#I ALSO HAVE SOME AU LORE BITS FINALLY TO MAKE IT COHESIVE

[op15-moonwaltz]

OMG YESSS PLS EXAND ON THIS CONCEPT!!! ITS MAKING MY BRAIN GO BRRRRRRR FR FR

oh my gosh I didn’t even think about how the escape clause would connect to this and. omg. wow. yeah that would mess him up bad😭 I can see him constantly replaying that moment in his head, feeling so much guilt that he had that moment in the palm of his hands to change the course of nick’s fate even just a little and he did nothing. man :,)

I can also see after a particularly bad counsil meeting (Jack slams the table and storms out after the counsil continues to call nick “the previous santa” even after he corrected them numerous times), mrs clause finds him and he just cracks. he tells stories of decorating, bake offs, and times where he just felt cared about. she doesn’t say much, but she does listen and offer the occasional pat on the back and a reminder to take deep breaths. he asks if he can keep what he told her about nick strictly between them, and of course she agrees, wanting to make sure he opens up to others in his own time. she keeps the Clause residence a little extra warm that night, just in case

over time he finds more items of nick’s around the north pole that had gotten lost to time. most of them he gives to nick’s family, still trying to be present in their lives, but occasionally he’ll find something for himself. sometimes it gets easier to talk about, but the pain in his chest reminds him it never completely gets easier to lose the one person who believed in him.

nick’s hat remains jack’s comfort item though, as he’ll sometimes put it in the pocket of his suit jacket. instead of clenching his hands to stim, he’ll run his hands along the fabric of the hat :) (Nick was always very supportive of stimming)

once jack gets back on doing decorations, he’ll take inspiration from previous decorations that he did with nick, almost like a tribute. he never makes it a full blast from the past though, as nick always loved to see jack’s creativity and fresh take on things, so jack always made sure to continue that.

Lord i’m obsessed with this concept omg

Taking a Christmas movie collection made by Disney and making the saddest shit possible 🤝🤝

Now tack on MORE guilt on Jack's end, because what if the roof wasn't supposed to be icy that night? Maybe it wasn't supposed to snow that night at all, but Jack wanted a good Christmas snowstorm for the kids to play around in on Christmas Day and just didn't account for the mushy snow from days before refreezing into thick pieces of ice.

He probably didn't even know Nick had slipped on ice until the Escape Clause incident, he probably didn't even notice it or actually comprehend it until after everything settled down at the end of the movie. (also cut to him aggressively slicking his hair back because I can NOT give him the chocolate shell hair I'm so sorry but that is not a good look 💀)

Jack probably feels horrible since Nick's family can't come to the pole anymore (he's practically begged at council meetings about letting them come up to see the place, but the other Figures have all said it was too risky, he's already gone on about how stupid the 'Secret of Santa' clause is for previous Claus families). He's a very common face around the household there, he's actually given a few photos of him and Nick to them when the grandkids needed pictures for a school project. (they played it off as Nick being a santa impersonator and Jack being, well, Jack Frost)

Mrs. Claus has probably seen him at his lowest unintentionally, she's seen enough to notice his tells (hands shaking, a slur to some words, lost look in his eyes that he hides with a smile, a blue tinge to his fingertips-) and actually get him out of whatever situation he's in. He's gotten comfortable with her enough that if he feels that overwhelming feeling he'll subtly nudge her with his shoulder to help him out of wherever he is.

Jack most definitely has his own memento collection of his times with Nick, he has his old hat, of course, but he also has a little collection of duo memorabilia that they had designed. A Jack Frost and Santa Claus set of Cola bottles, a few mockup plushies they had designed but never sold, the rough sketches of a late '60s TV commercial, he kept a lot of stuff. He only had one or two ornaments, one of himself all cartoony with his arms proudly in the air, and one of Nick, also cartoony, with the signature sack of presents standing with his big grin.

He even had Nick's round glasses, his eyesight was never very good so his wife had actually bought him a pair of glasses after he'd become Santa. (Nick's wife went through and became Mrs. Claus, however she preferred to stay in New York to stay close to their kids. He always made sure to visit often and invite them over for After-Christmas, a day he made specifically so he can do standard Christmas traditions with them without having to worry about time to deliver presents. Jack was practically dragged by three of Nick's kids to the first one. And then he was dragged by grandkids in the later ones).

Speaking of kids, Jack has continuously berated Nick's daughter Judy for her taste in men. He fully believes she can do better then a guy named Darrel who's never visited the Pole once with her or their kids.

Jack would happily ice him if she ever asked.

[verdantglow]

so is it safe to assume that you're going to be going through each of the seasons chronologically then? and exploring how each of their relationships form and change over time? or are you going to pick a set point that is the "current" times and make references back to older series and stunts?

also out of curiousity, whos pov(s) do you watch? im always interested in learning this stuff

also also i think seer of void is perfect for Sc(h)ott and i think heir of rage works really well for Joel. im trying so hard to think of any other classes that would work for him and im just... coming up short. maybe page? because i can see him inciting rage in others and growing stronger as time passes with it. but i dunno. youve thrown me back into my homestuck phase that i thought i had gotten out of years ago and thus have forgotten too much :')

So that’s a bit of tricky question. The campaigns happen in the chronological order of the seasons, but I honestly haven’t settled on what is ‘now.’ Tbh, I’m kinda treating this AU as a playground for all my crossover relevant headcanons & plot bunnies. I’m not planning on making one cohesive fic for this AU. My hope is to do an assortment of art, comics, & fics (& maybe animations?; gods I’d love to do mini animations/“flashes” for this & would like to try to, if I can get my brain to sit still long enough). Each piece will be a different chunk of the story, a significant event or plot line that I feel like examining, rather than there being a linear story. Kinda like a selection of vignettes rather than a novel.

Granted, I’m not married to this idea yet. It’d be a nice way to do things in that it’d allow me to follow my inspirations rather than be stuck in a timeline. But at the same time, I’m not sure how that’ll read/look. I might just start at Secret Life or after Secret Life & do everything else as flashbacks. But it’ll definitely be around the Secret Life time if I do decide to do some linearity because Gem is bae & I desperately need her at least somewhat prominent. (& she joins up with the others between sometime before Limited Life & before Secret Life. Haven’t nailed that quite down either, but she wasn’t part of the group from the get go, like the others. (Everyone was somehow linked to each other from before/around the 3rd Life campaign, even if they didn’t join the VLARP until Last Life.))

Tbh, I haven’t comprehensively watched most of the Traffic seasons. I started watching mcyt when Limited Life was happening, but couldn’t maintain focus at the time. (Probably because I was watching Grian’s viewpoint of EVERY SINGLE SEASON AT THE SAME TIME, dear god what is wrong with me lol.) So until recently, I’d only seen the first half of all of Grian’s seasons. I finally finished his 3rd Life the other day (in one sitting mind you; wild experience) as well as Martyn’s 3rd Life.

When Secret Life rolled around, I was more invested & wound up watching Grian, Mumbo, Gem, Joel, Scar, Lizzie, Martyn, Jimmy, & some of Etho & Cleo.

Right now I’ve got Jimmy & Tango’s 3rd Life, Joel’s Last Life, & Etho’s Double Life going on a rotation. I think that’s all I’m currently watching? I’m kinda crawling through those as I’ve got an absolutely massive list of Hermits I’m watching at the moment. Other POVs I’ve got earmarked for watching at some point: Impulse 3L, Lizzie, Martyn, & Pearl LL, Joel, BigB, & Pearl DL, & I haven’t even started figuring out who I’m gonna watch for LimL.

I’m so flattered this AU is getting you back to Homestuck! You know, I hadn’t seriously thought about it in… six? seven? years, until I had the thought that Scar & Grian made sense as fucked up moirails & I suddenly had an AU to be fascinated by lol. Like. I haven’t even been observing the high holidays for a few years, & now I’m doing in depth research on Lore so I can work on this AU. Funny how life works that way, a new special interest resurrecting an old one.

[sparklecinnamonbunny]

My Personal MTL OC Week 2023 Retrospective

*waves* Hey y’all, I thought I’d link to all the works I created this past week and provide a little commentary of my experience with them to cap things off. This is secretly more for me to look back on than for anyone to enjoy, but I might as well share it and see if I can’t start a trend. @pan-flute-skeleton talked shop with me a bit and inspired this idea, but I’d also love to hear other’s thoughts/experiences with this fandom event!

Day 1: OC X OC (X OC) — The Naked Dismissal I came out of the gate swinging by tackling a crossover piece by pairing Sunday with two characters that weren’t mine! I knew I wanted to write Sunday salivating after Caj, but the whole scenario didn’t come together until I was clowning around in Discord and curiouslyhigh and chordsykat egged me on to write Caj/Sunday/Teja since timelines don’t matter. This was a blast to write and I’m looking forward to going back and writing the Pornographer’s Cut. Thanks again to both of them for loaning me their fandom bicycles! Also, if you haven’t seen it already, Chordsy hit me with a gorgeous piece of retaliation art of the unlikely trio! Day 2: Best Friends or Rivals — A Matter of Perspective Ch. 1  “First Impressions”: I felt like I had this absurd momentum pretty much all week, and A Matter of Perspective showcases it. Spellbound begins in medias res, so I had a ton of room to explore things before Sunday meets Nathan. I intended to play up Sunday and Dick’s friendship with this one, while starting Ava off as competition, but then I thought of a cohesive theme for the whole piece and put Knubbler on the backburner.

This one also netted me a new OC, Envy, who we haven’t seen in the Spellbound ‘verse yet, but who I do get to show in the 80s kickin’ it with Azure Blue and SnB Pickles. Day 3: Style Swap — A Matter of Perspective Ch. 2  “Big Easy Barbie and the Price of Leather”: It’s a tie between this one and the canonically impossible threesome for my favorite work of the week. Ava Sunbeam was originally written to fill a stereotypical music show judge role I needed in Spellbound (and to parody a couple pop artists), but she’s grown a lot of nuance and her own arc. 

In addition to saccharine themes of understanding and kindness, it shines a light on some of Sunday and Ava’s red flags. Sunday’s POV forgives a lot of sins on her part. I had fun making them very obvious. There’s also some secret Ava lore that adds to the overall vibe of both parts.

Day 4: Canon X OC — Six Ways to Sunday I started this piece in April, intending to use it for MTL Rare Pair Month’s “What Could’ve Been” and “Canon X OC” prompts and got stuck a little over halfway through. I brought it back out for this thinking ‘Oh, I’ve just got to write the sex scene and edit, this should be easy,’ but I still struggled. I don’t like it and I don’t have a reason other than ‘this was stupidly hard to write’. 

Day 5: OC Fusion Canon X OC again — Spellbound Ch. 9, “Ultimatumklok” After the struggle I had with Six Ways to Sunday, I was kind to myself and finished up a chapter of Spellbound for Friday instead of learning a fusion dance. I’ve been super excited about this chapter (and the next couple to follow) for a while. This chapter manages to set things up and provide some warm n fuzzy payoff at the same time, all while sneaking in some sweet sweet lore dumps.  Day 6: Dethkids — What Goes Around Comes Around I intended this to be a punchline to the end of the SkwisDay smut. It got away from me so quick. Between Sunday and Skwisgaar’s feud and CEO and CFO having real talk, my plan of ‘goof-fueled crackfic’ went sideways. We did get back to madness at the end, though. I’ve added a couple one-shot ideas to further this AU to my WIP pile. Final Thoughts — I’m so thankful that I had the time and energy to participate! I put out over 18,000 words of Metalocalypse fanfic this week. I haven’t written this much in such a short time since my last NaNoWriMo! I’m especially proud of the fact that I put out five coherent stories (Sunday & Ava’s two go together, but can stand alone). I’ve always struggled with finishing WIPs once I start them. This shows me that I can finish what I start if I put my mind to it. :)

[genshin-attorney]

part.1 aa genshin au:

Stuff you need to know and characters

With 'a' names

this will eventually cover all playable characters in alphabetical order + some non playable characters + some general lore. Plz note despite having all pc xingqiu is my main/focus character because he's my favorite and it's my autism fueled au- so the more xingqiu adjacent the character the more there probably gonna have on them- also all characters will definitely not be important some are just guys and that fine and some of them are even(gasp) made to be antagonistic - have fun only reading the description for your fav character because that's what i would do if i saw some guys long ass au ranting-

Also I'm apologizing in advance for any perceived mischaracterization. Genshins got a lot of characters and knowing all of them personally would be hard but I did read the lore page on their wiki while formulating the au so nothing should be toooooo different (and if it is it's probably based on my own genshin headcanons but i will try and specify when that's the case) I tried to keep all relationships kinda similar to canon while aa translating (ex. Albedo and klee still have a sibling relationship just now klee is more sidekick-ishhhh) but liberties were taken obviously to make things more cohesive mostly just that characters that don't really interact will interact but like genshin does that all the time with events so it's not that unbelievable ok man.

And ok some personality traits will be exaggerated because aa has lots of very,very exaggerated types and character gimmicks and we're goin for that aa spirit yk.

Ps. sorry for any name/place misspelling or just any misspelling i'm dyslexic im doing my best- dyslexia works hard but the autism works harder

Pss. here's a link to the google doc if you prefer that (it is dyslexia friendly or at least it's my dyslexia friendly so hopefully good)

Basic things to note:

The fitui is a crime ring in this au like a baddd crime ring

Every time i say “for plot reasons” i mean it i just need to finalize everything to make sure there isn't massive plot holes im missing or anything it's not just cuz i don't know

Magic is not really an aa thing past some spiritual stuff so i will be changing that about magic based characters and also part animal characters they will either be replaced by a more aa alternative or something equivalent to the best of my ability.

A character being an archon will mean very little to this au other than that they will generally be in senior positions but the (important) futui will also mostly be senior positions sooooo.

A characters:

Albedo- He would be a competent detective on the rare occasion that he did actually work on a case. I imagine he would be more willing to take on/help with the harder cases given his pre- existing relationship with xingqiu- in genshin cannon he is xingqiu’s illustrator but now his is still that just like differently- basically they originally met when xingqiu needed and illustrator but he also happens to be a detective and the first time albedo and xingqiu met outside of their author/illustrator relationship it was in court with albedo testifying and it was really awkward for a bit but there is now no hard feelings and they get along well inside and outside of court. Now to address the elephant in the room: albedo being a synthetic human in genshin cannon. In this au he is not that anymore because the aa magic is mostly just spiritual channeling BUT if it makes you feel any better he is aware of spiritual channeling and likes to study it and he's a competent investigator unlike every aa detective. Now in aa terms/mechanics this meansssss he would only really be detectiving for the final case of each game to drop integral info or to give good hints he's like op herlock sholmes you don't have to fix what he's saying so he would have to be used sparingly in gameplay. Klee would be around more though as his kid sidekick and also a nerfed version of albedo (more info about all that in klee’s section <3)

Alhaitham- He is a really, really, pretious witness like he will tell you what you need to know but only if you ask very specific questions. He's one of the witnesses you have to press literally every statement to get the info you need, he won't lie but he won't tell you the full truth either until the last minute + he gets annoyed pretty fast (not technically hc just something kehva says that iv accepted into my perception of him). Outside of court he is basically the same as he is in genshin, just modern, yk scholar, kinda self centered, pretends to be mechanically rational.He also still lives with keveh because he went bankrupt due his really bad financial choices but now the reason they were living together the first time (in standard modern au fashion) is because they were college roommates & went halfsies on a place but then they fell out and keveh moved to be successful architect and thennnnn bankruptcy blah blah blah see your old friend at a bar,not doing well something something roommates.

Aloy- idc about her but she is playable so she gets to be a witness for the duration of 1-2 cross examinations and then gets killed during a recess to further the plot-

Amber- headcanon time (very plausible headcanon) amber is a hardcore adrenaline junkie . Anyway- she would be one of the people accused of committing murder and one of the key points people use to accuse her is pointing at her adrenaline junkie nature to say “see guys shes a thrill chaser and what brings thrill?? Murder.” Meanwhile, she's like the sweetest defendant ever and 100% trying to clear her name and being upset that anyone would even think she'd do something like that. She did not do the murder just at the wrong place at the wrong time btw. Outside of the murder accusations she is super chill and rides a motorcycle everywhere. (more amber characterization on collies section because 1 sided admiration babyyyyyyy) ( i want them to be friends so bad i will probably write them interacting more in this au)

Arataki itto- He is just a guy you have to talk to during an investigation. He has some evidence but is never questioned at the stand he just gives some hints and sends you to a new location where you get more info. The reason you have to talk to him is because he is a gang leader but it's a chill gang that's heavily misunderstood as a baddddd gang when they're mildly troublesome at best but since they have negative perception they (mostly him and kuki) get blamed really hard for crimes. Also heizou is usually just kind of around him lurking to make sure he's not being an inconvenience (not 24/7 i just think it would be a fun lil gimmick)

Arlecchino- She is fatui so as previously mentioned she's in a crime ring thingy. But she's also A PROSECUTOR!!!!!!! (first prosecutor in this list babyyyyyyy) she's cracked she's an epic lady girlboss prosecutor she's like van zikes without the racism. She would probably be the main prosecutor for 1 game and then dip for plot reasons. She is so soft on kids to a kind of comical degree ex: really mean/insulting until she realizes a kid is there and then will be like “oops sorry don't repeat that, child” and then censor herself around them even when being aggressive. She also has 3 kids of her own that pop up sometimes (we will get there). She has had many a’ run -ins with klee because of klee and albedo being around xingqiu semi-often and klee is a little scared of her/just straight dislikes her and that hurts her a bit even if it's reasonable and she knows it.

[legacy-by-darkryuu]

Remaster: Step Toward the Future, Chapter 1

Summary: Set in BTN/MFOMT/DS: Jill ("Claire") is struggling to find a goal in life after high school. After her parents boot her off to her late grandfather's farm, everything around her is never quite the same as she struggles to find herself and her future. Remastered from original 2004 release. Jill/Cliff, minor Jill/Kai, minor Jill/Gray, minor Jill/Doctor. OC/Popuri, OC/Elli.

Also available on Archive of Our Own

Chapter 1: The Beginning

Blanket Disclaimer: I don’t own Story of Seasons, Harvest Moon, or Rune Factory.

Rating: M/Adult

Author’s Note:

2023 Notes: It is DONE. It only took four years because of flipping adulthood. I can’t say it was fruitless. Along with the full rewrite of Step Toward the Future, I completed the prequel stories! Originally, when I was gung-ho writing this in the 00s-10s, I skipped around and did not actually write how some of the characters got here. Especially the kids, my God. They just popped up in Yuki, the Sophomore fanfic following Step Toward the Future. And there’s mentions of the characters but like you never meet them. It’s been weird as hell but I fixed it! All characters are now accounted for.

I will be posting for a while, there is a TON of content. I do not believe I can get into Fanfiction.net for some reason, or at least it’s not loading for me (I promise you, it could have fully closed and I’d have missed it) so it will be on Archive of Our Own and on Tumblr…once I pretty up the site. My motivation for anything lately is crap. But it’ll be on legacy-by-darkryuu at some point. I will host the ‘Classic’ version there unless otherwise specified.

It stays true to form…to a point, then, if somehow you’ve read it between 2004-2016, it goes the FF7 route and goes complete revamp. Still chaotic, still pretty nonsense but I seriously cannot reformulate this whole series by rectifying that, lol.

It’s a trifle darker than the original? Just a wee bit. And while real world chronologically, this is the first story I wrote, in the series, Nomad falls before this and may be a good read for some elements but not required. But that’s all I’ve got. Happy reading.

2019 Rewrite Notes: So, I finally decided to stop being lazy since I am working on the original six’s stories (mostly Shin’s right now) and just edit this bad boy to fit where we are now. I have like 90 different versions sitting in this folder but we’ll call this the “Forever Edit” until I edit something else into the storyline.

It’s only necessary for some unsavory things that were ‘normal’ when I was fourteen. It did kind of strike me as funny that Cliff’s ‘gentlemanliness’ is a little gross to me now. It just didn’t come off naturally. Also, while Jill was a loner and aloof in the original version, while she’s not super friendly ‘everyone is my friend!’, I don’t get the idea she’d purposefully be that way so that’s gonna be played down. Also, since Koji’s our quintessential dark child, she may still dress darkly and have a few of the original stylings but that’s gonna be rolled back a little too. And just some general cohesiveness corrections. ADDITIONALLY, I hope I can truncate this disaster to make it a more reasonable amount of chapters.

I’m going to remove the classic version from FF.Net again but you can still access it on Archive of Our Own. I know a lot of my old time readers are nostalgic and the version over there was how it was ORIGINALLY uploaded.

New time readers, welcome to the series. It’s cray. I have literally been writing this thing for fifteen years. I have slowed down due to being a full-time employed millennial so I get in where I fit in now. This story is set in 2004. It’s an AU take on the game. There will be lore and Easter eggs toward the series but overall, just take the characters and throw them into a real setting. Be forewarned, some of your favorite characters may be portrayed as unsavory but this changes (now). I hope you enjoy! Happy reading~

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Jill was lost in her own world amidst the heavy metal and moshing as she walked through the concert of one of the local bands, shoving past the riled up fans, cursing them silently under her breath. Like clockwork, again, she wasn’t in a good mood. The screaming rhythm that she had come to love wasn’t numbing her dismay at all.

She’d been tasked to take care of her great-grandfather’s farm and she was leaving tomorrow morning.

It wasn’t like her but she whined for nearly three weeks. It wasn’t what she WANTED to do…but, her parents demanded to know her alternatives. She…had none. They assured that this was something for her to do in the meantime then. She had five other brothers, but she was chosen out of all of them. Most likely because, out of all of them, she was the only one not attending college aside from the oldest who already had a career.

Mumbling lightly, she started for the exit, seeing as the concert wasn’t providing her any joy and tomorrow was going to be a long day.

And the sooner she figured out what step she had going toward her future, the sooner she got to leave.

She heard the alarm beeping, but she didn’t want to wake up. She didn’t want to go. Why was she being forced to do this? What did she, someone who’d only known the city for eighteen years, know about farming?

She picked up her alarm clock and threw it across the room, burying her face into her pillow. Whose test was this exactly? “Well, good morning, Sunshine” said a sarcastic voice. She looked to the door of her large room to see her older brother, Yagami Koji, standing there, wearing dark colored jeans and a black button up shirt, an ever loving child of darkness with dark hair and dark eyes to match. Jill sat up and grumbled, “Shut up and kill me.” He smiled gently and came further in to sit on her bed, “Princess, you know I’d go for you if mom and dad weren’t so invested in seeing you do something.” “Can’t I take time to figure that out? I just don’t know! I’m not like you or Shin, I don’t know what I want to do!” she protested, referring to their oldest brother who had a full blown career now. “And you can do that while you’re managing the farm” he said warmly, “Hell, maybe you’ll have an epiphany in like the first year then one of us will come and run it the rest of the way until it’s sold. You have to admit, Jilly, you’ve been sitting around for not days or weeks or even months, but close to a full year, doing absolutely nothing. We have super lenient parents but they do not care for idleness. You already got to see they didn’t let it fly with your twin.” Yea, she guessed she was the spoiled one now, she did think she’d get a pass. She sat up and hugged his waist, whining, “Big brother…” He stroked her long blond hair and rested his chin on top of her head, “Mmm, tell you what: how about I come and help on my next break. Sound okay?” She sighed. “I guess...”

"Psh, you guess? Can you imagine Koji actually farming?” said a snickering voice. They both looked up and Koji glared back at him. “I’d do better farming than you can, punkass.” The other oldest, Yagami Nerimaru, known amongst their family as ‘Nelly’, gave Koji a large grin and placed his left hand on his hip. He shook a spatula at them. “The nerve. And after I got up all early and crap to fix breakfast. I’m hurt.” Koji stood and rolled his eyes at Nelly, his younger less gloomy twin “How sweet of you. Did you hit your head or something?” “Bah. I can’t do anything out of the kindness of my heart?” Koji raised an eyebrow, blinking innocently “Kindness? Is there any?” Koji laughed and ran down the hallway as Nelly threw the spatula at him. He glared in the direction Koji fled, most likely having missed as Koji was master at dodging. Jill groaned. Her brothers…her stomach flopped and she winced, biting her lip as nervousness suddenly overtook her.

“What if no one there likes me?” she whispered.

“What are you talking about? Does it even matter?” Nelly questioned.

“Yea, if I have to stay there for three or more years until we sell it or someone takes it over, it kind of does” she huffed. Nelly suddenly leered, looking back down the hallway, “Oi, Koji!” Somehow, she knew what direction this was going already when Koji reappeared. Nelly glowered, “She’s gonna be in ol’ country town without our supervision and probably meeting all sorts of shmucks.” “It crossed my mind” Koji assured. Jill groaned, burying her face in her hands. Here we go. She had maybe two boyfriends in her life because these two and, to a smaller degree, her other three brothers terrified anything identifying as male away from her. Hell, they might take this from her with that option looming overhead.

“But I’m leaning that Jill’s city sensibilities aren’t gonna be swayed by some country dude” Koji added. What now? Jill gave him a look as Nelly looked dubious. “I dunno, dude, country girls are hot, why are the dudes gonna be any different?” Koji mused over this and she groaned again, “Okay, while you two decide if you’re sending bodyguards with me, leave so I can take a shower.” She went into the large bathroom in her almost suite-like room and turned on the radio to Yellowcard, an American band. Undressing and climbing into her shower, she started to wash her hair and wonder...

Did they have showers? Oh God, she was going to die.

She wandered out after several minutes and pulled on her black shirt and a pair of red pants. Heading downstairs in the Yagami mansion to the kitchen, she found some of her brothers swinging pots and pans at each other, Koji and Nelly milling in the corner, probably still discussing her supervision while all that nonsense went on around them. She raised an eyebrow and shook her head. Well, one pro: She was leaving some of this insanity behind.

XXX

Shin, her oldest brother, glanced at her as she gulped heavily. He was driving her to the ferry station on Hondo, the main island where she’d lived her whole life, to spirit her to this farming island. Her father, Yagami Yamada, a big-time surgeon, was supposed to but got called in to treat a patient.

Her mother also was called to surgery. Fashion surgery, that is. Apparently, there were two models on opposite spectrums in a show, one gaining weight to wear an outfit and another losing too much. Her mother, the great Yagami Dana, went to fix it so neither of them lost the opportunity.

Nelly and Koji only came to the mansion this morning to see her off from there, they had to get back to college. Somehow, she was glad as Shin was always generally the absolute calmest of all of them. She needed that right now…

Shin smiled. “You okay, sweetie?”

“Of course not” she grumbled.

He gave her a warmer smile, “You’ll be fine, imoto.”

“Yahhh, if you don’t scare the living crap out of your neighbors first” said a drowsy voice.

She glared at her own male twin, Tony. Shin cut his eyes in the rearview mirror at him. “You’re not helping, Tony.”

Tony smiled, “She knows I’m kidding. But seriously, remember, these people probably don’t even know what a CD is so you might not want to be blasting your EMO or any version of alt-rock immediately.”

She gasped at this revelation then sobbed into his shoulder. “I’m gonna die!”

Tony patted her head, “You’ll be fine, Jilly. I’m not a huge fan of this idea either but, y’know, it’s something to do while you figure shit out.”

“And who knows? Maybe you’ll find a boyfriend too” said the final, and youngest, brother in the group, Shaun.

She leered behind her, “Well, if you and Tony weren’t so busy waging war, you’d know that Koji and Nelly expressly forbid it.”

“Yeah, you better not without any of us there. Men are shit” grumbled Tony.

She glowered at him, “Even if I was capable of getting a guy to talk to me, given not one of you loons has ever allowed me to truly get the experience, I wouldn’t want some back-country hick.”

Shaun laughed, “You definitely won’t get a boyfriend with that attitude!”

“She won’t get one at all!” snapped Tony.

Shin scolded them both to silence before he smiled again, “Just try to enjoy yourself, Jill. I…also am not a great fan of you pursuing anyone at this junction but, whatever happens will happen.”

“...If you say so, Shin.”

She didn’t know. Maybe this would be the worst experience of her life.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It…was beyond rustic. It was…almost like she time traveled. Jill wandered slowly into…a square? The streets were cobblestones. There was no pavement. There were shops, sure, but…

She was alone. All alone. She’d had five brothers and two parents her whole life, the very idea of ‘alone’ was traumatizing. But she wasn’t exactly ‘alone’. She was amongst absolute strangers. Their electric eyes gave her suspicious looks as she slowly wandered through town, down cobblestone streets, to find a grocery store. She just needed food. Everyone needed to eat, right?

She had no idea where anything was. Jill watched them whisper and raise eyebrows at her. Chills ran up and down her spine and her stomach was twirling. So this was it, huh? Going from her comfortable cozy circumstances to Judgmental Town 101? It was…it was stupid high school again and she literally just graduated. She didn’t even feel okay asking these people where the damn grocery store was.

Her lips began to twitch and before she knew it, she had stopped to sit on a bench to cry. Everyone on the street looked positively startled and started to quickly walk away from her, disturbed. Why? Did she look that scary? She cried into her hands, wishing her brothers were there to help. How could she survive when everybody judged her before they even got to know her?

She choked on sobs, rubbing her eyes. What was wrong with her? She was having a nervous breakdown for what reason? This was not the Yagami way. They just struggled and fought until things leveled out. She was not going to be the one Yagami breaking down because she couldn’t get groceries, especially given her brothers survived pretty much actual Hell.

Suddenly, a shadow came over her before someone sat down next to her. She sniveled, very startled, and looked to her side, about to glare and question what they were doing? Everyone was ignoring her or hadn’t they noticed?

But her eyes widened and she had to keep her mouth from falling open. A guy was beside her, a concerned look on his face. But that wasn’t what got her…

She didn’t think hot guys would even be here.

He had golden dirty brown hair that reached a little bit down his back, past his shoulders, pulled back in a ponytail. His eyes were bright blue and full of something warm and captivating...and he had on a black shirt and ripped jeans...

One thing was for sure: this was not the average town person she’d passed.

He tilted his head slightly to the side and finally asked, his voice soft and gentle, “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

Now could she really say to this rather extremely handsome young gentleman her reason for crying like a complete idiot in the middle of town? No, she couldn’t.

Then again. “I...I can’t find the grocery store” she sobbed.

He gave her a breathtaking smile and chuckled, “That all? It’s all right. This town isn’t set up very conveniently.”

“It’s just no one would help me...” she blubbered, instantly feeling silly.

He frowned, “You’re new here, right? No one offered to show you around?”

She shook her head. Even the mayor hadn’t asked if she wanted a tour. He just ran away as soon as he showed her to the farm. The guy continued to frown for a moment then gave her another bright smile.

“Well then, allow me the honor. I am Izumi Cliff” he introduced himself, standing and putting his hand out to help her up.

Izumi…? She reached slowly toward his outstretched hand and took it. So warm. “H-hi, Izumi-san. I’m Yagami Jill. I’m going to be running the Obinata Farm. Um, sorry for the random...breakdown. It’s probably not the best way to meet someone. Rather awkward, I’d say.”

He smiled pleasantly, “Why? I have them everyday. This town is about as fun as getting a root canal.”

”Eek” she winced.

“Indeed...” he smirked, watching some snooty woman go by.

“So...you’re going to show me the grocery store?” she asked hopefully.

“I’ll do more than that! I’ll show you where the few things that exist are in this town” he said in an almost haughty manner.

She smiled shyly, “I’m honored.”

“Believe me, the honor’s all mine” he replied, bowing.

He led her back to…“Oki doki, square one.”

She didn’t feel annoyed, in fact, she fought off giggling, “Um...my farm? I kind of got down where this is.”

“Well, I’d hope you’d know your way here, I guess” he grinned.

He led her upwards and stopped in front of an old looking building with smoke looming from it. “This is the blacksmith.”

She raised an eyebrow, “Blacksmith? For what? It’s the 21st century.”

“Here, it’s like the 19th century. Four channels of television and they’re still using books. I mean, who actually reads anymore? We have the internet and fanfiction for that” he mused.

She laughed despite herself, “I mean, I do still read books but what’s the use of the blacksmith then?”

“I think he makes tools and stuff. I think. I dunno, I don’t talk to these people very often. All I know is his grandson is like, quiet Satan.”

“What?”

“Well, maybe not Satan, but quiet Lucifer” he ‘corrected’.

She laughed, surprised at herself, but very amused, “Those are like the same thing!”

“Okay, okay, he’s kind of a nice guy once you get to know him but he’s tsundere to a tee. Don’t be too off put if he says something terrible but doesn’t mean it” Cliff snickered.

She chuckled and nodded. He led her forward a bit to another house.

“This is the house of Duke and Manna. They’re like, upper class to the max but they sell wine and grape juice” he said before breaking off, musing.

“Hmm?” she questioned, sensing he had more to say.

“Well, I suggest avoiding Duke. He doesn’t like youth.”

She smirked at that, “Sounds kind of…old.”

“Yea, he’s kind of weird.” Cliff led her forward to another house. “This is Anna and Basil’s house. They’re the local botanists. They also have a daughter named Mary. She’s smart and ‘I know so much more than you, loser’ and she works in the library. Not that I really go there.”

She groaned, “I probably won’t either. I have to learn to farm. I guess I’ll be reading ‘fanfictions’ if I do have free time.”

He waved his hand, “Damn straight! And that said place is right there. The library…also known as the Legion of Doom.”

She chuckled again and he led her around the bend. “This is the mayor’s house right here...he lives with this photographer named Kano. Kano came from the mainland too. I think he said he’s from Wasaba or something.”

“Oh my God, really?” Her dad came up there, maybe he knew him.

“Yep! The mayor lets him stay here for now until I guess he finds a Ms. Mayor. I mean, the guy needs someone to keep him warm at night. He’s not exactly a looker.”

She giggled as the mayor’s appearance popped into her head. “Yea, I have never met anyone wearing a top hat not as a costume before. I thought those went out of style.”

Cliff laughed, “Yeah, I was pretty blown away when I came here too.”

So, he wasn’t from around here either and Izumi…it could be a coincidence. What made him settle in these parts? Walking up a bit to the next house, Cliff smiled. “Well, this lady is pretty nice. Her name’s Ellen and she has a granddaughter named Elli and her grandson, Stu. She makes a nice apple pie for everyone during the holidays.”

Jill smiled softly, more at the look on his face rather than what he was saying, “At least someone pleasant exists, huh?”

“Oh, they are few and in between.”

The place next door happened to be… “Here it is, as promised: The grocery store.”

She groaned and blushed, “I feel so stupid...”

“Don’t, really. This place looks like all the rest of the houses.”

She smiled at his comfort and then noticed a random girl glaring at them from the benches nearby. She was wearing a white tube top, a pair of jean hot pants and a purple vest. Her hair was blond in the front and brown in the back and she had piercing green eyes.

“Why are you hanging out in front of our store? Get lost, losers!” she snapped.

“And that would be the store owner’s lovely daughter, Karen. Don’t worry. I find her mother Sasha to be rather kind. Wonder what happened with her daughter...” Cliff remarked.

Karen glared furiously at him and he grabbed Jill’s hand, quickly dashing by. She blushed at the little contact, her heart fluttering. He released it once they were a nice distance away from the angry Karen.

“Best not taunt that one” he grinned, shaking his head, “I mean, like Grey, she’s nice, just tends to get a little irritable about her circumstances from time to time.”

Circumstances? He looked around and then pointed at a white building.

“That is the doctor’s office. Note that everyone calls him ‘The Doctor’ but his name is Dr. Ishikawa though. Really nice guy, one of my closest buddies here.”

Jill frowned, that name ringing a bell too. Dr. Ishikawa…

They rounded another corner and he pointed up a walkway. “That’s the church. They have confession and services. Y’know, stuff like that.”

She nodded and they walked up the path a little more. He frowned and blinked a little. “This is the inn slash restaurant where I stay. Here is where Doug and Ann live.”

He looked upwards for a moment, as if thinking, then laughed, “Never mind. Let us continue!”

She stared at him as he passed her then continued to follow. He showed her everywhere that day and she felt so grateful to him. They went back to the store where they got a lot of dirty looks from fellow shoppers. Great. But Cliff smiled as if he didn’t notice them.

And she did the same. She wasn’t alone right now.  

They walked back to her house and she smiled at him, “Thanks so much. I’m glad I found someone in town that’s nice.”

He smiled sheepishly, “You bet. And no need to thank me. It was my pleasure.”

He then grinned, “Well, I’ll leave you to unpack and stuff. Hope to see more of you.”

She nodded and watched him walk off. Huh.

She was actually starting to look forward to this a bit more. Maybe…this was a step forward.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

End Notes: Yellowcard?! Who the hell is that?! This takes place in 2004, bruh! This was some nostalgic research here. And I am 200% going to the When We Were Young 2023 music festival! Koji, Nelly, Tony, and Shaun are the farmer from Back to Nature/More Friends of Mineral Town/DS. Just…not really. When we were kids, I played as Koji, my cousin sort of played as Nelly, my younger cousin played as Tony, and, just to be inclusive, we had one other cousin play in spirit as Shaun. Shin is the farmer from Save the Homeland/Hero of Leaf Valley. Jill is the blonde protagonist from Back to Nature: For Girls and DS Cute. I can find no real remaining evidence but, prior to “Jill”, the brunette AnWL character, ‘Claire’ was Jill. Thus, why I named her such…I don’t remember when or why the shift came. Just remember, this was written sort of before Another Wonderful Life came out (Crazy, right?). Mineral Town is way bigger in scope than it is in the game. It’ll be developed over the stories.

[proudlylost]

My 6+1 favorite SPN fics: AU

After the SPN finale I kinda got sucked back into the fandom. The excessive amount of fanfiction reading ensued (I re-read all of my SPN fic favorites and then some) and I realised I have actually read quite a lot of them. So I thought I could share them, to highlight all the talented authors there is and also to gather all of my favorites into the one place. This post contain my favorite AU fics, the SPN universe edition of this fic rec can be found here.

Ninety One Whiskey by komodobits

“In the spring of 1944, the 104th Medical Battalion of the United States Army is disbanded, and its men reassigned to various infantry companies in preparation for their invasion of occupied France. For First Lieutenant Novak, this is less than helpful, as he has so far met his platoon’s designated medic a grand total of twice, and has both times found Sergeant Winchester to be the optimum combination of reckless, arrogant, and downright insufferable so as to make cohesive platoon function near impossible. When the time comes to move out, however, Castiel has to reconcile himself to the fact that men are going to go down and trust that Dean Winchester may well be the only person who can put them back together again. WW2 ETO infantry AU. “ 

READ! THIS! Well, there is some really disturbing war related and time period related stuff, but if you can stomach that, read it! Along with the Angel’s Wild, this is my favorite fanfiction. This fic is heart wrenching and so, so good.The characterization is on point. Historical accuracy is on point. Slow burn is on point. Everything is just perfect. However, as I said, this fic is heavy stuff. There is some serious angst (I cried. I almost never cry when reading) and trauma. But there is glimmers of hope, even if sometimes it feels hopeless. Expected recovery time: at least two weeks. Word Count:  401,183. Explicit

Angel’s wild by LimonadeGaby and riseofthefallenone

“But that’s the whole reason he’s here, isn’t it? He’s not out here hunting Humans. He’s not even hunting deer, or bears, or anything else that featured in Bambi. He’s out here, freezing his nuts off every night, because he’s hunting Angels.

Sometimes Dean wishes that Angels were like how they’re described in the Bible. How people from time too old for him to care much about thought Angels were messengers and warriors of God, protectors of Humans. He knows that how they’re really described in the Bible is actually pretty terrifying, but at least they were told by God that they’re supposed to love Humans, right?

That’s a thousand times better than what Angels really turned out to be.”

This was first longer fic that I read from Supernatural fandom and I fell in love. So this is “the fic that got me into the fandom” but I have read it multiple times since and it is still very, very good. I love everything about this fic. It is very original and the lore is amazing. I love how Dean and Cas are both quite young (in Cas’s case, relatively speaking) and how their love develops (slow burn! <3) I love how Cas is described and I love how he communicates (unintentionally) with flowers. You can also read this without having any knowledge of supernatural series (like I did) which is always impressive for a fic. Wor count:  389, 271. Explicit

For All You Young Hockey Players Out There, Pay Attention by thursdaysfallenangel

“Dean Winchester knows two things about hockey, two things his dad made sure he knew. One, hockey is a guy’s sport, and two, hockey is family. Hockey meant Sam and Bobby and Benny and Victor and Gabriel and hell, his entire team. So when Victor gets traded, Russian-star-turned-new-teammate Castiel Krushnic becomes a threat. As much as Dean hates him for that, the longer he sticks around, the more he begins to threaten that first rule too. Dean’s been taught his whole life that those who play hockey should not be captivated by deep accented voices and the way a guy handles his stick, so how the hell is he supposed to justify what he’s starting to think about Cas? All Dean wanted at the beginning of the season was to win, and now all he wants to do is figure out how he feels about Cas and how to deal with it without ruining his career and tearing his family apart. “

Ah, three of my absolute favourite things smashed into the same fic: sports, slow burn and enemies to lovers. This fic has lots of cameos from supernatural characters, because hockey teams require lots of players. So it is easy to spot your favorite character in this fic. This fic is probably one of may favorites, because of the sport environment (Outside the fandom, I have been super into sports. Like so much I have several national championships medals from my sport. Anyway, not a point here): also the sexual tension between Dean and Cas is so good, especially when they are pumped with the adrenaline. You don’t really need to understand sports to enjoy this fic, though. Word count:  143,592. Explicit

Formula Won by cardinalwrites

“Of all the places Castiel Novak thought he would take in his career, an internship as a Formula One Paddock Correspondent (or journalist, for short) was most definitely not one of them for a few reasons. One: He had no clue what the hell Formula One was. Two: He knew nothing about sports in general. And Three: He should not fall in love with the people he’s supposed to be asking hard-hitting questions to, least of all the head driver of one of the oldest and most well-renowned teams in the sport’s history.

This is a love story told around the world through the eyes of the person that knows the least about where he has found himself in. Come follow a 20-race season finding love in the lost, learning the truth, and figuring out what the hell Formula One is along the way.”

Another sports fic with a slow burn. This is probably not everyone’s cup of tea, because there is quite a lot information about formula one, and the reading experience is more enjoyable if already know about formulas/do your research. Don’t let it stop you though, because this fic is very good. The friendship between Dean and Cas is very natural, and later the romance as well. The plot is very engaging and the drama inside the formula one organization is so good. This fic is also not so “heavy” as the other ones in my list (of course, there are problems along the way, but even the fic’s tags say there will be fluff). The rating is T, which is kinda surprising, because I did not notice it until I already had read the whole fic. Word count: 123,777. Teen

Have Love, Will Travel by squeemonster

Castiel Novak is a reclusive writer with a childhood so tragic it's left him terrified to leave his home—until his overbearing brother, Gabriel, drags him out for a night on the town full of booze and strip clubs, and he encounters Dean Winchester, a mesmerizing and mysterious stripper with secrets of his own. Both men find themselves inexplicably drawn to each other, and soon Dean's private dances for Castiel become much more, as both men confess their troubles and find solace in each other's company. But neither can seem to find the courage to take their relationship further than the intimacy of the club's VIP Room—and just when Dean's own brother gives him the excuse he needs to finally admit his feelings, Dean discovers something that brings it all crumbling down. Will they find a way past their demons and their trust issues, and back to each other?

This is one of the fandom classics and quite rightfully so. Both Dean and Cas have issues, in other words: what’s new? The sexual chemistry between them was so good and well written, but there is also angst and mental health issues (mostly Cas). Sam is quite young in this fic, but manages to be very much a little brother. I honestly loved this fic when I was a bit younger, but I think it is still very good and deserves its place in this list. Word count  94,054. Explicit

Pick It All Up by thepinupchemist

Army veteran Castiel Novak is a wreck after his tour in Afghanistan, brought home to his brother's apartment in Lawrence, Kansas with scars both mental and physical. He copes poorly, and during one night of bad decision making, meets somebody just as much of a disaster as he is -- a prostitute named Dean Winchester. And suddenly, two damaged men might not be as irreparable as they believed.

Ah, it seems that I’m incapable of picking nice, fluffy, happy fanfics. This certainly is not one of them. There is full warnings in the tags, because there is some triggering stuff: PTSD, mentions of past abuse, alcoholism etc. But, this is also very healing story in its own way (It has happy ending. I guess I can spoil that because it reads in the tags) . I avoided this fic for a long time, because the prostitute!Dean tag scared me away, but this was so worth of reading (as I said, happy ending)! Gabriel is super supportive and sweet brother and Dean and Cas are dysfunctional but they work so well despite all the trauma they have endured. Word count:  126,611. Explicit

Bonus: Twist and Shout by gabriel and standbyme

What begins as a transforming love between Dean Winchester and Castiel Novak in the summer of 1965 quickly derails into something far more tumultuous when Dean is drafted in the Vietnam War. Though the two both voice their relationship is one where saying goodbye is never a real truth, their story becomes fraught with the tragedy of circumstance. In an era where homosexuality was especially vulnerable, Twist and Shout is the story of the love transcending time, returning over and over in its many forms, as faithful as the sea.

Well, I don’t think this fic needs any introductions. This is the fic, the most popular in SPN fandom and one of the most popular ones in the whole ao3. I thought that I could read this, because I don’t generally have many triggers, despite all the warnings. I was a wreck during reading. And I have managed to read it once and I can’t make myself read it again. But it is good and amazingly written. This fic plucks every emotion out of you and does anything it pleases with them. You have been warned. Word count:  97,556. Explicit

(When I wrote this fic rec I also realised I have a serious problem with long fics. Like, most of my favorites are at least 100,000 words. At this point I think I don’t even consider a fic to be slow burn, unless it takes several days to complete the fic. Oops)

[minghaocouture]

Fearless: Chapter 14 + Epilogue

Pairing: Werewolf! Jeon Wonwoo x Vampire! Reader Genre: Romance, Fantasy, Non-Idol AU WC: 2.5k+ Warning: Language, Mentions of blood, mentions of wounds, implied smut AU Lore: Vampire Coven Info/Wolf Pack Info/Lore Info Tag List: @moon-asia @uglychildd @skjdln @darkacrimson @woozisnoots @hwangjangmi @rjsmochii @fluffyhyeju​ @svtjuniverse @karmacqre​ @dwcljh​ @taeyeon-got-shmoney​ @2dmoonenback​ @moonchild9499​

Unable to tag: @Unbaeknownst @peachescherryheart A/N: So first off, don’t judge that Wonwoo edit too harshly lol, it’s my first attempt at editing and with 0 knowledge of what i’m doing >.> also I honestly can’t believe this is the last chapter. I was going to make a last chapter and then an epilogue but it fit well at the end of this chap so I just made them into one <3. Thank you guys so much for supporting me and reading this story!  

Chapter List: Chapter 1/Chapter 2/Chapter 3/Chapter 4/Chapter 5/Chapter 6/Chapter 7/Chapter 8/Chapter 9/Chapter 10/Chapter 11/Chapter 12/Chapter 13/Chapter 14

You weren’t sure how long you had been in this room. All you knew was that you were tired and hungry. Never before had the thirst been this strong, the feeling almost completely consumed your mind and you weren’t sure if it would ever go away. Cohesive thoughts seemed to escape you as your eyes stared out into the darkness of the room.

You were vaguely aware that you had been brought to the basement and that someone, you weren’t sure who, kept bringing you blood to drink, but everything else was a blur. The only thing you could recall was the limp form of Wonwoo on the ground and the feeling of the frenzy taking over you, a feeling that you couldn’t seem to shake. Being left completely in the dark about his status definitely wasn’t helping, for all you know...he did actually die that night. Yet you couldn’t even ask about him, the feeling of the frenzy seemed to always come back full force whenever someone else entered your room.

The sound of the heavy wooden door creaking open caught your attention, goosebumps pricking up on your flesh as you smelled the strong scent of fresh blood and felt a fresh wave of frenzy rush over you. It wasn’t different from when you were brought something to feed on, the blood this time smelt fresh as if it had just been spilt. The inability to control your actions, the pure primal instinct to feed or fight was all that you knew in that moment. You were on your feet in a second, dashing towards the new comer, and shoving them to the ground before they could even really enter the room. Your arms caging their head as you leaned down and attached your lips to their neck. There was no hesitation as you sunk your fangs into the supple skin and began to drink your fill.

Surprisingly there was no resistance from this new person, they didn’t try to push you away and their aura didn’t exude fear as they usually would. In fact, you felt an arm weakly wrap around your waist as you drained them of their precious blood. The feeling made you feel warm, and it was oddly familiar but you couldn’t quite put a finger on what it could be. 

“Well, that wasn’t the reaction I was hoping for, but they said you’d been really hungry.” The voice was familiar, but in your frenzy clouded mind it was so hard to think. Nothing stuck, not names, not faces, not voices. All you knew was food. The stranger let out a strangled chuckle, his hand rubbing gentle circles on the small of your back as he held you close. It was almost as if he was just...letting you drink your fill, letting you drain him as much as you needed without any kind of resistance.

As the fresh blood filled your system, it was almost as if your brain had been reset and everything was much too strong and too familiar now. Everything seemed to finally click once more as you came to your senses. Carefully yet quickly removing your fangs from your victim, you pushed yourself away just enough to be able to see his face.

He looked ragged, a large patch of gauze was carefully attached to the left side of his face and his hair was cut rather unevenly, most likely to make sure the wound of his face healed properly. His skin was almost an unhealthy clammy color and you were certain that you draining his blood had not helped him. He seemed to notice the look of recognition in your eyes and a small smile graced his face. Just from that one look the fog of your frenzy had completely vanished, as if it had never been there to begin with, and everything seemed to hit you all at once.

“Feeling better now?” 

Unable to find your voice for a moment, you simply dropped yourself back down and wrapped your arms around him as best you could from this position. You heard a small wince from below you as you buried your face into his neck once more, only this time it wasn’t so that you could feed. 

“You ass.” you muttered, doing your best to not accidentally hurt him again. “If you ever pull anything like that again, I’ll kill you myself you hear me.” 

“Of course, can’t die to any hands but yours. But…” the arm around your waist gripped you ever so tightly. “I would appreciate it if you got off...or I might actually end up dying today.”

With a speed you felt was quick even for a Vampire, you were off of him and helping him up and into the room you had previously been in. Laying him down on one of the leather couches before quickly turning on the lights, wincing yourself this time as the light blinded you for a moment. It was now that you noticed the blood that had seeped through his shirt, right where his bullet wound had been.

“You actual idiot!” You exclaimed, searching around for the first aid kits that are kept in each of the feeding rooms. You would think in a room as minimalistic as this one, it would be easy to find. “What were you thinking coming here while you were still injured! Sure, werewolf blood is disgusting but that doesn’t mean that you won’t get attacked!”

“You sure…” you heard a small grunt, glancing over your shoulder you noticed him attempting to sit up as he spoke. “You sure didn’t mind my ‘disgusting werewolf blood’ a minute ago.” 

You almost completely froze in your search as you realized, he was right. It wasn’t normal for the blood of a werewolf to taste as good as if it were a human’s blood. You vaguely wondered if that had to do with you...being his mate. There were a lot of questions to ask later, right now, making sure he survived the night was more of a priority. 

That thought was enough to get you moving again, finally locating the first aid kit and rushing over to take care of the freshly opened wound. Grabbing his shoulder, you pushed him to lay back down as you slowly lifted his shirt up so that you could get to the wound. 

“Did you actually just wake up and come straight here? Cause that would be stupid” Your tone was a bit harsh and contrasted with the gentle touch of your hands against his skin and you did your best to care for him. “Were you actually trying to get yourself killed, or something?” 

“I mean, that’s pretty much what I did.” He explained, chuckling lightly as he thought about how much trouble he was going to be in once it was discovered that he was missing. “I was worried about you.”

His words caused you to tense, eyes focusing in on properly rebandaging his abdomen. It felt like a stone had sunk into your gut as you worked, thankfully he wasn’t bleeding to harshly but it was still enough to cause you to worry.

“Save some of that worry for yourself. I’m not the one currently bleeding out on a couch.” You retorted quickly, doing your best to ignore the piercing gaze of his eyes as they followed you. After carefully taping off the bandages, you began to pull away to clean up a bit, only to be stopped by his hand gently wrapping around your wrist.

Taking a small breath to steady yourself, you finally lifted your gaze and connected eyes with the injured male. You hated how it seemed like he could see through you, like you were just an open book before him. You hated it, but it also made you feel oddly calm. It was just the effect he seemed to have on you.

“I’d rather be bleeding out here with you, than at home with Mingyu.” The tone his voice carried was an amused one, obviously joking, but kept enough weight for you to understand that his words held some truth to them.

“You shouldn’t want to bleed out at all.” You couldn’t find it in you to pull away from him, your wrist practically on fire where he touched. The same fire that you always felt with the two of you touched. It made you almost feel like you were a regular human. It made you think back to the conversation the two of you had right before the battle, about being mates. You hadn’t really gotten the chance to think too hard on the subject, but after seeing him injured. You knew that you didn’t want to see him like that again. So after a moment of silence between the two of you, you let out a small sigh.

“I want...ugh fuck...” the exclamation left your lips with a sense of irritation, you weren’t used to expressing yourself so openly. This was going to be much harder to admit

“I don’t think I can do that right now, if I’m being honest.” Taken off guard by the sudden humor from the male, you quickly pulled your wrist away. You knew that if you were human that your cheeks would be heating up with the tell tale signs of a blush and you were fairly certain Wonwoo was aware of that as well, if his light laugh was anything to go by.

“Hey, I’m sorry. Keep going.” he urged. You could tell he was trying to hold back his laughter not just so you would continue but so that he wouldn’t reopen his wound once more. 

Keeping your back to him, you crossed your arms over your chest and swallowed, hopefully swallowing your pride during the action so that you could continue with what you had been attempting to say. Your mouth felt dry and despite just having fed from Wonwoo, you felt impossibly hungry once again. 

“I want to try this mate thing.” You refused to turn around and face him, but you kept your voice firm to show that you weren’t wavering on your decision. “I can’t say I love you, but I know I care about you. Seeing you...like that made every part of me hurt, and being away from you, well it sucked okay. Especially since I wasn’t sure if you were even alive or not.” Trying to recall that night, all you remembered was being pulled away from him so that his pack could get him medical attention and then...everything was blank after that. You could recall screams, and being restrained, and then feeding but nothing was solid. You weren’t even sure of how long it had been.

“Well I am,” You heard his voice break through your rapid thoughts, bringing you back to the moment and out of the memories of that night. Just the sound of his voice seemed to be like a life preserver that you could hold onto, to keep you above the waters of your frenzy that had held a grip over you. “I’m alive, not perfectly fine yet. But I’m not dead and I’m not going to die anytime soon.” 

His words brought a comfort to your soul that you hadn’t been aware that you could feel, and a soft smile slid onto your face.

“Good, you better not. You’re not allowed to die until you look like your actual age.” You teased, finally turning back around to face him. You decided to push aside the darker thoughts that threatened to creep into your head. Letting yourself live in the moment, you had time. Not just to get to know Wonwoo but to possibly listen to the voice inside your head that was telling you that you couldn’t live without him anymore, and you were inclined to believe it. Not just because of the whole ‘mate’ thing, but because of how he had changed your life more in just a week than you had been able to change in almost a century. He was someone you wanted in your life now, and that was something you knew you had decided without the effects of the mate pull.

Taking a small bit of initiative, you bent down and gently pressed a kiss to the unbandaged side of his forehead. 

“Get some rest Wonwoo.”

“Stay with me?”

***

November 7th, 2021

“Geez guys can’t you lock the door or something!!” 

As the door slammed shut, you couldn’t stop yourself from letting out a loud awkward laugh. 

“I promise I locked it.” Wonwoo muttered, his face flushed red with embarrassment as being caught in the act by his roommate. Unfortunately neither of you had a really private place to spend time together, so this wasn’t the first time that this had happened. 

“Sure whatever you say wolf boy, I think you forgot again and just don’t wanna admit it,” You muttered, leaning down and pressing your lips firmly against his. Reveling in the feeling, kissing Wonwoo made you feel like you were floating. All of your nerve endings seemed to be set aflame when your lips met, which was probably why the two of you had been caught so many times. You just got so...lost in each other. 

Pulling away you examined his face, the marred flesh around his left eye made him look reminiscent of a character in an old cartoon you had watched. His now heterochromic eyes watched you as you stared down at him, lifting a hand to gently press against the permanent scar left over from the incident at the beginning of the year. Not only was the scar a permanent reminder of what had almost happened, but his eyesight as well. Sure it hadn’t been smooth sailing since then but...you were grateful that he hadn’t gotten put in danger like that again. 

“You’re staring again.” He muttered, his hand gently wrapped around the back of your neck before pulling you down into another kiss. It was his…’punishment’ for you, anytime he caught you staring for too long. It wasn’t much of a punishment but you sure weren’t going to tell him that. You loved his kisses. Honestly, you loved him but you decided it would be better to keep that information to yourself a little bit longer. You tried to pretend it was because you didn’t want to move too fast because of the Mate bond or whatever, but really you were still trying to get used to being vulnerable with others. It was something you struggled with, but Wonwoo knew this and was patient with you. He let you do things at your own pace. 

Gently pulling away again, you rested your forehead against his own with a soft smile on your lips.

“God, I love you.” his voice so soft that for a moment you thought you had imagined it. You felt your stomach clench slightly, the tell tale apprehension settling in once again. Letting his words settle in the air, you felt his hand gently caress your neck. “You don’t have to say it too. But I do, I love you.”

You may not have been ready to say the words out loud, but you hoped that he understood that you returned the feelings. You pushed those emotions into every kiss, every embrace. He was your and you were his. It was a relationship that you hadn’t been expecting but it was one that you never wanted to lose. 

[theapathetickat]

So I finally finished the Friends design set for my Soul Eater Kemono Friends AU. (for those who don't know: Friends in Kemono Friends are animal girls* created when an animal, living or dead, comes in contact with a volcanic substance known as Sandstar, and if eaten by a Cellian/Cerulean, they revert back to being an animal and their lives are "reset" to the point just before they became a Friend, losing all memories of that time. *Crona is still nonbinary in this AU since you know, they're capable of forming/voicing their own identity regardless of assigned labels

If this gets popular, I'll make a set 2 with more characters

Art by TheApatheticKat. Please do not repost or remove/edit caption

Before I list why I chose what species everyone was based on, here's the answer to a question I might get: "where's Blair/Kim/Jackie?" (There's already canon Friends for the domestic cat and the tanuki/raccoon dog, and it wouldn't be right to include Jackie wthout Kim. Actually, you know what, they're researchers and not Friends in this AU. Don't know where Blair goes yet)

Why I chose which species for which character: (note: I only chose species that didn't have canon Kemono Friends characters as of July 2020)

Maka - Domestic Rabbit: Partially because of that one manga panel where Crona hallucinated Maka with a rabbit's face, partially because from rabbit owners I follow, a Maka-like nature is way more common than you'd think. Though I was surprised there was no canon Friend for the domestic rabbit.

Crona - Fancy Rat (Lilac color): So I actually went through more species ideas for Crona's design than any other character. Mostly thinking about animals that were pink or purple in nature so I didn't have to mess with their hair too much, but those colors don't appear often (and unfortunately not in feline species at all). I had considered the Roseate Spoonbill, Galah, Web-footed gecko, Pine Grosbeak, Rusty-spotted cat, Kodkod, Black-footed cat, and the European Wildcat, but I ended up going with the fancy/domestic rat, specifically the lilac color variation. (it's actually warm gray and not truly lilac purple, but...) Because 1) I like rats, they are very cute like Crona; and 2) snake and rat symbolism with Medusa and Crona even though I have no idea how the heck I'd work that dynamic into a Kemono Friends AU considering the fluffy, G-rated nature of that series. 

Tsubaki - Kerama Deer: The Will of Nakatsukasa represented itself as a deer. I could have made her based on that, but as The Will of Nakatsukasa is original to Soul Eater's lore and is not a creature from real-world mythology like the canon mythical Friends, I went looking for an actual deer species native to Japan. The Sika deer was the only major one I could find, and it already had a canon Friend, but not all its subspecies did, so that's why I ended up choosing the subspecies known as the Kerama Deer.

Liz - Big Brown Bat: Since the Thompson sisters grew up in Brooklyn, I wanted to use two similar species that live at least somewhere in New York, as Friends of similar/related species in Kemono Friends regard each other as sisters (because aside from a few exceptions, there's only one Friend per species at any given time).

Patty - Little Brown Bat: I thought because of their common names that the big and little brown bats were related species. Turns out they're not even in the same genus, and I had already written the species names on the paper in pen so... oops. They're still sisters by KF logic anyway in this AU because I'm just gonna say so.

Medusa - Ursini Meadow Viper: She had to be a snake. Because her name was lifted from Greek mythology, I wanted to use a snake that lives in Greece, and because of her personality/canon actions, a venomous one was preferable. Luckily there was a snake out there that fit all that criteria. Also the symbolism with Medusa being a venomous snake while Crona being a rat... yeah.

Arachne - Black Widow: The vibes

Eruka - Australian Green Tree Frog: I was looking for a frog species that was a close match to what her frog form looks like in Soul Eater. The Australian Green Tree Frog is predominantly green, has the white underside, and some individuals have the dark facial spots, so it was a perfect fit! In trying to see what frog features are present on frog Friends, I scanned through the wiki to find the only frog Friends are the Keroro/Sgt.Frog crossover Friends, and they had no frog features on them, so I used Eruka's clothes to give her an extra bit of a frog motif.

Mizune - House Mouse: I don't think this one needs explanation

Azusa - Japanese Sparrowhawk: Azusa just has the vibe of a bird of prey to me, so I knew where to start. I also wanted to use a hawk or falcon that is not only Japanese but has enough black/otherwise dark areas that I wouldn't have to change her hair color that much.

Marie - Smooth Newt: Since her jast name (Mjolnir) derives from Norse mythology, I wanted to use an animal that lives in Scandinavia, specifically in/around Norway. And then I found out about the existence of the Smooth Newt. It has a range in Norway, has yellow and black in its color scheme like Marie does, and has an incredibly appealing name. Smooth Newt. (though I did want to use a sheep at one point, all the super fluffy ones were already taken)

Mira - Saharan Striped Polecat: This one was a bit trickier, as nothing really jumped out at me from the start, but because of her name and theming (Mira being close to Miira, the Japanese wourd for mummy, and her wearing bandages all over in combat), I wanted to choose a species that lived in or around Egypt (because that's the first country that comes to peoples minds when they think of mummies). The stripe pattern of the Saharan Striped Polecat also made it easy to incorporate her bandages and create a cohesive design that blended her original design in well.

[nho-jungle]

gonna ramble abt my killjoys au bc I’ve finally been allowed to have cohesive thoughts and I’m gonna make that everyone else’s problem <3

So canonically australia doesn’t exist in the killjoys universe, it got fuckin annihilated or somethin idk there’s not much clear lore tbh. I just know australia is Gone. The way I have it is that there was a small amount of forewarning, so some ppl managed to escape, and ended up in america, either in the zones or in battery city.

Calum (Wildflower) and Mali (who’s name I haven’t decided yet 😔) end up in the zones together. They manage by themselves for a little while, but eventually they r found by the 1D guys (who’s names I also have no clue on). They hang around for a bit, learning how to survive and stuff, before eventually parting ways.

Michael (Social Casualty) end up in the city with his mum, and he HATES it. His mum thinks the city is wonderful, she gets him settled in school and everything, but Michael escapes as soon as possible. Dye’s his hair, gets found by Louis (who can’t help him, but directs him to Calum and Mali). He finds them. They let him stay with them. Fun times.

Luke (Lonely Heart) ends up in the city with his family. They’re the perfect poster family for bl/ind, and actually get used as models and actors in campaigns and such. Eventually, Luke gets overwhelmed and runs away. On his way out the zones he finds a droid, also trying to escape.

Ashton (Valentine) is a porno droid who had some sort of conscious awakening (which he fully believes was a sign from Destroya), and thus decided to escape to the zones and pretend to be a regular human killjoy. Luke finds him when they’re both on their way out, but Luke promises to keep his identity a secret and treat him as a human. 

[dragimalsdaydreams]

WHEW BOY, I’ve been itchin’ to draw these designs up for quite a while now and finally got around to it, haha. I’ve struggled a lot with my personal style for MLP ponies, trying to make something nice out of “realism with MLP proportions” with.... mixed results, lmao. but I was inspired by @jayrockin‘s tiny sapient ungulate au to draw up my own more specevo designs, and I think I finally got something here I rly like

while I took heavy inspiration from Jay’s au (esp for the pegasus wings, which I will discuss in further detail in that section), I genuinely want to make something of my own here, and hope that comes through. if I’ve failed to do so, I apologize Jay, and I’ll be happy to delete or shift designs as needed-- I don’t want to infringe on ur designs or anything,,

anyways, I have a lot to say abt these designs, so I’ll throw it under the cut

BASE

while this is basically the starting point for my ponies-- the “unaligned” base-- it got me thinking about how it could possibly appear in-canon. magic is such a critical element of pony life, it would have to be something pretty drastic to strip a pony of all unique, class-defining features. which leads me to believe that if it would ever occur in the show, it would have happened in Starlight’s equality town. I imagine this wouldn’t necessarily be on purpose, but perhaps an unintended consequence removing a pony’s cutie mark? or maybe just a consequence of the particular spell Starlight used? either way, she prolly wouldn’t complain about “equalizing” her townsfolk on yet another level (tho she might have to explain why she gets to keep her horn for the removal spell). either way, it’s fun to imagine a uniform, blank set of unaligned ponies..

I had a hell of a time trying to figure out the relationship b/t magic and evolution, and how that translated to hexapods vs. tetrapods and the presence of a magic horn. my tentative lore is that alicorns are the basal ancestors of ponies (briefly: vertebrate hexapod clade >> ungulate-analogue clade >> magic-horn clade >> alicorns >> ponies). the eventual division of labor in early pony society redirected magical energy towards the most essential morphology for the three classes of labor, resulting in earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi. though the genetic structures for horns, hoof-nails, and wings (+ secondary traits) are still present in any given pony’s genetic code-- it’s simply a matter of whether the switch for a particular set of traits is activated or not

physical remnants of horns and wings are still subtly present in ponies who don’t have those structures, in the form of a small bump on the skull and reduced wing-nubs just behind the front legs. often, the bump or nubs will have some identifying pelt pattern, though this isn’t always the case

now since my take on ponies is that they’re ~technically~ all genetically alicorns, this has the potential for more of a gradient b/t classes. in rare cases, an individual may be born with two different classes of magic+traits activated at once, dubbed a “bicorn”. however, without the regulation of a powerful alicorn to consciously divvy out the traits/magic in an individual’s body (as was the case for Twilight’s ascension), these traits/magic don’t express to the full extent that they could have if they’d been activated individually. as an example, I think Fluttershy would absolutely be a “bicorn”-- a pony who has the innate earth-bound magic of an earth pony, but the physique and wings of a pegasus (and I would hc her with small, underdeveloped hoof-nails as well, in this case). without the full extent of air magic to keep her aloft, Fluttershy can barely keep up with her swift pegasi cousins, and she doesn’t have the brawn typically associated with earth ponies. she’s still a very successful pony in her own right, but she had to find unique ways to fill in the gaps between earth and pegasi life that weren’t necessarily inherent to either lifestyle. due to their perceived ‘lack’ in cohesion and magic, some ponies call bicorns “the beggar’s alicorn” (or if I wanna be rly mean and up the age rating on this au, “the bastard alicorn”)

now past all that nonsense abt the classes, I want to detail some universal traits among pony anatomy.

for one, ponies have dexterous lips that they use to hold and handle delicate objects, much like manatees. this is basically reused from my past suggestion for Jayrockin’s own pony designs, but retrofit for my take on pony faces. since my faces have more pointed, upturned noses, I figure that the lips could hold an object in place, while rabbit-like nose-twitching could direct the angle of the object (like for writing). the bottom lip may still be able to help in angling, but the nose is the more directive force, in this design. this also makes it so the tip of a pencil is up in a pony’s direct line of sight, even if the pencil is a simple straight-line stick rather than more ergonomically-designed. this is important to me b/c I don’t know if more complex writing structures would necessarily be available in early pony society, so if ponies only have simple sticks to write with, I still want them to see what they’re writing lmao

this also directly influences ponies’ long, flexible necks. since pony heads are treated as an extra limb for dexterity (especially in those ponies without horns), the head needs to comfortably reach different parts of the body

pony “hooves” are essentially meaty mitts covering three inner toes. the thick padding and leathery skin usually obscures the internal anatomy, though sometimes indentations are visible (especially in earth ponies). the middle toe is the main anchor of support, with the side toes providing extra support. they also allow for some dexterity, as the side toes can pinch together well enough to even hold thin objects like pencils. while the overall construction of the legs makes dexterous use of the "hooves” a bit difficult, it’s not uncommon to see certain professions gravitate towards hoof use over lip use. many earth pony artists, for example, tend to use their hooves so they can keep their faces an appropriate distance away from their pieces to view the “big picture”, and painters in particular prefer the wide strokes they can get with their hooves

UNICORN

unicorn horns have a keratin shell with an inner base of bone. the center of the bone houses a thick bundle of neurons which extends back into the base of the brain. the keratin covering is composed of overlapping layers that grow into place as the unicorn ages (the tip is the oldest, while the base is the youngest). most newborn unicorns are born without a horn, but the first layer of the horn quickly breaks skin and grows into place within a few weeks of birth. a groove runs up the dorsal side of the horn, acting as a funnel for magic, which then spills into and out of the lips between keratin layers

unicorn spines tend to be rather long, consequently leading to long necks, torsos, and tails. their skulls are also usually a bit long compared to others. this overall length usually isn’t obvious when looking at a unicorn on their own, but next to any other class, they look a bit stretched

additionally, unicorns tend to style their hair long as well, coveting flowing tresses. hair appears in several different places on the body besides the head/neck and tail, such as the chin/jaw, throat, ear tips, and fetlocks. while individuals from other classes can sometimes grow hair in these extra places, it’s a rather rare trait, and seems to be associated more with bicorns than full-blood pegasi or earth ponies. interestingly, hair only seems to sprout from the end-half of unicorn tails rather than the full length as seen in other classes-- some ponies joke that unicorns’ first ancestors stole hair from their tails to fill out the rest of their bodies

PEGASUS

so this is where I more heavily reference Jayrockin’s designs, and where I apologize if I didn’t make my wing designs unique enough from Jay’s... I just LOVE the look of cartilage-lobe wings, and it makes so much more sense than *suddenly feathers* in pony anatomy, imo (unless I were to just make all ponies’ fur/hair highly-specialized feathers, which is.... I mean it’s not a bad idea, but I’m not super into it)

anyways, pegasus wings vary across individuals, with different shapes and sizes leading to different flight styles. all wings are too small to support a pony without magic, but there is still a sense of relative loading and wingspan that leads different modes of movement. all wings have four fingers, with the first digit usually serving as a kind of alula. the cartilage of the lobes can reach as far as halfway up the length of the fingers, though they can be smaller. due to the lobes, the fingers only have one joint about halfway down the finger, near the start of the cartilage. the cartilage spines near the elbow also have one joint, and can range from 2-4 on a wing. pegasus tails are much stiffer and straighter than those of other classes in order to support tail spines and webbing for flight. 2-4 pairs of spines sprout from the base of the tail and are constructed similarly to the spines on the wings. sometimes the webbing of the back edge of the wings and the front edge of the tail connect, but this is uncommon

pegasi are generally the tallest of the classes, with long, thin legs and necks providing ample height. to handle the forces of powered flight, pegasi torsos are much stiffer than those of other classes. while pegasus wings aren’t especially muscular due to the reliance on wind magic, they still bulk up the torso with thick pectorals (still on the fence over whether they need a shallow keel tho..)

pegasi usually don’t have upturned snouts, but rather a straight slope with a small snout tip, giving the overall skull an aerodynamic wedge shape. their ears are also smaller to cut back on wind disturbance

pegasi hair tends to grow rather short, and even then individuals will usually keep it cropped short so it’s less of a hassle while flying. tail hair generally only sprouts from the very tip of the tail, sometimes extending down some of the underside of the tail. unlike the mysterious short range of tail hair in unicorns, this growth pattern is a direct result of the tail spines/webbing. while pegasus hair is sparse, pegasus fur tends to be thick and fluffy, especially around the torso and neck. this helps insulate pegasi when flying high in the chilly skies

EARTH

since earth pony magic seems to be driven by tactile connection to the earth via their hooves, I gave them hoof-nails as a more distinct conduit for their magic. they’re designed after elephant toenails, so they’re thick and blunt

besides that, earth ponies have bulky, thick physiques to match their typically labor-heavy lifestyles. not much more to say since that’s a p universal hc for earth ponies so ¯|_(ツ)_/¯

[illegiblewords]

Explanation of design approach and some personality info under the cut.

Essentially, the way I’ve been approaching this I wanted to make each world feel like a self-contained and cohesive team. Nivienne is actually from Lamia and so isn’t designed to mesh with the others, but I use her a lot and have a design strategy for her so she’s included. For team Famfrit as a whole, I wanted to make sure that each personality and design would feel distinct and that the main color for each character would stand out. Most are also pretty obvious lol--black mage is black, red made is red, white mage is white. Areas I went different are gold dragoon (or aurum dragoon if we’re being fancy), purple scholar, green bard, orange ninja, blue warrior.

CENRIC ASHER

My main and a hyur midlander black mage. With him I wanted to push against the concept that hyurs are inherently vanilla or “boring”. Imo there is nothing wrong with designs that look like they could occur in nature, but with him I wanted to do an edgy personal spin in the classic Final Fantasy black mage look where the character is a dark silhouette with glowing eyes, a high collar, and a broad hat. Sometimes he wears other things too but the overall concept ties to that particular look. In personality Cenric is a pretty angsty guy due to having been a con artist who got a lot of people killed with medical fraud. He lies a lot out of fear of the reaction he’d get if his background was known. Possibly a little nuts, thinks he is the son of Nald’Thal and bound to spread death and destruction wherever he goes--striking enemies and allies alike, regardless of his own wishes. Probably actually just has Duskwight heritage. Has pretty hardcore imposter syndrome about being Warrior of Light, but in partial response to having been destitute and outcast for a long time he tries to play into the persona of a powerful, luxurious, mysterious black mage brimming with forbidden knowledge. In reality he is intimidated by most children, can’t whistle, and is a bit of a smartass when he’s not panicking his way through conversations.

J’MOR TIA

My red mage alt, I wanted to do a few experiments with him! One was that Red Mages usually read very sophisticated and swashbuckle-y to me, and I wanted to play more into the rapier as an almost roguish weapon. Very physical. He’s somebody who you initially would not assume is a magic user but who is just as versed and capable on that front as the ivory tower casters haha. I also wanted to make him a combination of ethnically black (contrasting Cenric who is ethnically Arab but weird) and a male miqo’te because I have never seen that combination before. I wanted him to feel very charming and like he has kind of rugged good looks. Just a bit too scruffy for pretty boy. Personality he is probably the most shonen hero of my alts lol. He has stuff he struggles with (he and his sister both wanted to be adventurers but she opted out after taking things way too far in a fight and getting scared of her own power) but doesn’t get stuck in his head nearly as much as some other characters do.

CESAIRE DELAROUX

I futzed with this guy for a while—main inspiration comes from a particular kind of horse called the Akhal-teke.

Also because I have seen some really cool and pretty elezen that specifically worked to play up gold as a color scheme, and in this case I wanted to evoke a kind of warm, soft golden light. Originally I was going to make him a contrast to Cenric and make him much paler, but I wound up going that route more with Asklona instead with drawing loose inspiration from certain forms of albinism. I went more gold to make sure Cesaire would stand out visually from Asklona. Another reason for this route is because I want to make a character who looks very light and pure, but in practice has hardcore bloodlust. XD Wanted one case for playing into that possible WoL element haha. I also thought it might be neat to make a character who could serve as a kind of foil to Zenos in many ways and might credibly say yes when invited to be besties. Cesaire is still a mostly heroic guy but I figure he’s a bit like Dexter if that makes sense.

KIYO SHIROGANE

An auri white mage from Hingashi! To me it felt a little odd that the Ruby Princess of Sui-no-Sato has more of a magenta color scheme than red. I wanted to tie Kiyo to Kugane specifically in part because I think the parallels between geomancy and white magic (land, sea, sky) are super cool imo, there are a fair number or Raen au ra in Kugane with less lore exploration, and I wanted to make a character whose past trailed behind her in a clear and interesting way while she travels. So for Kiyo I kind of took inspiration from the idea of a red pearl (pearls often being white as per the horns and scales but then she has vivid red hair) and from the idea of blood tied to injury and medicine. Plus ya know, white magic. I also took light inspiration from candles conceptually. I totally forgot that Shirogane is the housing district also lol so now she has backstory lore that her family had been heavily involved in establishing the area. Kiyo comes from a large and noble family with a ton of political and economic influence, being herself somewhat sheltered and naïve. She is very sincere, playful, outgoing, and does her best to be kind. Very animated!

OSK YASKARET

For Osk, I was essentially going (ʘ_ʘ;;) because I knew that I hadn’t used ANY brown hair so far and it was making so uncomfortable lol. So I thought about what combination would be appropriate, distinct, and striking enough to fit within the cast while also being distinct. Gray and brown feel like chinchilla colors to me and I think are nice in a way that wouldn’t be out of place with rabbits/viera. I wanted dark eyes since again, I hadn’t yet for this group... so dark purple wound up being her main color. Since I was going scholar, I also wanted to keep the sense of intellect and feeling like a healer without being mistakable for astrologian or white mage. I still want to build into her look, but another aspect I wanted to incorporate--saw a lot of people arguing about the inherent sensuality of Viera, so I figured for her I wanted to make her look elegant and sophisticated but more conservative in glamours. I didn’t want her to instantly read like she hopped out of the woods either. Figure she’d have had time to adapt since.

I’m still very much debating backstory and personality or her but am leaning toward her being the offspring of a viera who left the woods while pregnant. I like the idea of Osk wanting to connect with her heritage but feeling somewhat adrift. I also want to incorporate Nym lore because omg I want more Nym in-general. Personality I do think Osk is probably a little bit of a smug bunny but things remain super tenuous.

ASKLONA WANNEYNWYN

Asklona I literally wanted to make a super soft feeling, hyper feminine lady roegadyn because most interpretations I’ve seen have been either harder feminine or tomboyish. Still fun imo, but given the grief some fans heap on femroes I really wanted to show that this kind of look is doable. I usually try to incorporate the black noses on Hellsguard designs (tiger roooooes) while with Seawolves I tend to push either fully into something natural or fully into something unnatural. So ex. the most desaturated option or else just run with blues and greens. Asklona is specifically a bard because it is pretty and fancy imo and I haven’t seen a lot of roegadyn bards in-general. Asklona I mentioned before is modeled off of certain kinds of albinism, but by that I want to make the disclaimer that pink eyes don’t generally occur in people (pale blue or violet is more likely) and that normally there are some eyesight problems that come with the condition as well as ease of getting sunburn. I don’t necessary play into that with Asklona/am going artistic license because I mean final fantasy we can lift swords bigger than we are. I know these things get overlooked a lot though so it seemed worth specifying. My choice to go this route was because I wanted to make myself use more pastels lol and I figured this would be a fun spot to contrast Cenric. I think in backstory Asklona’s father lost his mind to a siren, and Asklona pursuing adventuring as a bard is partly to take revenge and partly in the hopes that she can call her father back with song. Her involvement becomes more complicated over time but I think that’s the general direction. I picked green for her color scheme because it’s a color that feels like it evokes both the woods of Gridania and the sea itself... and because pink is a shade of red and with green being complementary, I figured it would make the pinks stand out a lot. Asklona is tied to Limsa Lominsa and besides looking for outfits that will flatter her body type I am trying to evoke the ocean in her designs. Pirates, sailors, the works. Personality I am still figuring out a bit but I think Asklona is definitely a shameless flirt, can read as insensitive and self-centered at times as she indulges in what makes her happy. She plays herself off as much more shallow than she is and in-general focuses on pursuing pleasure as a way of avoiding heavier issues.

KOKONO KONO

The scrappy daughter of a Doman fox auspice and a Thavnairian lalafell, Kokono saw her mother waste away with homesickness after fleeing the Garlean occupation. She has two brothers, one who returned to Doma while the other remains in Thavnair witht her father. Kokono hates the idea of loving a place so much you would die over it and decided to travel Hydaelyn, causing mischief while indulging a deep-rooted curiosity and love for discovering new places. Has severe commitment issues. Can be prone to swearing and being insensitive because the shocked reactions amuse her a lot, but her heart is ultimately in the right place. I designed her literally to make a lalafell fox because with the dark nose option + werewolf ears it is SO EASY to make tiny canines and I don’t understand why more people don’t do this. Like I could make an elegant white fox lalafell or a yorkshire terrier lalafell or any number of things. We can have itty bitty dogs! And like Kiyo I wanted some background to be evident in her clothes too. I designed her before I picked her backstory and mainly went for rule-of-cute/what would most evoke the red coat of a fox.

SVATOMIR AZORYA

Last of team Famfrit, he’s a Warrior Hrothgar. Very conceptually rough, I’m interested in playing him much more reserved and traditionally masculine in a lot of ways. I think a character in that vein will help balance out against the other Warriors of Light I made for that world. Design goal here was to make him look as wolf-like as possible haha. I think we have plenty of cat people already with Miqo’te.

NIVIENNE LECLAIR

From Lamia, I’ve talked a bit about her before so copypasting that in.

Basically, when I decided to try doing the whole WoL/Emet-Selch fic writing misadventure it was just a personal challenge for funsies. I’d seen other people do some really interesting and impressive stuff using unnamed lady WoLs. Hadn’t really tried something like that myself so I decided to go full improv with it.

Except my instincts tend toward specificity lol, so I scattered details according to what would make for fun scenarios or cute details. I wanted the lady to be a certain level of tall so I went with elezen. I needed to describe a readily portable weapon that would mesh with that sweet, sweet Amaurotine lore, so I made her a summoner. So on and so forth. Very seat-of-the-pants.

Particularly since the fic I have coming up is gonna be bigger, I’m thinking name is okay now lol.

Cenric as my black mage main is a dark, broody guy who doesn’t quite realize he’s nicer and sillier that he gives himself credit. So I decided Nivienne should be much more socially adept (read: not a lameass poser), very mischievous, confident… but lowkey has some heavy shit going on. Girl can be ruthlessly manipulative. Other WoLs of mine have different personalities.

As I was going through fic stuff, I decided I wanted to visually tie to and contrast with Emet-Selch since shipping. He’s got gold eyes and accents on his regalia? She’ll go silver, but her skin will have a more golden tone. He’s got dark hair with a white streak? She’ll have light gray hair, tie into the ruff of his coat. So on and so forth.

Name-wise, I actually fucked up initially by going too on-the-nose. Nivienne is another (more elezen-French) name for Nimue. Given how that story goes I figured it would be fitting here.

As a couple of other notes--color scheme being gray was experimenting to try for a different-but-distinct summoner aesthetic. I wanted to play up horns/third eye concepts (not strictly in the Garlean sense) and create a vibe that wouldn’t feel like white mage, or red mage, or black mage, etc. I also saw people arguing that female casters all end up looking like magical girls, so I wanted to really make sure that she had a different look from that while still being very feminine.

[sinditia]

Supernatural 14x10 – Nihilism

Yockey-Tapping is a deadly duo, my dudes, holy shit!  That was a BRILLIANT episode.

There was excellent tension-building throughout the entire 40 minutes of the thing and I was engaged and at the edge of my seat the entire time.  Usually when I watch Supernatural, I’m half doing something else, thinking about what to write (ie complain about) in my reviews, but not this time.  This episode, my focus was fully on what was happening in the episode, I was immersed in it, and I didn’t care about anything else.  Fuckin’ bravo, guys, just bravo.

Jensen continues to impress me with his portrayal of AU!Michael.  He really brought the character to life, when before AU!Michael has always been just this meh of a character with unclear motivations and a bland sort of personality.  It’s not just that we finally get some explicit explanation about the whys and wherefores of what he’s been doing and what’s going on in that weird little head of his.  But we get to see how manipulative he is, how utterly, annoyingly arrogant he is, just how good of a villain he is.  I really like it.  

One thing that I love about this episode though, is that Michael tries his best to manipulate TFW 2.0 with what he thinks are their greatest fears about Dean.  And they sound appropriately cruel, and it seems like it worked for a bit.  But then you get to see, at least with Sam and Cas, that their faith in Dean is that strong that they can ignore it, or at least hide that it affects them.  I really dig that.  Jack, on the other hand, maybe because he’s known Dean a lot less than Sam and Cas, maybe wavering a little.  But more on that later.  

Dean’s “the dream” scenes were well-executed, I think.  I’m sure there’s a lot to unpack there, but I haven’t got any meta skills to do that.  I’m sure lots of people have dissected the shit out of how Dean’s mind and dream-world is constructed.  My reviews are more from a story-telling and execution point of view and less of a thematic analysis of things.

I really liked the way the episode was constructed.  How it just sort of escalated and escalated and then after it was “done”, the ending was a little unsatisfying in the sense that they didn’t really “win”, which I think is a great place to end as an episode of a series.  It serves as a potential for further storytelling and keeps people interested and wanting to watch.

Cas’s conversation with Jack at the end was great.  I love how fatherly Cas sounded when he was reprimanding Jack.  It really hits home the kind of relationship they have.  In past episodes we’ve seen how Jack is like a young boy in his perception of his fathers.  There was no doubt in his mind that his fathers love him and will come rescue him, he sees them as strong and wise and he looks up to them in pretty much everything.  It’s interesting to see Michael plant those seeds of doubt in Jack and I wonder if this is something they’ll explore in the future.

Dean’s thing at the end with Billie is kind of confusing to me because I can’t keep up with SPN lore, honestly, especially with how inconsistent everything is.  I’m absolutely in love with the way Yockey always tries to draw aspects from past episodes to make it seem like SPN is an actual cohesive show, but when he’s not around, canon gets all over the place so I just get confused.

So that’s like a death book right? It shows how Dean will die? Obviously the first thing that comes to mind is that he kills himself, which saves everyone from Michael, but morbidly, I also think that Dean wouldn’t look that devastated if that’s what he had to do.  He’s never been shy about sacrificing himself to save the world (hell, he’s killed himself just so he can talk to ghosts that one time).  So I’m thinking it’s probably something worse.  I can’t think of anything at this point though

Oh well, surprise me, SPN. I have high expectations.

Also, Yockey, I love you and I wanna send you a fruit basket k thx bye.