can do to make normal interesting. All you have is meh.

So what in blazes could make normal the most appealing tera jewel to me?

Make it a plain, boring, old gemstone...

They achieved perfection. Our mortal brains can't comprehend this level of brilliance and I don't even have a brain!

It's just... it's just a regular gemstone! It should be at the bottom of the list for being so bland! But it's not. Why?

Because it is so bland and boring.

All the previous entries were tera jewels that tried to fit their type and they morphed into weird, stupid, and been there done that objects.

Normal, meanwhile, went with something so bland and normal that it transcended its normalcy and became the most interesting tera jewel!

I guess when you're stuck in the middle of a crowd full of polychromatic protagonists, being the dull ordinary one ironically makes you the only unique personality in the room. Sometimes being plain vanilla is the only way to get the most attention.

...or I just have a thing for diamonds.

Either way that's how I ranked all the tera jewels in Pokémon Scarlet. Now it's out there... hope you enjoyed it.

[reallunargift]

Tag Game To Better Know You! Send this to people you’d like to know better!

Thank you so much to @maelerie for tagging me, it was a very pleasant surprise!

- - -

What book are you currently reading? Broca’s Brain by Carl Sagan. I read my dad’s Portuguese copy many many years ago, but I wanted to read it as it was written originally, especially as Carl had such a wonderful way with words.

What’s your favourite movie you saw in theatres this year? The Bob's Burgers Movie. I think it was the only film I went to the theatre for this year and it was really nice.

What do you usually wear? It’s winter now, so my usual is trousers (with pyjama bottoms underneath if it’s super cold), a t-shirt and a knitted sweater. Colour-wise I tend to gravitate towards black and red, but I’m not above shiny silver jackets and bright yellow raincoats.

How tall are you? 155

What’s your Star Sign? Do you share a birthday with a celebrity or a historical event? Pisces. I share a birthday with George Harrison depending on who you ask.

Do you go by your name or a nick-name? I go exclusively by nicknames online. Offline it is a mix.

Did you grow up to become what you wanted to be when you were a child? No, I wanted to be an astronomer. I’m still interested in the field, but I’m not passionate enough to get the necessary qualifications.

Are you in a relationship? If not, who is your crush if you have one? I am not. My current crush is an F1 driver and I am ashamed but he has big brown eyes and pouts pathetically and I am only human

What’s something you’re good at vs. something you’re bad at? I’m good at spotting patterns irl and figuring out what's coming before it happens, so usually I can plan ahead pretty well.

I'm terrible at staying focused, there is a reason I have 70 tabs open at all times and take months to do anything.

Dogs or cats? Ahhh… can I say both? I always thought I was a cat person but having a dog has really made me reconsider it. So both.

If you draw/write, or create in any way, what’s your favourite picture/favourite line/favourite etc. from something you created this year?

I mean it when I say it is this, it still makes me laugh and I think that's the most important thing of all, to enjoy it!

What’s something you would like to create content for? I think it’s obvious I have a penchant for historical hetalia, specifically when it’s related to Port, and I have a bunch of ideas for mini comics and AUs and… too many things to list, really. Lets just say I want to draw more of my favourite characters and ships.

What’s something you’re currently obsessed with? F...Form....Formula....1.........

What’s something you were excited about that turned out to be disappointing this year? I don’t think there’s anything I was excited for at the start of the year that was disappointing later on… I guess I was excited for my first F1 weekend race, but the driver I was supporting had to retire on the first curve because someone crashed into him, that was very disappointing.

What’s a hidden talent of yours? I joke a lot about doing a humanities degree due to being bad with numbers, but the truth is I’m actually really good at doing maths in my head.

Are you religious? Not anymore.

What’s something you wish to have at this moment? Mae answered this with “more time” and I absolutely agree. More time and more rest.

----

I don't know who has already been tagged, but I tag @sisididis and @r-stern and @reallyndacarter :)

[penned-wars-in-my-thoughts]

Stupid brain doing stupid thing.

What if, some fucking how, Veronica got the goddamn bomb away from JD before it went off. Like...say she tackles him or some shit and sends it flying. (Because honestly, who would expect their 5 foot something kinda ex to tackle them when theyre actually trying to do something - that they think - is finally a right thing. You aren't gonna keep a grip on that bomb. Its going to go flying.) Also, adrenaline is one hell of a drug. Veronica FULLY could've tackled JD with little issue in that moment.

CW: talk of/saved from su!cide (its heathers, what do you expect), talk of murder, foul language

Anyway, here. Post "I Am Damaged" but without literally the entire second half:

♤

It was risky. If it didn't work, both of them would be chunks on the school lawn. But who the fuck thinks about risk when a bomb is about to go off?

One good thing about the shoes Heather Chandler gave Veronica? They actually had decent grip on grass as she sprinted forward. Her shoulder collided with Jason Dean's chest and sent them both sprawling into the grass.

The explosion shook Veronica to her core but it didn't kill her. Nor did it kill JD who was breathing rather heavy beneath her.

"Veronica?" JD's voice was something of surprise and pure shock. It barely cut through the ringing in Veronica's ears. The blue clad teenager raised her head and looked around. The grass was on fire and a decorative pine tree was now just a jagged stump not ten feet away. But they were alive. Not chunks on the school lawn.

"Are you fucking insane?!" Veronica finally demanded from JD who was still, admittedly, a little bit stunned by her actions. "You really planned on just blowing yourself up in front of me and expected me to just stand back and watch?!"

JD gaped at her. "Am I insane? You're the one that jumped me with said bomb!" He was still processing. "Gah, do you stuff your shoulder pads with concrete or something?" He rolled over as Veronica stood, clutching his chest.

Veronica brushed herself off and checked for injuries before holding out a hand for JD. "Come on." She sighed as students began to file out of the school, having heard the explosion. "You need help. Not to be fertilizer for the school lawn." Her expression was exasperated.

JD stared at her hand for a long moment. Help. It was a concept rather foreign to him clearly. But that's not the only reason he had yet to take her hand.

Yes. He needed help. But he hurt Veronica. And she was the one to still offer help. After everything he put her through. Every single time she forged a suicide note to cover up his murders. Every lie he told her so she would go along with it.

His eye's scanned the students that formed a circle around them before landing on Veronica again. Why hadn't he taken her hand?

He was scared.

Veronica's expression softened. She could see right through him at this point as she crouched to grab his hand and hoist him up beside her. In that moment he made a choice. Because he was broken. He was stupid. But he was going to try and be better.

Well, that was to be determined really. It was just his hope.

"No, really do you pack your shoulderpads with concrete or are you secretly a linebacker?" He half joked to her, ignoring the teachers running at them. They really took their sweet time getting outside.

"Oh shut up." Veronica rolled her eyes, the vaguest hint of a smile on her lips. She didn't plan on taking him back. But she definitely planned on staying relatively close.

But plans can change as well.

♤

Anyway...take it ig. Got kinda sloppy. Might turn it into a mini comic. Tbh idfk. I actually have more thoughts about this than i realized initially...heh.