#I’m not an accurate bird knowledge person ….. yet…

[randomalistic]

Hey can you tell me about pigeons I like the noises they make and how they look 💥

PIGEONS (rock doves) ARE PUDGY AND SOFT AND KIND CREATURES and they have very complex and diverse coloration when living in cities thanks to a bunch of escaped domesticated ones breeding together. I think.. They’re also able to be trained and they have great navigation abilities so they were bred as messenger carrier pigeons in WW1 and WW2. Important Historical Significance I say.. but most importantly they have pink feet

(I hate to tell you that I only have Immense Enthusiasm for birds and I’m actually kind of Knowledge Bare on diverse bird facts so idk a lot about pigeons because I don’t live in a large city. Or at least I only have surface level knowledge. This will change. I’m ravenous for new DEEP CUT bird facts.)

I swear I saw a really in depth pigeon coloration post on tumblr once. You gotta trust me it’s out there… But you can still find other stuff :] pigeons are very overhated 💔 so it’s nice to want to learn about them! I also think their cooing sounds are lovely and unique

[seeyatellite]

Am I a terrible person for feeling hopeful anticipation about my father’s death instead of fearing it?

I will feel liberated by it. He’s the only thing tying me to the things I feel unsafe and disconnected from. I feel no sense of belonging or joy around boats, cars or sports of any kind. Sure, I love high efficiency vehicles and practical cars like the Prius or sort of cool 4-banger hatchbacks with personality and EVs but that’s not what Dad’s about. He engineered the Dodge Viper; a 500hp monster of a 10-cylinder gas hog.

I’ll no longer be burdened by people wanting to see or be on his boat on Lake St. Clair. I’ll no longer carry the shame of being a disappointment who doesn’t watch hockey, want sports cars or fast fuel burners and pointless 2-seaters with more engine than practicality.

I’ll no longer hear people say, “I can teach you.” when I say I can’t drive a stick… I won’t even have to say it. Dad’s Viper will be gone. So will his 32’ boat and I’ll finally be freed from the lifelong hell which has been the Lake St. Clair lifestyle.

I have never been interested in contributing to the massive amount of carbon emissions or fuel runoff and disgusting chemicals used in boating or muscle cars. I think they can be beautiful and as a photographer and videographer, that can be an amazing quality.

Boaters paint the bottoms of their boats with a paint that’s intended to wear off of dust away into the water. There’s a seasonal repaint ritual and insane amounts of plastic used in shrink wrapping boats every year. The winterizing process is a mess of chemical flushes, plastic bottles and non-aerosol cans of paint and oils. Each trip on the boat costs hundreds of dollars to fill 2 500+ horsepower engines with a hundred gallons of fuel… which I think is accurate… 50 on each side… or 40.

I don’t care about boats yet they’ve been shoved down my throat and I’ve been teased and shamed for wanting to do something else since I was a child.

My favorite “sports car” was the Chrysler Crossfire as a 6-cylinder, somewhat practical car with a decent-size trunk and an automatic transmission requiring no significant maintenance or knowledge I couldn’t pawn off on a trusted mechanic.

The closest thing to pride I could feel about a car is if I made a Prius or EV last a lifetime or until I could afford something even less environmentally destructive. I don’t even like putting down lawn chemicals.

I once tried to “man up” and handle 100% of my father’s yardwork, felt good about the day and even saw a little bird nest with freshly hatched babies chilling in a bush near the porch. I finished the day, felt accomplished and said good night to the birds… apparently the chemicals meant to “kill pests” also poisoned the bird’s food supply because I had to bury them within a few days. This, combined with once chopping off a curious gopher or some tiny hole-loving mammal’s head off with a lawnmower… fuck that. I don’t want a house. I’d rather lived in community housing the rest of my life.

I’m a thick black mark of shame on everything my father is and everything he loves. Why wouldn’t I anticipate the departure of that lifestyle from my life?

I’m not hoping for his death… I just don’t want his life.

Does that make me evil?

[byawright]

Rc9gn ficlet 1

Had an idea of Howard getting some magic from Tengu possession and convincing the Nomicon to let him do some magic, quick thing I put together on a road trip so no spell or grammar check lol

Used bleach for the spell.

Howard Weinerman was not one to stress whenever Randy faced an enemy. Sure Randy had a few close calls but he pulled through and was the most stubborn person he knew, he wouldn’t give up.

That was the problem, whatever this machine was McFist, or being more accurate Viceoy, focused in outlasting the Ninja in this fight. Which was going in three hours and Howard could see his friend slowing down.

The robot, which looked like a bipedal hunched over hedgehog, was getting closer if not out right hitting with each attack. The spikes on its back randomly extending with spikes tip tendrils to attack from blind spots.

Howard was getting frustrated, a part of him has been for a while.

he wasn’t a fighter, not like Randy, hell he’d rather be on the side lines but being helpless like this? That was grating especially since Randy can’t get away to check with the ninja nomicon for any aide.

Howard, however, could.

Even if he couldn’t do something active he could pass the knowledge to Randy. So he moved, slipping away from the crowed that had formed to watch the fight and grabbed Randy’s bag.

Once he found a private spot he grabbed the book “alright nomicon I know you don’t like me but Randy can’t get to you for help, so eitheir you open up, shloop me in and let me help Randy or your out a ninja, and more important I’m out my best friend, so open up or no telling what will happen to eight hundred years of knowledge when I pass a fire”

The nomicon seemed to glow lightly, pulsing like it was wrestling with its self so Howard gave another push.

“I have yet to fully hold Randy back right? Or reveal his secret, I’ve slipped yes but never broke his trust like that, and the giant bird possessed me, I’m in too deep, let me help”

Howard swallowed, the larger boy griped the book “please, just give me what he needs to know, I Know I’m not a fighter so give me the lesson he needs”

The Nomicon glowed bright and opened sucking Howard’s consciousness into it as he fell and landed in a stylized Asian temple as words formed infront of him as he lifted him self up.

‘Friendship is a weight a ninja cannot bear’ as a line crossed through it and a new line appeared ‘strong bonds allow for chains to hold down even the greatest beasts’.

As a cartoony lightning bolt formed in front of him and split revealing a marker.

A series of more text appeared along with a poorly drawn arm with the scribbles on it.

“Oh copy this down? Alright I asked for this”

Howard half grumbled there’s a part of him that just wanted to pass info on but… he wanted to help and be more than just the confidant so Howard copied the writing accurately.

“I’m trusting you nomicon, I have no idea how I can see this once I’m out but let’s see how this goes”

Soon Howard was ejected and back in his body as he moved back to where the fighting was, Randy was looking worse for wear more weapons scattered around and the crowed had disappeared.

“Ra- Ninja!”

“How- citizen! Get out of here! The rest are at safety I’ll handle this!”

“Oh how’s that been going for the last three hours?”

“Wha-“

“Eyes front Cunningham! Nomicon hopefully gave me something to help!”

Randy was confused but shrugged it off. Howard was many things but never did him dirty so he focused on the fight once more.

Howard for his part looked where he wrote in his arm the lines formed in his hand writting.

Randy often mentioned how it was like floating text would appear to help him figure things out, so the red head guessed this was the books doing.

“Alright here goes nothing” following the instructions he wrote he held two fingers up, palm facing the robot “You who is crowned with the name of Man, wearing a Mask of blood and flesh, flying on ten thousand fluttering wings, with Thunder's carriage and an empty Spinning Wheel, break the Light into six pieces, carve a twin Lotus on a wall of Pale Blue Flames, and await the Blazing Fires to reach the Distant Heavens!”

As Howard chanted he felt a memory of a memory surface the feeling of the tengu as it took over, but this time he was in control.

A series of fire pillars appeared around him solidifying into thin, wide pillars. With the last word the pillars launched at the robot’s back, pinning it to the ground.

Randy jumped at the opening his sword cleaving through the robot, as it stopped working Randy turned towards Howard.

“What the juice!? Since when could you do that!?”

Howard was wide eyed “about 10 minutes ago? I didn’t check the time but..”

“Hold that thought man, let’s get some food and talk” Randy said as he pulled the mask off and Howard passed the nomicon back ignoring the confused look from the taller boy

“Later Cunningham, you said food and I’m hungry”

The two shared a look and laughed, once in a private corner at the arcade, Howard gave a run down before pointing at Randy “don’t expect me to fight but, saying words? That I can do”

Randy smiled “hey I appreciate the save, and if you can use magic? That’s so Bruce so you do you”

“You think the nomicon will share more or this a one time thing?” Howard asked.

Randy shrugged “i barely know what the nomicon thinks as is, let’s just roll and see how it goes”

“Fair enough”

[votederpycausemufins]

All my knowledge is of hermitcraft and the stuff people have written for the Hermit!Tommy Au but I kept having this idea and needed to write it. I also think i got a bit out of character halfway through because it was supposed to be short, but i vibed with it too much so now it’s long and maybe not 100% accurate but it’s still angst followed by fluff.

also @petrichormeraki wanted me to tag them when i posted this.

Tommy had been with the Hermits for a while now. He hadn’t really kept track of when he first arrived, but it had at least been a few months. Otherwise, time was a mess. The Hermits has all but legally adopted him and all the joy that came from them caring for him made time seem to fly by.

Doc was fun to be around because while Tommy was perfectly fine never going back to the SMP, the way the man acted gave Tommy a small bit of familiarity in a good way to his past life.

He likes hanging out with False, mainly for sparring. Never anything deadly, but even if there wasn’t a need for Tommy to constantly look over his shoulder, it was good to keep from getting too rusty.

He doesn’t really hang out with Zedaph as much as Zedaph hangs out with him. Normally the Hermit would come out of the blue with something new for Tommy to try. Flicking levers over and over for something that would normally be as simple as using a furnace just became fun for Tommy, especially if he had energy pent up.

Xisuma is someone Tommy doesn’t run into much, but the fact that he doesn’t is something Tommy finds comfort in. Even as the server admin, the man is very down to Earth. Nothing like Dream ever was.

And then there’s Grian. Tommy got along with all the Hermits fine and of course there were some he preferred over others, but Grian took the cake for him. When he first showed up, Grian was the one to give him a place to stay at his old hobbit hole. Professor Beaks had been left there and still used to the SMP and scared for his life, Tommy hid the pet bird as leverage for his own safety. When Grian found out, he mostly shrugged it off, but the tens of chickens in the hobbit hole the next day was proof of retaliation.

Tommy didn’t understand the underwhelming response at first, but responded in kind, using the eggs from the chickens Grian had left to egg the Hermit’s base. When the builder nearly broke the door to the hobbit hole, Tommy grabbed his axe, ready to fight for his life, but was taken aback by the cheerful look on Grian’s face.

After that, Grian had practically taken Tommy under his wing. He showed Tommy how to build more effectively with cobble, eventually managing to get the teen to have some variety. Grian also brought Tommy along on his various chaotic endeavors, leaving behind chickens, mycelium, and possibly some missing doors.

The two chaotic red wearing Brits got along so well that they sometimes spent entire weeks together. Because of that, Tommy was all too aware that the Hermits participated in MCC as well.

It made sense. A few of the Hermits vaguely recognised him when he showed up in Hermitcraft and a few of them looked familiar to Tommy. That had made him feel a little safer since now these people weren’t complete strangers, but it did complicate things. Every so often, the portal to MCC would open and the Hermits participating would go through. The closest Tommy would get to the portal was just before the Hermits left, occasionally giving a ‘Good luck Grine!’ or something similar to Grian as he went through. But after that Tommy stayed as far away as he could manage.

The portal there led to MCC. And from there, there was a portal that led to the SMP. If Tommy could get to Hermitcraft, others could too. And that idea was terrifying, no matter who it was. Dream was a worst case scenario, but even if it was Tubbo. Tubbo had exiled him, and even if they were still on good terms after that, Tommy could have visited at some other MCC, but he didn’t, and that idea likely wouldn’t go over well, especially since otherwise, people probably thought he was dead and Tommy didn’t care to correct them.

But compared to all those other times, today was very different. Today Tommy wasn’t at the sidelines to help send off the other Hermits, he was one of the ones being sent off. They had taken every precaution. Mumbo had rebuilt his Spookification chamber for Tommy with some alterations, specifically removing the firework method of alteration. The teen was also dressed for being on a team with Grian as the Cyan Creepers, so his familiar red and white shirt was missing. But under Tommy’s costume, he still kept the chain necklace holding his compass. He refused to part with it, though made sure he would be hard to access to keep from glancing, knowing at the championships, it wouldn’t be spinning wildly anymore.

With a comforting pat on the back from Grian, he and the other Hermits walked through the portal. The crowd of people that were on the side almost immediately overwhelmed Tommy, making him think that it was a bad idea all over again, but the sight of the two other team members for the Cyan Creepers reassured them, especially as they lined up for the cameras for some fun and silly times. Then once the games began, he was too focused on winning to think of much else.

Before long, the championships were over. They had come in fifth, which was a bit disappointing at first, but on the other hand, it was still pretty good and kept the spotlight off of him. When dodgebolt began, Tommy stood next to Grian, but with a crowd of people, a good game, and no perfect place to sit, the both of them wandered for a better vantage point.

At one point, Tommy managed to push his way right up to the edge of the viewing ledge. It was the perfect place for a while until the action moved, causing everyone to decide it was the perfect place. Enough people moved nearby that Tommy was worried about falling into the pit below, and he almost did before someone pulled him back.

Tommy was ready to thank whichever Hermit or even other player helped him but the words died in his throat when he faced the person who grabbed him. He knew that mask and neon green color. And there was no reason for him to help Tommy unless-

“I finally found you!” Dream spoke. He raised his voice to be heard over the crowd, but not too much to draw the attention of others. Tommy froze as he definitely heard the words. But there was no way for Dream to know, he didn’t look at all like normal.

“I-I’m sorry.” Tommy tried not to stutter, hoping just the situation of being grabbed would excuse it. “But I don’t think I’m who you’re looking for. I’m new here. Unless you’re greeting me for being new.” It was something he prepared before in his mind after Grian brought up the possibility, but it felt sloppy putting it to use.

“Oh don’t lie Tommy. I know it’s you. I guess you got lost, but it’s okay, you can come back now. I got rid of the exile for you. Aren’t you glad?”

Tommy was glad for the mask that covered Dream’s face. He wasn’t sure he wanted to see Dream’s actual expression. “How did you-” He started to speak, but Dream cut him off, poking Tommy’s chest, right where the compass was.

“Weren’t you paying attention to the teams? Tubbo got put with me. And between games he just happened to glance at his own compass. And wouldn’t you know it, it led me right here.” Dream held up the compass that belonged to Tubbo. It looked damaged, and it was recent. Tubbo likely didn’t want to give the tyrant admin the compass, but lost it to Dream anyway.

“Give that back to Tubbo!” Tommy shouted at Dream, trying to snatch it from him.

“Feisty now, aren’t you? We can take care of that when you come back. I’ll also give it back to him if you come with me.”

Tommy froze. There was no way he was going back, but what could he do? Everyone was focused on dodgebolt, and he didn’t want his appearance to have caused more trouble for Tubbo.

Tommy glanced at the crowd one last time before reluctantly nodding. Dream grabbed his hand in a painful clench and dragged him out of the crowd towards the SMP’s portal to leave. However, just before reaching it, Dream stopped. Tommy, who had been looking back at the crowd, hoping someone would see what was going on, turned towards the portal to see Grian standing in front of it.

“Heya, where do you think you’re going. MCC isn’t over yet. Dodgebolt it still going on.”

Tommy expected Dream to just push past Grian or even give some sort of retort, but the actual reply was shocking. “Uh, n-no, just… have to head back early. Th-the game delays made things run over. A-and we’ve got to get b-back for… something else. Don’t w-want to be late for that.”

Dream’s words made Tommy so shocked he forgot to breathe. Dream was scared, no he was terrified. And he was terrified… of Grian. Tommy looked back at the Hermit who stood unflinching in front of them.

“Really? I could have sworn that you were here when I arrived, and that kid wasn’t. And he definitely came from a different portal. I know since I was keeping my eye out for my teammates. So why’s he going with you?”

“I uh…” Dream struggled, struggled, to give an answer, letting Grian continue. “That’s what I thought. C’mon kid, let’s go back to the crowd. You can stay with me until it’s over then I’ll help you find your portal back.”

And Grian took Tommy away without any retaliation from Dream. Tommy was left in awe. Grian wasn’t even an admin in Hermitcraft but Dream was terrified of him. It was amazing! But at the same time, it made Tommy spiral a bit.

When everyone returned, Grian had made sure Dream left before the Hermits and Tommy did so Dream couldn’t watch Tommy leave. Tommy stuck to False’s side as they walked through the portal, Grian being the last to come through as he continued to act as a guard. When he tried to comfort Tommy after his run-in with Dream, he understood when the teen responded he just wanted to go home. The championships were exhausting enough without a scare like that.

The next day, Tommy hung out with False. And then Zedaph, and then Doc. Grian noticed immediately, but didn’t pay much mind to it. He noticed since Tommy had spent a full week only hanging out with him, so the sudden absence of the boy was noticeable, but it made sense that he would want to hang out with the others.

After that, Grian didn’t pay too much attention to the lack of Tommy until he ran into him while stocking the barge. Tommy had been buying something at the store when Grian flew in. He nearly dropped his diamonds in trying to leave in such a hurry that it finally concerned Grian. The builder started visiting other Hermits Tommy tended to visit and ask about him. No one really noticed much other than Tommy dodging any questions about him possibly going to hang out with Grian.

Grian decided to leave it alone, and he was definitely going to, but after another run in with Tommy, he threw that decision out the window. Grian normally wouldn’t have done this, but after trying multiple times to just talk to Tommy and being unsuccessful, the builder had to essentially corner the teen.

Immediately, Grian regretted it. Tommy was trembling, obviously scared, holding a sword in his hand. He carefully tried to point out that Tommy didn’t need to have his sword out, but instead of just putting it away, Tommy just threw it on the ground, also throwing down his other gear. Grian had heard of Tommy doing this before with the other Hermits, so he immediately recognised what was going on and dived to grab the gear. It scared Tommy more, but Grian wanted to make sure nothing ended up destroyed.

“Tommy, calm down, I just want to talk. Did I do something wrong? I mean, obviously I must have, you look scared out of your mind every time I’m around you. But I can’t think or anything I did and I don’t want this to keep happening. So can I know what’s going on?”

Tommy didn’t speak for a while. He just looked defeated and terrified. Grian called in some of the other Hermits to come help Tommy calm down, though at first it didn’t help. But over time, Tommy finally did stop looking so terrified and they moved to somewhere he would feel less cornered. It took more coaxing after that, but finally, Tommy explained himself.

“He’s scared of you. Dream is… actually scared of you.”

“Yeah, I’ve killed him once or twice. Plus my full name is Lord Grian Dreamslayer, so it’s kind of in the name.” The builder tried to say it as a joke, but it didn’t seem to lighten the mood.”

“He’s the admin and he’s scared of you. And you… I’ve been hanging out with you.”

Grian nodded. “Well yeah, we do fit together well. ...Did he say something at MCC to make you think I didn’t like you?”

Tommy shook his head. “N-No. You’re right, you’re fun to be around. But dream likes… liked messing with me. And tried to train me. And I hang out with you more than I had with him, and I’m more like you. I-If you’re somehow more powerful than him-!” The rest of the words stopped in Tommy’s throat, choking him up. Stress was nearby and gave Tommy a careful hug for comfort, which helped him a little.

Grian waited a little bit for the tension to calm slightly before he spoke. “I don’t know exactly what Dream has done to you. You’ve told us a lot, but you obviously haven’t told us everything, and telling us isn’t the same as experiencing it. But let me tell you that I’m not going to do what he’s done to you. I remember how you were the first day we found you. And I see how you are now- well, how you were a few weeks ago- and I’m happy. Happy because you’ve been happy. You’ve been safe and cared for here and it shows. I don’t want to force you to be anything, I want you to be you. Sure, I’m powerful enough to kill Dream, but I’m not going to use that power on you. I’m only going to use it around you if it’s to keep him away from you.

“And! And! It’s just because of how your server is. Here we can go to the end. We don’t have a set amount of lives. We build massive structures and sell totems for a single diamond each. We fight Withers for fun and make farms with them. We farm just about anything you can think of. And Tommy.” Grian paused, making sure Tommy was paying attention. “You may be from somewhere far off that none of us old Hermits have seen, but now you’re here. And new home or not, that makes you a Hermit too. Sure you can be like me. Or you can be like False or Doc or Scar or Mumbo. But so far, you’ve been pretty you. And that you is a Hermit.”

Tommy took a few moments to process it, but the message seemed to get through to him. With that, Grian stood up with a smile. “Now I get that you probably don’t want to hang around me much right now. It makes sense. Maybe hang out with some other Hermits and learn some new stuff to get your mind off of things. Plus, I also did some talking around looking for you, and got you this.”

Tommy’s eyes practically sparkled as Grian placed down some music discs. He greedily grabbed the treasures and stuffed them in his inventory, looking up just to see Grian flying off. Taking on Grian’s idea, Tommy decided to go with Cleo and try to wrap his head around those armor stands again. While he wasn’t a pro, he did manage to make one scene of the hermits all holding weapons and surrounding an armor stand in lime leather armor. Grian was right. He was a Hermit. And he wasn’t going back. At least, not permanently, he thought, clutching his compass. Maybe, there would even be another Hermit like him.

[phantomchick]

Ok like I’m not 100% sure on who I’d say you’re passionate about (character-wise) except for Jason Todd, so if you want to post some musings on him I’d be thrilled to hear them :]

Ooooh maybe because I love this character so much it's a little hard to articulate my feelings about this? I'll do my best though! Thank you for the ask.

So:

Top five ideas/concepts/etc that I believe are essential to accurately depicting Jason Todd

1. The Core, The tragedy; the crux, the turning point, whatever you wanna call it, the pathos of Jason Todd's character lies in the fact that he was good, before he died.

He was a good Robin.

A good hero, someone who loved Bruce and loved life even with the messy complicated bits and was loved in return, someone with their whole future ahead of them. That's what makes the confrontation in UTRH so fucking sad. The fact that Jason was the best of us and Bruce knows it, the fact that Bruce and Jason made a great team, father and son, batman and robin, they worked well together they were partners side by side and yet they're so far apart now and there's the question of whether they'll ever be able to close this vast gaping rift that's between them and there's the sinking knowledge that that love, devoted and constant as it was may always be lost because of irreconcilable differences. A pivotal aspect of Jason's character, his trauma and foundation, is that before "he took me away from you", before Jason was brutally murdered and came back only to find another kid wearing his identity and living in his house and his murderer still breaking out of prison every year to kill, before all that, he was good. And he was innocent and that innocence is gone and he'll never get it back. Bruce might never get him back, something that aches especially after seeing how much Jason's loss has haunted him over the years in comics like Knightfall. If you retroactively make him a bad Robin, a violent person who solves his problems with murder and was always going to grow up to be a violent person who solves his problems with murder? Then that central tragedy becomes warped, it undermines the entire narrative, the entire emotional heft and weight of the character and the character's bonds.

2. What motivates him and why. In the words of the great @cerusee try to think about the psychological processes, or the experiences of events Jason might have had that could connect child Jason to adult Jason; that gives you a lens with which to interpret adult actions and assume motivations. You can also explore the emotional disconnect between the two if that's what you like!

3. Make him competent! It doesn't make sense for him to be otherwise, he had a 4.0 gpa and overall excellent grades in school to the extent he was considered a nerd by some of his classmates, he was trained by the Batman as well as the league of Assassins who trained the Batman, not to mention the line up of teachers of various expertise Talia provided for him in a literal replication of the training journey Bruce himself went through, and that's before you even get into the likes of the All Caste and their time distorting pocket dimension. Additionally, during UTRH he literally took over the entirety of the Gotham criminal underground in a fortnight and that was just a step in his plan to get the Joker out to kill him, this man is meticulous, goal oriented, observant and incredibly capable. Gotham gang crime is an immense network that's been clearly portrayed as vast and untenable in comics of that time such as Birds of Prey, War Crimes (terrible as it was) and Nightwing. Not to mention the Batman depictions of it such as Long Halloween and Dark Victory. He singlehandedly broke the stranglehold Black Mask had on the city that Batman was temporarily letting stand due to wanting things to settle after the events of Batman: War Crimes. It really grates when people make him less skillful or less intelligent than he rightfully should be.

4. Make bold decisions about what you envision the character as and don't let the canon dictate your boundaries. It's totally valid to ignore entire swathes of canon if you find them ooc! I personally find a lot of his canon characterisation all over the place at best and viciously classist and clickbaity in development at worst. Whether it's using him to prop up another robin of the hour in comparison, just using him as a violent reckless misguided foil to Batman or portraying him as a lesser person and more of an antagonist than a hero and retroactively making him 'someone who never should've been made robin' thereby again undercutting and sabotaging their own narrative for no good reason, there is a lot of sucky canon to wade through and pick apart if you want a coherent characterisation. Like in that one Rhato issue where Jason hallucinates Joker killing Robin Jason and younger hallucination Jason cries out to his older self for help? And Jason having experienced this hallucination several times before, knows he can't really help, sits back and does nothing (until after robin-him dies and then killing Joker for self satisfaction despite knowing the pointlessness of it), the whole issue served to not so subtly re-contextualise Jason as the villain and the one to blame in his own murder, "it's not just Joker killing Robin it's Jason himself who lets happen!" heavy handed way to excuse dc for the responsibility of the writing choice or what. Stuff like that and like battle for the cowl is common and beyond fucked up and it's fine to ignore it and pick and choose what you accept. However, importantly it is equally valid to come up with motivations and reasoning for morally messed up portrayals of him in comics like Nightwing: Brothers in Blood or Battle for the Cowl, if that serves more cathartic for you. I mean @envysparkler on ao3 has an entire catalogue of re-imaginings of the scene where he beats Tim up in Titans tower and I love their stuff. There are also people who vibe with the modern portrayal of him because they identify with him as a victim of Batman's failures/jerkishness and enjoy his darker side. I enjoy those kinds of call out fics and too! @lananiscorner has some great arkham knight stuff especially. However personally? I generally find the more modern canon portrayals of Batman, especially when it comes to his dynamic with Jason, grim dark and overly edgy. Batman is a wish fulfilment hero inspired by the romanticism of fictional heroes that came before him the likes of the Scarlet Pimpernel, Zorro, The Phantom, The Shadow as well as detective stories like The Bat, Dick Tracy and Sherlock Holmes. He's supposed to be someone who saves, who inspires, who has the ability to make a difference, he's the wish fulfilment of being able to save the day by punching the problem and alternatively having enough resources and money to make a difference in a societal way, he's mysterious, he's dark, he's broody but has a core of compassion and kindness behind his every action. He's supposed to be heroic! And heroes don't abuse their kids. It's hard to find the tolerance line of what's still acceptable as Batman messing up and being emotionally inept Batman.. and not being acceptable as Batman. This got long winded but basically... In my opinion, a core concept to keep in mind while writing Jason? Is ignoring a lot of what's written about Jason. The same applies to the characters closest to him and his relationships with them. Use your own judgement.

5. Remember the core! In this case the core appeal. For me. He's a character rooted in hiraeth, he can't go back and doesn't know if he'd want to now, but the fact remains that place that used to be his is gone. Along with the future he could've had. But is he doomed to brood and linger on that? Where is he going? What does he want most? Jason isn't apathetic, he cares deeply about everyone he meets, about his family, about his past and about his choices. Is he someone who kills because with the likes of the Joker, there's no other option if you want to prevent them from killing the innocent, it's been proven demonstrably that containing them doesn't work. Or is he just someone who'll kill any criminal, ala The Punisher? Someone who Batman doesn't trust not to kill. There's also the sense of isolation and craving for love while simultaneously distrusting it, as well as the way he compares himself, his worth, how much his father cares, with his siblings. While exploring his relationships with other characters and his struggles with his past, his future and his motivations for his type of justice. I think it's interesting to remember the idea that he's someone who's very lost and lonely, someone who grieves for not having been grieved, someone without a love he can trust. Jason is terribly kind, and terribly angry and, terribly, terribly sad all at the same time. I think for me that's where the whump hits hardest. The fact that he's lashing out is undeniable, but also relateable. It's good to keep in mind what draws you to a character as well as what kind of stories about them hit you hardest when you yourself are trying to write them, I try to always keep that in mind when writing Jason especially. I want to write things that bring out the appeal, the thing that makes him resonate and attracts me. I like to put him in situations that show it off!

[doge-w-a-bloge]

I know this is pretty vague but how do u feel about our control over kris being wholly voluntary on their part, ala the batter from off (or more accurately to this idea, hello charlotte)

Tbh, I’m not as familiar with indie games on the whole as I should be. u_u;

I think there’s a chance the circumstances behind Kris’ possession are... complicated. Gaster’s initial plan was for the soul to possess a custom-made vessel, after all, but our knowledge of what happened after the vessel was discarded is (on Toby’s part, not the in-universe characters’) intentionally cut off so that the players can’t draw a fully informed conclusion about why/how we ended up in Kris instead.

“Kris’ soul” is pretty damn strongly implied to not actually be their real soul. And yet, Kris’ body seems to have difficulty moving on its own, causing them to shuffle zombie-like when acting without it and when trying to remove it. And after taking actions soullessly, Kris always puts the soul back, thus relinquishing control. They might only be able to survive without it for short periods of time.

(We get dialogue comparing Kris to a zombie/corpse twice in a row in chapter 2.)

What little we know about the mechanics of soul absorption from Undertale (a human cannot absorb a human soul, a monster cannot absorb a monster soul, an empty vessel can absorb either) suggests Kris currently is a “vessel,” albiet one that formerly existed as a SOUL-having person, and that retains their own memories, personality, and determination their current state.

(Flowey in Undertale is our closest comparison, though he’s... clearly able to physically live without a SOUL. We don’t know if this is because of a fundamental difference between monster dust and human bodies, if it’s because Undertale’s world seems to be more innately magical than Deltarune’s light world, or if its just. The flower was already biologically alive before Asriel’s essence was awakened in it, but it might be that a human body in this series can’t remain biologically alive unless it contains a SOUL. We know very little about souls, at the end of the day; both Undertale and Deltarune’s library lorebooks on SOULs say as much.)

So, Kris’ original soul is totally AWOL. We don’t know how they would’ve lost it.

Maybe they made a pact of some sort. Maybe this specific way of fulfilling the deal killed two birds with one stone, at least for the person on the other end. And, perhaps, like Spamton’s deal with the mysterious phone caller, it came with some serious strings attached, that Kris didn’t realize were there.

[chidoroki]

In Defense of TPN S2

Okay, so before y’all start throwing your salt shakers at me, let me explain. Yes, I’m just as upset and annoyed with how the second season decided to cut out so much content that us manga readers were finally hoping to see: no Yuugo, Goldy Pond arc or GP Resistance, Lucas or Glory Bell escapees, Adam, poachers, or Cuvitidala Search. Since this season also (sort of) reached the 2047 time skip, we were also denied of the Paradise Hideout, Jin, Hayato, Ayshe, the Seven Walls & Imperial Capital Battle arcs and Alex due to the anime’s so-called “original story” idea. While some manga events still took place (B06-32 getting blown up, the trio’s reunion, Norman’s time at Lambda, the cursed blood and the Grace Field raid), they were all significantly changed and barely held the same emotional impact, as we see very little to no build up to these moments. Several volumes were skipped completely and despite others being touched lightly, we unfortunately missed out on major character development for everyone, most notably for Emma, but also the lighter side of things such as chef Ray, medic Anna, Rossi learning morse code, Minerva!Norman, etc. There’s honestly so much of the main story to talk about and I totally understand why we’re all so ticked off, especially since that darn slideshow did absolutely nothing to calm our hearts at the end of ep11.

However.. I’m not gonna stand by and say this season was worthless. Highly disappointing given everything I just mentioned of course, I get it, so don’t curse me out just yet. People can trash talk it all they want and I’ll sympathize 110%, but I personally won’t do so. I love this series too much and that’s a huge reason as to why I didn’t drop this season. Usually whenever I start a new series, it’s because I become interested in a character or two. I find that no matter what happens in that series, whether the story intrigues me or not, I’ll continue it if only to see more of that character. If the story is good, it’s just another plus for me to stay addicted, so while this season totally missed their chance to adapt the wonderful source material of my favorite series, I stayed to watch Emma, Ray and all the other children I’ve grown to love over the past two years. Another reason why I stayed on this train wreck was because of how thought provoking it became as turned into yet another guessing game for me. After first watching the OP and even more after ep3 aired, I kept wondering what would they include or leave out. How would they handle this scene if this and that were already changed? How would they fix this problem if so and so isn’t here? It felt like I was watching season one blind all over again; seeing all these little clues sprinkled everywhere and yet not having any idea on how the story was going to continue or end got me excited. That’s why I came to love this story in the first place, so having the chance to feel that again alongside characters I love so dearly.. it was fun for me (until the slideshow punched me in the face). While many people will look at this season and declare the manga and first season are both superior (which they are, I agree), I’m still sitting over here like “oh look, more content!”

With all that nonsense out of the way, I thought I would go ahead and ramble about everything I believe the second season did well enough, because if I can take any heat off this adaptation then you’re damn right I’m gonna try. So if you’re wondering why on earth a manga reader even mildly enjoyed this season, it’s honestly just the little things such as a decently adapted or improved panel/scene, any new, interesting elements the anime may have included, or other personal favorite moments of mine.. which there were a lot of.

So no negativity past here kiddos, we’re gonna be as optimistic and lively as an orange antenna.

(mild manga spoiler warning, I guess? but I’m sure it’s nothing y’all haven’t heard us readers mention/complain about already)

- If you’ve read any of my reactions to this season, you would know how much love I have for “Identity.” Not only is the song still an absolute banger, but the opening sequence itself is fantastic. From the contrast between human vs demon, the cameos, the symbolism, the match cuts, the build up to the chorus.. just everything. I could talk about it endlessly and watch it several times over and still be impressed.

- Lani’s stupid fall.

- How clearly it shows Emma’s condition becoming progressively worse.

- Her scream.

- Ray’s apology, especially how soft his voice was when saying “sorry, Emma,” and the smile he gives after she tells him not to worry about it.

- And his entire promise to keep everyone in their family safe. Oh I was so happy to finally hear him say that.

- This exchange between Don and Gilda.

- Rossi and those darn faces he gives us. This boy is such a mood.

- How involved the younger kids were so they don’t feel like they were just.. there, which served as a reminder that everyone from Grace Field is smart, not just Emma and Ray.

- How pretty the demon forest looked at night when all those odd creatures started glowing (even those darn goowee).

- So happy with how this panel was adapted. That smirk of his is everything.

- The fact they remembered a small detail such as the bell.

- Knowing now that they cut so much out of the manga, I’m glad we at least got the hug.

- The ending sequence gave us a small look at Sonja and Mujika’s travels by themselves. “Magic” is also so very calming to listen to.

- How the children hug both Emma and Ray, as manga only had our girl receiving the hugs.

- Sonju & Mujika’s voice actors fit them perfectly.

- How impressed Ray was when he first tried their cooking. No wonder he was so eager to learn how to cook.

- Sonju’s story about the demon world from ch46-47 practically adapted word for word.

- While the manga also shows us how frighted the duo is upon learning they’re living in the worst case scenario, it’s seeing them and their hands physically shake that help push this scene a little bit more (not that you can tell this by a still frame but trust me).

- Their synchronized smirks and how well their excitement was not only animated but how genuine and real it sounds too. Emma’s laugh and the fact they made Ray of all people sound hopeful is fantastic.

- They kept the small Ray from this panel and made him better.

- I just love seeing him be optimistic.

- The entire scene when Emma & Ray are both scolded by the younger kids for acting so recklessly is perfect.

- They kept this tiny comment of Nat’s.

- Finally getting chef Ray and hearing how confident he is with his cooking skills already.

- Seeing other children like Dominic pick up archery and be surprisingly good at it.

- Anime pushed Emma’s quick learning ability further with archery by showing us how easily she could land a bullseye even after hitting something midair.

- How well they animated Emma’s first kill, from following the arrow as she pulls it back to when she releases it as it flies towards the bird’s eye.

- The fact that this scene and the next both used a water droplet to symbolize death just like we saw during season one with Conny and Norman’s shipments are so satisfying.

- The gupna scene and how well it emphasized Emma’s reaction to taking a life and how upset/bothered she was in doing so. The addition of a butterfly helps as well, as it’s another way this series tends to convey the idea of death. (you remember how many the OP had, right? tons.)

- I only just noticed that Ray is seen looking at a similar butterfly in the following scene as well.

- The anime doing this panel justice. Ep2 is probably the episode that follows the manga the closest and did real well in regards to that.

- Ray beating Sonju at chess.

- Chris knowing exactly which way to go without using the compass, which makes sense as he was seen mapping out the surrounding area in the previous episode.

- The kid’s adorable little freak out.-

- Giving us a better idea on how large the reference room of the B06-32 shelter truly is.

- Finally being able to hear our boy Nat play the piano. The fact that his first song is named “Nat King Cool” as a possible reference to Nat King Cole is also great.

- Rossi being an accurate representation of the manga readers while watching this episode.

- Chris being his cute self.

- Seeing Ray’s sleeping face after the manga denied us so many times by hiding it.

- It’s.. close enough. We love our chef.

- I love the idea that Nat plays a couple songs before everyone goes to sleep. That’s so precious.

- SHE!! With her hair down!

- Rossi teasing Don and the fact that just mentioning Gilda is enough to scare him.

- It remembered that Gilda has a tendency to count all the children.

- The level of confidence Isabella has in her kids.

- Ray being oh so close to shooting a human with an arrow.

- This hug.

- Chris leading the group through the underground tunnels, which he also does in manga but we learn earlier in this ep it’s due to all the time he’s played down here.

- Because of his extensive knowledge of the shelter’s layout, Chris also guides everyone to one of the secret entrances to escape after he realizes the intruders are only stationed at the main two.

- Ray’s first demon kill is smooth as hell.

- Curse this scene for being so dark because that damn smile Isabella gives us is amazing.

- Since Andrew was cut, Chris and Dominic survive the aftermath of the shelter’s destruction without any injuries.

- Although we weren’t expecting to see their older 2047 selves this soon, they look good okay?

- The emotion in her voice throughout this entire scene (probably the closest we were ever gonna get to Emma doubting herself in ch109/114 too).

- Please just let me enjoy this moment when Ray noticed her negative thoughts and stepped in to help just as I expected.

- Vylk and that goofy smile of his.

- Watching the duo communicate without words during the chase through the demon town.

- Our girl clearing this jump effortlessly.

- Norman’s squishy cheeks.

- Ray’s slap could’ve been better, I know, but at this point I’m happy they still included it.

- The fact we can see Ray’s face during the reunion hug this time.

- And this hug.

- Remembering the small panel of Ray noticing Emma’s bluff.

- Finally hearing this conversation because both voice actors do a wonderful job with it and thankfully the dialogue is on par with the manga as well. Also that one moment when the shadow falls across Emma’s face like that.

- Gilda comforting Alicia after her nightmare.

- The scene is very dear to me so of course I appreciate every little panel we can get.

- How carefree Ray sounded with his “Nopes.”

- How I only realized just now that this panel was also adapted.

- Okay so who’s brilliant idea was it to have the sun rise towards the end of this conversation as Ray helps Emma regain her confidence? I just wanna personally thank them because it was a genius move and I’ll treasure it forever.

- They kept Barbara’s slip-up.

- Like our demon friends, I think the Lambda crew’s voices fit them rather well, although Zazie’s was totally unexpected, like dude you’re 5, why is your voice so low?

- Another “it could’ve been better but at least they included it” moment.

- Vincent’s smile here cracks me up and I don’t know why.

- Barbara’s anger.

- The short snippet we get of the ch126 conversation when the duo was visiting Chris.

- The table from Barbara’s outrage was never magically fixed like it was in manga, so we get this nice shot of Norman reflected in the broken surface.

- The trio’s conversation about the royals and cursed blood follows manga relatively well.

- Anime did this panel better, I’m sorry. Thank you for showing my girl getting angry.

- This frame of Ray.

- This comment of Norman’s that made me wanna slap him.

- How Norman’s face is constantly in the shadows during this scene, which is something his office at the Paradise hideout probably wouldn’t have given us, so hurray for this location instead.

- How he and Emma bicker over how many days their deal should last.

- When the camera shifts in and out of focus during Barbara’s seizure.

- How this scene hid Norman’s face until they revealed the demon the crew killed.

- It really is the small details that make me happy.

- This smile of Don’s.

- I’ll take all the hugs I can get.

- Emma and Gilda’s little headbutt.

- Why does my boy look so grown up and handsome here? Hello??

- I suppose I have to give credit for Peter’s voice actor too hm?

- Actually making Smee a bit more relevant.

- Since the fight against Legravalima was cut, this shot of Zazie is the closest we’re gonna get to seeing him without his paper bag, but it does improve on that one panel of him at the start of ch153.

- Seeing more of Norman’s time at Lambda as well as the aftermath of the explosion.

- While this scene pales in comparison to its manga counterpart, having the sun set behind him while Norman delivers his famous line was still a decent touch. It’s a nice contrast to the sunrise in ep6 and I enjoy it very much.

- Wild demons managing to somehow successful jump scare me not once, not twice, but three times in a single episode.

- Emma getting back up to protect her family despite her injury. (i mean, it’s no ch93 comeback but oh well)

- Ray getting in another decent shot at a demon.

- This face of his.

- Seeing just how quickly the drug causes the demons to degenerate and all the chaos it causes.

- Actually showing Norman attacking a demon rather than just saying he killed Yverk off panel in ch153.

- Hate me all you want but the anime did this panel better too.

- The ch153 discussion is more or less the same but the fact they added in Norman looking to Ray for help and just having him snap back instead was priceless.

- Sonju’s grin.

- The scene when Norman stops Zazie’s attack may only last like five seconds but it’s wonderfully animated and I find myself replaying it countless times.

- How to make the manga readers and anime-onlys panic with just one sentence:

- Isabella being clever as ever by leaking false info into the radio the escapees have to lure them back to Grace Field.

- I just think Emma looks so mature and pretty here?

- Had Norman actually apologize to the demons.. or was just about to anyways.

- Demon Emma is precious and must be protected.

- The adorable mixup between both Emmas.

- I haven’t a clue on where or how the kids managed to gather all the supplies to create several hot air balloons and explosives.. but they did, somehow, and I’m impressed because I’m assuming that all happened within a day.

- Ma’am, could you be any more smug?

- Simon! And he ends up surviving!

- Having Sonju fight alongside the Lambda crew.

- Which reminds me that this is possible since the Imperial Capital battle didn’t happen (yet, in this timeline), so the three of them never received their injuries from Legravalima either.

- The smoke bombs, only because I remembered how Sonju used them back in ep1 while rescuing Ray so it’s nice to see them being used again.

- Showing Norman actually use a bow and arrow this time. He also hits his target on the first try through a smokescreen.

- Ray having enough strength to knock out two demons with a simple metal pipe. In ch169 he’s seen holding down a grown man so yeah, I can believe this as well.

- Having Jemima, Yvette, Rossi & Mark disguises themselves as shipments in order to rally up the other Grace Field kids. Mark’s face and the noise he makes upon seeing Naila again is also precious.

- Peter actually falling for Vincent’s trap.

- Getting one young child to listen to you is hard enough, but Emma manages to get about 183 of them (yes I counted, give or take the four who also disguised themselves) to follow her orders in no time flat.

- Phil helping with the plan to lead all the children to the elevator.

- It made me nervous upon seeing it but they made the Day & Night ceiling real pretty.

- I knew the reunion was coming and still cried.

- Take all my hell yeahs.

- I could listen to her say this on repeat and be overjoyed every single time.

- She’s beauty, she’s grace, she’ll point at gun in your face.

- Getting to witness someone shoot at Peter since no one did so in the manga? Wonderful. Having that person be Isabella who literally lands a perfect shot not even a full second after he pulls out that disc? Perfection.

- Mujika and Vylk bringing in hundreds of civilian demons as reinforcements.

- James!

- Those real quick shots of the ancestors because I had given up on thinking we would’ve seen them at all since the Seven Walls arc was skipped.

- I’m actually surprised they kept his death in and it’s as harsh as the manga.

- Ray confronting Isabella with the addition of this line.

- This panel being animated along with Emma’s thoughts from ch177 towards Isabella even though that chapter’s major event didn’t happen.

- I certainly can not forget about this hug.

- At least anime!Emma told the boys her plan before reaching the door, or didn’t keep it a total secret? If not then I’ll praise the boys for accepting her crazy idea regardless.

- Boy, do you know how much I love you and your smirks?

- SHE. STAYS. ALIVE!!!

- Vincent and Norman’s little fist bump.

- Different but close enough. Still cute though.

- The amount of emotions this one shot makes me feel is limitless. Catch me crying tears of joy over it for the rest of my life.

- Having Phil not only getting the chance to see a train but to ride one as well.

- This pretty shot of Gilda.

- As well as this beautiful one with Emma and Mujika.

- They gave us older Phil. Not sure how much older but he’s still adorable.

- Lastly, the goddamn soundtrack! Of course we heard a bunch of the songs from season one, but the new ones such as “The Evil-Blooded Girl” and the Arabic version of “Isabella’s Lullaby” are absolutely fantastic. I still have to listen to full soundtrack but from what little bit I heard of such songs such as “Nat King Ballade,” “Crisis,” “Norman’s Lament,” and “The Temple Ruins,” I’m sure every track is an absolute joy. I’m so happy we had Obata back for this season.

And that’s the end of it, I guess? Of course it’s not a perfect list, as the majority of it was just personal favorites of mine but oh well. (this is just as long as ray’s birthday post too, oh lord)

I’m not gonna be one of those manga readers who continuously nag people to go read the original source material, because that’s annoying and I understand that some people just might not be up for it. They might watch a series, take it all in and then move on to the next one. Others might want to find out about every little detail and invest more time into the story. It’s totally fine to enjoy a series your own way and you shouldn’t feel pressured to continue something you’re only mildly interested in or feel bad that you love something others might despise. Just do whatever makes you happy. If you wanna check out the manga and see why us readers love it to pieces, then I promise it’s worth it, especially if you enjoyed the anime or wish to see more of any character.. or the entire story. If the manga ain’t for you, then I hope the anime did something for you. It definitely could have been better though, I can’t argue with that.

Whether you’re anime-only or manga reader, can we all still hope for a remake? This season had more flaws than any amount of praise I could give, but if years down the line we get the FMA: Brotherhood or Hellsing: Ultimate treatment where the next anime adaptation follows the manga perfectly, you know I’ll be all for it. I’m too deep in this TPN hole and I’ll probably never leave.

[violet975]

Random thoughts.

So i replayed BOTW a while ago for the first time and decided to write down some of the random thoughts that i get while exploring Hyrule, here they are.

… A lot of these things gave me some fanfic ideas and I hope that they will do the same for someone more competent.

It's realty in character that the response to being asked why you took the man's torch is either to bludgeon things to death with it or to be a pyromaniac.

When the tower pedestal shines, Link instinctively leans back for a second before diving right back in because curiosity kills the cat.

The message from the slate/tower is to watch out for falling rocks which either means that 

1: zelda is writing them (and has a fair bit of free reign still).

2: the ancient Sheikah could see the future.

3: Ai to the likes of Fi.

Ganon kinda reawakens when the towers are up so maybe he was resting and building a body until he was interrupted here, which could be why his form later is such a hodgepodge of the Blights?.

Link is not too naive since he kinda clamps up in his answers to the totally unimportant old man.

Did Link briefly make eye-contact with the camera when he got the spirit orb!?

Link is a bit freaked out in his "How did you know!?" Response cas now he knows something major is up when the old man directly mentions the spirit orb.

Again, in character that you can choose to be an impatient brat with the "paraglider please?" Or inquisitive when Roam points out the slate.

Either run out of temper with the "that wasn't the deal!" Or be resigned with "so I need more now?" When the old fart sends you off to the other three shrines.

Ohh, another adrenaline junkie option with the "got it!" Over climbing the tower for a good view or a Deadpan "are you joking?".

"Or so i heard quite some time ago.. I do not know if it actually works as such" so they did not get teleporting to work before? or he just didn't learn how it was done.

So the monks, according to how the Triforce signs they held, apparently associate Power with Magnesis, Wisdom with bombs, Stability with stasis and Courage with cryonis?

The monks dissipate into green specks like Ganon’s soul does under the castle!

I'm not into men but damn if Link doesn't look good in the Warm Doublet.

Oh. My. God, he was King Rhoam Bosphoramus Hyrule!!!!!

Link is such a dumbass, you get to ask Kass "are you a ...bird?" As if the man isn't standing right in front of you. No shit Sherlock! What next, is that a recorder?.

OhhohoHO! You either say "no(, i have not heard of them)" or "Ancient songs?" As if you do not initially realize why they are thought to be ancient which either is old memories warring with the now world or Link not realizing what impact The Calamity had on culture.

Another flat-faced sarcastic remark everyone!

When Manny mentions that his job is checking for beauties/sus people you can either be a dumb dunce and ask about the said beauties or a little menace with "sounds though".

Manny is an Incel, talks a big game and puts himself on top of a pedestal alongside being demanding and a creep.

Does Hateno not have a goddess shrine? Just the ~Evil~ one?

There is a pair of rusty knights sword and shield by the leftmost part of the walkway of Fort Hateno. Some knight probably died laying there, watching out over the field of guardians having been/being purged by Zelda.

A traveler (Chelessa) is interested in history and wants to question Impa about it, and is on her way to do so in fact. . Describes her personality as very pleasant, that must be wrong.

The Yiga know exactly how Links first waking moments played out so either they have extensive knowledge about his character and the setup of the Shrine Of Resurrection or Ganon was watching in on Zelda's call and relayed it to a minion in the clan.

"Hero boy" - derogatory.

Arrow in the eye of the bridge at the entrance of Kakariko, the Yiga are petty and I love it.

Piano's (the painter) hair bun thing that is styled like a pencil has paint on the tip... this man painted with his hair.

So the great fairy Cotera makes it sound like she will enchant your gear because you rejuvenated her, not because you bring the materials to do the enchanting.

The levels of enchantment seemingly depends on physical closeness to the Fairy (blow< indirect kiss< kiss < sex)

She can not enchant beyond Lv 1 without her sister's help, so they share power?

Paya specifies that they have watched over the Orb since the grandmother of the grandmother of Impa, that's 9 whole generations of long lived Sheikah! roughly 1000 years of recorded history!

Again with Link being a dense Shonen protagonist with "where is it?" Or a sly bastard with "really, though?"... maybe so that she would want to prove it ;) 

…”I'll answer you some day, just not today!”

Either Paya is just not ready for that or she is so nervous that she did not think about the fact that her own grandmother was in the room when she said it!

“Served the royal family in secret” so it's not common knowledge that the royals have a village of Magic ninjas!? No wonder it took a damn demon to topple it instead of rebellion or infighting... probably has been like this since the old old king banished 'em.

"The royal family was destroyed, and the members of our tribe scattered."- okay so it was probably some Sheikah that either thought the royal family was completely extinct and either fled or, according to this next bit- "Sadly, there were some who swore allegiance to Ganon at that time. They joined together as the Yiga Clan, seeking out all who opposed Ganon... cutting them down, one after another." 

So from that we get to know that not all Sheikah deserters became enemies (unless the Sheikah dislike defectors enough to hunt them down) and others who either joined an existing opposing group or simply up and created the Yiga clan that then aligned itself with Ganon... probably under either the belief that Hylia's line was extinct and that it was join or die or because they wished to spite the goddess and her followers.

I actually like this way more because it makes no sense that the Yiga could survive before the Calamity when the Royals would have an entire damn country and anbu black-ops to hunt them down with.

"Master link, now that you are awake, you are surely the most formidable opponent standing against them!" Either hero worship or the Sheikah are freshly out on capable warriors with Ninja magic tricks, probably the latter which would explain why the world isn't infested with Lynels or why hynoxes haven't just trampled every settlement.

"No doubt they will come for you, employing whatever underhanded methods they can device" 

oh come on! Do not tell me that i'm stuck with the goodie two shoe ninja clan!? Underhandedness is your bread and butter! No wonder you served the royals in secret because you and them by proxy would have been a laughingstock otherwise!!!

"The great fairy Cotera... few remain who know that this village was built under her watchful eye." So the village is fairy new and the Yiga came about before Kakariko or it is old and so well protected that they can't get in... at least not easily.

"The mysterious power of Cotera is that of sacred protection..." so the Great fairies are linked to either Hylia or the gods, good to know.

So it’s not that Cotera “-would be happy to help” but, instead “i can't think of any reason why she wouldn't be happy to help you”. so either she only directly helps men or the earlier "you can put your trust in the great fairy" means that she judges more favorably for the chosen hero.

"I heard that the weather is going to be beautifully tomorrow... to bad you won't be alive to enjoy it"

So they have weather accurate~ich prediction? through magic or old time methods?

Again: Hero boy - derogatory... It's a common nickname for Link within the Yiga.

The lush green shrine could tell that a buck was on it, so the platforms are most definitely scanners.

A travelers sword by a campfire at the foot of mount Lanayru, so someone either took a swim and died to the Lizardfo, dramatically quit or got killed in their sleep.

Love the effect when you have metal weapons on the ground and swing a ThunderBlade!

You automatically reflect the Octorock's rocks, goes faster if you do it manually.

There is a hollowed out part of a hill/mountain with a lot of fic potential to the North-West of the Sword by the campfire.

Located where the lines meet if you draw a line to the right from Rabia plain and up from Trotter's Downfall.

Koko of Kakariko has been deceived by my cunning and slight-of-hand. 

Yes, Sagessa (woman by the lake of the Dueling peaks stable), there is, in fact, something "quite romantic" in Link's "endeavor" to save Zelda, thank you for noticing!

The chests inside the shrines can only (non-violently) be opened by use of the Sheikah slate so why not steal a few? prefect safe-keeping for more stuff to keep in Links house.

Dunce moment everyone! 

The Yiga traveler tries to seduce Link and you either go with "OK..." so he either has no damn idea about what is going on or is just not good with women? 

Orrrrr you go with a straight "I refuse!" cas you see through their ruse and want to rub their face in the dirt!

According to Mina the Hylian, taking out two Bokoblins is considered as great martial caliber which both she and her traveling companion could not do while decently armed.

Best way to deal with a guardian scout when you have weak weapons: hit with electricity, switch weapon, hit 2-5 times, switch to electric, repeat.

When you first enter the area around Hyrule Castle, smoke Ganon throws a fit until Zelda slaps him away. 

This either means that Zelda canonically gets a larger workload from there on and out or that the both of them push harder against each other every time you get close.

According to Zelda's diary, Link was assigned as her guard after the champions had been appointed.

How Link was focused on her yet did not voice his thoughts apparently "makes my imagination run wild!". Either romantic or dense.

Link admits to staying quiet because of the pressure of being the boy chosen by the sword. 

King Rhoam mentions that he decided to honor THE royal family's traditions by naming his daughter Zelda, and that he is "not a man accustomed to frivolous musings". 

Basically confirming that he is not the parent of royal blood.

They probably knew about The Calamity for a good while cas the page after zelda's naming speaks of the fortune teller, probs 3-8 years since Zelda was described to already have vast interest in the relics.

Pikango gets up at 10 past 5, I spent the night watching him and Beetle sleep.

According to all known laws of aerodynamics, Rito should not be able to fly, is Revali's gale then just an absurdly strong variation of some kind of sky Arcanum that all Rito possess? Do all the races possess one as Well?

Slimes ate the Bokoblins in the tree base at the center of the west Hyrule fields.

Savelle is a helpful guy without a pension for violence.

Munk Shae Loya is just flexing on all the other Munks, those old farts need to sit down while he's been squatting on one leg the last 10'000 years.

Chork of the Tabantha Bridge Stable is drunk.

Toren is either naive or a simp for the Faireys.

If you have the Hylian hood equipped with no weapon while riding at max speed then your cape will flap.

"Sweet boy..." "...I see now that my first impression of you was correct. You most definitely are pleasant to look at." 

So link has some kind of presence/soul-thingy that appears pleasant to mystical creatures? Might be the spirit of the hero or this link in particular.

The Fairy Kaysar makes Link blush! No player input needed! We’ve found one of his types!... either that or he's just shy.

The fairies almost never use normal materials to enchant, it's always either monster parts that don't dissipate or things that grow in magical arias.

The Sheikah towers are sturdy as all hell, the Tabantha tower did not even get a scratch from a giant fucking pillar falling on it.

Okay, am I just crazy or is a Lizardfo and a Moblin holding a class for 5 bokoblins just to the left of the Tabanta fairy fountain!?

Lester, the wise curry rice guy at Rito Stable, describes Link as sunny boy, another point to the soul/aura theory thingy.

Phontos laughs to hide the pain.

According to the story that Kass sings. 

Calamity Ganon was the result of sealing the enemy at its source.

It fought not only the spawn of the Goddess and the bearer of the Spirit Of The Hero but also the army of Guardians and the Champions that piloted the Divine Beasts for quite some time, as implied in the "and the guardians protected them throughout every hour".

So what i get from this is that the attack 10 000 years ago was the first sighting of what we know as calamity Ganon. 

It was also far stronger than the one that attacked 100 years ago which implies that that one was either a rush job or that Ganon bounds had been tightened, both of which would drive him to seek out other methods like corrupting the Guardians.

...And the Guardians are apparently powered by the ancient blue energy which was, time-line wise, first shown when the Golden Goddesses created the world.

No wonder that Ganon was capable of doing this since he most likely is running on fumes, spite and the power of the Triforce which likely is made of/channels said energy.

According to the rumor mill, you need the blood of the Hero in your veins to wield the Master Sword, if this is accurate then that means that Fi is sentimental or that Link has magic blood.

Wildberrys are fucking massive.

Genli (the salmon child) is a cunt, one kid was crying about someone Vah Medoh killed and then Genli is all like "no don't stop it, if you do then i have to go to class again!", She would fit right in with today's youth.

Monk Akh Va'quot has the best position so far, he is just done with your shit.

"You adventurers are Crazy" -> "you're right"

You get nothing if you melt all the ice by the Tabantha tower! You lose! Good day sir!

Monk Daka Tuss got bored during his self-inflicted quarantine and started stacking his arm bands.

Tula (the bathing Zora) said "wow either you are a Hylian or hideously deformed"

Phura has vandalized and mounted one of the spirit frog statues above her door.

Okay but the fucking noice that comes out of Bolson when you buy everything!! It's as if you just walked up and twisted his nuts with the power fit to shield block a Lynel’s charge.

Is the flower by Link's bed a Korok version of a Silent Princess?

The monsters of Hyrule are show to have interest in consumption based on three accounts. 

1: the Bocoblins and the Moblins by Hateno bay steal cattle. 

2: Hynoxes carry around warriors foodstuffs. 

3: Moblins (or at least the ones by the camp near the Serenne stable/forgotten temple) have a resting animation where they dig through the dirt and stuff something down their goblet.

...not to mention that nearly every camp has a bit of meat roasting by the fire.

Koyin has joined the fan-club!

God, the Naydra snowfield is fucking loaded in chill-shromes!

Stasis is perfect for looking for ingredients in forests, just open it, look around and bam! No more hidey hoe.

Why no shiny text for hylia's statue!?

I really do not like that they changed Naydra's colors when the malice was removed, they were so cool and then bam! White! White is not the color for ice and cold!

When praying by the spring of wisdom you are facing Hyrule castle, the same with courage and power if my memory serves me right.

...The master Torch

The Katona Aug shrine is just fucking mini-golf, how is that meant to prepare the hero?! Imagine how that Monk goes to the afterlife and has to look his fellows straight in the eye and admit that he was so lazy that not only did he make the hero play golf, not only was he so lazy that he made the Hero play mini-golf, but that he was so lazy that he did not even make a course! It is literally just a straight line!

Robie wants to see Links scars to verify that he is who he says that he is, Robie was likely one of the ninja that took Link to the shrine of resurrection.

Oh and Robin has two interesting sketches in his lab, the first is a detailed graph of a Sheikah tower so those were likely known about long before Link activated one (the one closest to Robin would be the one covered in malice and guardians so he could not have gotten enough detail from that one).

And the other is a sketch of what I believe is either a tier 2 or tier 3 guardian scout. Now, how can Robin know how that looks if only Link can/could enter shrines?

The Sheikah shrine that has the Barbarian helm is located at the end of the Sinai maze, did they just plop the shrine down there and steal the treasure of the ruin to later present to the hero?

There is one usable room in the citadel.

There is no compendium slot for the malice eyes that litter Naydra, Hyrule Castle and the Divine Beasts.

You can change the element of already elemental slime, not just the neutral kind.

Those head-spitting fuckers inside the divine beasts! They are partially reanimating mobs! So it's not that the Blood Moon is the time where Ganon is at his strongest, it's just where he chooses to revive everything.

The edge of duality can also be found in the shrine at the top of the dueling peaks.

[immortalcoelacanth]

Conductor x Oblivious!Reader Oneshot: Is it Still Called a Ship if it Involves a Train?

My muse is all over the place and I have tons of ideas, my mind cannot contain them all and I don’t know how I wrote this. Also as a heads up I’ve been thinking about backing up my other reader oneshots on Tumblr on AO3 just in case something happens, so if you see them there don’t be surprised. 

Wordcount: 2791

Summary: The Conductor loved his train and wanted it in peak condition, that was why he visited the repair shop so much, and of course you were always the technician who checked everything, you specialized in trains after all! It only made sense!

Now, what didn’t make sense was how oblivious you were to his feelings. 

“The Conductor’s back?! Again?! I thought we just checked out the train last week! Everything was fine!” 

“Maybe he blew some of it up again? Like in that one movie?”

“I doubt it! He’s just train crazy!”

You let out a chuckle at the banter between your coworkers as you clicked away your computer, scanning through the active tickets and what needed to be done after. You worked in a repair shop for all sorts of vehicles. Most of the customers had cars that needed to be checked out, but some had more unusual modes of transportation. 

Like the Conductor and his train. 

He was one of the more… interesting customers you had interacted with. He was loud, very loud, and self-centered. 

Not that he was ever rude to any of your coworkers, or your boss, but you assumed this was because you were the ones responsible for keeping his train in tip top shape. 

Granted, the pool of people responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of his train had slowly dwindled until you were practically the only one checking it out. This was mainly due to the fact that you were the one on site who was the most knowledgeable about trains, they had been your passion since you were a child, and… 

Well, for some reason the Conductor always wanted you to be the one doing the work. 

You assumed this was for consistency’s sake, and the fact that it would make it far easier for him to get to know you as it was generally a good idea for a mechanic and their long term customer to have a good relationship, but he was surprisingly insistent about it even if there were long wait times. 

Fortunately he was never rude to your coworkers while he waited, nor did he insist on rushing anything. He just waited patiently for his turn and occasionally spoke to some other customers about his movies, being surprisingly polite when one of them mentioned not having seen them. 

Which was very out of character according to some of your coworkers, and speaking of them-

“Hey! You got Conductor’s ticket again?” The coworker nearest to you asked, their overalls stained with oil and grime, as were their feathers. “Since he’s just gonna bug us until we ask you to…”

“Don’t worry, I’ll cover it!” You quickly nodded while walking over to them. “Do you know what he’s coming in about?” “I dunno, something about his train sounding weird earlier.” They shrugged. “According to the boss he didn’t sound super worried or anything, but he insisted on coming in later today.”

“CAW!” You both jumped at the sudden noise and spun around, facing the newest arrival of the slowly forming group. Towering above the both of you was yet another coworker.

Or, perhaps croworker would be a more accurate title to call her by. 

She crossed her wings and glared down at you. “Are you the reason why he’s back, again?! I thought you fixed everything the last time he was here!”

“I did!” You insisted, taking a step back and raising your hands defensively. “Everything was fine when he left, and I didn’t see any problems other than cosmetic damage in the first place!”

The occasional bump and scrap was much better than the broken up and busted train that had been brought in one day, the Conductor sheepishly scratching the back of his head as he briefly mentioned something about a filming incident. 

You had cried true, honest tears upon seeing all that damage. That poor, poor train. 

The Crow stared at you for a moment longer before leaning down and asking a rather strange question. “Did you say yes or no then?”

“... To what?” You countered, extremely confused. Your confusion grew when she threw her wings up into the air and stomped off, yelling something about dense bird brains.

“I wonder what’s up with her?” Your other coworker mused, and you offered them a weak shrug before getting back to work. 

Hours passed and eventually the train engine belonging to the Conductor appeared in the front of the shop. Already, you could hear the mumblings and grumbling of the train being immaculate, and it was fine before, followed by a why is he here?

Even your boss seemed to be a bit annoyed at the Conductor’s insistence on getting the train looked over, and probably would have scolded the bird if it were not for how much money the shop made off of him. 

It was a lot of money. 

You were snapped out of your musings when you heard that accented voice grow louder, indicating that he was getting closer. You quickly dusted off your overalls, smiled that signature, customer service smile, and made your way towards the source of the shop’s annoyance. 

And then there he was. 

The Conductor. 

There was no mistaking his short stature and the brightness of his feathers. Although, something that was quite unusual was the bag he was carrying with him, the plastic giving away nothing about what item might be contained inside. He was looking around the shop, trying to find something from the look of it, but the moment his gaze landed on you-

“There yer are!” He called out, waving eagerly as he practically ran over to see you. You instinctively smiled and waved back. 

It was good to be polite to customers, especially someone who spent as much money as the Conductor, but you also enjoyed your talks with him. Watching him ramble about his train and his experiences driving it were always fun, and you had learned that he was a magnificent storyteller. 

You missed the way one of your coworkers elbowed the other while quietly whispering something to get, getting a laugh out of the one they had spoken to. 

“Hello, Conductor!” You cheerfully greeted, smile immediately growing more genuine at the thought of being able to chat with him once again. “So, what’s going on with the train?”

“Well, erm… me train started soundin’ a bit… off.” He explained, sounding strangely nervous as he discussed what the problem was. “Can yer check the engine?”

“So you think the sounds were coming from the engine? Not the wheels?” You pressed, leaning forward as your eyes narrowed in concern. “Did you do anything to the train? Any… intense activities?”

Did you blow up your train again?

“N-Nae!” He quickly objected, quickly shaking his head. “Nothin’ like that! Just strange sounds. Can... can yer help?”

“I can take a look and tell you what I find.” You said, getting a toothy grin out of the Conductor. 

“Yer an angel.” The bird sighed, sounding quite relieved at your offer. “If yer’d like ta know more-”

“Of course I would!” You immediately replied as you made your way over to the train. “You and I need to have a long chat about what you’re worried about, and I’ll keep you updated on the status of the train. I’m assuming you’ll be waiting here?”

“Aye!” The Conductor was quick to nod, secretly happy to be able to spend more time with you.

You were definitely the best part about visiting this shop. Your personality was so bubbly and warm, but you also were not afraid to put rude customers in their place as he had seen you do on multiple occasions. You were smart and confident, yet you were also very humble and compassionate. 

Far more compassionate than he was, and he knew this. He knew how rude he could be at times, the Receptionist had scolded him on multiple occasions about his behavior, but… 

Every reason that caused him to act the way he did, his inner insecurities and worries and fears that bubbled up and filled his mind to the brim with their screaming seemed to fade whenever he was around you. 

You and your questions about his movies and his train, about the stories that he had memorized to tell his grandchildren over and over again. He knew he would get mocked if he ever voiced such feelings, so he always kept them hidden and to himself. 

Although, his feelings were not quite as hidden as he had hoped for since it seemed as though most of the workers in the repair shop had figured out why he was so insistent on you being the one to look over his train. That, and the smug looks some of them sent his way.

Especially that one Crow…

He was shaken out of his thoughts when he noticed you making your way over to the train, and he quickly rushed over to join you, the bag on his arm swaying. That’s right, he still needed to give you that, too. 

But first, train inspection. 

Together, you both climbed up the side of the train, with you taking a moment to make sure the Conductor was still following you, before making your way inside. You were unable to stop the impressed noise from escaping you as you took in the interior of the train engine, all the high tech glowing buttons and levers covering the main console. It was so easy to imagine how amazing it must feel to drive this train, the sheer amount of power and speed.

It left you breathless. 

… But, the interior was as spotless as it had been the last time you had seen it. Granted, you had not thoroughly checked anything yet, but the sheer amount of light reflecting off of the metallic surfaces, and the general lack of dirt and grime led you to believe that the problem was not here. 

And your hypothesis was proven soon enough as, after spending nearly an hour looking over all the intricate mechanisms, and chatting with the Conductor, you did not find anything that was damaged or showed signs of potentially causing problems. 

You let out a concerned hum and looked at the Conductor, not really registering how some of his feathers took on a more reddish hue, nor how he seemed to anxiously mess with his suit. Without a word, you made your way out of the train and moved to inspect the massive wheels, assuming that the problem might be there.

Nope.

Nada.

Nothing.

“There… there isn’t anything I can see wrong.” You slowly concluded as you backed away from the train. “No breaks, no other forms of damage, no malfunctioning parts, nothing.”

“Aye? Erm, well, perhaps yer should take yer time? Try not to rush and give yerself a break-” The Conductor rambled as you practically glared at the train, as if trying to force it to give up all its secrets. 

Where, where could that problem be?

You crossed your arms as you contemplated how to best solve this problem. The engine was… fine. Nothing seemed to be out of place or broken, nor were there any leaks or other signs of potential sources of problems. It was downright immaculate, what you had come to expect from the Conductor, but you knew you would not rest until you figured out what the problem was. 

It was a source of pride for you, how thorough your work was, and it helped that your boss rewarded you for your efforts. Not knowing whether the train was actually fine or not would… nag at you. 

Immensely. 

Although, given the fact that the train was stationary and the Conductor claimed to have heard those strange noises when he had been driving it, it was possible that the problem would not show itself unless the train was moving. Something that might be caused by stress, or even a poorly connected section of the tracks. 

You clapped your hands together as you came up with an idea. Yes! That would work perfectly! Excitement filling you at the prospect of your plan, you turned to the Conductor and spoke. 

“Can you give me a ride?”

The reactions to your question were… varied, to say the least. 

You heard one of your coworkers break down laughing hard enough to the point where they started coughing, you heard what sounded like someone facepalming hard enough to leave a mark, and as for the Conductor-

He squawked, loudly. 

The feathers on his face took on a more reddish hue, especially around his cheeks and forehead, and his maw hung open in what you assumed to be surprise. The feathers on the side of his head also seemed to have fluffed up at some point. It made him look…

Cute. 

“I might be able to find the problem if I’m with you when the train is moving.” You explained, watching as the red flush faded from the Conductor’s feathers. “So, would it be okay if I joined you on your next train ride?”

“Erm-course!” The Conductor quickly replied, still strangely flustered. “When… when should I pick yer up, then?”

“Hmm…” 

Obviously you needed to conform to his schedule since you had a feeling his days were pretty busy between running his train and filming movies, plus you were certain you could haggle your boss into covering how many hours you were there for.

“How about I spend the day with you?” You suggested. “That way I have plenty of time to check out the train without interrupting your schedule. Does that sound good?”

“Yer… yer be wantin’ ta spend the whole day…?” The feathers around the Conductor’s face started taking on that reddish hue once again. “From sunrise ta sunset?” 

“For as long as you’ll have me!” You answered with a nod. “And you can tell me to leave if I start bothering you.”

“Nae! Nae! That won’t be a problem!” The Conductor quickly objected as he flailed his feathery hands. “Yer can spend as long as yer want on… me train-”

Wow, I wonder why his voice cracked like that…

“Alright, it’s a date, then!” Once again you were oblivious to how his face flushed as he replied with his own, eager nod. Instead all you could think of was how wonderful it would be to ride a train across the tracks, see the sights and feel that wonderful breeze. 

“Ah, and I got yer somethin’ as thanks fer keepin’ me train in top shape.” The Conductor added as he reached into the plastic bag from earlier and pulled out a small cactus. 

“I remember yer mentionin’ that yer liked deserts, so-” He started to explain before he was cut off by you quickly picking up the cactus to inspect it. 

“I love it, and that’s so sweet!” The cactus was so tiny and round and just… looked adorable! You smiled brightly at the Conductor and instinctively reached out to hug him. “Thank you!” 

His suit felt surprisingly soft and warm as you wrapped an arm around him for the hug, careful to keep the cactus away so neither of you got accidentally pricked. His feathers were pretty soft, too, and you just barely managed to restrain yourself from impulsively running a hand through them. 

“Yer… yer welcome.” He mumbled, still blushing furiously. 

“I need to find somewhere safe to put this so it doesn’t break. Oh! I also need to find a good spot to put it when I get home, or maybe I can keep it here and it can be our little mascot!” You rambled as you made your way over to the staff room, too distracted to remember to say goodbye to the flustered bird. 

The Conductor just stood there, maw open in surprise at the fact that you had hugged him.

Oh god, you hugged him. You actually hugged him. 

He was dazed, stunned, and frozen on the spot as the memory of you hugging him replayed itself over and over in his mind. How warm you were, how bright your smile was. 

It was nice to see you smile, see you so cheerful and happy. 

He wanted to see that smile again. 

As the Conductor stood in place, too surprised to move, the operations of the repair shop slowly resumed. Technicians and mechanics got back to their assigned vehicles, and even the music that had been quietly playing in the background increased in volume. Of course, this also meant that conversations resumed, including ones focused on the interaction that had just taken place. 

“So,” The Crow began, leaning down towards one of her coworkers and whispering to them. “Are we shipping them, or do we call it something else since there’s a train?”

The resulting laughter could easily be heard by you in the staff room, leaving you confused as to what they were laughing at, and somewhat concerned as to what might have happened. 

Oh well, you had to get ready for your date tomorrow with the Conductor anyways.                                     xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Maybe I'll write a follow up to this, maybe not~

I hope you all enjoyed reading!

- ImmortalCoelacanth

[tirednotflirting]

does it ever drive you crazy, just how fast the night changes?

baby’s first au whaaaaaat? 

special thank you to @clumsyclifford​ for linking the prompt list i got this idea from! this was the prompt (it was a whole slew of celebrity AUs: “wait, you’re supposed to be DEAD and i just recognized you at the grocery store, turns out you just didn’t want to be a celebrity anymore” au. bella is also writing one from this list and it’s one of my most favorite lashton things i have ever read, highly recommend, 10/10, i could yell about hello, hello for ages omg

also here is the ao3 link if that’s your preferred way to read :)  

There are few things that bring Luke as much joy as his Friday night (well, Saturday morning, really) grocery trips.

He had started working the night shift at the nurses’ desk at the children’s hospital about a year prior after graduating. He had found the job through the friend of a friend of a friend who was a nurse herself and mentioned the job needed filling fast. Luke had never really considered the idea of a night job but ultimately the work wasn’t all too bad. He made coffee every couple of hours (he made an effort to never let the pot empty which got him lots of smiles from the nurses) and every once in awhile Lina, the 6 year old cancer patient whose room was just around the corner from the brightly colored desk, would wander out to ask him to check for monsters under her bed and to be tucked back in. It was pretty simple (and heartwarming) work.

However, staying up through the night for 5 nights a week made it damn near impossible to be awake during the day on his weekends off. Luckily enough for Luke, he had friends like Michael who tended to play video games all night despite working through the day (he stopped questioning how he managed it a long time ago) and his favorite grocery store was a 24 hour location.

The first time Luke had come to do his shop at around 2am, he had felt a little spooked by the parking lot and eerie silence in between Top 40 songs that played over the intercom in the store. But he soon grew to find the general atmosphere pretty calming and he made friends with the nighttime stocker (a guy named Calum who also never saw himself doing nighttime work but here they were) and it became something he really looked forward to on his Saturday (very early) mornings.

He arrives at the store just a bit after 1am. He just finished ‘a late breakfast’ (he still always finds himself giggling at the concept of eating meals at opposite points in the day as everyone else despite the obvious logic to the schedule) and has a list tucked into the pocket of his sweats. It’s a little chilly out so he grabs the first sweater he sees on the backseat - a blue cardigan - since he knows they also keep the store pretty cool in the night to make sure everybody stays awake through their shift.

As he grabs one of the smaller carts as he heads into the store, he feels his phone buzzing in his pocket. He pulls out his list first and drops it into the baby seat of the cart and then grabs his phone. Luke’s faced with the wild selfie Michael set for his profile picture and he rolls his eyes as clicks the icon to answer the call.

“What’s up, Mikey?” he answers as he starts pushing the cart in the direction of the produce section. 

“You at the store yet?” Luke can hear the clicking of the buttons on the controller in Michael’s hands.

“Yeah, just got in. You need anything?”

Michael then rambles off a short list that Luke jots down into his notes app since he doesn’t have a pen or anything with him. He assures his friend he’ll come drop off the odd collection of snacks and things (“They have to be the dinosaur shaped ones. I swear Luke they do taste better.”) once he finished up his shop of real groceries.

Luke wanders around the produce, picking out what fruits and veggies he wants to have around for the week. He takes his time finding the apples without the bruises, bananas that will be the perfect amount of ripe by midweek, some leafy bunches for the salad he’s been assigned to bring for the breakroom potluck on Tuesday. He’s checking out some strawberries that he thinks might be nice to toss into the mix too when a human sized figure appears in the corner of his vision.

It’s a man around his size (in similar cozy clothes) facing away from him. He’s got hair the opposite color to Luke’s bleached blonde. His messy black curls are pulled back into a tiny bun that mirrors Luke’s own. The other man is broad and has a tattoo of a bird across the back of his neck, just barely visible above the collar of a faded blue sweatshirt. The tattoo is one that seems oddly familiar to Luke, as though it belongs to someone he knows. The man begins to wander off toward the bakery section of the store though and Luke shrugs off the recognition, figuring it might be someone he’s seen around a waiting room in the hospital at some point. He settles on some strawberries and starts pushing his cart in the direction of the deli and meats.

As he stares at the different packages of chicken and breakfast sausages, he can’t help but think back on the man he saw though. There was something achingly familiar about him, and more than just the tattoo. He can’t shake the thought for some reason and finds himself jumping in surprise when he feels his phone buzz once again in his pocket. 

He doesn’t even have to look to the screen to know that it’s Michael calling again to add something to his list. In fact, he happens to even know the items that his friend failed to mention the first time he called. Luke presses the accept button and lifts the phone to his ear.

“Froot Loops and the character shaped fruit snacks?”

“The superhero ones, if they have them please!”

*

Luke continues around the store, grabbing all the bits from his list (and Michael’s 12 year old boy list) and eventually lands in the dairy section. He grabs the yogurt he’s been mixing granola into for breakfast lately and some butter for the cookies his mom sent him a recipe for. Only thing left in terms of food is cereal milk and coffee milk (2% and oat, respectively, of course). When he looks up from the list to make his way over to the fridges containing the plethora of milks, he is faced once again with the familiar stranger. 

Except this time, as he catches just the briefest glimpse of the man’s face, of his hazel eyes and strong jawline, he realizes this isn’t a stranger. Very much not a stranger. It’s Ashton Irwin, the host of at least three of those reality dating shows he forces Michael to watch with him on the weekends since he can’t watch them when they air live on Monday and Tuesdays. 

Or, well, he was the host of all of those shows until about two months ago.

Because Ashton Irwin has been dead for two months due to a freak heart attack while on vacation on some remote island.

Luke glances away from him for a moment in a panic. Has he completely lost it? Have the late nights finally gotten to him and he’s starting to actually see things that don’t exist? Was Calum right all along and the store really is haunted? (Though it's a little lost on him why a star TV host would want to haunt a grocery store. And not even a good one like that Whole Foods in Downtown.)

Then he realizes that perhaps he was just wrong. (Though now that he thinks about it, he very much remembers liking an Instagram picture of that tattoo on Ashton Irwin’s account a couple years back.) He’s far enough down the aisle from him that he can chance a look at the man without being caught. So, slowly, Luke turns again just slightly to look toward him.

It’s the hair that left him not immediately making the recognition. His hair has been dyed black, a stark contrast to his signature dark red but definitely a change that likely doesn’t draw as much attention. The sweatshirt he’s paired with black skinny jeans is pretty baggy and it’s a damn shame because Luke knows he has the arms of a god.

(Something Luke knows from the tabloid covers he glances at from time to time at the pharmacy and the summer version of the show that Ashton hosted, of course. He most definitely has never searched up his name + ‘biceps’ before. Never.)

But despite the obvious attempt to match the look and aesthetic of ‘2am grocery shopper’ he's still very unmistakably Ashton Irwin.

As Luke grapples with this new knowledge that apparently this person he thought was dead is not dead and also apparently goes to the same grocery as him, he fails to notice that Ashton has turned to face him and that he is still staring at him in shock. 

Very quickly, Ashton’s face comes to mirror Luke’s expression and he’s rushing toward the blonde in a state of terror. 

“Please don’t say anything,” he gasped in a hushed voice. The accent similar to his own that Luke has grown used to hearing on his TV sticks out some in his panicked words.

“How? I - uh? Are you,” Luke trips over every syllable that comes out of his mouth as he attempts to let his brain wrap around the situation. “Are you a ghost?”

The feared look of the black haired man actually fades some as he lets a quiet giggle escape (a very cute giggle, if Luke is being honest). “I’m, uh, not a ghost. No. Though I guess that does kind of accurately explain what I’m trying to be.”

Now Luke is even more confused. Based on the statement, he obviously wasn’t making up all of the tabloid stories he had seen about Ashton dying but something isn’t adding up to the present moment. “I don't-”

“Listen, if you’re going to go tell the press, can you at least give me like,” he glances down at his phone screen displaying the time. “2 hours to get back out to my friend’s place where I’ve been hiding?”

It’s now Luke’s turn to laugh. “You do realize if I go to some paparazzi or something and tell them I saw deceased Ashton Irwin wandering around my grocery store trying to decide between hazelnut and cashew milk they would just laugh in my face, right?”

The statement causes Ashton to look down at his hands to the milks in his hands. He sighs down at the cartons before tossing both of them in the cart. “Guess you’re not really wrong.”

“Is someone pulling some kind of long-winded, over the top prank on me right now? Am I being punk’d?” Luke asks, his head tilting some in a way that would normally have Michael making fun of him for the child-like behavior. “Because I know for a fact that I am not worth that much effort.”

The questions have Ashton smiling a bit again and Luke suddenly finds himself wanting to say increasingly dumb things so long as it’ll keep the hazel-eyed man smiling. “No, no. Not at all. I just,” his smile falters some, leaving his lips still turned up but his eyes drop some. “I started to get a little sick of the world and the world started getting a bit sick of me, I think.” Luke wonders if Ashton knew just how heavy his words feel.

He scoffs then, as if hearing Luke’s silent question. “Wow, sorry that was really dramatic,” Ashton shakes his head a bit before continuing. “Hi, I’m Ashton.”

Luke looks down to the tanned arm being stretched out toward him. He lifts a hand from his shopping cart and wraps it around Ashton’s. “I’m Luke.”

Ashton brightens again as he shakes his hand. “Well, Luke, you’re the first person other than my current landlord of sorts that I’ve come across since literally dying in the eyes of the media. So I guess I owe you an explanation? Since it seems like you’re familiar with that media viewpoint?”

Ashton moves to start pushing his cart in the direction of another area of the store but peers over his shoulder and gestures with his head to follow him. Luke quickly reaches into the fridge on his left to grab the rest of his dairy before catching up to him. “Well, you really don’t owe me anything. I don’t know you beyond what I see of you on my TV screen,” Luke wonders then if maybe he should have played it a bit cooler and not told the cute, presumed dead TV star that he watches his shows. “But I am a bit confused by whatever is going on and would like to hear anything you’re willing to share.”

“Cute and polite,” Ashton muses, avoiding Luke’s eye as he continues forward toward the packaged food aisles. “You’re already checking boxes, Luke.”

Some kind of intelligible noise falls from Luke’s lips as he feels a blush rush up to his cheeks because he’s flirting with him. Ashton only laughs and starts his story.

“Well Luke, you seem to be aware of what I did for a living up until about 2 months ago. I’ve been doing this job for like, about 5 years and before every new season of anything, there’s all these big network and programming meetings about production and filming and such. And every single time, I get hounded by our ratings people because I apparently don’t do enough to instigate and promote drama. Like my contract was getting threatened like three times a year because rather than trying to make peoples’ lives miserable, I just want to help them fall in love.

“And so at this particular meeting, about two and half months ago, just before the ‘accident’,” he punctuates the word with air quotations. “I got the boot. Ratings from the previous season were down by 3% and all of the uppers decided it was because of my congeniality and not the fact that the guy they chose for the season was a complete dick.

“So that night I have to host the red carpet stuff for an awards show. And I’m talking with all these glittery people who also do TV work and it suddenly hits me, harder than it ever has before, that every single person I’m speaking to would never even bother to smile in my direction if they didn’t know who I was. If I was just a plain old guy, the kind of guy I was back in school before I signed on to the shows, they probably wouldn’t pay me a single bit of kindness. So I decided, right then, as I was talking to some Grey’s Anatomy actor, that I wanted to get out.”

He turns into the chip aisle then, and Luke follows close behind. “You decided you wanted to step away from television and your first idea was to fake your own death?”

Ashton laughs as he reaches for a couple tubes of Pringles. “It was more than that,” he starts as he tosses the tubes into the cart. “I wanted to escape celebrity all together, not just the world of television. A friend from back home that I would trust with my life had this cabin kinda out in the middle of nowhere in this forest and he only ever uses it for like, two weeks in the summer and said I could camp out there until I find a way to get back to Australia undetected to live at the house I bought over there a few years ago. My manager helped with all the media stories and such. And two months later, here we are.”

“That’s insane,” Luke shakes his head as he speaks, reaching for his own tube of Pringles as he realizes it's been quite awhile since he got his hand stuck in a Pringle tube so why not?

“The journey is a bit wild, I will agree, Luke, but the life I’m living right now is much more enjoyable than faking it every damn day.”

Luke shakes his head (and ignores the fluttery feeling he keeps getting when Ashton says his name). “No, I mean it’s insane that I am somehow the first person that’s caught you.”

Ashton’s brows perk up at the statement. “Oh yeah no, I’m also pretty surprised by that. Figured I would have had to pay off a lot of people by now to keep them quiet.”

They’ve both pushed their carts up toward the self check out how and start scanning away at their items. Luke looks up halfway through his cart and catches Calum giving him a look from a little ways away. He’s got a suggestive look on his face. But thankfully it's one that reads much more as “ohhh Luke is talking to a boy” rather than “ohhh there’s a celebrity in my store”. Plus Luke knows Calum wouldn’t be the type to go rushing to media people to out the presence of dead celebrities in his grocery store at 2am so he chooses to subtly flip him off before reaching for the next item in his basket.

They’re both about done scanning and bagging up their groceries when Luke starts to realize he really...doesn’t want this little bit of time he’s spent with Ashton to end yet. And given his lack of normal human interaction during daylight hours as of recently, he’s a bit out of practice on the whole asking someone to extend a conversation beyond the grocery store aisles. He drops his bags back into his cart to roll back out to his car and as he watches Ashton perform the same action the words just sort of leap from his mouth. “Hey do you, uh, have anywhere to be right now?”

Ashton gently places a bag containing some produce into his cart before turning to Luke, a teasing smirk resting on his lips. “Luke, it’s 2am and I’m presumed dead to everyone but about 4 people,” he catches that Luke still looks somewhat nervous (something he would later reflect on to tell him just how damn cute it was) and continues. “So I’ve got just about all the time in the world.”

“Want to come to mine for lunch? We could make something and watch a show or keep chatting or something?” he asks, tentatively. 

He watches as Ashton’s face shifts a bit, obviously confused by some part of what Luke’s just said. “Why would you ask if I’m free now if you were wanting to make lunch plans?”

Luke realizes his request requires some explanation for people that live during normal human hours. “Oh, because I have lunch at about 3am. Because I work nights. So right now feels like,” he pauses a moment, trying to decide and calculate what time this would have been for him before taking his job. “It feels like about 11am-ish for me right now. So close to lunch time.”

They’re out in the parking lot now and Ashton just stops for a moment beside Luke in the middle of the lot and looks up at him for a moment, a smile spreading across his face, his dimples, ones that Luke had grown used to seeing on his TV screens over the last few years, increasingly deepen. “Lunch sounds nice.”

* 

Ashton follows Luke back to his apartment (and to the brief stop he makes at Michael’s where he ignores the comments about the man parked in the car behind his) and they park in the garage, carrying their groceries in their arms up to his unit. They each deposit their cold and frozen items into Luke’s fridge and he pours them each a glass of water as Ashton takes a seat at his kitchen counter. Luke sips from his glass as he watches Ashton glance around his kitchen and living room.

“I try to keep it cozy,” Luke explains as he reaches into a cabinet for a couple pots and pans. He migrates over to his sink to fill a pot with water to boil. “Needed it when I first started the working at night thing and I needed to find a way to force myself to sleep when the sun was up. Gonna make some pasta and chicken thing, that cool?”

Ashton smiles warmly from his place at the counter. “Sounds lovely. You mind if I use that?” he points to the opposite corner of the space where a black Keurig machine sits. “I don’t often do this whole living like normal in the night thing.”

Luke laughs at the comment on being nocturnal. “Go for it.” 

He turns back to the pan of chicken, chopping it up and moving it around some before turning to a different burner and tossing in a few things to make a garlic sauce. He can make maybe two things that qualify as meals rather than just large portioned snacks so he’s opted for one of those since he so rarely has company. 

“What do you do then that’s got you up all through the night?” Ashton asks as he opens the cabinet above the coffee machine pulling down a bright yellow mug. The color suits him, Luke thinks. “You work in tech support or something?”

“Thankfully very far off from that,” Luke starts with a giggle. “I’m absolute garbage with computers. I work the nurses’ desk for the recovery wing at one of the children’s hospitals. It’s a lot of checking and distributing charts, ordering things for the nurses, talking to parents when they want more logistical updates on their child’s care there. Sometimes I get to help entertain the kids who get to go out and about. Yesterday I let them request songs to play for awhile and then we had show and tell.”

“God, you’re like something out of some cheesy movie, huh?”

Luke turns to see Ashton smiling up at him, his arms crossed at his chest as he leans against the counter to face him, the coffee machine whirring to life behind him. Luke bites at his cheek to avoid an entirely too large smile to spread across his face though he knows he can’t help the blush painting it’s way across his nose and cheeks. “It’s a good job. Even worth the whole graveyard shift situation.”

Ashton grimaces at the end of Luke’s reply. “Night shoots used to kick my ass. There is nothing in the world more terrifying than slightly drunk women in hot pink crying over some complete asshole rejecting them after a cocktail party at 2am.”

“Was there anything about it that you liked, though?” Luke asks after he turns down the heat to let the sauce simmer for a bit. He watches Ashton stir some milk into his mug that he retrieved from the fridge.

“Of course,” Ashton answers quickly, in a tone that projects honesty rather than just being used to answering the question. “I got to travel to places I would have never made it to otherwise, meet people that I considered heroes growing up, provide for myself and my family. And for a while that’s why I just dealt with the bull shit. But I started to realize I was working my ass off for all of that good stuff I was getting. That I didn’t have to deal with things in exchange for those things that were mine because of my work.”

Luke isn’t quite sure what to respond to that. Because he’s right, the logic is obvious and sound on all of it. As he’s trying to formulate a response though, Ashton cuts in again. “Though I guess maybe that’s a pretty privileged logic I-”

“No, don’t,” Luke cuts him off. “You shouldn’t justify the unfair parts of your job like that. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice your own values about the way people should be interacting with one another for the sake of drama for good TV ratings. You don’t owe anything to anyone who doesn’t actually give a shit about you as a person. I’ve known you for like two hours and it already just baffles me why someone wouldn’t want to know who you are behind the stage makeup and scripted lines.”

He watches as Ashton lifts the mug to his lips, pink cheeks peeking out from each side (he wonders if the change in color comes from the heat of the mug or the words he’s just said). He lowers the mug and his lips lift into a lazy smile. “See now I’m starting to wonder if I’m actually dead. Your kindness is angelic.”

Luke hasn’t a single clue how to respond to that so he gives the hazel-eyed man a small smile before returning to his saucepan. Ashton shifts the conversation then, asking Luke more about his job before telling him about the gardening he’s taken up since being stuck out in the middle of nowhere on his own. He shows Luke pictures of his herb garden and points out each one as he names it. As he starts putting food into bowls, Luke offhandedly mentions how he’s always wanted to grow lavender but tending to plants when you sleep through the sunshine makes gardening difficult. He drops a fork into a bowl and when he turns to hand it to Ashton, Luke watches as he hits the “Add to Cart” option on an Amazon page for lavender seeds. His heart does some kind of funny rhythm as butterflies burst in his chest. Their eyes meet as Ashton locks his phone and looks up to him. 

“Pretend you didn’t see that, I want it to be a surprise,” Ashton whispers between the two of them, his right eye winking up at Luke as he accepts the bowl.

“So this is going to be happening again then?” Luke muses as he grabs his own bowl and walks toward the living room. Ashton follows behind him. “I should plan for future early morning lunches with a dead celebrity?”

“I know it comes with some amount of risk for both of us but,” Ashton looks down toward his feet, scratching at the back of his neck as he tries to come up with the right way to phrase things. Luke turns to face him as he hears the hesitation in his voice. “I really want to see you again. This has been nice. And not just because you’re the first person I’ve spoken to other than my mother in two months. I...want to know you, Luke.”

Luke smiles tiredly, feelings the earliness of the hour in a way that he hasn’t in quite some time. He watches as Ashton’s fingers fidget with a string hanging from the end of his sweatshirt, obviously nervous about what he’s just admitted to the man he’s only just really met, still. Luke reaches forward for his hand, tangling their fingers together as he squeezes his palm against Ashton’s. It feels nice to be close to someone like this. It’s something he didn’t realize he was missing out on while only really living in the night.

“I think you’re worth the risk, Ashton.”

He watches as Ashton looks down to their intertwined hands, Luke’s eyes following to the same place. His hands are pale from the lack of much sunlight other than what he gets at sunset when he goes out to take his walk after waking. Ashton’s is warm and tanned, likely from the sun he gets from days in his secret garden hideout. He barely knows this man, apart from the apparently highly curated version he’s seen on screen. He wants to know the Ashton that speaks like sunshine and loves love enough to lose his job over. He wants to know the steps he knows he’s skipping in his story right now that led to him faking his own death. So it’s no surprise that the next words have him smiling bright enough to light up the early morning they found each other in. 

“I think we’re worth the risk, too.”

*

[rawrroarart]

Diakko!Odyssey AU

Most recent update: 8/28/2020 I added the comic of them meeting and also wrote a little snippet under the Diakko section

Welcome all. This post will officially be my master post of the Odyssey AU which will be updated as time moves forward so that I can link all of my related art to it. Yes I will not be posting multiple separate Updates in text posts how it’s traditionally done, but instead there will be information with each art and then a link back to this post. This is to avoid clutter since I hardly post on this blog anyway so it wouldn’t be fun having to scroll through all of my “OH ALSO THIS HAPPENS!” to get to art. Also I keep changing my mind on a lot of things in the AU so disregard information under the arts anyway as I will be posting here what is actually relevant.

Another key thing: I will be avoiding spoilers as much as possible until they are either shown in art or stated explicitly like I do in posts because I am the absolute worst at surprises. But anyway fear not for spoilers. Things said here are things that should be hinted at/known already. (and also I hardly know anything but maybe I will in due time)

Without further ado..

Introduction

What is the Odyssey AU?

The odyssey au is an alternative universe combining both Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey and Little Witch Academia into this (very random) adventuring story that takes place in ancient Greece. I guess I can’t say that it’s random since one of my favorite things about both ACO and LWA is the ties/references to mythology with the former obviously more rooted in the mythology and the latter just fun easter egg references. 

The general premise is that Diana is a misthios(mercenary) who travels with Akko, a shapeshifter, across Greece to find the answers pertaining to her origin.

The first art post: Diana and Akkoros

While living her life as a misthios, Diana searches for the answers pertaining to her origin and superhuman (described as “magical”) abilities along with Shapeshifter Atsuko, who commonly uses her powers for flight, but is not shy to switch to animals more suited for combat.

But I don’t know what Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey is?

That’s fair and understandable. Honestly my AU diverges a lot from the game so I don’t think knowledge of ACO is exactly necessary it’s just fun to understand the connections if you know them. Basically the key things you need to know from ACO as of now is: 

Kassandra (the protag) is known as the Eagle Bearer because she has an eagle that is known as the “eagle of Zeus” throughout the game. And they adventure together and Ikaros (the eagle) can hunt n kill things and See things and tbh he’s rly just a cool eagle but not a shapeshifter or anything lol

Kassandra is a Mercenary (misthios) which is basically a for Hire fighter/person who will p much do anything for money (if they want to do it) 

Kassandra is usually referred to a demi-god because of her powerful fighting abilities in which I mean yea she literally has powers and can blast people like a billion miles away (im jk but-)

Kassandra can tame animals (which ones depending on your skill level). You can tame uhh wolves, lynx, leopards, lions, bears. This is where my ‘shapeshifter’ idea began and it pretty much fit perfectly since Akko’s favorite spell is the shapeshifting one. 

Other than this, the most important things to know for this AU is just,, general mythology,, I guess? Or history? General history of mythology and how people worshipped/acted in accordance to the gods. And I’m not saying im going to be historically accurate obviously, nor even mythologically accurate (if that’s even a thing lol), I’m just here to have a good time and enjoy my gay mercenaries while talking about gods/goddesses as if I even know (thankfully I have my gf who is way more interested in mythology than me to help me)

I’ve only played like half of the Atlantis DLC after beating the game so whoopsie. I honestly really wanna replay everything now that I have this AU just so I can focus more on details and what I can yoink.

Characters

Diana

Art: 

Diana’s sketch-dump though she really needs a new one.

Diana in wheat field

Diana is the main protagonist of the story, but they pretty much both share the spotlight anyway. Her goal is to find out why she has certain powers (which I have officially decided, finally...) that aren’t exactly human. Since being a misthios was an easy way for her to travel and make drachmae, she chooses to do it while on their journey. Dammit I came up with her lore but as per the rules of this masterpost I can’t write about it until it’s out smh.. Ah I forgot that I already spilled that she is a goddess/demi-goddess (haven’t decided which yet) so yea that’s the Tea.

Described as very beautiful, there are rumors of her that state she is a pathway to Elysium (despite many people not deserving to go to Elysium). She is also known for her stoic face and a red bird that follows her around.

Diana is only found smiling with Akko and keeps buying Akko clothes despite her outer grievances each time Akko destroys something.

Diana was there with her mother at Chariot’s speech/performance.

Diana is skilled with any weapon.

Akko

Art:

Akko sketch-dump

Akko is a shapeshifter who travels with Diana across Greece in search for her idolized Chariot. Trusting both Diana’s skills and powers, Akko decides that Diana is the best choice to help achieve her goal as they adventure together.

Orphaned at a young age, Akko is, at first, very unfamiliar with how exactly to use her powers because there was no one around to teach her. She uses a bird most often because it is her first and most skilled transformation, but eventually learns to use stronger animals over time. Also eagle-vision is much more useful to Diana when they’re scoping the grounds anyway.

Like all shapeshifters, Akko has a symbol on her neck that signifies what she is. Due to the high prejudice against shapeshifters, Akko stays an animal to avoid being known, and also does not transform in front of others unless to kill them. If she has to be a human, Akko commonly wears a hood to hide her neck. 

Akko is one of the last shapeshifters to exist, and, despite Chariot being rumored to have finally been murdered, she still believes Chariot is alive. 

Akko was with her parents when they all attended Chariot’s final speech/show and here began her dream.

Akko can use a dagger if she needs to.

Side-characters

Akko’s Parents: Shapeshifters who were murdered when Akko was a young age.

Chariot: A shapeshifter who somehow had a voice and power that even normal people listened to. Akko idolizes Chariot because, despite the hate against shapeshifters, Chariot was well known and was an activist for shapeshifters despite the danger upon her head. Chariot mysteriously disappears one day for reasons unknown, and everyone but Akko assumes she was finally murdered.

Shapeshifters

Shapeshifters are defined as humans who possess the ability to transform to any animal at will. Unfortunately, because animals were seen as less than human, shapeshifters were defined as “punished by the gods” and so many decided shapeshifters needed to be removed from the world for sin. This causes a massacre of shapeshifters to the point that they are instead a rarity.

Shapeshifters do not transform with their clothes, and so either destroy them or lose them depending on their transformation.

All shapeshifters have a symbol on their neck which is what is used to find them. They can also be found by their human personalities/characteristics when they are an animal. 

If weakened, shapeshifters return to their human form and cannot transform until they are stronger.

Diakko

Art:

Meeting (Comes with a 500 word story!)

Misthios!Diana and Shapeshifter!Akko Sketch-dump

Diana and Bear!Akko

Fancy Diakko (the first continuity error lol)

Diana and Akko adventure together and do all of their quests together as a rag-tag chaotic duo. God I’m so excited for this section I wish I could make art FASTER but anyway:

They meet at about 17 years old but the main story takes place when they are 18+

The two get off to a wrong start when Diana saves Akko’s life. Because Akko is a shapeshifter, she’s high in value to kill probably by some cult idk but there is always a bounty on her head. When Diana saves her, Akko assumes Diana only did so to steal the drachmae from the original perpetrators, but Diana really just leaves her alone afterwards. Confused, Akko legit just starts tagging along LMAO she finds Diana interesting and so follows her and Diana’s just like what the fuck but eventually she gets over it. They become powerful assets to each other as Diana can now scope the skies with Akko and Akko is pretty much protected under Diana. Then when Akko gets much stronger Diana gets extra manpower and protection too. 

Akko enjoys staying in her human form to spend time with Diana.

Diana keeps buying Akko clothes just because it makes Akko happy (and also, despite Akko uncaring because her transformations are so frequent anyway, Diana doesn’t want her to be naked??)

Diana is easily persuaded by Akko and puts Akko’s interests first (feeds her first, considers what Akko would want, etc.)

[sultrysweet]

Supercat - "Are you stupid or stupid?" (Pretty please?)

Are you stupid or stupid? x

Kara almost crash landed on her couch after her latest rescue with soot from the house fire smudged across her forehead, cheeks, and even a knuckle-sized swipe across her chin. Too drained to shower before she stretched out on the cushions, she at least had enough energy to speed change into her gray-sleeved baseball tee and pastel pink shorts that did little to cover much of anything. She opened the rarely used Postmates app on her phone a minute later when someone knocked on her door.

With a sigh, she stood up and tossed her phone on the couch. She trudged toward the unknown visitor and didn’t think to use her x-ray vision, or to even check the peephole, before she yanked the door wide open. 

Expecting anyone else, Kara rested her head against the doorframe and stared disinterestedly at the person in the hallway until her nose caught the scent of pizza. Her unfocused eyes looked down at the set of stacked boxes and widened. She noticed a familiar cross section ring with a green stone tip against the side of the warm boxes right when an even more familiar voice startled her into a more alert state of mind.

“Feel free to take them off my hands any time now.”

“Ms. Grant!” Kara pushed herself away from the door and stood at attention as though her former boss was a drill sergeant. Kara only added to that impression when she grabbed the pizza from Cat without having to be told, as soon as the older woman’s words finally registered. “You’re here! Why are you here?”

“Does it matter?” The former CEO cocked her hip and rested her ring-bearing hand on it while she gave Kara one of her infamous looks that some people might see as an open invitation to challenge the woman. Some people would be wrong.

Kara stared at Cat for a long enough moment of inactivity that it must have felt like a challenge all the same, if Cat rolling her eyes was any indication.

“Fine, someone sent a little birdie to me in D.C. and, now that I know the multiverse has collapsed into...whatever the hell this timeline is, I thought I’d thank you for saving the world. Again.” Cat breezed by her as she walked into the apartment without invitation. “Not to mention that fact that you won your first Pulitzer, which I sadly couldn’t see you receive in person, and I’m sure you haven’t had much of a chance to bask in the glory of that accomplishment.”

Kara stuttered as she turned and watched Cat stroll through her apartment like she owned the place. Knowing what Cat Grant was worth, even after selling CatCo, Kara didn’t dismiss the idea that the other woman could easily own the entire building.

“So, are you going to offer me anything to drink to go along with that pizza?” Cat settled in one of the bar stools at the kitchen island and then squinted at the refrigerator. “Do you even have anything to drink?”

Kara frowned. The usual judgment in Cat’s voice kickstarted higher brain function and led her to close the door and the space between them. “Yes, I have things to drink. And I don’t know what bird would have told you about...the multiverse…” She trailed off as she pieced together a possible, though still unlikely, situation that explained how Cat knew anything about the Vanishing Point. 

“Are you with me yet, Supergirl?”

Kara only stopped staring at the dimly lit kitchen backsplash when she felt the pizza slip out of her grasp. She jolted forward in an attempt to catch the boxes before she could drop any of the food only to nearly push the boxes out of Cat’s hands as the woman guided them onto the counter. “Sorry,” she muttered when she realized her mistake.

“That answers my question.”

“Sorry,” Kara said a little louder, and even managed to make eye contact with the other woman. “It’s been a long day.”

“The grime on your face suggested as much.”

“What?” Kara raised a hand to her cheek with the same urgency as though Cat had pointed out she’d shown up to work in her underwear. “Oh, there was a fire. Wait, go back to how exactly you know about the multiverse. Former multiverse.”

Cat sighed and popped open the top pizza box. “Agent Mulder paid me a visit two days ago and pulled a very E.B.E. move with a finger to my temple.”

“Uh, e-b-what?”

“Extraterrestrial biological entity. Have you never seen The X-Files?” The question came out like an accusation, another judgment, but Cat waved her hand and then pulled a slice of sausage and pepperoni pizza from the box. “Anyway, he zapped me with the knowledge of a world that no longer exists and I was faced with the new reality that Lex Luthor is worshipped instead of reviled, but that wasn’t even the most upsetting thing about all the new memories I gained, or that he unlocked. I’m still not entirely sure how that mind-meld thing works. Although, if you could get him to explain it to me—”

“What,” Kara interrupted with a sharper than intended tone and relaxed a little, “was the most upsetting part?”

“If you or your friend are worried that I’m only interested in knowing how or what he did just to write an expose on it, don’t forget that all my journalistic drive comes from  natural curiosity first and foremost.”

“Cat.”

Another sigh and then, “The most upsetting part was that I could have gone another handful months or even years wrongly believing everything about this new Earth because you were never going to tell me yourself.”

“What?” Kara gripped the edge of the counter and stared wide-eyed at Cat as she gave the woman her full attention. 

“And the only reason I can think that you’d do that is because you still weren’t ready to tell me who you are.”

“Who I…? What?” Kara shook her head as if to a clear dense fog in her brain that prevented her from understanding, or more accurately believing, Cat’s words.

“I know that it’s mostly my fault that you feel you can’t trust me. When I found out the first time, I gave you an impossible ultimatum. I had no right to force that kind of decision on you because it’s your life, your powers, and you will always have control over what you do with them. But I also never stopped to consider that just because you have these abilities doesn’t mean you wouldn’t need to feed, cloth, and house yourself like anyone else living in this world. Pushing you out of a job with me would have only left you to find a paying one somewhere else because I’m sure that government agency you work with doesn’t subsidize their alien associates.”

“Well, there is a great medical plan,” Kara said without thinking. She clapped a hand over her mouth less than a second later.

Cat grinned, never one to miss the opportunity to gloat. “I shouldn't have done that, but I still wish you’d at least told me before your friend hit me with his best shot.”

Kara resisted the urge to chuckle and said, “It’s not that I don’t trust you. I had way more reservations about telling Lena than I ever had about you, and it’s not like you’re going to pretend to still be my friend just to learn about any of my weaknesses to use against me later. Wait, you’re not going to do that. Are you?”

“No! Kar-” Cat sighed and slid off the stool. “I know I forced you to out yourself to me before, but I confronted you about it. I didn’t hide, I didn’t pretend, and I never once went public with anything I’d found; even before you pulled the Houdini act with your stunt double.”

“Um.” Kara did laugh that time and felt her cheeks warm ever so slightly. “That was J’onn. The man who gave you memories of the original timeline, that was him.”

“A shapeshifter. That’s...well.” Before Cat lost herself to critical thinking, she said, “My point is, why would you think I’d do something like that?”

Kara winced. “Because it’s what Lena did.”

Cat balked. “Lena as in Lena Luthor? The woman who tried to mass produce a device that identifies aliens and would coincide with the Alien Registry that’s basically a pre-imposed rap sheet on any non-human and perpetuates profiling? The woman who bought my company just to give it away to that sensationalist who prefers clickbait to actual journalism less than a year later?”

“Uh, yeah?”

Cat shook her head. She took a deep breath and her shoulders rose toward her ears with the movement. Her body remained tense, even when Cat unleashed her newfound anger. “Are you stupid or...stupid?”

Kara stepped back like Cat’s words had lanced her.

“Great.” Cat huffed. “Now that I’ve dumbed down my speech to what would pass as good grammar with your latest boss, I’d say this trip has been more frustrating than I thought.”

“I’m...sorry?”

“I can’t believe you told her of all people. Forgetting the fact that she carries the Luthor name, which I know doesn’t automatically make her like the rest of that family, she’s done nothing to prove herself worthy of your trust.”

“Nothing? She was my friend!”

“A friend with a skewed moral compass that never favors you.”

Kara scoffed. “At least she was here! She helped me figure out what I wanted to do with that open-ended promotion you gave me. And then, even as a lowly cub reporter, she still took my calls and scheduled meetings. But then she also sat with me, shared working dinners with me, and talked to me. She was my friend. And now she’s an adversary.”

Kara hadn’t felt the tears form or fall, but she felt Cat wipe them away and close the small gap between them. 

“Kara.” Cat breathed her name like a prayer. “I’m sorry for what you lost.”

Kara sucked in a deep, watery breath and fell into Cat. She wrapped her arms around the smaller woman while more tears streamed down her cheeks and dampened Cat’s hair where Kara buried her face in the Queen of All Media’s neck.

“Thank you,” Kara said, her words muffled against Cat. “You don’t even know the half of it, either.”

“What do you mean?” Cat pulled away but kept her hands on Kara’s biceps. She even squeezed a little when Kara ducked her head toward her chest.

“Lena isn’t the only person I lost. Another friend of mine sacrificed himself for this new Earth.”

“Oh, Kara.” Cat stroked her thumb over Kara’s cheekbone a few times, the back and forth motion enough to draw more tears before Kara sniffled and lifted her head.

“I just keep thinking it has to stop, that I won’t have to lose anyone else. Or that I can at least get them back. I can’t get Oliver back, but at least she’s here. Lena’s alive and in National City and I tried. I tried to get back what we had, but she might as well have found new waters to swim in. Like you.”

Cat slid her hand from Kara’s face to her neck and grazed Kara’s jawline with her thumb. “I’m not sure what her or her brother’s plans are, but I can tell you about mine.”

Kara fisted Cat’s shirt where she continued to hold the woman at her waist and held the form-fitting, black V-neck tightly enough to tug the woman closer. Their noses nearly touched and one of Cat’s heeled feet stepped on Kara’s bare toes.

“Kara, I can’t promise you things will get easier with me around. I might actually make it worse some days, but—”

“But you’re staying?”

“If I’m not then I made a huge mistake buying out Andrea Rojas for my company two hours ago.”

Kara sucked in a breath as her lips curled into an unbidden smile. In the next breath, she eliminated the barely-there space between them and crashed their lips together. She clawed desperately at Cat’s shirt until the material stretched loose and Kara needed to feel more within her grasp. 

Cat moaned as Kara gripped the woman’s hips a short distance from where she’d previously clung to Cat’s shirt. Cat arched into Kara and her hungry touches. After several heated kisses, the Queen of All Media slid one hand down Kara’s arm and placed it over Kara’s while she moved her other hand to Kara’s sternum. With a light shove, she urged Kara away and pulled back from the kiss.

“Much as I’d love to continue this and explore everything those thighs of steel can do,” Cat said with a lingering stare at Kara’s tanned, toned legs, “I’m sure you worked up an appetite earlier and that pizza’s getting cold.”

“Let it.” Kara licked her lips while her eyes wandered over Cat’s form. “I’d rather skip to dessert.”

[unproduciblesmackdown]

prompts

April 26th: Talk about special interests. Do you have special interests? If not do you wish you did? What do your special interests mean to you? What are your current special interests? What are your past special interests? idk like i know i sure have & have had Interests, some more of interest than others, and it's also like, oh yeah i guess the ways i held that interest / explored it pretty intently / extensively / at length didn't always seem to be the way other people always felt about things even if we shared the interest, but yknow, at the same time it doesn't necessarily seem as extensive or major as some of the aspects of defining a Special Interest(tm) can be, i haven't been too pressed about it, but of course it's like, i have my Things lol, i.e. yeah this thing is kind of My Thing....and then i can look back on Things like. well idk when i was really little and you're just gonna like Cool Stuff, i did have the thing of like, i like dinosaurs and did sorta casually collect dinosaur stuff, easy enough b/c they make that stuff for kids, memorized a bunch of dinosaur Names so that just being asked to recite a bunch was something i was known to be able to do, a big fan of a couple semi educational computer games we had, shoutout to 3d dinosaur adventure and this magic school bus dinosaur (and ocean) game, had pajamas ft dinosaurs, rip to when i had a sick metal lunchbox with dinosaurs on it and it just broke on like week 1 of first grade or whatever and i just had to go back to default lunchboxes. well and then but anyways but from then on it was like, well, i guess it's media time......read a shit ton all the time, was into some tv series / movies, played some pc / video games, there was stuff i'd be glad to revisit over and over, and yknow, as this went on it'd be like, well now when there's A Relatable Enough Character in something i also like just in general, that's a powerful combo, though sometimes it's like, yeah i like this thing enough even in the absence of any particular [and i extra go hard about this character] element, that's not Not at play as it's like "well and i guess i will think about this quant every day for years now lmfao," and i can sure always talk about stuff At Length too, which sure is not something other people are generally interested in, but if/when they are, it's like okay great, this is a great connection point then, b/c otherwise it's like, i generally don't know what to say about myself, didn't get much practice, did pick up a sense of like, well stuff is Wrong about myself and my life so i shouldn't share it and also i'm not picking up friends so it was generally accurate that no one was exactly interested lmao. small talk is really more of a barrier / test you can just potentially fail, yet anything more personal is Oversharing, but hey i would earnestly love to talk at length about This Thing, so great when other people are into that at all lol and then if we vibe it's like, obviously that's the sort of functional "small talk" route here lol to being able to be more familiar w/each other and talk more generally, even if yknow, wuh oh, i'm kind of cagey outside those Interests i will talk about in ways that's probably "too much" by most ppl's standards, worst of both worlds when it comes to forming relationships but oh well, it is what it is and i sure don't consider it a bad thing i have plenty to say about things i Want to talk about, and it sure doesn't impede on anyone else if i'm Not Talking about other shit.

also then it's like, "idk what it is when you just determinedly Pursue something that's maybe still not the hugest deal, but i don't really feel very pressed re: figuring it out" like, does it count like how i mentioned today i'd read bird guides for fun as a kid, and watch this bird documentary and be like "hey. check out this scene in this bird documentary with this bird mimicry" to friends i now realize were probably mostly bemused by this, and really liked birds just generally (still true), and thus have like, maybe more Bird Knowledge than the average random person but also am hardly some self taught ornithological expert. or how i'm big into linguistics and etymology and, in theory, language learning, always really latching on to the little i was taught in school, also perusing some Language Guides available, and like, not really self teaching a bit re: learning some of a couple languages, just learning via teaching resources outside of [directly through any academic institution], never took any language classes, sure have no fluency in fuckall.........how about that i just decided as a kid like "hm i want to be able to draw" b/c i felt that way (and yknow, still do in a way lol) about pretty much anything, but i just also liked doodling and took some art classes and it was always this casual thing and now i use this to make fanart for the Media Interests lol, and although this is all digital drawing and drawing was always my primary thing it's like, well okay also yeah there was like, some painting / pastels / sculpting other Visual Arts stuff, and then, like, i sure enjoyed dance classes and the Performing Arts aspect of that, theatre gay adjacent b/w that and choir lol, have regular dreams about being part of impromptu dance performances, including just last night, rip to the special thwarting of "oh no i'm going around trying to get food before the show, getting stuck in traffic or lost in stores, and i've missed my whole first appearance" lol. anxiety dreams never end........and idk, i've had a love for math stuff, physics stuff, space stuff, even felt that [!] for the little i was able to get into circuitry and coding, but yknow. learning that shit is kind of involved and i only had so much experience re: taking classes, also, unfortunately, i always hated school lmao, so it's just kind of there where i'm like oh i get Into this shit in the ways that other people who are definitely Into it feel about it lmao. but yeah, idk, i do have like. well here's this sort of stuff i think about Every Day, this sort of mental home base sometimes, that i don't get tired of and reexplore / reexperience pretty intensively, but at the same time like, sometimes i can just sort of have something be that Interest for a lot more of a temporary duration, and things that were that main shit is like, well Probably when i like it that much once i like it down the line even if i haven't been that focused on it in the meantime, more just latent, but then it's like, well, but probably could and would still talk So Much about it still even if it's not like, oh yeah i'm Into This(tm) right Now lol..........idk! but i sure get really into shit and like, if anyone else is interested in me talking at length / drawing about it, that's sure probably the most successful grounds for Connection lmao cuz yknow. even people who maybe share that interest aren't guaranteed to see that and go "yeah this is someone i'm interested in actually talking to though" like yeah here's your preview of my personality i guess lol

April 27th: What is your favourite form of media? For example, do you enjoy books? What format do you prefer for books (physical, e-book, audiobook)? Did you love reading as a kid but find it challenging as you got older? How about movies, tv, or video games? Do you have a favourite series? yeah i read all the time as a kid, on the bus, if i finished shit early at school, on the bus again, also at home plenty, not so much when i was in college when it's like oh i can just do kinda whatever now (also as people point out it's like. well gotta do all this reading for classes now so) and then it was like, i'll get into other Media i can freely experience at any time, and also hang out with people Some, which i can also just do whenever now, as opposed to at any point before this......still like reading but it can sure kind of be a Whole Thing, like i either can't focus and it's like well time to read like, a paragraph or page a day, or else i'm focusing Too Much really like, if i'm at all trying to see how something ends i might burn through it in a few days (still a fairly slow reader) which is like, do i want to spend multiple days on this One Thing, even if it takes me like, multiple times the runtime to watch a movie or something, that's still probably getting done in 1 day. plus that yeah, mostly reading new shit via laptop, which is kind of a pain as opposed to physical books or like, e readers in theory, i've never actually used one. the only time i used an audiobook was a few times as a kid to read along with longer books to sort of help with that momentum, such a hot minute ago that this was via Tape Cassette.....i do listen to podcasts though, great for like, doing Something Else at the same time, which i don't know that i could split up that focus and guaranteed successfully absorb a book, Maybe So but select podcasts are my Extensive Audio of choice. never really watched that much tv, there were some stuff me and my siblings might watch as it aired, but not really Narrative Series lol, never seen shit, haven't even really watched That many movies either, still don't Really even though it's like yeah w/e in Theory i enjoy these mediums it's like oh my godddd it's a whole thing to focus on one and then plus what if i don't like it but i've had to put in all that time to know i didn't like it lmao.......i can enjoy keeping up with a tv series like, oh boy once a week a half hour to hour installment, that's a great format truly, but i'm rarely getting that experience lmao like. with billions you could stand 2 weeks between episodes b/c whew but it's v Rare like oh thank god, a series with that weekly release........but otherwise it's like ugh do i wanna have alllll this material to watch, do i wanna go through the whole process of figuring out what movie i feel like giving a try........and that i like Revisiting shit i already like pretty endlessly so it's like, i might just do that. so it's like, audio wise i'll put on podcasts, if i feel like watching something i Might be bothered to try out a movie or smthing b/c yknow, ultimately more doable to consume something that's just a few hours, all that when i'm Thinking About a tv series every day for years lmfao, shoutout to billions which sure gets to be my fave b/c tf else am i keeping up with, literally nothing else, even if i haven't gotten around to actually watching all of it yet / haven't simply sat straight through even the episodes i have watched, i Could do it but it's like god formidable when it's sure more than a movie's worth of content and plenty of "i don't care about this and/or hate this" to make me put my head through the wall lmfao thank you billions........also sometimes i remember like "oh yeah, i guess in theory i enjoy video games as well" but i didn't have That much experience w/them and sure don't now, so that's like well irrelevant ig. media

[scaryscarecrows]

Gaslights Cast

EVERYONE’S HERE GOOD GOD.

Penguin

Oswald Cobblepot/the Penguin: local crime lord. If asked, he’s been lucky with his nightclub and dabbles in imports and exports. This is true. The I&E is, like, 95% illegal. Oswald also has a tight grip on several of the local street gangs, and he absolutely has his fingers in a lot of pies. Rats don’t cross the street without him knowing, but he’s an easygoing sort. Usually. Oswald is a second-gen immigrant from Russia; Mama Penguin speaks very little English and her son spends at minimum one weekend a month making sure her bills are settled and all that. (Usually more. Oswald has no qualms about stabbing a man ten times, but he adores his mother.)

Dove Marquis: on paper, Oswald’s personal secretary. In practice, manages half the business. This is intentional; it’s 1895, in the event that he gets arrested, literally nobody is going to suspect a woman of managing a whole-ass crime syndicate. She can keep things from going up in smoke until he bribes his way out of jail. Dove is also occasionally the Beard; she has a red wig so things don’t get awkward. She is a third-gen immigrant from France.

Olga Bykov: Oswald’s housekeeper on paper and his at-home bodyguard in reality. Do not fuck with her. She has a meat cleaver on her person 90% of the time and will just, like, body slam you otherwise. (He’s scared of her. He should be.) Olga is a first-gen immigrant from Russia-she came over when she was about five-and spent her teenage years robbing graves for the medical students.

Edward Nygma: Technically he works with rather than for; Eddie runs an antiques shop that Oswald’s, er, interestingly acquired goods frequently go through. He’s got buyers all over the place and his own random connections, including a very nice professor interested in chemistry. :p Edward is a Gotham native.

The Cranes

General: They work as a pair; you don’t see one without the other very often, and even then, they’re not far. Scarecrow likes to hear himself talk, while the Grey Lady is dead silent. Both of them work on horseback-easier to run down victims that way-and communicate over long distances via whistles. They don’t come out in the daytime hardly ever.

Jonathan Crane/the Scarecrow: Psychology professor at Gotham University, specializing in phobias. Dabbles in chemistry from time to time. While his modern-day counterpart doesn’t care who gets caught up in his experiments, Gaslights!Scarecrow has a taste for churchgoers on account of his...unfortunate...upbringing. His fear toxin was created by accident, but that started giving him ideas. He is technically local, but after his parents died when he was small, his great-grandmother took him in and as such, he was raised in Georgia. Unfortunate, that, given the war and all.

Scarecrow’s horse is a Friesian; a black mare named Carmilla. He usually paints her up with phosphorus, a la The Hound of the Baskervilles, to give her a more frightening appearance. Apart from his chemical weaponry, he carries a scythe.

Kitty Crane/the Grey Lady: Modern Kitty is not enamored with the alter ego thing. Gaslights!Kitty has dressed up like a Ring Wraith for women’s rights. I’m not even kidding. Jack the Ripper-or, more accurately, the polices’ failure to handle Jack-pissed her off. The public’s lack of care did not help. Kitty is British, though her parents moved to Georgia when she was small; she and Jonathan are childhood friends. 

Kitty’s horse is an early relative of the modern-day Thoroughbred; she values speed and agility over pants-browning terror. He is grey and named Verne. She carries a sword and she is good with it, both on and off the horse.

The Robins

General: As kids, they went from being under Penguin’s wing (hahahahaha) to working with Batman. Then Jason died and that was the end of that. :/ As adults, they work as a group, and their methods are closer to the modern-day Red Hood than Batman would like. Jason and Tim are local, Dick is, as he puts it, ‘a citizen of the world’; he was literally born on the circus train.

Dick Grayson/Bluebird: The oldest. Dick considers it his job to take care of the other two whether they want it or not, and Heaven help you if one of them gets hurt and it’s your fault. He’s been the older brother since he was nine, y’all, he’ll destroy you. That said, he’s the charmer of the lot-Olga adores him, which is saying something-and usually the spokesbird when it comes down to it. He retains his circus background, and calling their little trio the Cock Robins was his idea. His current name is actually from the Asian Fairy-bluebird. Look it up. It’s a little birdified Nightwing, I swear. Costume-wise, he’s his usual black and blue (WITH FINGERSTRIPES GODDAMMIT), with multiple nasty surprises included; he does carry batons, but he also carries a crap-ton of throwing knives, studded brass knuckles, and a garrote. He’s not as lethal as Jason can be-usually, anyway-but he is the most unsettling to watch, if only because he’s a fast, flexible bastard. Half the underworld’s convinced he’s not human. Adorable Baby Dickie was a big fan of ‘circus’, which consisted of him screaming, ‘GET READY!’ and hurling himself over the balcony to (hopefully) be caught by whomever was passing by. Dove lost ten years from that. Olga and Bruce usually just snatched him out of the air.

Jason Todd/Shrike: The middle child. Died. Got better. Jason runs a little more supernatural than sometimes; he has a white streak in his bangs, he’s sensitive to ghosts (he hates this) and he’s got two scars from his untimely demise; a roundish one on his ribs from being impaled, and an autopsy scar. Ra’s found him quite by accident post-resurrection, but keeping him proved to be. Futile. He’s furious with Bruce for leaving his brothers to do the right thing (kill the clown) and is, by far, the one you don’t want to meet in a dark alley. He doesn’t prefer guns, because they’re unreliable; instead, he favors the kris blade he stole from Ra’s on his way out. As per usual, he grew up in shoddy circumstances-Catherine died of lung cancer-but he’s got a knack for languages...barring French. He sucks at French. He turns everything into something very inappropriate no matter how hard he tries not to. Costume-wise, he’s dressed in a soldier’s uniform that he’s dyed black (’good soldier’, my ass, Bruce, HERE YOU GO) and while he did attempt to go with a red helmet at first, it was metal, it dented, and he ended up going with a rudimentary gas mask and red goggles instead.

Tim Drake/Finch: The baby. His brothers call him Baby Bird to piss him off. He wonders why he loves them. Tim comes from money; his parents died under mysterious circumstances and his uncle essentially went, ‘fuck this’ and, ah, disappeared him. It was an outright murder attempt, but even though it failed, the public thought otherwise. Good luck proving anything in the 1800s. (Penguin knows. Bruce has his suspicions.) Tim’s the more technical-minded of his siblings, which can lead to bad times for criminals. He has the Sherlock Scan down pat, which means he can and will find weak spots to exploit...and has the knowledge of how to make that excruciating, yet survivable. Costume-wise, Tim’s gone with a variant of the plague doctor look; the nose of his mask is shorter, for practicality, but he carries a staff and wears a long coat (all the better to conceal gadgets in!). He’s the least chatty of the lot, but he has a knack for spouting creative threats. (Usually these are directed at his brothers, because they’re awful.) Interestingly, he’s Penguin’s favorite, though not just because he’s quiet; Tim is honestly good Crime Lord material, and it’s not totally unlikely that he’d end up running the empire.

[narelleart]

Cladistics vs “Fish”

I got an ask related to the cladistics thing that probably didn’t need this much detail, but I got excited to talk about this and whoops its a whole big explanation no one asked for. So rather than bombarding the asker with the whole deal here, I figured I’d publish this bit as its own post and just respond to their related question privately.

What I was trying to address with all this is a breakdown of how “fish” is not a valid taxonomic grouping - for it to be accurate, all vertebrates would have to be fish. I tend to just go with that because I think that’s pretty fun, but its probably more correct to say that they way we lump organisms into the group “fishes” is entirely artificial and does not reflect nature. See below for why!

------------------------------

So cladistics tries to chart evolutionary relationships by shared derived characteristics - unique traits in a group's evolutionary history that can be used to define where they have branched off. A grouping is only taxonomically valid according to cladistics if you pick a branching point and include every organism that would have shared some ancestor where that branch forms. You can't exclude any group that shares that ancestor. (Why birds are reptiles - see below.)

Here's a visual I threw together:

(I made this based on notes from an old class. Apparently the graphic that my notes come from was from “Pough et al. 2013.” May need to open it for best viewing.)

So the thing with "fishes" is that all vertebrates evolved from a common ancestor with what we would call a "fish." Cladistics only considers traits that newly evolve in a lineage to group organisms together, not how many traits are retained from ancestors - but a new trait can be the loss of an old one (why "snakes" fall within the broader group of "lizards" despite perhaps feeling more intuitively primitive - they lost their limbs in more recent evolutionary history).

This is the case with everything that is a vertebrate that we don't consider to be a "fish" - we lost the traits that allowed us to live in the water, which opened up a wider array of body shapes when limbs moved from something to fan around to move forward to something that needed to bear weight.

Up to this point things make sense, but might feel a bit arbitrary, right?

The real problem with "fish" is that, following cladistics, a coelacanth is more related to us than a tuna. And a tuna related more to us than a shark. And a shark more to us than a lamprey.

Let's revisit that graphic.

To really put things in perspective, its important to understand how time is displayed here. Time here travels from left to right, never in the vertical direction. Evolution doesn't stop, and we all evolved from the same original eukaryote, so everything alive today is just as "evolved" as everything else, even if genetic progress isn't apparent. "Living fossils" like horseshoe crabs are just as evolutionarily advanced as humans, they have just evolved differently than us. All currently living organisms’ lineages have spent the same amount of time evolving as every other one. Even though the “fishes” have earlier branches, this isn’t saying our ancestor is a shark, it’s saying what are known as sharks today most recently shared an ancestor with us a very very long time ago - a much longer time ago than our common ancestor with reptiles.

So we can rearrange this graphic like this and it will still be valid:

It looks messier, sure, but it is no less valid because there was no actual hierarchy to the organisms that gave it the previous order. Doing it that way just made it easy to add labels, and over-represented the importance of mammals.

So where does that leave all the "fish"?

They got scattered around the tree. Because they aren't actually very closely related - they share a life strategy that makes certain forms more advantageous, so to us, superficially, they seem very similar. Many traits have independently evolved in multiple lineages because the selection for them in aquatic environments is so strong (convergent evolution), which makes them seem even more similar. But they aren't actually strongly related to each other, which I’ve tried to distinguish in this version by giving each a distinct color group. Each lineage of “fishes” I have listed here has been evolving independently from one another for longer than mammals have even existed.

[Side note, they're so alien! So different from us! This is why fish are so cool!!!]

Calling lungfish, stingrays, and trout all “fish” but not using the same term for koalas and ostriches suggests those first three have a greater degree of similarity to one another than they do. Sure, superficially, they all live in the water and might have some other traits that are vaguely similar. But those traits aren’t exclusive to fish and aren’t inclusive of all “fish”.

Cetaceans are very “fish shaped” and live in water, but they are not fish. Neotenic salamanders live their entire lives in water and retain their gills, but are not fish. Sea snakes live in water and have scales but are not fish.

What makes a fish?

In my ichthyology course, I was taught that there are 5 traits that make an animal a fish, and that each one of them has exceptions:

Aquatic ....except there are fishes that can walk around on land, like mudskippers and walking catfish.

Free-Living ....except there are parasitic species that rely on hosts, such as male angler fish, sea lampreys, and the Candiru

Gill Breathing ....except there are fish that have rudimentary lungs, such as lungfish and walking catfish

Cold-blooded ....except tuna and some sharks are warm-blooded

Have fins, not pentadactyl limbs ....except coelacanths have pentadactyl lobe-fins

So our best definition of what makes a fish isn’t even valid because its full of holes from all the exceptions that exist in nature. The label “fish” ultimately falls to pieces no matter what angle you tackle it from. It is, truly, a superficial similarity that we base the designation on.

Does this invalidate the science of ichthyology, my personal love for “fishes,” or any level of the value of their study?

Nah. It all really doesn’t matter.

What we call the science has no bearing on the studies we do, which aren’t dictated by organisms being “fish” or not in modern science. We have much more specific taxonomic groupings we can use, and so many more species to compare to within them. Would it be more accurate to say I’m studying to become an “Actinopterygii Biologist”? Maybe, but that’s lame and discards the history of the profession.

“Fishes” are the most diverse group of vertebrates, yet they are incredibly understudied. There are so many fish out there for us to discover - and not just in the deep sea! We are still finding fish in shallow freshwater systems, easily accessible habitats. There aren’t enough people studying this massive group to scratch the surface of the knowledge we lack about them.

So who cares if we lump a sparse group of researchers tackling a vast array of organisms together under a label based on an outdated name? The proportion of people studying “fish” to the abundance of these organisms is ridiculous, especially compared to charismatic species like large mammals. So why not use the same term rather than try to divide up an already small group?

Actually, I think few use the label “Ichthyologist” nowadays, but I intend to. Whether a “fish” is a valid group or not, I became a scientist to study fishes. No other taxa were compelling enough for me to dedicate my life to science. I am not going to be just a biologist. I’m going to be an ichthyologist.

[laniidae-passerine]

See, the big problem with Hitch is that he talks a lot about himself, but it’s near impossible to tell if he’s lying or not.

So, I’m going to collect information about him from the books that I think is either most definitely true or could possibly be true. Any other information I’ll discount as a lie or impossible to tell if it’s true, and I won’t write it down. Reminder that I don’t own books 2 or 3 and there are spoilers! below. Let’s begin!

Look Into My Eyes

He’s first described as basically a knockout stunner who walked out of almost everyone’s dreams. And so was I just not supposed to love him? Unrealistic.

“But when Ruby answered the door she was surprised to see a remarkably handsome, rather tall, formally dressed man. He was neither particularly young nor would he ever be considered in any way old - in fact it was impossible to really put any accurate age on him.” [page 46]

He’s apparently a man of culture, because he instantly knows what designer Sabina is talking about in regards to her jacket.

“‘Well it is an Oscar Birdet, maybe they felt a little out their depth?’” [page 51]

While he’s obviously very good at his job, he’s not so humble as to not be pleased with himself. He knows he’s good at what he does.

“Ruby looked up to see the amused face of Hitch. He looked kind of pleased with himself, which irritated her.” [page 55]

He’s surprised by just how observant Ruby is, clearly underestimating her right out of the gate.

“‘I’m surprised you noticed (my arm injury).’ And he was surprised too; he thought he had concealed his arm injury well.” [page 56]

Even a man of taste can’t help showing off, and it seems like every guy with enough money lining his pockets likes a nice car, as indicated by his colour choice in convertible.

“‘Well that might explain the flashy car - he’s got this silver convertible.’” [page 62]

He knows a stylist?

“Hope you approve. Had my stylist friend Billie pick these things out for you - she’s good at that kind of thing. Hitch.” [page 81]

He doesn’t have a peanut allergy, lucky him.

“He looked up, startled, and immediately began to spread it with peanut butter. ‘Toast?’ he said.” [page 81]

I am physically aching with how much Lauren Child loves to remind us how hot Hitch is - give us a break, or else I might cry with how good looking he is. But just in case you forgot, let’s remind ourselves about how Hitch is the most attractive man alive! Also, he’s got brown or hazel eyes, Mrs Bexenheath hasn’t decided yet.

“Mrs Bexenheath, the school secretary, looked up to see at what first glance she imagined to be some Hollywood film star. It was as if he had accidentally strayed off the ‘walk of fame’ and wandered unwittingly into the shabby halls of Twinford Junior High - so entirely out of place was he. However, this handsome man struck up and easy conversation with her and before a minute had passed Mrs Bexenheath had found herself agreeing to excuse Ruby Redfort from all lessons for the foreseeable future. She had concentrated carefully, all the while staring into his Hollywood eyes, wondering if they were brown or were they hazel.” [pages 105 and 106]

He knows he’s so attractive that he can just make stuff up and like Ruby, he’s one hell of a liar.

“‘Well, it seems that your grandmother had contracted a rare but not infectious virus while bird watching in the Australian Alps - condition, serious,’ Hitch said, turning the key in the ignition. ‘There are no Australian Alps,’ said Ruby. ‘Well someone should have told your grandmother that because now look at her.’” [page 106]

Hitch doesn’t know shit about children or teenagers until he meets Ruby, and that’s a goddamn fact.

“‘Buzz, give the kid a little tour of the gadget room,’ said Hitch. ‘That’ll keep her out of trouble.’ He was wrong about that.” [page 110]

Now for the moment that made me think he was cute when I reread the books as a teen - he’s not above messing with people and enjoys a good joke now and then.

“‘OK,’ said Hitch, holding his finger to his temple as if he was channelling the information. ‘I’m guessing... chocolate raspberry, strawberry frosting, rainbow sprinkles - am I right?’ Elliot, speechless, handed over the donut.” [page 148 and 149]

And the moment that made me realise I adored him. God yes he’s very handsome and yes he’s got money and yes he’s a secret agent but I’d trade all of that, just for a guy who admits when he’s been stupid. And somehow he can do that while also having and being all of the above.

“When he (Hitch) came in he said, ‘Look kid, maybe part of this is my fault, I accept that, I’ve been kinda ribbing you and talking down to you - so maybe you and I need to start over?’” [page 171]

He likes some of the finer things in life.

“Back at Cedarwood Drive, Ruby went downstairs to find Hitch, who was sitting in his small but comfortable apartment, listening to music and reading some papers.” [page 178]

He’s a charmer, obviously.

“It occurred to Ruby that Consuela was rather over dressed for this task, the stiletto heels and painted fingernails seeming to be more of a hindrance than a help. She was also laughing rather too much [at Hitch’s jokes], that sort of random giggling that certain girls at Ruby’s school broke into whenever Richie Dare walked past.” [page 181]

I don’t actually think he’s assigned to Spectrum 8 - he’s apparently not a Twinfordite or based in California as he implies when he’s about to leave the Redfort house,

“‘What is it? I got a plane to catch in less than,” Hitch looked at his watch, ‘seventeen minutes.’” [page 294]

He’s got a temper on him, and can get angry rather quickly if someone’s done something stupid.

“As he drove, Hitch thought about Ruby. He was about as angry as he had ever been. What on earth had gotten into the kid?” [page 297]

He doesn’t like Froghorn a the beginning of the books and also he’s the sick in the stomach guilt kinda guy.

“Hitch was feeling horrible - the kind of guilt that causes nausea. Why hadn’t he listened, he never should have let LB assign that numbskull.” [page 328]

He owns a gun and I’d assume it’s Spectrum issued.

“You tell him kid, hissed Hitch, his hand reaching for his revolver.” [page 378]

I can’t say for sure, but I have this feeling that he and Nine Lives were kinda close in the way that you must be if you’re continually trying to kill one another. (I’ve always thought of her as being smart enough to be a Spectrum agent but always refusing Hitch’s offers to join when they were younger, and he finally gave up when she started recreationally killing but that’s just my personal head-canon!) Anyway, her death has him feeling some kinda way.

“(Valerie) looked up at Hitch. ‘You killed me?’ she said as she slid to the floor. In her left hand the diamond revolver glittered, a pool of crimson forming where she lay. For just a second the three figures were frozen. Hitch had so many times fought Nine Lives only to watch her somehow leap to her escape - wounded but always alive. Could it really be over?” [page 381]

Feel the Fear

What does Hitch fear? LB? Death? Bears? No. He fears the most dangerous thing of all - meter-maids.

“Ruby looked up to see a tall, well-groomed man in a well-cut suit standing in the room. He appeared moderately anxious. ‘Am I making you nervous?’ asked Ruby. ‘The only person making me nervous is the meter maid on 3rd Avenue where I’m double-parked.’” [page 26]

He’s a trustworthy guy, so not just all stunningly good looks then.

“That was the thing about Hitch: he kept his mouth shut. He had to: 𝘚𝘗𝘌𝘊𝘛𝘙𝘜𝘔 𝘙𝘜𝘓𝘌 1: 𝘒𝘌𝘌𝘗 𝘐𝘛 𝘡𝘐𝘗𝘗𝘌𝘋. as one of the highest-ranking agents at Spectrum 8, he was trusted with heavily classified information. He didn’t squeal for anything or anybody.” [pages 28 and 29]

He loves Ruby, most definitely, like some kinda surrogate agent dad but by god how did he end up here?

“So how had a top-notch spy wound up working undercover as a bodyguard to a thirteen year old kid? Hitch, for one, asked himself this question practically every day.” [page 29]

It’s implied he’s never worked an actual real job in his life - obviously or else he’d have the worn down look of everyone who’s ever had to take a job in retail.

“‘No Redfort, not really, at least I doubt it, but they might fire me.’ ‘That would suck,’ she said. Hitch nodded. ‘Yes it would. I’d have to go and get a real job.’ He shuddered. ‘I’m sure my parents would keep you on.’ ‘Yes,’ said Hitch. ‘That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.’” [page 50]

He never sleeps. He never looks sleepy. All a man born in 1930 knows is coffee, play his clarinet, not sleep, be bisexual, work as an agent and lie.

“Didn’t matter what time of day or night, Ruby had never caught Hitch unprepared, asleep or even on the brink of dozing off.” [page 131]

He has the dad act down to the “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed” voice.

“At that exact moment Hitch’s voice was the best sound Ruby had ever heard, even though it in fact sounded sort of furious. He wasn’t shouting, which made it worse, his voice heavy with disappointment, his expression telling her that at that very moment he wasn’t exactly pleased to see her breathing but was relieved that he hadn’t had to pick up the Ruby-shaped pieces.” [page 176]

He is apparently knowledgeable about French Antique furniture, specifically that of the 1700’s.

“Clancy led Hitch to his mother’s dressing room and Hitch surveyed the damage. He winced, ran his fingers over the wood. ‘Pear and walnut, made in the French provinces.’ He opened the drawers and examined their construction. ‘Circa 1727, very typical.’ He looked underneath the table top; found what he was looking for. ‘Surprising.�� Then he took a magnifier from his bag, held it over the damaged wood of the table. ‘A quality piece.’” [pages 210 and 211]

Listen, when I said he had money, I wasn’t joking. To misquote somebody, I don’t love him cause he’s rich, but it sure doesn’t hurt.

“Hitch took a fat wodge of twenty dollar bills from his wallet, peeled off a large number and handed them to the guy in charge, shook them all by the hand and watched them leave.” [page 211]

Hitch implies he’s attracted to women, but that’s not news to us because he’s obviously bi, duh.

“‘I think someone just tried to kill me.’ ‘You’re looking at the next guy in line - I just happened to be having dinner two blocks away with a very charming meter maid.’” [page 322]

He’s got a vaguely recognisable aesthetic.

“Ruby knew the Charles Burger, and upmarket burger grill place, with green leather banquette seating and polished wood tables. It was very Hitch somehow.” [page 366]

He can do parkour. It’s amazing.

“‘Let me explain.’ Without warning, Hitch ran. He was across the parking lot in the blink of any eye and headed straight towards a high brick wall - but he didn’t stop, he didn’t slow his pace, he ran at the wall and then up the wall, and when he got to the top... (insert long description of very cool parkour antics)” [page 372]

I literally do not understand how this handsome superman type of guy is single. How?! HE CAN JUMP BETWEEN WHOLE BUILDINGS!

“The crowd gasped as the woman flailed in the sky, and then they gasped again to see a figure in all black fly across the spotlight’s beam to snatch her from the dark.” [pages 478 and 479]

Pick Your Poison

Nobody knows an actual fact about Hitch and it’s very painful.

“‘When it comes to Hitch, I think it’s hard to know what’s true. You think you know him but, look at it this way, what do I really have as hard evidence? Do I know anything?’ ‘You know he likes coffee,’ suggested Clancy. ‘What I know Clance,’ corrected Ruby, ‘is that Hitch drinks coffee and a lot of it, but does he drink it because he likes the taste of it or because she need to keep from falling asleep? Well, it’s anybody’s guess.’” [page 31]

In case you forgot, because it really doesn’t get said often, Hitch is very attractive.

“She didn’t immediately spot Hitch. He was browsing chickpeas: a tall, good-looking man, wearing an elegant raincoat over a dark suit.” [page 60]

Dad jokes!

“‘Isn’t this a bit inconvenient?’ said Ruby. ‘I mean, having to walk through a store every time you want to reach Spectrum?’ ‘On the contrary,’ he said. ‘It’s a convenience store.’” [page 60]

This isn’t really a fact about him, but this part always makes me laugh so here we go.

“Hitch, who was standing behind Ruby, was trying silently mouth something to SJ and making a sort of cutting motion with his hand as if to say ‘stop talking’, but SJ wasn’t reading this and instead was making it abundantly clear that she was marking this incident up as attempted murder.” [page 228]

The amount of sass contained within one man... legendary.

“‘Kid, don’t you worry about your mother, I got that covered. I have someone watching her, just a precaution.’ ‘I hadn’t noticed,’ said Ruby. Hitch looked heavenwards. ‘He’s a professional, you’re not meant to notice.’” [page 228]

This quote is pretty self explanatory.

“‘So who’s the Aikido master?’ ‘That would be me,’ said Hitch.” [page 250]

He does in fact like coffee!

“‘Same place,’ said Hitch. ‘I only told you Lucello’s because the coffee’s good.’” [page 348]

We get a rare moment of Hitch actually chilling out and eating food!

“Hitch was there, eating a Digby club sandwich (a Mrs Digby special) and he raised a hand in greeting when she walked in.” [page 393]

Even secret agents want their downtime, and are prone to laziness.

“‘You couldn’t fix it yourself?’ ‘Sure I could,’ said Hitch. ‘It’s a simple case of replacing the valve, which if I’m looking at it correctly is a 3/4 inch ceramic. But I’ve got bigger fish to fry.’ [page 394]

He’s capable of getting shouty when he’s being told he can’t do his job properly.

“‘You didn’t have any traffic,’ said Ruby, angrily, ‘you came by helicopter, and by the way I radioed for assistance more than forty minutes back.’ ‘Well, that seems unlikely since we got no call.’ They were almost shouting at each other now.” [page 476]

Just like I mentioned with Blacker, it seems Hitch contributes to some of the dark humour at Spectrum 8.

“Hitch: ‘You don’t have to convince me, you should see the state she left Baby Face in - or rather I should say, states.’ Delaware: ‘How do you mean? Where is he now?’ Hitch: ‘Well, he left his heart in San Francisco.’ Blacker: “His head was found in Monterrey.’ Hitch: ‘And his legs have yet to show.’ LB: ‘Excuse me?’ Blacker: ‘He’s a goner.” [page 503]

Blink and You Die

Both Clancy and Ruby trust their agent dad.Also, I feel like Hitch is actually the closest thing to a dad that Clancy has, because his actual dad sucks, and that just gets me. 

“‘So you’re going to have to talk to Hitch. You trust him, don’t you?’ ‘A hundred per cent,’ said Ruby.” [page 96]

He’s notable for his on-time nature.

“She sat down. All the seats around her were unoccupied and there was no sign of Hitch. Mr Punctuality appeared to be late.” [page 103]

Although I think he might be lying, it seems like Hitch enjoys stargazing.

“‘I like that place,’ said Hitch. ‘The planetarium?’ ‘Yeah, like I said, I find it soothing.’” [page 108]

He’s sincere enough to convince LB to do things she doesn’t really want to and he’s got Ruby’s back to the end.

“‘Hitch has persuaded HQ that it would wise to keep up the survival skills. He seems to think you need all the protection you can get, and though you are no longer a functioning field agent or coding agent, after much consideration, I am persuaded he is right.’” [page 113]

He’s got non-verbal cues that indicate when he’s pissed off - they’re minor but they’re there.

“They talked together got a few minutes, all perfectly fine until Hitch appeared to notice something - perhaps it was to do with Froghorn’s attire, it was hard to say from this distance but Ruby recognised the subtle change in body language and knew that he was not happy, not happy at all.” [page 180]

He’s been seriously injured before in his life, and why was nobody paying attention to these goddamn children, holy hell Spectrum dropped the ball on this one.

“While this drama was unfolding, so another was taking place - the screams of a boy who had apparently fallen into the shallows, but managed somehow to scrabble onto one of the rafts. He had incurred a life-threatening from a fifteen-foot crocodile, but he was lucky - his cries had alerted rescue and he was dragged from the river before he could be taken by the reptile. The boy suffered severe shock and could not be questioned about the incident.” [page 235]

I think that his name suits him well, but jeez, imagine looking at your baby and giving him this name.

“The second, the boy who was almost swallowed by the crocodile, was named as Art Hitchen Zachery.” [page 236]

He is not immune to the upset looks of Sabina Redfort.

“‘I’m afraid I’m expected elsewhere,’ said Hitch, glancing anxiously at his watch. ‘Oh no, really?’ exclaimed ‘Sabina. She looked so forlorn that Hitch found himself saying, ‘You know what, how about I stay for the starter - it really looks too good to miss.’” [page 260]

His birthdate was 1930!

“‘Just how old do you think I am?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Ruby, ‘fifty-five... fifty-seven.’ ‘Kid, I’m forty-two.’ He shook his head. ‘Boy, never ask a kid to guess your age; they’ll always have you pegged at just shy of decrepit.’” [page 290]

I don’t even know what to caption this, except that he’s able to burst into hysterics. Also, he went with other Spectrum agents to Disneyland, which is adorable.

“‘Are you kidding?’ He began to laugh, really laugh. In fact, he laughed so hard that he didn’t look like he was ever going to stop. ‘What?’ she asked, annoyed that she wasn’t in on the joke. ‘That picture was taken at Disneyland,’ he wheezed. ‘He was made of rubber. Kid, you might to get a new pair of spectacles.’” [page 291]

More dad jokes!

“‘I’d love to, kid, but I’ve got places to be.’ As the doors closed shut, he called, ‘See you later alligator!’ ‘Funny,’ muttered Ruby, ‘real funny.’” [page 291]

While the revelation of Bradley being alive is a huge thing, Hitch still has time for sass.

“Ruby: ‘I’ve only seen two picture of Baker and in neither one did he have this whole wild man of the woods deal going on.’ Hitch: ‘You mean the facial hair?’ Baker: ‘It’s just a beard for crying out loud.’ [page 336]

He can play poker!

“By the time Ruby decided to turn in for bed, Sabina, Hitch, Bradley, Brant and Mrs Digby were settled in for a long night of poker.” [page 348]

The title of butler doesn’t sit great with him.

“‘He’s some butler,’ remarked Brant. ‘Honey, Hitch is a house manager,’ corrected Sabina. ‘He doesn’t like to be called butler, he’s very particular about that.’” [page 350]

He’s this close to dying and he’s still throwing out the snappy comebacks, what a guy.

“The Australian: ‘Of course. But try to refrain from doing anything stupid.’ Hitch: ‘What would add up to stupid?’ The Australian: ‘Any sudden movements; that wouldn’t be smart sweetie.’ Hitch: ‘I’ll try keep my nervous twitch under control.’ The Australian: ‘I’m impressed by your common sense.’                                Hitch: ‘I’m impressed by your gun.'” [page 388]

He’s a real personality - the kind you miss badly when he’s not around.

“Thing moved like clockwork in the Redfort home, every household issue was attended to, and though no one was aware of it, their security was monitored and every safety procedure followed. But life seemed dull without Hitch.” [page 429]

He has a permanent scar from the crocodile incident.

“‘Wanna see the bite? It’s ugly, took an awful lot of stitches to put me back together.’” [page 509]

And those are all the facts I’ve found that we didn’t already know/ are relevant about one Art Hitchen Zachary! I omitted the other 700 paragraphs where we get reminded yet again that he’s very handsome, and still he is the most amazing man!