#I'll do a run down on their new backstory later

[rozeliyawashereyall]

New Eden ref yippeee

I love them so much I need to draw them more-

Basic rundown of their backstory cuz yeah.

Local enby has terrible parents, 3 okay siblings, gets into fights, is involved with gangs, met that eric guy, got taken out of the family will, got disowned at 18, loves the ocean, graduated and becomes a marine biologist, meets a fish guy, and now has to kill their boss.

They like sea snakes.

[starry-bi-sky]

Okay so this is almost a direct copy-paste of my earlier reblog but only the Xin Yuan parts, because its long enough to be its own post and i want to share it! It deserves it's own post <3 typical starry stuff to write a 2k word long reblog, unfortunately.

I say almost because I went through to proof read and ended up adding more stuff.

I've been cooking on this idea for the last two days since I saw the Xin Mo!Shen Yuan post but??? I can't find anything on Xin Mo's backstory or how it came to be -- which means that's free fucking plot right there baby. That's a sandbox and im making LIFE SIZED CASTLES. I'm so excited.

The idea of Shen Yuan transmigrating centuries before the events of PIDW as Xin Mo -- but when he wakes up, he's not the sword. He wakes up in the body of a young boy named Xin Yuan. Now it makes sense for this boy to be a demon, but the drama, the intrigue, the spice of Xin Yuan being a human child.

SY wakes up as a boy below the age of ten, and the System tells him where he is, and SY is excited to meet his favorite protagonist -- only to gradually realize that he's like, a thousand years or so before the events of the novel. The rant he gives the system is legendary.

Bc what's the point of getting dropped into PIDW if he's never going to meet his favorite character??? This is a scam! BUT he settles into his new life, he's like, some orphan street rat or some other tragic airplane-esq backstory.

The system gives Shen Yuan his first mandatory quest: become a righteous cultivator. Which was like, kinda his plan/hopes anyways, except! There's like?? No official cultivator sects anywhere? The Cang Qiong Mountain Sect hasn't even been established yet, and there are pockets of cultivators running around, maybe some groups or schools popping up and then sinking back down, but nothing's really taken root!

If he asks someone how to become a cultivator, there's no straight answer. No "oh you can go to X to do that". He's pissed! How can he become a cultivator if there aren't any schools around to teach him? Deus ex machina, that's how.

Out of sheer luck, SY manages to help save a rogue cultivator, and promptly gets adopted by said rogue cultivator, who gives SY the name 'Xin Yuan'. He is ecstatic. And you know what? It's actually pretty fun!

He's getting to travel the world of PIDW in its early stages, and gets to see the building blocks for the eventual main story. He's discovering all this local flora and fauna that are foreign to his old world and unmentioned in the book, and he's learning cultivation! Granted, its unsafe, newly(ish) discovered cultivation, but it counts!

Wistfully, he thinks about perhaps he'll do something grand and get his name carved into legend. Something that would eventually help the protagonist later down the line in his quest for revenge.

The system remains silent to his thoughts.

But Xin Yuan doesn't take much stock in that daydream anyways. It's nothing more than fantasy to him; wish-fulfillment. He does discover however, that he is positively brimming with spiritual energy. Overwhelmingly so.

It's both a blessing and a curse, as it puts a strain on his meridians if he's not careful, and leaves him prone to qi deviations for the exact same reasons. He already has a heart demon or two from a few traumatic experiences in the past.

(bc hey! angst a day keeps the writer sadism at bay, and all that)

I'll say he's about... eight when he gets picked up by the rogue cultivator, who I'm calling Lin Kai bc he deserves a name. They travel around PIDW up until Xin Yuan is twelve, where he goes through a traumatic experience that results in a heart demon.

It's after that that Lin Kai decides to put a stop to his wandering, and find a place to settle down to raise Xin Yuan in. Coincidentally! They settle down in a nice mountain region that's thriving with spiritual energy. The mountains at the time were called something different, but they will be eventually known as the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect

Coincidentally, the mountain Lin Kai and Xin Yuan end up on is Qing Jing Peak. XY does not realize that the mountain he's on is Qing Jing. The System does not tell him. But he likes it there, more than he was expecting. And as much as he's traveled around, he really does enjoy being in one place.

He has a tendency to go down the mountain and help the village setting up down there, and when he's a teenager he starts venturing out more and more.

Xin Yuan forgets sometimes that he's in a novel, especially after settling down on Qing Jing peak. The system becomes remarkably quiet since there's no quests for him to do and not a ton of opportunities to get B-Points. He cultivates with Lin Kai, helps tend to the garden they're growing, goes down to the village to play with the other kids.

There's one boy he's best friends with, a boy whose not all that good with words, named Liu Zhihao. He's got potential for cultivation though, so Xin Yuan drags him up the mountain when he can so that Liu Zhihao can sit in on lessons with Lin Kai. He drags him all over the forest at the foot of the mountain to go look at bugs and animals.

(One time, when they're fourteen and Liu Zhihao has been learning cultivation for a few years now, Xin Yuan drags him out of bed late one night to go look at the stars. Xin Yuan tells Liu Zhihao about ascension -- something that still feels like a far off dream to many in this time -- that night, while they're sitting on the wet grass.)

("We should ascend together." Xin Yuan tells Liu Zhihao, jade eyes gleaming. Never let it be said that Xin Yuan doesn't love deeply, no matter what kind of love it is. He was always so lonely as Shen Yuan, Liu Zhihao is his best friend. "We'll become immortals, and then we won't ascend until the other is able to.")

(Liu Zhihao stares at him silently, his face unreadable. Then, quietly, he asks; "Promise?")

("Promise.")

When he starts adventuring outwards, further away from the mountain and the village, Liu Zhihao sticks to him like rice. Not that Xin Yuan's complaining, that's his best friend after all, and Liu Zhihao has become a formidable cultivator. He deserves to show off his skills.

He starts making something of a name for himself by the time he's, like, 18 -- although that name is in its baby steps, along with Liu Zhihao. They're slowly growing renown.

Perhaps XY uses his knowledge of PIDW and cultivation in general to help make advancements in the cultivation field. Although the system prevents him from sharing too much, it doesn't mean he can't practice it himself. Perhaps he's one of the first cultivators to develop a golden core. One of the first known immortal cultivators. One of the first to have a spirit sword.

(Although I don't know the logistics of any of this since my knowledge on xanxia/cultivation stuff in general is all still pretty new and google wasn't all that helpful lol.)

Either way, its my excuse to eventually make Xin Yuan come across as ethereal to other people. Peerless beauty SY for the win. Hs wifebeam is too strong, Xin Yuan has a line of suitors following after him and he's completely unaware of it. The rest of history is not.

Demon realm stuff has been stirring up since Xin Yuan was a kid, but at the time it was rare and in the beginning stages. Its been steadily ramping up and the system is sending him on more and more treacherous quests -- some of them mandatory, some optional. SY doesn't often take the optional ones unless it comes with a sufficient B-point reward.

for all intents and purposes though, he's a wandering rogue cultivator with Liu Zhihao, going from place to place to either help a town or village, or to discover more creatures or artifacts (although there aren't that many). Just all around living his life. He participates in a few major quest lines that are sure to get him mentioned in legend, even if it's a background character way.

(Unbeknownst to him, rather than being a side character in these legends, he's named directly. You can't become one of the first immortal cultivators and NOT get name dropped for clout.)

He has a spirit sword named Shā Mó, (杀 shā - to kill/weaken/counteract/reduce) (魔 mó - evil spirit, demon, possession). He routinely goes back to QJP to see Lin Kai, or to rest when traveling has worn down on him and he wants nothing more than to sleep somewhere he knows he'll be safe in. It becomes more frequent as Xin Yuan becomes more famous. Liu Zhihao often comes with him.

it all comes to a head though when the rifts between the demonic realm and the human realm become too great, and the balance between both realms becomes unstable. A demonic emperor's influence, wanting to merge the two realms so he could conquer both to satiate his own greed.

Typical evil king stuff. This comes to a climatic head in a great battle between every cultivator available and the demon emperor's army. Xin Yuan was one of the many who helped lead the charge.

In the end, it was Xin Yuan who ends up defeating the demonic emperor, but the rift that the emperor used to cross between worlds is destabilizing as well. Except instead of trying to close, it's getting bigger and bigger, threatening to swallow the heavens and earth and demonic realm whole.

You know how Yue Qingyuan's soul is bonded to his sword due to a qi deviation? Let's take it a step further >:)

Xin Yuan uses himself and Shā Mó to close the rift. However, it takes all of his spiritual energy to do so, as well as him filtering the demonic qi into his body to redirect it back to the demon realm.

In the end, Xin Yuan and his beloved sword Shā Mó fuse. Xin Yuan's soul becomes trapped in the sword. His physical body is unable to handle the immense amount of power it takes to close the rift, and is destroyed. He is immortalized in legend by his grieving cultivators.

(Liu Zhihao ends up ascending alone. He ascends with the hope that one day he'll see Xin Yuan again, even if it's in the face of someone else. Lin Kai does not ascend, too weighed down by the grief of losing his son.)

Xin Yuan, now Xin Mo, falls into a stasis. He's very confused and disorientated when he regains 'consciousness'. The system has been silent for most of his life, only popping up to give him mandatory quests, hints, points, or to answer any questions.

But once he wakes up, it cheerfully pops up again, congratulating him on completing the origin story of Xin Mo. SY freaks the fuck out. he'd shake the system screen if he could, but he doesn't have arms. or legs. or eyes for that matter.

He can sense his surroundings, but its all like imprints to him. He can sense the energies, but he can't see anything. It's all very disorientating and horrifying after years of being human. Like a sensory deprivation chamber.

The closing of the rift and the cycling demonic qi tainted both Sha Mo and Xin Yuan irreparably, and it did some kind of damage that resulted in SY needing to feed in order to use the spiritual powers. Kinda like how Xuan Su uses YQY's life force for it's spiritual energy, but instead of feeding on his own lifeforce, Xin Mo feeds on others.

The rest is history. Xin Mo is originally tied to the story of Xin Yuan -- believed to be all that remained of the man after he sacrificed himself to keep the realms separate. It's believed that the force of the realms closing permanently infused Sha Mo with demonic energy, turning it into Xin Mo.

But, like many stories do when faced against the tide of time, things get lost; chipped off; changed. Xin Mo is steadily separated from Xin Yuan, especially once it becomes clear how parasitic the sword really is, until they are all but separate entities themselves and the origin of Xin Mo's creation all but forgotten.

The years blur together when Xin Mo is not being wielded, and at first Xin Yuan was agonized by the fact that he stole the lives of all his wielders. He knows it's only a novel, but his decades spent in this life have softened him, and he's grown attached to the world around him.

But time erodes the mind like water erodes stone, and he becomes numb to it, then eventually anticipating of it. He forces himself to remember what he knows of PIDW's plot, and kinda fixates back on his old obsession on Luo Binghe. But while PIDW stays in his mind, his memories as Xin Yuan fall to the wayside.

Not forgotten, per se, but... tucked away. The system prevents him from forgetting fully.

Xin Mo isn't fully a demonic sword either i think, but instead harbors an ugly cocktail of both spiritual and demonic qi. Special circumstances and all that. Everyone just assumes he's a fully demonic sword because that's usually at the forefront, his spiritual qi weakened from the initial fusion and from years of not being fed spiritual qi. It's part of the reason his wielders always end up destroyed by him, other than the whole, yk, 'overwhelming qi' thing.

Nobody would recognize Xin Mo's human form as Xin Yuan other than some truly ancient demons. Of which Meng Mo might. But even that's iffy because there's a lack of surviving paintings of Xin Yuan, but also because of XM's demonic appearance and supposed lack of connection to XY.

Xin Mo has never spoken to his wielders before, not in the same way he does Luo Binghe. He tells Luo Binghe this, and he also tells Luo Binghe down the line that he is both spiritual and demonic -- something he also never told his wielders because there was no point to it.

okay okay i've got to end it here because its already gotten ridiculously long -- of which im both apologetic and unapologetic for -- but i DO think the Shang Qinghua and Shen Yuan meeting (and reveal) would be fucking hilarious. Especially if SY has learned how to pop between sword form and human form by then -- although i guess it doesnt matter either way because SQH's reaction is still the same.

And that reaction is internally screaming and going "hey what the FUCK?? WHY DOES XIN MO HAVE A HUMAN FORM??? WHAT IS THIS??? SYSTEM??? EXPLAIN???"

meanwhile from his place on the sword hilt xin mo is squinting at Shang Qinghua in bewilderment and going "aren't you supposed to be dead" but doesn't pay too much mind to it because its not like its going to change anything.

...up until he catches shang qinghua going "WTF" silently from his little corner while all eyes are off him. One moment SQH is standing beside his king, and the next he's been tackled to the ground by one wild-eyed, human-shaped Xin Mo.

everyone, including SQH, thinks Xin Mo is going to kill him. It is a surprise to everyone when he does not, and instead dissolves into deranged, uncontrollable laughter after spitting out some phrase in some ancient tongue and watching SQH's eyes grow wide in recognition.

[samcrosfaith]

WITCHCRAFT 🔮

Jax Teller x random fem!oc because I suck at writing character x reader.

warning ⚠️; 18+, a little bit of smut towards the end, paranormal stuff like witchcraft and blood.

a/n; please feel free to leave requests in my ask box for Halloween and Christmas One Shots. Happy and Jax only please because I'm not good at writing the other characters lol. If you have a specific wish/look/backstory for your OC, please let me know— otherwise I'll come up with something. 🦇🎃🕸️

If you want to get tagged in future Halloween and Christmas One Shots just let me know in the comments and I'll add you to the tag list! 🤎🍂

this was requested by one of my lovely Wattpad followers!

tag list; @ravennaortiz

word count; about 2.5k

Nola lifted her head as the front door slammed shut and Jax stormed into the kitchen, knowing from the smell of herbs that he would find his Old Lady there. No one but him knew what she was, how special she really wasᅳ and that was a good thing, for her own protection.

He knew that his club would be able to deal with it after they declared him crazy first, and maybe Jax would tell his brothers about Nola's abilities at some pointᅳ but only when his Old Lady was ready. Until then, she continued to secretly help lead the club on the right path, mainly by helping Jax talk to his dead fatherᅳ rarely, after all, it was no longer white magic once you summoned the dead.

But sometimes Jax needed the guidance that only John could give him, as much as he hated using his Old Lady for thatᅳ but Nola was happy to help, in any situation. When someone in the club was injured, she worked in the background to make sure that the healing happened much faster or that something worse could be prevented.

But that wasn't all. Thanks to Nola, Jax had learned to love again, to let warmth back into his cold heart after Tara had run off again two years ago and tried to take his sons away from him. In the end, Tara had agreed to leave the boys with him as long as she could see them both regularly, and finally moved to Oregon to take on her new job.

And when Nola came into his life about six months later, it hit him like a truck. Something about this woman had drawn him in immediately, the shimmer in her greenish eyes so strong that it felt like she could see into his soul, as if she knew exactly what he neededᅳ and shortly afterwards he had found out why.

The fact that she was a witch was a shock at first, but it made no difference. It was her person he loved, for whom he would go over dead bodies. And she would do the same for him, as he'd soon find out.

"What's wrong?" Her voice was sharp, different than usual, as if she knew something bad had happened. "What happened, Jax?"

She took a step closer, tentatively reaching for his wrists as he ran his hands down his face in despair, anger flashing in his glassy eyes. "Tara took the boys. She's gone, Nola, just gone."

He watched as Nola stumbled back, her face twisted in shock as she let the news sink in. One hand flew to her chest, the other used to brace herself against the doorframe, just as broken as he was.

Nola loved the boys as if they were her own and Jax had mentioned often enough that she was more of a mother than Tara ever had. But the doctor still had a right to see the kids because Thomas was her biological son and Jax was stupid enough to sign half of the rights to Abel over to her years ago.

"She took my babies?", she asked through a sob before blind rage overcame her. Her gaze turned cold, her eyes shining dangerously. "Do you have anything from her? It doesn't matter what, even a photo is enough."

"Can such a spell harm the baby?" Jax asked, gently grabbing her hand before casting a worried glance at her not-yet-visible baby bump. "If so, we'll find another way, babe."

"No, it can't. She'll pay for this. She can't just keep coming into our lives and ruining it by taking our babies", Nola seethed, tears of anger at Tara and fear for her children welling up in her eyes. "She'll feel the consequences."

"As much as I want that", Jax began seriously, pulling her flush against him before placing a hand against her cheek. "I don't want you to put yourself and our daughter in danger."

"You don't even know if it's a girl", she murmured quietly, seeking refuge in his arms, her head resting on his chest. "I've been a witch my whole life, Jax. I know what I'm doing, let me help."

"I just have a feeling", he mumbled against her long, raven-black hair before he placed a kiss on the top of her head, gently pushing her away by her arms. "Are you sure about this, darlin'?"

"Yes, absolutely sure", she assured him eagerly. The young woman could never do anything that could harm her own flesh and blood. "And now bring me something from Tara so I can find the bitch."

ᅳ

An hour later, Nola was sitting at the large dining table in the small but perfect house in which Jax and the kids now lived with her, the room dark due to the drawn curtains. Only the light of a few candles illuminated the dining room with soft light.

The words Nola spoke were barely understandable, but Jax still tried to figure out what exactly his Old Lady was saying; to no avail. However, concern rose in him when some blood dripped from her nose and her voice vibrated more strongly. But before he could say anything, his hand already resting on her shoulder, her eyes shot open.

"Done", she purred softly and pointed to the candles in front of her, which was placed right above an old picture of Tara, the only one Jax had found in a box in the garage. Next to it was another candle with a picture of Thomas and Abel. "The candles have to burn until they burn outᅳ don't blow them out. Give me a piece of paper, I'll write down the address of the motel."

"Why, if you've already found her?" Jax asked, standing up and coming back with a piece of paper, a pen and a tissue. "Why is your nose bleeding, Nola? I told you��"

"I'm fine, baby", Nola hummed, placing a hand against his arm before taking the things with a soft 'thank you'. Only when the address was written on paper did she wipe the blood from her nose. "I want to come with you, and before you say noᅳ"

This time Jax interrupted her with a gentle kiss, caressing her cheek as he slid the note into his pocket. "We'll do this together, babe, you and me."

Nola smiled gratefully. "Then let's go, I wanna look her in the eyes again before it's too late."

"Wait, what do you mean by that?" Jax' chair slid across the floor with a squeak as he stood up after Nola, who was covering the candles with special glasses so nothing could happen. "What did you do?"

"I told you she would feel it", she shrugged nonchalantly, grabbed his hand and dragged him outside. "Come on, I want my babies back."

"Maybe I should stop asking questions", Jax muttered under his breath before they hurried to her SUV so as not to waste any more time.

ᅳ

While Jax and Nola were on their way to the motel just a few miles outside of Charming, Tara was thinking of a plan to hide with the kids until she suddenly felt a scratchy pain in her throat that was getting stronger by the second.

On her way to the bathroom to get a glass of water, she was overcome by a coughing fit. Everything in her chest tightened, taking away her ability to breathe. Panic rose in her as she was unable to stop the coughing. She brought a hand to her mouth as she gasped for air, her eyes growing as she noticed the blood in her palm.

"What theᅳ", she couldn't say more, the words just a broken croak.

A sharp pain shot through her chest, sending her to the floor in panic. Trying to sit on her knees, her upper body arched in pain. The doctor began to gag until blood gushed out of her mouth like a waterfall.

The liquid seeped into the floor, staining the beige carpet a crimson red. Her panicked gaze fell on the boys, who had both fallen asleep at the same time about twenty minutes ago, and nothing seemed to wake them upᅳ  and Tara wasn't exactly quiet.

It was weird, but the boys' chests were rising and falling at regular intervals, so they had to be okay.

Tara crawled across the floor to get to her bag, and again she threw up blood, this time it even gushed out of her nose, causing her to roll onto her back and clutch her throat hastily, out of pure reflex.

With each long cough, blood spurted upwards, covering her face. This was her end, she could feel it. If she didn't get to the hospital within a few minutes, she would dieᅳ that much was certain.

Tara jerked her head to the side as the door swung open, her eyes nearly popping out of their sockets as Nola and Jax stormed into the room, the latter closing the door behind him.

"You bitch!" It was Nola who approached Tara first, kicking the doctor in the ribs, not surprised at the sightᅳ after all, she was responsible for it. "Did you really think you could take my kids?", the woman let out a bitter laugh, shaking her head as she slowly crouched down and brushed a few strands of Tara's short hair out of her face, smiling as the woman twitched and whimpered under her touch. "How are you feeling? You made quite a mess here."

"Babe, what is this?" Jax looked at the two women, not quite sure what he was staring at exactly.

He didn't care about Tara, but he didn't want Nola to have to take such steps just because his life was pure chaos. "I don't want you to kill anyone for me."

"Baby, I really love you", Nola began with a deep sigh, looking up at her fiancé. "But it's not always all about you. The bitch took our kids and kept trying to ruin our livesᅳ I've had enough."

Lifting an eyebrow, Jax was at a loss for words, not sure what to say, but his chest still filled with pure pride. His Old Lady could be a bitch, a protective one, and that was hot as hell.

"Alright, do what makes you happy, darlin'", he said, lifting his hands before he stopped behind her and crossed his arms over his chest. "But what about the boys? I don't want them to see this."

"Don't worry, they'll sleep until we blow out the candles", she reassured him, frowning. "Do you really think I would've risked our kids seeing that? You should know me better, handsome."

Jax rubbed his neck sheepishly, giving her an apologetic smile. "Sorry babe, that's not what I meant."

When Tara reached for help and grabbed Nola's wrist, Nola pulled her arm back in disgust, her eyes darkening. "I could make this stop", she said with a sweet smile, making Tara nod frantically. "On one condition.."

Nola closed her eyes, hummed a few words to herself and tapped Tara's forehead with the tip of her index finger for a few seconds, making Tara's coughing fit stop immediately.

Tara rolled onto her stomach as panicked sobs left her throat, tears streaming down her pale face. Only when she realized what had just happened did she sit down on her butt and slid as far away from Nola as possible, her features twisted in shock.

"Oh, so now you're scared?" Jax sneered angrily, his steps heavy as he slowly walked towards Tara and crouched down in front of her, Nola right next to him. "What do we learn from this?"

"Iᅳ I'm sorry", Tara choked out, bursting into tears as she pulled her legs against her trembling body. "Please..please don't hurt me!"

"Aww, she's even begging!" Nola snorted a laugh, her face only inches away from Tara's. "Here's what's going to happen. You go back to Oregon, never set foot in Charming again, and never think or talk of us again. If you try anyway, well..",

Nola sighed theatrically, almost as if she was enjoying the idea of hurting the doctor again. "Then next time I'll let you choke miserably on your own bloodᅳ and I'll watch with a smile on my face."

Tara's bitter sobs bounced off the walls, both of her hands covering her mouth to muffle the volume. "Wᅳ what are you?"

"None of your damn business", Jax snarled, his gaze murderously intense as his blue lenses dug into Tara's skull. "Did you hear what Nola said? Are you goin' to listen to her?"

"Yes, yes for God's sake! But please, please let me go", she pleaded, the sight almost heartbreaking if only someone would care about her.

Nola smiled contentedly, pushing herself to her feet. "Okay, then we're done here! Have a nice life, bitch."

While Nola turned around and threw her black hair over her shoulders so she could pick one of their sleeping sons up, Jax glared at Tara again, his gaze nothing but a threat.

"Don't say a word to anyone or you'll wish you never messed with us, Tara",  Jax said, more serious than ever before, his voice was dangerously calm, before he spat at Tara's feet and then picked up Abel before he left the motel room with his family.

ᅳ

Moaning Jax's name, Nola threw her head back, her hands placed on his chest as she moved her hips in circles, his cock buried all the way inside her slick folds.

They had both needed a break after that day, and after spending the evening with their children, they had retreated to the bedroom and wasted no time in ripping off their clothes.

"That's it, darlin', keep goin'", Jax urged with a groan slipping from his lips, slapping her ass as he pushed his hips up, helping her out a little.

He felt his climax building, so he brought a hand to Nola's full breasts, kneading one in his palm as he rolled her nipple between his fingers, knowing that Nola never lasted long when her breasts got touchedᅳ this was one way to make her come, always.

"Fuck Jax", the woman on top of him gasped, locking eyes with him, returning Jax' grin, savouring every second as she rode him. "I'm close, baby", she drawled sultry, another moan falling from her plump, dark-red lips.

"Good, let go for me", he demanded encouragingly, licking his lips as his own breathing quickened and his cock twitched inside her. "Wanna feel you cum on my cock, sweetheart."

And that was it. Something in Nola's lower abdomen snapped and a moment later she climaxed, moaning his name loudly as she squirted all over him after Jax rolled and pinched her nipple between his fingers again, a gush of fluids now covering his pubes, her long nails leaving bloody welts on his chest.

"Fuck babe", he panted, his voice deep and hoarse as he slid his hand to the back of Nola's neck to pull her head down, his lips brushing hers.

"I love it when you do that", Jax croaked against her lips, an excited whimper falling from them before he pulled her into a sloppy kiss, chasing his own climax.

Nola moaned into the kiss as thick ropes of cum filled her, the warm, thick liquid warming her walls even more. She was already pregnant, so what else could happen?

As she collapsed onto his chest, her breath coming in quick, ragged gasps, she closed her eyes and sighed softly as Jax ran his long fingers through her raven-black strands.

"I love you, Nola, I hope you know that", he murmured, the weariness slowly becoming audible in his tone as the day took its toll. "Thank you for todayᅳ for getting out boys back."

"I know, don't worryᅳ and I love you, too, more than you know", she hummed, not doubting his words. The advantage of being a witch was that she could tell when someone was being honest or not.

Nola slowly lifted her head, leaving a kiss on his lips. "I think there's nothing I wouldn't do for you and our childrenᅳ and I mean that."

Jax smiled weakly, rubbing his thumb against her cheekbone after she rolled off him, laying down next to him. "Good, because I'd do anything for you too, darlin'."

"I know, handsome", Nola smiled again as she laid her head back on his chest, the sound of his heartbeat soothing.

When Jax placed his hand on her bump, like he did every night since they had found out that she was pregnant, their eyelids fluttered shut, both falling into a deep sleep after a few minutes after the eventful day.

[bearsintreesofficial]

a recreation of a sonic fanfiction i wrote when i was 10

ok y'all, some context is needed.

we have a song called cassiopeia coming out tonight. i made a tiktok that said if the sound for cassiopeia is used 100 times, i'll publish the sonic fanfiction i wrote when i was 10 that i joke about a lot but have never shared. anyway, this happened in an hour. i am shocked. i did not expect it to happen so quickly, if at all. i begin my search.

well, it turns out i can't publish it because the places it was published no longer exist, and 10 y/o me didn't back it up (although i thought i had). bummer. an early internet relic gone.

either way, the plot details are seared into my memory because honestly? for some reason, that small act of creativity was a core memory in my life. so while i can't share it, i can retell it, because it's silly and pretty accurately captures what it's like to be 10 and obsessed with a piece of popular media. so here goes.

enjoy, and stream our new single cassiopeia tonight.

SCENE OPENS

the fanfiction was about a page long. the story opens with me - in school, as i did most every day of my life up to that point. in the story, sonic/tails/knuckles live in the human world, and essentially function as superheroes. there's no explanation for it, they just are there keeping the earth safe and such. we are also friends. there is no explanation or backstory for that either.

with the setting established, we're straight into the action; an alien pod crash lands in our school playground after school. me and my friend are the only kids left. where are the teachers? who knows. as is evident, worldbuilding was not my strong point.

anyway, in this alien pod is...an alien. it was a spider that looked a lot like the facehuggers from the alien film franchise, because i'd seen a clip of that as a kid and it freaked the hell out of me. i call sonic (where did i get a mobile phone from?) and let him know something Serious is going down. sonic and tails arrive - knuckles is too busy trying to get the master emerald back from doctor robotnik in this instance.

my friend and i take a back seat and let sonic and tails deal with the weird alien thing. they deal with one, but as soon as they get rid of it 10 other capsules drop in the area. sonic and tails can't take them all, so me and my friend join in to help take them out. i didn't really account for how, but we're fighting all back to back and it's very epic. (sonic x was the prevailing sonic show at the time, and it was y'know - very dramatic. so this was like a scene from that.) tails even brings in the tornado two, his personal plane, to run rings around them. after we finish the final facehugger alien off, a final alien pod descends. but out of this pod emerges...

shadow the hedgehog.

the aliens had been sent by him, and he was here to take sonic down. this was all part of his master plan.

the piece then ended, because i suppose i was going to follow it up at some point. but alas, that did not happen.

moral(s) of the story:

archive the silly stuff you wrote when you were a kid, it'll be fun to look back on later.

stream our new song, cassiopeia. it has nothing to do with any of this, but i think it's neat regardless.

thank you.

[canmom]

100%ed neon white.

it took about 32 hours. lots to say about this game...

mechanics/design

it is fr an absolute tour de force of mechanics and level design. call it a platformer or an FPS (it's kinda both), it delivers a sense of speed and flow like few games I've played. since this is a pretty big inspiration for types of game I might want to make (such as the backburned THRUST//DOLL project) let me break it down a bit.

the learning curve is excellent. like many games, it gradually introduces new movement options with interesting ways to combine them, and levels themed around the new movement option. but the shortcut hints system adds an extra dimension. essentially, levels are scored on time, with bronze/silver/gold/ace medals; generally speaking the level will guide you along a route, and a clean run will get you the gold, which will unlock a hint to guide you to a shortcut which will let you reach the ace. the ace times are far from optimal, but do tend to require a bit of execution skill.

the result of this design is that it's hard to get stuck, but you are gradually given an introduction to speedrun routing over the course of the game. I was, inevitably, the type of player to insist on getting an ace on each level (and grabbing the gift) before moving on, but it is totally optional. that said, it's perfectly designed to retry levels until you nail it: restarting is near instant, the music doesn't get interrupted, and it's very easy to get into a flow state, gradually getting more familiar with the level and discovering new tricks.

along with this is the gift system, required to unlock additional dialogues and backstory scenes. every level has a gift box hidden somewhere, and while this isn't timed, it takes on more of a puzzle aspect as you have to figure out the right way to use the level's movement resources to platform to the gift.

the design of the levels has something in common with a Sonic level: a series of rapid dashes forwards interspersed with moments of floating in the air, when you need to spot the next thing to target. generally speaking it's built to facilitate flow: if you're on the main route, you typically get a movement card just at the moment you'll need it, mixing between sections of shooting and using the discard to keep you on your toes. (even so, it does kind of have a rhythm game aspect). the level design, colour palette etc. does a solid job of guiding your eye towards the next place to go.

enemies are stationary, and only barely a hazard - generally more of a tool. they're part of the level design, with many of the later levels designed around specific enemies which either kill other enemies or help you move. since most levels require you to kill all the demons 'when to kill which enemy and how' is a large part of the routing, but generally speaking you kill enemies nearly instantly if you're on pace.

I ended up playing most of the game on controller; there is a pretty helpful aim assist that makes this possible at all, though I switched to kb+m on the last few levels where rapid aiming became more important. in my previous post I said the controls are 'tight' - what I mean by that more precisely is essentially loads of air control. indeed, you have pretty much the same horizontal acceleration in the air and on the ground, making it very easy to steer into position to line up moves.

in general I think a huge aspect that makes this game work is that it's very predictable. there is essentially zero RNG beyond the chaos of physics; enemies have predictable attack patterns and always stand in the same place, so you can plan like 'I'll grab the shotgun and shoot that guy then dash through that guy which will give me the rifle and let me dash into that balloon' etc. etc. it is also very visually readable, making it pretty easy to make a split second judgement of where to go next while hurtling through the air.

this is exactly how speedrunners tend to approach games, minimising sources of randomness and exploiting predictable behaviours; in general the genius of this game is to take the jank out of speedrunning so that you don't have to master complicated tech or rely on RNG to get the experience of gradually refining your movement through a level.

but, it's not just 'easy mode speedrunning'. even just looking at friends' times, I can see there is a huge degree of room for improvement; the global leaderboard even more so. there are special secret red medals if you can beat the lead developers' times, of which I have so far managed to get only one (it took me by surprise on a late-game level), and even then I'm still like forty seconds behind a friend's score on that level. I bet there's some crazy tech in the fastest runs. maybe at some point I'll go back and see if I can tighten up my times on other levels, though I feel pretty satisfied as thing stand.

all in all, should I manage to return to solo game dev projects (or even if we ever make a speed game at work), there is a lot to learn from Neon White.

narrative/aesthetic

so mechanically, very positive. on the aesthetic aspect: it's a very slick game, particularly with machine girl's latter-day breakcore soundtrack (machine girl is the most trans-ass name for a band but is actually two guys, unless some eggs remain uncracked here...). the UI flows very nicely - not quite as flashy as something like Persona 5 but definitely in that direction. it's a game that wants you to know it's stylish; Paradise Killer comes to mind.

and visually it's very solid! the levels are varied and, while generally consisting of 'floating architecture over an ocean', appealingly lit and coloured. the enemies have distinctive silhouettes and there are some cool unusual designs, like the giant laser heads, as well as some classics, like mimic chests (not particularly stealthy).

but of course the main visual aspect is the character portraits, illustrated by Rebecca Ryan. which is to say: white clothes with monochrome accents according to each character's colour name (curiously the characters are known only by colours in both life and death), animesque illustration, and hannya masks. and a bunch of symbolic manga-like expressions (blush, anxiety gloom, etc.) these portraits (plus, here and there, CGs) show up in the visual novel-style story sections and generally speaking, they work - if in a very 'Americans paying tribute to anime' way.

the story... most of what people react to is the whole weebcore thing it's got going on, finding it either cringe or endearing depending on taste. I feel like there is little to say about this that has not already been said. apparently the intent was to fit the style of dubbed anime, and... yep, it does.

instead I want to talk about... the religion thing! because what's going on there!

well, it's not that complicated on one level. the smarmy 'believers' stormed heaven and killed god, setting up essentially an american mall in its place. but this 'heaven' is actually Sheol; God was managing it using two macguffins called the Books of Life and Death. your goal turns into restoring God to His rightful place. these Books come with a Star of David on the cover, with a bunch of smaller ones around it...

the game is also however full of crosses, which generally speaking seem to be the Believers' symbol/weapon, as seen here in the Third Temple area (you know... not clear why this is in the afterlife as opposed to Jerusalem)

so it's fairly easy to read: most of the old school 'Heaven as it should be' stuff is associated with Jewish symbolism, but the dang Christians ruined everything.

the plot, meanwhile, rather heavy-handedly focuses on a theme of the importance of forgiveness. broadly speaking the story is that our lovable MCs - dorky MC White, slightly dommy love interest Red, childish and violent Violet, and laid back bro Yellow - who were all treated as disposable tools by the group's abusive leader Green. who is basically Vicious.

right down to the hairstyle!

the characters in this game, while decently voice acted, are all terribly one note archetypes. the story flashbacks almost all concern the botched job where Green - with White's support - led the whole group to their deaths for the sake of a long held grudge.

later in the story, Green gets a new 'destroy this shoddy universe' motivation, but it is honestly pretty unconvincing. probably the best aspect of his character is the dark yaoibait interactions with his object of obsession White, but this isn't the kind of game to go all-in on that front (its attitude to sexuality is very much a 'tease but don't depict').

all this leads up to a final decision to basically decide whether Green goes to heaven or hell. if you send him upstairs, White also gets to move on (I picked this since the game was blatantly angling very hard towards this being the true end); if you don't, White apparently remains trapped in Sheol until the next cycle. the thrust of it is basically you need to forgive and move on instead of obsessing over those who have wronged you.

Green remains unrepentant throughout - if you Book of Life him, he's not exactly happy about this, going like 'what do you have to gain from this' lol. the point is pretty explicitly not 'your enemies deserve forgiveness' and more 'don't let them live rent free in your head' I guess.

as a theme this is... reasonable enough? probably best not to stay mad about shit if you can avoid it, though certainly easier said than done. but the presentation suffers a lot from, well, telling/showing issues. you know this is the theme because towards the end of the game, the characters talk about it, a lot. ironically for a game in which you get sermonised at by comedically smug preachers in between chapters, it feels very much like sitting in a sermon: abstract ideals that don't really connect because the characters are so one-dimensional.

(it turned out, reading the credits, that one of the co-writers of this game was Aevee Bee, of WKTD/HWBM. I have lingering beef with her because she joined in brigading a friend of mine out of the indie game sphere over spurious vague accusations back in the day - a peripheral player but still very much on the wrong side of it, and to my knowledge she never apologised or anything. so it all feels kind of 'bit rich coming from you' for her to go off about the importance of forgiveness and moving on. but, even aside from that, on a craft level the story's approach to its theme already felt heavy-handed and unconvincing.)

beyond that... I'm just plain not convinced that resurrecting God is all that. the game's presentation of God is basically distorted audio and blurry shapes for text, with the characters reacting as if they understand; the Angels are presented as cute cartoon cats with the explicit conceit that this is just White's brain comprehending the incomprehensible (though we do get a brief wheel of eyes appearance near the end). but the reason the plot has to play out as it does, with God essentially choosing White to put things right because of the remorse in his soul... well, let's just say I don't much like chosen-one narratives in general, and the Abrahamic set dressing does not help. it feels very arbitrary, but also a bit straightforward and comfy for all this vague guesturing towards being strange and alien.

all that said, as much as I'm ragging on it, I do appreciate that it tried for something. a distinctive identity which doesn't fit my taste is better than a game with no identity. the character interactions are generally pretty charmingly silly. White and Red do at least make a convincing couple. Sungwon Cho is there, playing a father-figure office worker angel in his characteristic style.

other observations

the game's team is very small, with one developer (Esposito) doing most of the programming and mechanics; besides that we have a couple of level designers, a couple of artists... However, it had the funding of Annapurna Interactive, who recently made the news for basically imploding, but have been a pretty big player in the indie sphere of late. and obvs Machine Girl are kinda huge in their scene, but really a lot of the names are also pretty familiar ones if you've been hanging around indie games for a while. it's sort of like... indie but by broadly established names. still, small team makes me wonder: how feasible is it to make a game along these lines, either as a solo project or with a similarly small team at work?

what is notable is that it seems to have gone through a pretty long period of iteration; apparently an earlier version of it used randomly drawn cards, before the current predictable speedrunning focus came in as a clearly better approach. which is interesting: it has such a laser focused design that I would have guessed that it would be a speedrunning game from the outset. definitely a testament to experimenting around different ideas, which is really the essence of game dev.

the main thing I feel like I should take away if I return to working on THRUST//DOLL - which had a very similar planned structure, of fast levels that focus on time and visual novel sections to tell the story - is that if you're moving at high speed, it's absolutely essential that the information that you need to make a decision is readable, and acting on it is not too finicky. I might have to rethink the bullet-hell aspect, and introduce similar 'snap to enemy' mechanics to the dash abilities in the later stages. something to think about another day, anyway, I'm not sure when I might be able to continue that project.

all in all, fun game, very addicting, I have so much work to catch up on now...

[twstfanblog]

*~Family Feud~*

AN: This has been done for DAYS I just didn't get a chance to read it over because I dropped two outfit descriptions in this and I wanted to draw them out. Instead, I decided to get this out and stop hoarding it. XD

Also an introduction to one of my Twist OC's I'll do my best to get a proper bio of him and link it at a later date.

Word Count: 5.4K

Warnings: Toxic family dynamics, Disregard of adopted family, She/They Yuu OC. My own canon of Silver's backstory mixed with canon.

Pairings: Mallus x Yuu

Enjoy~!

Starter, Part 1(Pomefiore), Part 2 (Heartslabyul), Part 3 (Here)

Diasomnia was strangely desolate, something that Louis wasn't really expecting. He would have thought the dorm would reflect Briar Valley. The times he'd seen the valley, it was full of lush vegetation, life seeming to spill out of every corner. The only place that looked vaguely like these densely packed dead woods was the royal castle of the Draconia’s. But, even then, the castle had a beautiful rose garden. At the thought of the Briar royalty he scowled, his resolve only growing as he stomped through the woods. Eyes roaming through the trees looking for someone.

Louis Durand was the eldest son and crown prince of Ulstead, one of the longest-standing royal families of Twisted Wonderland. Honey-blonde hair and aurora-colored eyes showing his heritage of the Knight of Dawn. His light-plated iron clinked, gold and iron mix giving off a pale sunshine hue, added protection from his basic princely attire. Long hair braided back and pinned with his family’s crest acting as a crown.

Soon he finds someone, his eyes widening before a smile breaks out on his face. He picks up his pace seeing the figure under the tree slowly open his eyes. Silver hair and dressed in a black and green military uniform, Louis couldn’t keep his voice quiet as he ran closer, " Beau!"

Matching aurora eyes snap open at the name. Silver sighs under his breath, not sure if staying asleep would be better or worse in this situation. Instead, he stood up, waiting for the prince to reach him and for the common argument to start.

Malleus walked with Yuu, smiling at the pout on the human's face, "Why are you so upset, my dear? It's a lovely day and I have you all to myself. Why the long face?" In hand was his spinning wheel wand. He didn’t have his pen in such form normally, But while in his dorm uniform, the staff was perfect for the overall look. Plus, it felt good to wear such regal wear with his child of man in their own new dorm uniform of Ramshackle.

Lilia himself was delighted seeing the outfit, saying Yuu looked like a troublesome fairy he had a run-in with long ago. A light tealish green button-up shirt with bluebell-shaped sleeves. A darker grey-teal vest over the shirt, a series of leather belts wrapped around their waist to hold an assortment of things, one of which being a bag of marbles. (For purposes Yuu told the others.) The vest had multiple tail ends, layering into a rough jagged line like the edge of a leaf. Leggings patterned with asymmetrical lines to mirror shattered glass. The look was pulled together with a pair of leather pirate-style boots that folded over their knees and a worn-looking navy captain’s hat, refurbished lightly to match the color of their dorm better.

Malleus himself could see what Lilia meant when Yuu wore their new uniform. Though it was a collaborative design by Divus and Yuu, the final result came out very close to the common fashion of Briar Valley. And with their temper and short stature (Compared to him), Yuu truly reminded him of the trickster fairies of the woods. Oh, the times Malleus had to keep Silver from being led astray by little wings of glitter. At the very least, Yuu gave kisses instead of deceiving the innocent…Well, Yuu does the same but it was normally unlethal. Now looking down at his lover, he smiles, tilting his head at the pouting human. He wonders if he could get away with calling them a pixie. He chuckles, raising an arm to place around their shoulders, “Come, let me hold you.”

Yuu huffs, leaning away from Malleus' arm as he tries to bring them closer. They glare at the tall fae, crossing their arms across their chest, "You know very well I wanted to meet your grandma. And you have the gall to stand there, looking cute, and call me over here after you already sent her home!"

The laugh Malleus let out was loud like thunder, it would almost be threatening if not for the warmth in his smile. He leans down, forehead resting on Yuu's as he looked into their eyes, "Are you truly upset you couldn't meet my grandmother? Or are you upset you haven't been able to embarrass me in front of my maternal figure like you've done your other lovers?"

They scoff, turning around to walk away from Malleus, but didn't try to move when he wrapped his arm around them. Yuu rested against his chest, sighing forlornly as they placed their hand over their forehead, "All I ask is to look into your grandmother and have her look back at me…"

"..." Malleus laughs, standing up and moving Yuu to face him directly, "You know, I may consider introducing you to my grandmother more if you stopped insinuating she is the void."

"Have you ever seen your grandmother and the void in the same room? I haven't." They laugh at Malleus' smile, pulling him down and leaning in to kiss his cheek. Giving him another seeing how the fae beamed under the physical affection.

Their sweet moment was interrupted by shouting, the sound of it getting closer and closer. Sharing a look, Malleus stands back to full height, a hand placed on the middle of Yuu’s back, the two of them walking toward the sounds of arguing.

"-before someone sees us, we should go!"

"Louis, please just go. I'm not having this argument with you again…"

Yuu blinks at the unknown boy trying to pull Silver through the woods, the gray-haired boy digging his heels into the dirt. Silver looked more annoyed than distressed at the manhandling, but, Yuu still pulled her golf club from the back holster Crewel had designed for them, "Hey! The fuck’s going on here?"

Her shout was enough for the both of them to look over in surprise, giving Silver the chance to finally slip out of the mystery boy's hold. The 2nd year was quick to join them, standing just slightly behind Malleus on his side in his normal position as a retainer. For whatever reason it made the boy glare, frowning fiercely at Malleus.

"Still insulting the Ulstead crown with your display, I see. He should be in jewels and celebrated! Not set to the side to be forgotten and overlooked by your people!"

Malleus' mirthful attitude was gone, a bored look on his face as he looked down his nose at the armor-clad boy.

Seeing Malleus wasn’t going to grace the stranger with an answer, Yuu spoke up. Their golf club swinging lazily to tap against their calf, "While I agree Silver is a national treasure, you can't just be grabbing and dragging people around like they owe you money."

The stranger opens his mouth, poised to start yelling at them too before he freezes. Looking at them, his eyes widen in shock, "You're human?"

"Good eyes, now explain yourself-"

"Fair maiden you must come with me at once! This land of fae and fowl isn't safe nor suitable for humans!" He reached out, moving to grab onto Yuu's wrist only to be forced back by a crackle of green lightning. 

Yuu was just as surprised, blinking when Silver pulled them farther behind Malleus and missing the prominent anger in the fae's eyes as dark clouds began to gather above them.

Malleus’s eyes seemed to glow the darker the area became, his face a deadly edge of sober as he tilted his head slightly, "You dare try to abscond with my treasures? I would think your family knows a dragon does not give from their hoard so lightly…"

The stranger matched Malleus' expression, taking a step forward before he was interrupted by Silver sighing.

"Louis. Please. Just go home. I've long made my choice and I would like it if you and your family to respect it."

“They’re our family!” Louis' face crumbles, a hand reaching out in a pleading motion toward Silver, " Beau, please just come home with me. We can talk this out with the family and see if you've been cursed like father thinks. If all is well we can go from there."

Yuu casts a confused look toward Silver, raising an eyebrow, "Beau?"

Silver shakes his head, not wanting to explain, missing Malleus locking eyes with Louis. A smug smirk grew on the fae’s face before he spoke.

" I would like it if you left my brother be. He doesn't wish to speak to you."

"He is not your brother you accursed, bastard!"

"Now, now. There's no need for all of this yelling…"

Lilia dropped down from above a few paces away. Instead of his normal dorm uniform, he wore a tight thorn pattern long-sleeve top, the high neckline hidden by a false collar and a bright green tie with a complex-looking knot. Long pants tucked into knee-length lace-up boots. His oversized jacket was replaced with an open-back vest in the dorm colors, long coattails trailing behind him. The look pulled together with his normal dorm accessories, the vest showing off the spiked spine brace the Diasomnia students regularly wear.

His youthful face was strangely in a neutral expression. He looks to Louis, not even flinching at the glare. Turning to him fully, Lilia gives a polite smile, trying to calm the enraged boy, "Prince Louis. I understand the campus is open to all visitors. But, you are aware Silver doesn't wish to speak to you or the other Ulstead royals unless it is at the yearly treaty festival or you’ve called ahead of time."

Louis stomps forward, getting directly in Lilia's face to snarl, "His name is Beau, you thief!"

"Enough!" Silver steps forward, standing beside Lilia and only stopping at the hand gripping his arm, keeping him closer to Lilia, "I will not let you talk to my father like this."

"He isn't your father!" Louis looks to Silver, eyes pleading, "Beau, no matter what they've told you, they're lying to you. They aren't your true family and all we want is for you to come home to us…"

Silver’s face clenches, almost winning in the fight to not grimace. His fists ball up at his sides, turning his head away from Louis as he muttered, “Who I care for isn’t your choice to make…”

Lilia glances at Silver from the corner of his eye. Seeing Silver's anger, he opened his mouth to calm his son, only to have Louis speak before him.

"He won't love you like a real father would. You know that. You'll be dead and gone long before he even has time to care about you."

That was enough to make Silver crumble, the 2nd year hunching into himself hoping to hide away from the other's hurtful words.

The sound of thunder and lightning was deafening. The dark clouds overhead that had eclipsed the sun were almost meaningless as a single bolt of lightning illuminated the grounds, striking dangerously close to the group. Both of which were ignored by Lilia, scooping Silver into his arms. 

Placing the taller boy onto his hip and supporting his legs while glaring at the human prince, "If you'll excuse us, my son seems to be under the weather. I'm going to get him inside to rest."

Lilia doesn't look back, walking away like Silver weighed less than nothing in his hold. Even with his confused expression, Silver soon relaxed, properly latching onto his father and resting his head against the top of Lilia's hair.

Yuu looks over to Louis, frowning at the other human's intense glare at the retreating figures, "You know, as a fellow human? That was extremely fucked up, you know that, right? Like severely fucked."

"I quite agree with my child of man." Malleus' face was stone cold, his tinted lips curling over a fang as he snarled, "It was fucked."

“What’s fucked,” Louis somehow made the vitriol in his voice even harsher, eyes glaring into Malleus’ cold green iris, “Is stealing a prince and making him a guard to the enemy of his nation.”

Malleus leans in, a small smile showing his fangs as he spoke in a soft mocking tone, “He wasn’t stolen by fae hands. Nor are we enemies, the treaty was signed nearly 20 years ago Prince Durand.” His smile drops, voice almost a growl, “You’d do well to remember that.”

Louis’ hand reached toward his sword, managing to draw it out only a few inches before a force slammed into the hilt of the blade, forcing it back into the sheath. The head of a golf club resting on top of the rounded metal of the weapon, Yuu’s dark eyes glaring into his own morning dews, the silent promise clear in their actions. He huffed, his glare only barely softening as he addressed Yuu, “Stand down, maiden. I don’t know why you’ve allied yourself with this fae, but he is not to be trusted.”

“With all disrespect? What I do with the future father of my child is none of your business.”

Malleus’ magic forms around Yuu faster than she could swing and faster than Louis could grab her. The green aura glittered around her, lifting Yuu into the air and away from the human’s out-reaching hand. Louis glared at the prince, his hand clenching into the open air.

Louis closes his eyes, trying to calm his breathing before looking up at Yuu, “You…Miss, you can’t be serious! The Draconia family is founded on the wicked deeds of the Thorn Fairy herself! To be a human and want to continue that line-”

“I’m gonna stop you right there.” Yuu was now lounging in the air, golf club resting over their crossed legs, “I’m going to do my best to be…polite with my reasonings. I don’t care, I just don’t care. I like Malleus, so I find no issue in doing him this kindness as his close platonic-romantic friend-soulmate. The choices I made to carry the potential apocalypse baby are just that. My choices. Just like Silver apparently chose to be Silver instead of Beau. Learn to live with it. Cope, seethe even. But don’t make it our problem when clearly you’re the only one bothered.”

The expression on Louis’ face was odd. A strange mixture of anger yet heartbreak, the type of look that spoke of internal struggle. Yuu almost had enough time to feel bad, opening their mouth to give some kind of comfort, before the human royal’s face steels.

Louis stepped back, rolling his shoulders into the proper position and looking into Malleus’ eyes with a neutral expression, “Apologies for my outburst Prince Draconia. I will take what you said into consideration. Good day to you and your…” His face fights against the sneer he wants to pull, “Consort…Good day.” With that, he spins in his iron-plated heel, stomping his way back toward the dorm’s mirror.

“...” Yuu turns to Malleus, still floating in the air, “Put me down.” Malleus raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t take his eyes off of Louis until he was well in the distance, “Why…?” “I’m gonna beat his ass.”

A smile breaks across his face, looking out from the corner of his eye to see the glare on the prefect. Yuu never failed to entertain, always having a gesture or words that would pull him from sour moods and episodes of sorrow. Be it a physical reminder of their friendship or a verbal assurance of their shared devotions, Yuu always made him smile, even when he didn’t want to.

Malleus shakes his head,  “No. You have no need to engage in combat with the likes of him. You are my consort after all.” He starts to walk toward the dorm, keeping Yuu suspended in the air with his magic. In their current mood, they were more likely to ignore his words and chase the prince down than listen. His thoughts reminded him of Silver and Lilia’s emotional states, the urge to check on them growing once Louis’ presence was fully gone.

“Oh, is that gonna be your new favorite word? Because you’re gonna make Jamil and Azul jealous. They can only call me ‘girlfriend’ for now.”

“I suppose they can cope then. Seethe even.”

“Stop stealing my words! You make it sound so much fancier when you say it.”

Malleus chuckles, bringing Yuu closer to place another kiss against their cheek, “Cope.”

Diasomnia’s dorm was massive, scary, and regal. It was also peacefully quiet when Malleus and Yuu walked inside. The families that were chatting away in the common area had all vacated, leaving the room bare except for Sebek, Lilia, and Silver. The pearly-haired human was sleeping, head resting on Lilia’s lap while the short fae caressed his hair.

Walking to the couch, Yuu sat beside Lilia, Malleus taking the armchair that Sebek instantly jumped up to stand beside.

"So I have to ask, why the outfit change?"

Giggling, Lilia turned to look at Yuu, a sneaky smile on his face, "While I normally, as you say 'serve cunt', I decided to change into something semi-respectable since I knew visitors of the valley were coming." He gestures mildly to his new outfit, "As such I picked something that echoes my old war armor."

“Well you failed, you’re still serving cunt, good sir. But next question…Who was his royal dick?” Yuu asks, their voice hushed even though they knew Silver wasn’t going to wake up with anything less than Sebek screaming in his face.

Lilia sighs, “Prince Louis Durand. Crown prince of Ulstead and…” He sighs again, the force of it almost fully deflating him, “And Silver’s twin.”

“He has one of those?”

Sebek scoffs, rolling his eyes but refusing to say anything. He grew up dealing with the human prince’s numerous visits. Louis would do everything he could to exclude Sebek, but Silver was just as vigilant in making sure he was involved. Once, Silver held onto Sebek’s hand and refused to let go for the whole visit. It took both Baul and Lilia to pull them apart once Louis had left, Silver claiming he couldn’t unclench his hand.

“Yes…It’s a long story, but by fae laws Silver is mine and his blood family isn’t too happy about it.”

Yuu tilted their head, “I wouldn’t be either, this is extremely suspicious. Lilia, you said you found Silver on the ground.”

“I-” Lilia realizes what Yuu was insinuating, snapping his face up to pout at the prefect, “I did.”

“Lilia, how do you find a baby prince on a random forest floor?”

The pink-haired fae huffs, arms wrapping tighter around Silver’s sleeping form, “Well, I did! Believe me or not, I found him fair and square. He even picked me over them so they have no right to complain…”

Yuu smiled, always loving to pick at Lilia when the older fae would get annoyed with her, “Your story is falling apart. Did the baby pick you or did you find him, Lilia? What is it you want me to believe?”

Lilia was fast, a hand reaching out and pinching Yuu’s ear to tug on it. He hisses out a shush while she squirms in his hold, “Hush, let me tell you what happened…”

Silver was led to the palace throne room, his small hand gripping onto Sir Baul's as the old fae stared ahead. He was stern as usual when he came to collect him, but the look he had when he called Silver made his stomach twist. Sebek had gone quiet again, only waving goodbye as Baul led him from the room. He didn't know what was happening as the double doors of the throne room opened. On one side of the room stood his father and on the other side stood a group of strangers wearing the same colors as the people who stormed their home. 

Days ago, he and his father had to flee to the palace when a group of human knights broke down their door in the middle of the night. Silver had never felt such terror, watching his father fight off a squad of intruders before scooping him into his arms. He had jumped from the bedroom window, Silver only in his pajamas and Lilia still smelling of burning flesh from iron as he sprinted into the woods.

They reached the palace, a number of fae knights riding into the woods at his father's report. He wasn't proud of it, but he cried when he had to leave his father's arms. The short fae smiled and teased him, saying he was only getting bandaged and to not be so silly. He was sulking about later in his brother's  Malleus’ arms. He was six years old, he shouldn't be crying as such anymore.

Over the next few days, Silver was with Malleus for most of the day. Sebek joined them and was oddly soft-spoken, the younger boy looking at him pained and heartbroken but wouldn't tell him why. He would hear voices echoing in shouts in the halls, unknown knights staring at him. Their eyes made him nervous before Malleus whisked him away. But now, in the throne room, Malleus was standing beside the queen, looking upset and refusing to meet his eyes. Even father wouldn’t look at him, only the glamourously dressed family standing on the other side of the room would look toward him.

Her Majesty spoke, her voice an odd mix of cold yet cordial, “Silver-”

The unknown woman, who Silver now realized also had a crown in her braided warm brown hair, snapped. Her soft smile turned into a vicious frown as she rounded to the Queen, “His name is Beau.”

Her Majesty simply sighed, just barely keeping from rolling her eyes, a hand held up to calm the guards and Malleus, “Child. You are being offered a choice on this day. It is your choice alone if you return home with either Lilia Vanrouge or the royal family of Ulstead, the Durands. Make your decision judicially, you will not gain another.”

…

Silver looked over to the strangers. Whatever anger the woman had felt was gone, leaving behind a kind person who reached out to him before pulling her hand back to her chest. Looking at them closely, he fully saw just how lavish their clothing was, soft and bright colors unfound in the valley since so many made their living working with nature or potions (It’d get dirty so quickly). Delicate light fabrics with sewn-in gems and woven gold threads. They looked at him with such hope. Around them, guards of that knight stood showing chests of gold shiny board swords and armor. A boy who looked so similar yet different from him smiled, a stuffed bear held tightly in his arms.

He waved, bowing his head in a show of respect for the visiting royalty, but the beaming grins they gave back to him didn’t ease the discomfort he felt. He was sure the woman was one second away from rushing over to him and taking him in her arms, never to be seen again.

To the other side was his father. Standing silently and still, so unlike himself it made Silver more uncomfortable than the overly friendly strangers. Father stood in just the cloak he had on when they absconded to the palace, the black cloth hiding his body and long hair tied into a low ponytail. He wouldn’t look at him, he wasn’t even smiling. Silver had never seen his father so…impartial. It was frightening, but it only cemented the fact Lilia was his father.

Looking the fae over, Silver’s mind brought to light just how much he knew about his father. He knew the exact cloak he had managed to grab. A flash of yellowish-green peaking from the hood. The fruits of his and Sebek’s sewing lesson from weeks ago. Silver knew in that hood was a crudely stitched-in bat (From when he was in the war his father told him, to keep others from stealing his cloak), a simple bright green oval, a chartreuse blob to mimic a crocodile, and a simple ivory-colored smaller bat. Father always stated it was his lucky cloak. 

Though he tried to hide it, Silver knew his father’s hair was streaked with blocks of white strands. They were debating on which color he was going to dye it next. Silver was so close to convincing him to try orange, he knew it’d look ridiculous, but his father would do it if he could persuade him properly.

And the final secret Silver could easily see was how his father fidgeted with the bracelet he had gifted him. It was something of a nervous tick, the fae would at times look into the distance and simply tape his sharp nails against the seeds. Sometimes Silver worried he would break the charm one day, only to watch the same worry overtake his father would he seemingly tapped too hard.

He wasn’t sure of the severity of this decision, but he had his options and his choice was clear.

Silver squared his shoulders, keeping his eyes trained on his father as he walked towards him. His stride only stops when the woman gives a heartbroken cry of ‘Beau’. He looked over his shoulder, seeing the strange family crumbled, tears gathering in their eyes. The woman all but falls to the floor, being held up by her husband who looks at him in disapproval. The boy’s expression hurts, it’s pleading, heartbroken. Silver strangely felt for him the most, but he couldn’t leave his father to his lonesome.

Before long Silver was standing right in front of Lilia, bright aurora-colored eyes trying to catch glittering magenta ones. Lilia laughs, short and almost damp. He finally looks at Silver, expression pained as he fights back his tears, “You wish to go with me?”

Silver nods, not a moment of hesitation, “I’m ready to go home now father.”

Lilia doesn’t hesitate either. Scooping Silver into his arms, tucking his son’s face into his neck and walking from the chamber at a quick pace. Silver hears chaos engulf the room, the woman from before starting to scream in anger and Her Majesty raising her voice to demand she calms herself. Silver looks up from his father’s collar, catching hauntingly similar aurora eyes before the doors close behind them.

“Of course the Durands never let it rest. Maleficia was honest with them…” Lilia sighed, looking down at a sleeping Silver, “Silver doesn’t count as ‘Stolen by Fae’. As such there was no trade, so no proper test could be given and Silver was left to pick where he went.”

“Did they not…think he would pick you? I mean you were his dad for his whole life…”

Malleus sighed from his chair, eyes gazing into the green fireplace, he hint of annoyance curling his lip, “My grandmother warned them of that likelihood. But they were insistent on Silver knowing he’d want to be with ‘his blood’...” Malleus wouldn’t speak of the shouting match that broke out when Lilia fled the room with Silver. But, he was just as smug when his grandmother smiled and explained to the wailing queen that Silver had made his choice.

“The silly boy really just walked up to me with no doubt in his heart. But, from there, the Durand family was calling at our home near weekly.” Lilia sighs, remembering the string of panic attacks he’d gain waking up to iron-clad knights banging on his cottage's front door. The number of letters he’d start to just burn in the fireplace, each one detailing and painting him as a wicked being for stealing a vulnerable infant from his loving home.

Yuu scoffed, leaning back into the couch, “What? So they just show up every few days to bother you guys and shout that you’re not a real family?”

“Not nearly as much as before. But basically.” Sebek sighed, shaking his head in mild irritation, “The king and queen have stopped coming so often, only at the yearly Peace Treaty celebration held at our borders.”

“They stopped visiting around Silver’s 10th birthday…Louis still spends his summers camped out in the woods with his posse.” Malleus pouts, the windows darkening as his mood briefly soured, muttering under his breath, “They keep sending him gifts heavy in iron though…”

Lilia caresses Silver’s head, smiling at his serene face, “Louis always tried so hard to be by Silver the first few visits. He was more docile when beside him, but when anyone tried to detach them, he’d throw such tantrums.”

Malleus looked to Lilia, eyes lidded in annoyance, “Tanturms. Lilia, he stabbed you when you tried to wipe Silver’s face.”

Lilia waves Malleus’s words off, ignoring Yuu’s surprised laughter, “It didn’t even draw blood. Barely counts as a stab.”

Lilia would never lie, but he never told the whole truth either. He never told Maleficia the truth the night he brought a human baby for her blessing and he thinks he never will. He didn’t lie, he never stole Silver. But, he never told anyone the whole story.

He met the Knight of Dawn the night Maleaonor died, the knight had saved both his and Malleus’ lives. They barely spoke, eyes meeting before the knight turned around. He told him and Baul to run, that he’d deal with whoever entered the tunnel after them.

It’s embarrassing, Lilia thinks to himself sometimes. The fact that simple action was enough to make his heart flutter, in the moment he attributed it to his adrenaline. But he still blushed and whispered under his breath a basic blessing as a thank you.

Lilia thinks he’s cursed to take care of the children of those he loves. He cared about Maleficia for taking him in and then he became Maleanor’s keeper. He loved Maleanor and Revan, Malleus was more his mother’s son than his father’s he’s realizing. And only once his heart fluttered and now he’s staring down at a sobbing infant.

He wasn’t sure why he walked to this old place, taken over by the people who killed his friend and orphaned his charge. But a part of him was happy he did. Two children in a basic bassinet, one sleeping peacefully while the other wailed. How his sibling didn’t wake up worried Lilia, but he decided to tend to the screaming one first.

One blessing later, the baby’s golden hair turned Silver. At least whoever took care of them would be able to tell them apart now. Soon he pulled away from the bassinet, leaving the awake infant to start crying again. It pained him to leave the poor dears, but they were human and he was a fae. He couldn’t look after them properly. So he’d drop a hint to the Human kingdom, something about hearing the sounds of a crying baby in the abandoned ‘First Castle’.

It was easy to connect the dots when the neighboring kingdom spoke of the joyous event of the queen birthing two twin boys. Lilia was fine with that, those boys deserved a happy home full of love and care. One he could not give, not since his own efforts took so long to even hatch Malleus. A human child can’t live as long as it takes for him to muster enough love for a child to be raised on.

But only a week later, walking through the woods in his late-night musings, he hears a familiar cry. In the silver band of moonlight, he finds that same infant crying nestled in the roots of a dying tree. The basic nightgown was gone, the baby simply wrapped in a blanket, though surprisingly a thin gold chain with a familiar golden ring. Lilia so badly wanted to turn and walk away, maybe leave another tip to the humans they seemed to be missing a whole baby.

Instead, the infant cried, tiny pudgy hands reaching out to him for comfort. He really had gotten weak in his old age. Sweeping the baby into his arms he hummed the lullaby he’s been singing for centuries. And as the baby slept in his arms he smiled, walking back to his cottage, “Guess I will be taking care of you after all, aren’t I little one?”

Lilia didn’t take this child. He never even lifted him from that bassinet when he found both of them. This wasn’t kidnapping nor an act of theft. He was simply taking in a child he found in the woods and that’s all anyone had to know.

“Hmm…You need a name…Silver, Like a moonbeam in the dark…” He laughed, pressing a kiss to the soft strands, “And for your hair!”

Lilia wouldn’t tell the whole story, but he didn’t lie. He found Silver in the forest and he was his son.

[turbulentscrawl]

very curious abt your oc 👀...

The time is now... To preface, I made this character back in December, before Faro Lady was even teased, and I'm not willing to change Evelye's name...but for the sake of sparing confusion, I'll call her Evie most of the time.

(I'm also going to start posting some of the blurbs I've written about Evie and Luchino later.)

Warnings for canon-typical violence, cannibalism, and one mention of sex.

Evelyne Bailey, The Butcher

Age: 29 Nationality: American Likes: cicadas, needlework Dislikes: winter, mystery meat, teeth Talents: cooking, cleaning, trapping wild game Favorite Dish: Fried Okra

Test Indicators:

Selective Food Intolerance

Delusional Paranoia

emotionally starved

She is from America in Appalachia, and her backstory is loosely inspired by the Beast in the Cave.

Evelyne was an only child and her folks ran a little ranch/butchery kitchen in a small mountain town. They were sweet, generous people… Then somewhere in her youth, they made "friends" with strangers who lived further into the mountain range, and in time began killing travelers who passed through town, even going so far as to butcher, and eat them. Evelyne was young enough to not fully grasp what they were doing, and by the time she did, she felt it was too late for her to stop going along with it. Her parents grew to be dark and twisted people, and she took up running the store front due to how horrifying they'd become in appearance and behavior. As she grew older, she helped lure male travelers home for this process.

External Traits

TIDY UP

The Butcher knows how to clean up a mess. The trail left by the Butcher disappears 1.5 seconds faster. After taking damage, she leaves no trail at all for 3 seconds.

BREAD CRUMBS?

The Butcher has a bag of Remains and can use them to mislead a hunter by creating a fake trail for them to follow. At the start of a match she has enough Remains to leave a trail up to 30 meters long. This trail can persist up to 30 seconds and only one trail can exist at a time. Additionally, a new trail will activate the Hunter's tinnitus for the first five seconds after being placed. This ability can be recharged by healing teammates. Each time The Butcher heals one instance of damage, she recovers enough Remains for 10 meters of trail.

STERILIZED

Survivors healed by the Butcher have been thoroughly cleaned and leave no trail for 10 seconds.

HEMOPHOBIA

The sight of a bleeding human makes the Butcher uneasy. She heals allies 10% slower.

PERSONALITY/GENERAL HCS

Evie’s experience running a store front has made her a decent actress. She has above-average persuasion skills and can maintain a friendly facade during small talk. She flounders with deeper conversation, however, and has a tendency to shut down when asked about her pre-Europe past.

Evie’s living situation for the last few years back in Appalachia has made her paranoid of people. She believes that, since her own parents turned on her, everyone else is capable of it as well. Additionally, she’s afraid that people will try to slip her human meat for consumption without her knowledge. Evie is functionally a pescatarian; she will not eat non-fish meat that she did not hunt, butcher, and prepare herself from start to finish. (Beyond this, however, she is not a picky eater.)

Evie refuses to talk about her years in Appalachia. She’s convinced that if people knew what she did, everyone would turn on her and the manor would become her eternal hell. On some level, she thinks she’s a monster deserving of that fate. But her fear is too strong for her to test the waters.

Her paranoia has also made her very aware of physical body language. She’s only average at analyzing people’s words, but she was so used to watching her parents for signs they may attack her again, that she’s excellent at spotting tension, fear, and anger in others. She has also memorized the sounds of every hunter’s and survivor’s footsteps to identify them at a distance. Anyone familiar with paranoid behaviour will notice that she has a tendency to periodically slow down or pause completely during any noise-making activity and listen. When footsteps can be heard, she stops to identify who it is, and only resumes working when she’s determined it’s someone she trusts, or when they’ve passed.

Evie also suffers from nightmares and sudden bouts of extreme nausea.

While friendly at face-value, Evie is paranoid and distrusting of people. At the end of the day, she puts her own security and safety above anyone else's. She avoids standing within arms reach of people, and jerks away if someone leans close, as a reflex to avoid being bitten.

Her pain tolerance is a bit higher than average. Which is fortunate, because she's slightly resistance to pain-relieving medications. She's also somewhat resistant to anesthetics.

She's most comfortable with the Arms Factory and Dark Woods maps, as the taller trees and dense forests remind her a bit of home. She occasionally goes out to trap fresh meat from these maps when they're not in use--this has led to some tension with the Gamekeeper....

Evelyn's relationship with Luchino is a bit complicated. In the beginning she's nervous about him. He's polite and kind enough, but he has a quiet masculinity and bodily enhancements that make him a physical threat to her. But he's private and respectful, and Evie is emotionally and physically starved, so the door is first cracked open through casual sex. Over time, the things that first made her scared of him begin to make her feel safer around him. He's observant, and has good intuition, so he's good at anticipating and curbing Evie's paranoia bouts before they get too bad. The situation with Evil Reptilian further complicates things, as it gives Evie a window into the part of Luchino most like her parents. But at the end of the day, he might just be the bridge she needs to accept her own past and what it means for her own identity.

A Snippet of Evelyne's First Match

Evelyne could not hide from this “game” under the covers of her bed, it seemed. Though she had tried very hard to clutch her sheets, had squeezed her eyes shut until they ached, when she opened them again she was standing in an unfamiliar, forgotten church. The scene was dilapidated, dark, and dreary. If there was a sun, it was hidden behind an endless expanse of murky clouds. It was quiet, save the ominous caw of ravens outside.

Though it had taken Evelyne nearly too long to figure out what she was meant to do with a messenger bag filled with remains–bloody rags and scraps of cloth, tiny chunks of cartilage, bone, fresh offal–it was certainly coming in handy for the twists and turns of ruins. They worked well as gruesome “bread crumbs,” spiraling and coiling in confusing patterns around the crumbling ruins of the ominous church to mislead this Hunter into chasing a false injured prey. She had not so much as seen the face of the Hunter yet, but knew he or she was on-and-off her trail by the strange hammering of her heart. Sometimes she seemed to lose them entirely, thanks to those trails, but they were growing closer. Smarter, perhaps, or used to her tricks.

Another gong-like sound echoed in the distance. That was the second ‘cipher,’ she believed, which left three more to go. That seemed like too long.

Evelyne paused next to a set of lockers to catch her breath. The crackly voices of her ‘teammates’ sounded off in her earpiece with their decoding progress. For a moment, her fear seemed to ebb and Evelyne thought she might finally be in the clear.

A wave of fog suddenly surged over a wall and towards her, and before she could even wonder where it had come from, the Seer’s owl dropped down from the sky in front of her. It cut through the fog with wings like blades, and then surged off again with a screech, leaving Evelyne frozen and confused. All at once, she was hit with the feeling that she was in greater danger, that her enemy had just gotten stronger somehow, and that she was being watched.

A chill ran up her spine just before the wall across from her came crashing down.

Evelyne briefly took in a gangly man with a top had and a hand of long razors climbing over the rubble–giggling–before she took off in a sprint through the maze. Another rush of fog surged after her, and her feet kicked up dirt and dust with her skidding attempts to dodge. When it flew past, she swore it felt like someone had grazed her with a knife. As she doubled-back around a sharp bend, she heard a sickeningly sweet voice calling from beyond the walls.

“How tasteless of you,” the unsettling man said with raised volume. “Leaving me only stale, rotting scraps about when your fresh meat is so close at hand!” She felt eyes on her back again, but couldn't place from where. Another gong, but this time the sound covered the one of another crumbling wall.

It collapsed on top of her, and Evelyne dropped under the crushing weight with a cry of pain. Some of the rubble had cracked against her skull and now the dreary world was spinning and pulsing. The gangly, too-tall, top-hatted man stands over her, wiggling his knife fingers like he’s waving hello. The blades were almost as long as her arms; he had to stand at least 7 feet.

“Finally I get to meet you face to face,” he says. “You can call me Jack, my lady.” Jack the Ripper, she briefly recalled of the Seer’s lessons. A real, bonafide serial killer. If she had the energy, she would have spit in his face.

Jack bent down and plucked Evelyne from the rubble with one hand, lifting her like a weightless ragdoll and holding her in his arms. Though dazed, sore, and confused, she had sense enough to struggle in his hold. She squirmed and kicked all the way to the “chair” he would be placing her on, until she suddenly remembered the bag slung across her torso. As a last-ditch effort, Evelyne swung the half-filled thing into Jack’s face, splattering him with the gore he claimed to love so much. He yowled and dropped her.

The fall knocked the wind out of her, but Evelyne scrambled to her feet and ran as fast as she could.

[whoishotteranimepolls]

In Defense for Sabo (Why hes appealing to me)

To be perfectly honest, I am absolutely down bad for Sabo. I am a Simp in every sense of the word. So understand, I am biased by this point- That out of the way, he's perfect your honor. He's so tragic, so cool, and so silly- i think people overlook him because out of the ASL trio he has the least amount of screen time of the three- but everytime he's there it's a wild ride

I coukd write a really shitty 100k word thesis on this bastard(affectionate) so I'll try my best to keep it short

How do I even begin this? What hooked me initially on his character as a whole was how he was born into nobility and instantly hated it. He could see how messed up the people around him were even as a child, Hes a born anarchist. So he runs away and meets angry child Ace and then they're both menaces to society with a plan on ditching this place. You know the backstory I don't gotta explain more but like, the whole ASL brother dynamic is amazing and hes so middle child coded. Then the tragedies begin- in literally every single way the upper class could be horrific and terrifying, it happens over and over within like no time just to really hammer into him his distaste for the whole system. To skip all the angsty details, He felt so cornered that he ran away. Just sets sail despite his age, then of all people to aim a weapon at him, a Celestial Dragon proceeds to give him amnesia for the next like 9 years of his life with some insane blunt force trauma. That gun was basically an explosive canon, the fact Canon!Sabo just has the eye scar is why so many artists headcanon him with a much bigger scar. How he survived that is just a testament to how he's just

Built Different™

Then he basically jumps into the deep end so to speak with no fucking memory. By the time Ace is setting sail- he's already insanely strong. He ends up second in command for a reason- he's smart, he's powerful, he's got that never ending well of stamina just like his bros, he's a beast

And what finally brings back his past? He sees the news about marineford. What rejogs his memories- is his brother fucking dieing. (Oda basically confirmed that if Sabo had his memories, Ace would have lived. I mean- pretime skip Luffy almost succeeded- putting Sabo in the mix would have absolutely turned the tides. But that's beside the point- as i said hes just strong) Sabo only remembered when it was already too late- like...holy shit- the Angst. Tragedy after Tragedy and he couldn't even try to help this time-

Listen, what I'm trying to say is He's cool and angsty (like every other character tbf lol). He's just like his bros, a crazy bastard with a heart of gold who breeds chaos by being himself and standing for his ideals. Luffy and Ace have some crazy bloodlines and ya know, D. But Sabo is just Sabo and is right there with them in levels of chaos from day one.

He's just Built Different™

His whole presence in Dressrosa was amazing and hilarious- he shows up for the first time in- ever, one whole body luffy hug later and he's in the coliseum in Luffys disguise being an absolute badass. He successfully gets Aces fruit and then destroyed the coliseum with one move- he has some insane Haki and wields a damn pipe at the same time (the fact its something he kept from his time with his bros is so 🥹 but the juxtaposition is hilarious) Evertime he fights in this arc it's them sitting up the altercation and next time you see him- hes won and moved on to the next thing he's doing. One of my favorite little things is after Dressrosa -when he talks to the few who weren't passed the fuck out- and he gives Luffys vivre card to the strawhats. Not his personal Card to luffy- Luffys to his crew. He hasn't seen his brother in at this point like 10 years and somehow had his DNA to make it- everyone overlooks his crazy but it's hilarious

One of the best hugs in the anime just saying ^

I was head over heels after Dressrosa ngl.

If Luffy is silly and Ace is hot cool guy, Sabo is right in the middle. I do think it's funny he's boiled down to the smart one of the three, he is, but he's also so much more. Also, as the person who originally asked what the appeal was said, yeah he also doesn't smell like a trashcan. He's the only one of his bros that takes a regular shower lmao. And while I do blame my insant love for the tophat look on my prior love of Jacob Frye from assassins creed, I think he's got style too. He looks good and he's wearing a damn cravat(the white neck scarf thing) most the time, he pulls it off. The movie look with the teal/cyan trenchcoat, the Reverie scenes, the newest episodes he just got animated in again-

He is beauty, He is Grace, I want him to sit on my fa- sorry

For context, they are responding to this post about Sabo

Wow, I'm impressed the one piece fandom never ceases to amaze me with your dedication to your characters

[daresplaining]

I'm going to need to know your FULL opinion on the erosion of Elektra Natchios in The Red Fist Saga ASAP!

OOF. Okay, here goes...

Elektra's role in the Red Fist Saga directly follows the Woman Without Fear mini-series, so I feel like I should start there, especially since I haven't really talked about it yet on this blog. Woman Without Fear was an Elektra solo comic that came out just as Devil's Reign was ending and the creative team was gearing up for the Red Fist Saga. The mini-series's purpose was to introduce big, shocking changes to Elektra's origin story. These changes didn't end up having much to do at all with the Red Fist Saga, or with anything else really, but they did functionally strip her of her agency and autonomy and made her motivations instead revolve around Matt. Now, Elektra's origin story has changed before. Frank Miller himself gave us three versions: the original, introduced in Daredevil volume 1 #168 and #190, a slight variation in Elektra: Assassin (he changed the timeline a bit and modified the character of Elektra's father), and then an entirely new, in my opinion much less interesting version in Man Without Fear-- which was not intended to be part of the 616 continuity, though that didn't stop later writers from drawing from it, including Zdarsky, who seems to have used it as a core text to inform his characterization of Elektra in general.

I know you know Elektra's original origin story, but I'll provide the general gist for anyone who might be unfamiliar: Elektra Nachios was the daughter of a rich Greek diplomat and his wife. Her mother was gunned down by assassins while pregnant, but Elektra survived. Her father, now paranoid and fearful, put Elektra in martial arts classes from a young age, while also keeping her sheltered to protect her from harm. She ended up attending college in the US, where she met Matt Murdock, another sheltered kid with a beloved but overprotective father. They fell in love, but the magic was destroyed when Elektra and her father were taken hostage by terrorists. Matt tried to be a hero, and Elektra's father ended up getting killed. Shattered by grief, Elektra left school and traveled across the world to train with Stick, who had trained her childhood martial arts teacher before casting him out (in Elektra: Assassin, the timeline is slightly different; Elektra trained with Stick before attending Columbia, though the end result is the same). Stick saw Elektra's skill, but judged that she was too emotionally compromised to complete the training and kicked her out. Elektra devised a desperate plan to prove herself to Stick: infiltrating the Hand and taking them down from the inside. She failed tragically. Turned cynical by grief and hardship, she used the skills she had picked up from all of her training as weapons to protect herself from a harsh and unforgiving world. She carved herself a life from the tragedies she had endured. She became an assassin.

Note that I mentioned Matt's name a grand total of two times in that synopsis. It's not to say that Matt isn't important to Elektra, of course he is, but he isn't that important to her origin story. The star of this beautiful tragedy is Elektra, as she should be.

Woman Without Fear introduces something new-- at least, new to the comics (more on that in a moment). It takes the Elektra: Assassin timeline and suggests that she trained with Stick when she was still a child. (It also brings in things from the Man Without Fear Elektra origin, but I don't think I'm going to get into that here because that is a whole other rant and this post is long and tangent-y enough already). It then suggests that when Stick rejected her, she still ended up with the Hand-- but not of her own will, with the intention of destroying them. No! She was successfully recruited. And once the Hand had her in their clutches, they sent her out to go after another target: Matt Murdock. In this shiny new backstory, Elektra and Matt run into each other at college not as two kindred spirits, but because Elektra was ordered to hang out with him in order to bag him for the Hand...before, oh no!, accidentally falling in love with him. To add extra insult to this character assassination, we're told in the main series that even her behavior during her father's hostage situation was intended as a test for Matt.

What this change indicates to me is a fundamental lack of understanding of Elektra's character; or worse, a lack of respect for her complexity, or a conviction that she operates at her best as a tool to further Matt's narrative.

What is possibly most baffling to me about all of this is that this change had pretty much no bearing on the Red Fist Saga. Why was it made? What was the point? The term "MCU-ification", referring to changes being made in Marvel's comics that seem aimed at aligning them more closely with the MCU, gets thrown around a lot-- possibly too much-- but this really does seem like a case where there's no other clear explanation for the change other than to shift 616 Elektra's backstory closer to that of her live action counterpart. (In the Netflix show, Elektra recruited Matt for Stick; something I, as a huge Stick and Elektra fan, actually thought was a cool What If?/alternate universe because it presented an opportunity to explore a different take on their relationship). The new backstory is mentioned a few times in the main Daredevil series, but otherwise it seems irrelevant to the plot. And that's because Elektra herself is kind of irrelevant to the plot. She seems to have three purposes in this story: 1. To serve alongside Stick as an exposition machine and provide details about the Hand/Fist/Pinky Toe/etc.; 2. To be someone Matt loves and thinks about in moments of danger and conflict (despite the fact that they have very few moments of actual emotional connection in this story, despite getting married!), and 3. As a warm body onto which Matt can project his perpetual internal musings on good and evil ("Elektra was Bad, but she is Good now. She, like all people who have done bad things, is still worthy of God's love and is capable of rehabilitation, and look! Her decision to take on the Daredevil identity is proof that she is now Good! She has become a worthy soldier of God." Man, I wish I was exaggerating.)

Elektra's appearances in Daredevil comics have always centered around Matt to some degree, simply because it is his comic. There's miles of difference between reading a DD comic with Elektra cameos and reading an Elektra solo series. But that doesn't mean it isn't frustrating to have comics like the Blackman/Del Mundo run, or the Dark Reign solo tie-in, that delve so deeply into Elektra's rich psyche, that truly do look at her worldview in a way that is complex and morally difficult and so, so compelling, and then to have comics like this where she barely even feels present because so little effort has been made to do anything other than slap some vague morality lessons onto her and make sure she and Matt sleep together every other issue.

[julie-sufan]

The In-Depth Look at Julie-Su Part 6: Knuckles #16-23

Issue #16 is a one shot. Here Knuckles is upset after finding out that his mom plans to marry her new boyfriend. He runs off not wanting to talk to anyone at the moment.

First (But definitely not the last) time that Julie kisses Knuckles. Then they share a nice quiet moment together.

Issue #17 & 18 features yet another past echidna guardian with a ton of backstory. He meets Julie-Su who is riding an absurdly evil looking horse type of creature.

Love that she's giving him attitude even when in the thrones of death.

In issue #18 she stops by Lara-Le's house (Knuckles's Mom) for some tea and cookies and to hear about of Tobor's (The echidna with the unique eyes) backstory.

Another moment I like. Here we see Julie-Su going from being in complete denial about wanting a relationship with Knuckles to hugging him on the exact same page. Kind of reminds me of Michiru from Fruit of Grisaia who would also fail at trying to be a tsundere type.

Second kiss scene.

Issues 19-21 barely has Julie in it and centers around the Royal Acorn Family. It really feels like a plot that should have been in the main Sonic comic series but for some reason ended up here.

Issue 20 features the first full appearance of Elias who would later show up in the Sonic comic.

After this point Julie gets knocked out for pretty much the rest of the arc.

Next arc 22-24 is going to be a bit tricky to talk about without getting political because it features politics. Please keep in mind that this arc was written way back in 1999.

It features a importance first appearance of Julie-Su's half sister Lien-Da working with the Dark Legion to smash stuff up. No matter what you're views are I like to think that people would come together against the anti-flat screen party.

Did some quick research and found this from howstuffworks. Flat screen tvs used to be called HDTVs when they were first released around 1998.

"Those sets came from manufacturers like Panasonic and Sony, and had a different appearance -- they were wider than standard televisions. That's because the new HDTV standard also included a new aspect ratio. The standard aspect ratio was 4:3, the new ratio was 16:9. They also came with a hefty price tag -- the first sets on the American market cost $7,000 or more."

Lien-Da has never looked more sinister. You can really tell that the artist (Jim Valentino) enjoyed drawing the Dark Legion and it's various members.

Nice Chaotix group shot. This upcoming full page scene I'm going to let speak for itself and that's all I'll say on it.

Hope you enjoy seeing Julie hang upside down because that's what she spends the most of issue 24 doing.

Next up: More hanging around and the Dating arc.

[popculturebuffet]

X-Month Finale: My Top 10 X-Runs

Welcome one and all to the grand finale of X-Month. A thing or two got changed and moved around but i'm overall proud of how it went this time. We've looked at darkwing duck, the greatest x-men cartoon ever, and Nightcrawler's two moms. Now we end this month with A look at something diffrnet but personal to me. These are my top 10 x-runs, the runs of x-men and it's various spinoffs that I truly love, that define the book for me and define this part of the franchise. There the books that either made me love mutants so much in the first place or helped reaffirm why. They run the gammut from the just ended at the time of this article Krakoa era's majesty all the way back to chris claremont helping retool a struggling half baked idea into one of the greatest comics ever. These comics are why I love x-men and i'm happy to share them with you and hopefully get you to read them and hopefully i'll be able to cover them all some day. But for now this is a nice smorgoseboard of what makes the strangest mutants of all marvel's best part, a small pocket full of creativity, commentary , change and artistic glory.

So a few guidelines: For longtime readers, I usually do top 12 lists, to the point i'm shirnking my best animated episodes list down to it, but with all the x themeing in the krakoan age it felt right to slim it down to a nice sharp x. The second is that i'm crediting every artist who worked on at least three issues. I'd credit all of them but the runs from the 2010's and 2000's are caked with one off fill ins and 80's comics tended to have a ton of one off fill ins or other people doing the annuals. I'm not against it, if you have someone who can do great art or guest on a run do it and it's thanks to this kind of thing we got walt simonson for one glorious issue of x-men, I just don't want the art credits to be 80 pages long, but DID take the effort to comb thorugh every run and find every artist that at least did an arc on the books honored here, as i'm trying to break out of only propping up the writers when it comes to comics. Their a VISUAL medium and the artists are often what makes a run. So to under the cut my x-men for the uncanny, the astonshing and my faviorites.

10. The New Mutants Written By Chris Claremont Drawn by Bob McLeod, Sal Buscema, Bill Sienkiewicz, Steve Leialoha, Mary Wilshire, Rick Leonardi and Jackson Guice Marvel GN #4, New Mutants Vol 1 , #1-54 + 3 Annuals, NM Special #1 59 Issues

It was the 80's and the Uncanny X-Men was marvel's best selling comic. Chris Claremont and a slew of talented game changing artists had turned a once niche property into one of the most layered, engaging and compelling books out there. So naturally Marvel wanted MORE money and to spin off this mother. Chris was reluctant because he wanted the main book to be special and it's own thing.. but was then threatned that if he didn't do it someone else will, so he found a concept he liked: Focusing on teenage emerging mutants something lightly glanced at with Kitty Pryde in Uncanny but this book brough to the forefront.

In the process Clarmeont and Bob Mcleod created a bunch of my faviorite mutants: The outspoken but Compasionate and tactical Dani, her bestfriend/sorta girlfriend and heavily abused prior to her coming to the team Rahne, naive country boy Sam, smooth talking only in his head and hot headed in everywhere including his body and my adopted son Roberto. Theree was also Karma, a later revealed to be queer immigrant (While not done by Chris Claremont here he certainly is responsible for it later int he 2000s', so respect) trying to care for two siblings the book quickly writes out.

The book would add four more to the mix: Amilla who thanks to a messy backstory and not a lot of use is eh, and three of my faviorites: Illyana, Kitty Pryde's best friend and a sorceress who was kidnapped and tortured by a demon man, Doug Ramsey, kitty's other friend and a computer genius who can read any language and in this era was a non combatant and Warlock, doug's best self friend, a goofy gloriously weird looking alien on the run from his abusive dad.

If your thinking this team has a lot of angst you'd be correct: Rahne is introduced running from an angry mob, Dani having to go with a white man she resents after her grandfather is shot, Roberto's girlfriend being killed by bigots and Sam barely able to keep his family fed having to mine in his pa's place after his dad died. The X-Men as a rule carry baggage but these poor kids had a whole planeload, not helped by being hated and feared.

And yet they perservere: they find love, find strength in each other. They sometimes clash, poor Illyana gets accused of being evil due to her demonic powers far too often, Sam has a one sided crush on Amara, and Doug grapples with being the only one on the team whose powers don't make him fight good.

The book also has a fantastic horror tone at times , something uesd early on as the Professor Xavier who brought these kids together to train them, and to not fight which being mutants is still something they run into constantly. While the issues after tried to go for a more conventional superhero book, Bill Skinewietz arrival, gloriously scratchy pencils and endlessly awesome covers helped cement it: these were kids dealing with terrible horrors: aliens who'd kill their own children, the DID ridden head of Charles Xaviers son, demons internal and without, and a demonic bear following Dani Moonstar I still don't fully understand, but still slaps.

New Mutants is one of the best x-books of the 80s, with X-Factor close behind it (It didn't make the cut but I still love Louise Simonson's Run), and one other just ahead. It's a book full of creative swings, ideas that would last the franchise a while and some of the best mutants ever made.

9. Iceman Written by Sina Grace DB Alesandro Vitti, Edgar Salazar, Robert Gil, and Nathan Stockman Iceman V3 1-11, Iceman V4 1-5, X-Men Winters End 17 Issues

This is the shortest out of these runs and that's for a very simple reason: Marvel's Editorial was very shitty to writer Sina Grace. They lambastated him for going on podcasts in a way that was subtly hompohobic, brought him back for another run.. and then cancled it 5 issues in. Grace has since done work for DC and marvel needs to both apologize and either bring him back or at least collect his run.

Iceman comes from RessuXion, Marvel's kinda sorta push to bring the x-men back after trying to kill them with the previous era. That's not hyperbole, there was a giant murder cloud, most of ya'll likely know, and Ike Pearlmutter was thankfully gone so the X-Men got something resembling a push and the fantastic four were reunited. That last part isn't relevant.

Ressurxion was only a half measure: the x-men really didn't interact with the rest of the lines still, one of the two flagship titles X-Men Gold, was a mediocre rehash of a bunch of previous stories wasting the great idea of having Kitty Pryde lead, and X-Men Blue, while awesome and only barely not making this list at various points, felt very weel spinny as Cullen Bunn wasn't alowed to change much as Hickman's run was on the horizon but not set ins tone. Which is stupid and something I doubt HIkcman actually approved or asked for.

Still Ressuction had a hidden gem alongside Blue: Iceman. So long story short that's going to sound weird even to fans who were there: The Original Five X Men were brough to the future by Beast in a stupid move that left them stranded and traumtized. Jean being about as tactful as a hurricane during Bendis run , OUted bobby claimed "he's not bi he's full on gay" and kinda shoved him out of the closet. While this was well meaning as Bobby still was in the closet in present day, it was done hamm handledly with a slice of accidental bi erasure.

Our Bobby coming out though was thankfully handled better with him admitting he didn't admit he was gay and while Bendis handeld the first part of the coming out with a sledge hammer, several previous x writers had left the seeds that the og class clown was indeed gay and it' sa move I support: the grounding was there and even with him dating women he never seemed that invested for the most part.

So the next era was too busy with the murder cloud to do anything of note with him being out, but thankfully they gave bobby to Sina Grace. Iceman is a fantastic solo and a fantastic queer superhero book, with Bobby figuring out what Coming Out means in his late 20's, and being both out and proud.. but still having struggles. He dosen't know how to put his profile together, has an akward mission with his last het romance kitty, a romance that in hindsight perfectly comes off like someone trying badly to pass as straight, and flirts with wolverine's disaster bisexual son who serves as the main antagonist. It's a book that explores just how fun bobby can be and sold me on a character I didn't care about before.

It also goes into his awful parents. His dad was a massive asshole in the 90's, tried to change but snapped back and while the snap back is a bit o fa continuity gafe, it's one that works as Bobby has to come out to two parents who already barely accept he's a mutant, and now have to accept he's gay. And then try to groom his past self to be the perfect son they always wanted.

It's a great run that not only lets Bobby show off his powers but his heart, humor and what makes him a great character. Check it out of you haven't and hopefully we'll get a one volume edition one of these days. Also just so I dont' have to say that a thousand time that goes for EVERY run present.

8. Wolverine and the X-Men Written by Jason Aaron Art by Chris Bachalo, Nick Bradshaw, Jorge Molina, Ramon Perez, Pepe Larazz and Ed McGuiness 42 Issues + Annual + AU Issue + Amazing X-Men 1-5 49 Issues

Wolverine and the X-Men is the big breakout of one Jason Aaron, a writer I have mixed feelings about. He has written comics I like, this one, doctor strange and so far his TMNT run, but has a weakness for putting over the top spectacle over character or cohesive plot, his Thor run degrading with time and his Avengers run having great ideas for plots but no real meat to said plots.

Wolverine and the X-Men does run into that a little, mostly with the x-men themselves as only WOlverine really gets an arc: most of the team gets a spotlight issue, but still spend the bulk of their time in fight scenes. Kitty Pryde is the only one besides logan to net decent focus and that gets thrown out as Brian Micheal Bendis called dibs as soon as he joined post avx. This was the first book I read with rachel summers but outside of her spotlight she's mostly there to be the token telepath. We never really get a sense of what she WANTS out of the school, how she feels about what Scott's up to anything personal. Cannonball, Sam from New Mutants, gets it worse as he's really just there for his sisters subplot and nothing else. I won't evfen get into the horny bird lady sexually harassing iceman. Ther'es also a bad tendency to treat Cyclops as some form of despot and not that guy what over at the other place.

That said the series manages to dodge this being a complete issue with the kids: Wolverine and the X-Men is at it's core a teen x-men book and the reason these teens are back in school at all also provides nice motivation for Logan to be running a school, something the book frequently lampshades is kinda nuts. With mutantkind dwindling at the time, Cyclops kept militarizing the children and Logan, tired of it and wanting them to live rather than surivvie, took half the x-men and any willing students.

The result is a diverse and intresting student body focusing mainly on Idie, a young religoius african teen who sees her powers as a curse and herself as a monster, Broo, my faviorite x-child period and an adorable nerd who happens to be a brood, a group of aliens that try to eat the x-men regularly with the mutation to not be a bloodthirsty monster, Gensis, a cloned apocalypse who was given superman's upbringing in stasis. And of course theirs Quinten Quire whose been overused sense this but hadn't really got to do anything. He's a punk who after a breakdown at finding out he was adopted decided to throw a riot at the school. He'd rather be on Cyclops Island but gets dragged to Jean Grey's School for Hire Leanring, renamed from "I did your wife school of hire learning". It' shis evolution tha'ts intresting: going from a mouthy twerp with way too much power and ego to.. well still a mouthy twerp but one with an actual heart and friends. We also have Kid Gladiator, son of the shiar empreoro gladiator and boisterious hilaroius jock. We also get great additions like eyeboy, sprite and shark girl, albeit none getting a ton of focus here.

While the main cast is great, what throws this series over the top its it's gonzo creativity. More than any writer since morrrison and until hickman, Aaron embraced the batshit insanity of the x-men and grasps at it with a gonzo whimsy few can match. Jason Aaron has had his issues with reining it in but with x-men it's just the right ballance.

The first arc alone, one of my faviorites despite not being a fan of chris bachelos art, Wolverine opens school, and find sit under siege from a revamped hellfire club, now a bunch of tweens lead by Kade Kilgore. Given hellfire was reduced to "sebastian shaw on occasion maybe" by this point, it was a needed revamp and I get it's not everyones taste but for me it works. Especially when one of Kade's minons is a frankenstien (the doctor not the monster man), who grenade launches frankenstiens at our heros and mutates two members of the school board into a wendigo and a sauron. Oh and the schools grounds have become a baby krakoa, the hisland that wallks like a schoolyard, which wins the day and soon becomes my faviorite part of the book. I loved krakoa since I was a teen so seeing him get revamped as this adorable adiditon was great and I still wonder what happened to them and why the krakoa era never adressed them.

Our heroes fight weaponized brood pregancies, go to space casinos to raise funds, deal with angel having come back as an actual angel and possed by.. something, too many tie ins, a murder circus lead by frankenstien, a field trip to the savage land and a final showdown with the hellfire club. It was a wonderfully creative, batshit insane story with tons of great ideas that have been barely touched, like School-Krakoa, Toad as a good guy or Logan's brother dog coming back as a time traveling badass. There are better books than Wolverine and the X-MEn but few have this much fun.

PS: Almost buried the leap, this book brought doop from x-statix back and i'm eternally greatful and his spotlight issue, drawn by co-creator mike allred, is easily the best of the run. I mean it has this alone

So speaking of doop

7. X-Statix Written by Peter Milligan Drawn by Mike Allred X-Force 116-129, X-Statix 1-26, Dead Girl 1-5, Wolverine/Doop 1 and 2 46 issues

X-Statix came about as part of marvel's big relaunch of the X-Men with New X-Men, canceling several titles, relaunching a few and changing up the few left. In this case X-Force, previously about the new mutants as they grew up and got guns then got their personalities back once Rob Liefield left, they instead completely upended it. The old cast was gone, the old premise was gone, and a whole new idea and cast of mutants were introduced.

The series had a genius premise: A shady reality show producer, Spike Freeman, starts up a mutant reality show at the height of the reality show boom starring a bunch of mutants who are desperate to be loved and adored by becoming rich and famous, often being conceded assholes like any reality tv star.

The catch was revealed in the first issue as the bulk of the team is gunned down: Only angry black man with internalized issues about his race Anarchist and the egotistical , pill popping shocking compitent u go girl are left as the team is rebuilt, now lead by the orphan, a man with super sensitivty and a ton of lampshaded angst, Vivisector, an erudite wolfman who later turns out to be gay, Phat, one of the many white kids approraiting black culture at the time, and Dead Girl. THere's many more but this is the core of the cast for most of the book, which was later relaunched as X-Statix. Many a member dies, no one is safe, and it's cyncial as fuck, making fun of celebrity, events, and mutant cliches. Some of the shine has rubbed off this one as a lot of these jokes have been made a lot, but it's still fun thanks to it's compelling cast who get fleshed out amazingly, meditations on fame, and Doop, the little ball of tumors that follows them around. It's it's own neat little pocket of the marvel unvierse: it's revivial is pretty detached from Krakoa and something I need to check out and it's cast, due to mbeing dead a alot, havne't really crossed over. But the book itself stands as a nice unique pocket

And saving the best for last no discussion would be complete without Mike Allred, an artist with a unique style remincent of jack kirbys btu still his own that's this nice art deco chunky goodness and works perfectly here, both giving the mutants all really fantastic designs and nicely giving everything a splash of color to contrast the dark tone. This is one I picked up in high school in backissues and hasn't left me since.

6. Uncanny X-Men Writer: Kireon Gillen Artists: Carlos Pachcheo, Terry Dodson, Greg Land and Daniel Acuna Uncanny X-Men V1 #534.1-544, X-Men Regenisis, Uncanny X-Men Volume 2 #1-20, AVX Consequences 1-5, 36 Issues

So when I first got back into comics reguarly I figured from both is more dangerous new design where he can't see too good

And the way both bendis own much worse companion book and various others like Uncanny Avnegers or Wolverine and the X-Men talked about him and AVX that Scott Summers had become the new magneto and a dangerous edgelord man.

Instead the truth was more nuanced as i'd learn: Some writers made Scott a bit of an ass during his time leading utopia, the slap of concrete what contained all the muants left. But despite some questionable actions down more to bad writing, he wasn't evil. He asn't purely good either as the schism I mentiond proved, driven to do whatever it took to survive. He was shady but never quite took the heel turn, instead being an intrestingly pragmatic character. Also while he did kill charles xavier it was while hopped up on the phoenix force, something he points out reguarly making everyone else come off as assholes for giving Jean a pass but not scott.

And the man who wrote this best was Kireon Gilleon, scottish writer and maestro who came along after a decent but forgetable run from Matt Fraction and gave the franchise the injection it needed.

His run started with the x-men on utopia nad not only reballanced Scott after said bad writing, but showed off the good and bad of Scott: he's repessed and obessive, but also a stategic mastermind determined to save his people. The early part of his run does what the run before it by Matt Fraction did: uses the whole of mutantkind for huge spectacle as well as return Kitty Pryde to normal, she was a ghost for a while, so she can go off with the other book. The highlight is it's climax: juggernaught, jacked up on the power of a god and a hammer like thor, is more unstoppable than normal and Scott throws EVERY plan he has at the guy and every mutant he has at the guy which is ALL OF THEM who aren't children. And even a few children because the situations that bad.

The real meat is the sadly short livedb ut awesome second volume of uncannY: After the schism, Scott splits up, getting Emma because she loves the guy, Namor because he wants to do Emma and i'm not exagerating he's blatant about it, Storm because Scott dosen't trust himself, Hope the mutants own personal jesus, Danger, the former danger room having gained snetience and tried to kill charles for enslaving her

Dr Nemisis, an immortal nazi hunter, Colossus, current host of the juggernaught powers, his sister Magik, Psylocke, and of course Magneto, who'd recently joined up and is master of magnet.

This team of scary motherfuckers is the exctinction team and that name is unsettling on purpose but also dosen't mean kill everyone.. it just means they could and Scott is both helping mutantkinds rep AND scarring the shit out of it's eneies my taking on extinction events: if something can wipe out huamnity it's their job and it's a fucking briliant setup. Take the strongest x-men left on scott's side, which is really most of THE strongest in general and put them against the worst.

This also sets up the big bad of the series and Kireon's best achivment: Sinister. Gilleon revamped him from a fairly sterotypical and deranced mad science man to a campy as hell horrible as hell man who sets out to remake the world literally in his image, thinks turn of the century britan was just fine, hates women and isn't lacking for quips or meance with our heroes stuck in a city of him that can develop safe guards every time they kill one. And he does so by stealing a celestial's head, which means the first mission alone is stop a space god AND a madman.

There's other good romps but sinister is the core and the series weathers the avx tie ins decently, weaving them into what's writtne. IT's ending, consequences, isn't nearly as good, with scott feeling out of character and was meant to set up further adventures that instead got handed off to bendis, but Gielleon's runs a great mediation on absolute power , scare tactics and the meaning of fear regardless and is still a joy to read every time.

5. X-Men Red/S.W.O.R.D. By Al Ewing Art by: Valerio Schiti, Jacopo Camagni, Stefano Caselli , Jacopo Camagni , Yildray Cinar and Luciano Vecchio S.W.O.R.D. V2 #1-11 , Cable Reloaded, X-Men Red V2 1-18 and The Resurrection of Magneto 1-4 34 Issues

Al Ewing is one of my faviorite writers in comics. easily. Starting with Mighty Avengers, i've adored his runs on Immortal Hulk, his ant-man/wasp trilogy, his character defining run for Roberto decosta on new avengers and usa avengers and what i've read of immortal thor among others. Al Ewing is Marvel's best writer these days and in a pool that includes Jonathan Hickman and now once again Gail Simone, tha'ts the highest praise.

So naturally given Ewing had a clear love of x-men from new avengers alone and a deep love of continuity I was chomping at the bit for him to join the krakoan age, a bit disapointed he wasn't in the first round of books but knowing he had ot show up he just had to.

Thankfully my prayers were answered as not only did Ewing arrive he arrived in style, bringing back SWORD, once shield's extraterestial arm now krakoas. Ewing at the time was reworking marvel's space with his Guardians run and wrote SWORD in concert with it, as big evfents happened and SWORD stood ready, while bringing earth, or sol as it's called onto the galactic stage, starting the run with stealing a mystery metal from the heart of creation and then using it to fund the galactic economy. SWORD was a solid captivating book, amping up the idea of mutant circutis (a bunch of mutants working in concert), galactic marvel and earth's place in it.

What's brilliant in hindsight though as while a great book on it's own, making characters I thought were highly underused like Wiz Kid or Frenzy rise to full potetial and making previously also ran mutant Peeper into a star overnight. I mean look at him

I also love Magneto is so .. happy to see him.

While SWORD is great what followed is truly incredibly, some of ewings best work and all the groundwork was laid in sword, from Magneto regretting his past in the hellfire gala tie in to said gala leading to one of the best events in x-history: Arakko. A bunch of mutatns who'd become a warrior civilization needed a home so thier island was put on mars giving them a planet and possible peace... and storm was put there as regent.

This leads to an even better sequel as ewing keeps SWORD head abigail brand on as big bad, wanting to destroy mutant civilzation and make earth a real power in the universe, and thus Arakko is a great chess piece as Storm plays against Abby for it's future for the first two arcs. Storm is a fantastic character and ewing gets her down pat, her grace, her badassery but also her humanity, kindness and mohawk. Helping her are my two faviorite mutants, no really 1 and 2 respectively, Magneto and Sunspot. Magneto was already eating well in the krakoan age, but ewing gives the old man humanity, with Magneto realizing his lost daughter Anya wasn't a mutant.. and thus can't be brought back and wondering what all this was for, being cojolled into things as he realizes as much as he wanted to retire he can't. Roberto meanwhile had a rough start in Krakoa as Jonathan Hickman took out all his brains for some reason despite being the one who started to emphasize that he's more than just a pretty face.

Ewing in his avengers runs made roberto into a master stratageist and chessmaster bar none who still loved parties, champaign robots and the mission impossible theme, so I was utterlyt hrilled to see berto on the cover. Now a consort to Shiar regent Deathbird and having a stake in the game, Roberto comes to arakko to play and quickly gets involved in things, using his skills to help his new team. Ewing is the man who truly made the best roberto decosta and it's so gratifying to see he got a second lap.

Ewing also builds up arakko well: it's culture, i'ts changes, and the challenges storm and magneto face in changing it, concluding in a massive war that ends the series as arakko's past rule comes knocking. Add in a great epilogue exploring magento and storm and you have one of the finest comic runs in recent memory.

4. New X-Men Written by Grant Morrison Art by Frank Quitely, Evan Van Sciver, Igor Kordey, Phil Jiminez, Chris Bachalo, and Marc Silvestri 114-154 Plus Annual 41 Issues

It was the early 2000's and the x-men had hit a fucking a wall. The 90s while fondly remembered for the jim lee outfits, awesome cartoon and other delights, were a nightmare time for the x-men. Just trying to read that era of uncanny and adjectivless to fill the gaps in my knowledge was a waking nightmare with only a few bright spots. I got as far as just after operation zero tolerance and bailed and despite bringnig back heavyweights like Alan Davis or Chris Claremont, restrictive ediotrial mandates, overdone crossovers and other nonsense had left the x-men barley standing.

Desperate Marvel had a bunch of creators pitch various ideas for a bold new take on the x-men.. and the winner was the one, the only Grant Morrison. Grant had already made big splashes at DC with their runs on Doom Patrol, Animal Man and more, had a penchant for writing gloriously weird, sometimes incomprehnsible stories with a beating human heart. So being both a hot writer from the other company and having a bigger bolder vision, and needing badly for the comcis to recover to cash in on the recent film and upcoming X-Men Evolution, they agreed.

The result is the run that made me the x-holic I am today: while I read x-men stories i loved before this, with Chris Claremont and Paul Smith's run being the first this is the one that got me as hooked as I am: a stylish run with what morrison called a kinetic strut, aided by Frank Quitely's weird and awesomely unique art and a variety of other artists of varying quality brought out a vision of a bold new era.

The run came out hot: it stripped it's cast down to a core of iconic x-men, added in Emma Frost finally fully reforming but still 100% that bitch, and threw in curveballs with kind monk with a hell of a look xorn and xavier himself getting his legs back. There were set backs as Colossus was killed before Morrison could use him and Claremont called dibs on rogue and storm for X-Treme X-Men, but they pivoted well.

However a flashy new look wasn't what made the book, it was it's frantic pace and bold new vision: Morrison recontexulizted the x-men as an actaul minority, giving them a culture, a voice and making many weirder and wilder than ever before, showing that not every mutant got to pass. He also threw the x-men out of the shadows: formerly, a group of outlaw mutants hated and feared, they weere still that but thanks to Professor Xavier's twin who tried to choke him in the womb, he's outed to the public and rolls with her , using his body as a suit at the time, doing so to change the x-mens mission, now doing more search and rescue with slick leather jackets. They aren't traditional superheroes anymore, but just a trained team of the best trying to help their own. The X-Men now hav ea worldwide reach with x-corp with missions going from paris to shang hai.

Morrison took plenty of other hammers to the status quo: Xavier and Lilandra broke up, he could walk, Genosha got destroyed in a devistating act, scott and jean had marriage crissi as Emma gaslit him into an affair and Beast got his awesome lion look. The run also isn't afraid to get weird with xavier's twin he seemingly killed in th womb Cassandra Nova, a corrupt general whose skin becomes golems, and a special class made of mutants all with weird borderline useless powers, most of whom would become fan faviorites.

Years ago this would've been my easy number one but age for both me and the comic have revealed cracks; Some bits haven't aged well like Dust, whow hil ea good character now was done with no real research or depth, the u men dangling way too close to a parody of trans people, being just fringe enough to avoid it but still far closer than they should be.

The biggest knock though is the final two arcs: everything up to that is minty fresh and full of cool ideas warts and all. The last two arcs have Morrison try to rerail magneto back into a hateful monster instead of the complicated monster he'd become, something already tried in the 90's but even worse here, with Magneto reduced to the boring silver age villian that got old fast. I'm not against holding his feet to the fire for his worse actions, but this one was too far and swiftly retconned.. in a very dumbass way but still, you uusally only get a patch on a bad story that fast. Here Comes TOmmorow likewise is a trippy and mediocre finale to the run. Not as bad as what just came before, but it's grant morrison at their most self indulgent... that i've read.

Still despite the runs issues.. it's a good ride and worth it for classics like E is For Extinction and Riot at Xaviers alone.

3. X-Men By Jonathan Hickman Art by Pepe Laraz, R.B. Silva, Lenil Francis Yu, Mahmud Asrar and Valerio Schiti House of X 1-6, Powers of X 1-6, X-Men 2019 1-21, 5 Giant Size X-Men One Shots, and Inferno 1-4 42 Issues

Anyone whose read this blog a long time knew this was coming. I mention X-Men as much as possible and the krakoan era, being so weird and wonderful, was something I brought up a lot. Especially the x-men colonizing mars. And I probably will again. The Krakoan age is one of the best eras of x-men and while it ended in fire and a whimper, it started with a bang.

The x-men were in a bad place in 2019. Ressurxion as I mentioned wasn't horrible but wasn't really a reinvention, partly because they woudln't let anyone make any real changes which... again this run could've easily dealt with fine. Before that Marvel , and once again entirely serious tried to kill the x-men, showving them to the side and trying intitally to make the inhumans symapthetic when they needed to get rid of their murder cloud. And the inhumans books WERE great, but no one could get the taste of ike pearlmutter trying to make them the new x-men out of their mouths.

And like the last time the x-men were in a bad spot, marvel sought a hot creator, gave them creative control and let them do a hard stylish reset. Last time it was grant morrison, , this time it was Jonathan Hickman.

Hickman is one of my faviorite marvel writers. While he started slow yet awesome with a small run on secret warriors, a book that remade shield and did black ops glory, he rose to his biggest success with Fantastic Four, taking one of marvel's greatest teams and plunging them out of their rut with a big sweeping sci fi plot, clever ideas like 4 great cities about to go to war, a council of far less moral reed richardses, and smaller scale but no less game changing ideas like havnig the fantastic four open up a think tank for children, the future foundation, finally once and for all resolving ben grimm's on and off state of being cured, and giving the richards kids fleshed out personalities.

I could gush about this run all day but i'll save that for next year.

The point is HIckman had a talent for big wordy sweeping epics and was quickly tapped to follow up Brian Micheal Bendis on avengers, which had also gotten old for some, expanding the team's scope, having a meta plot about the multiverse dying and combining a core of familiar faces (including hulk's first longterm run as an avenger), with people who had yet to wield the circle a like Cannonball, Sunspot and SHang Chi, giving all three a needed boost.

So him doing X-Men was a natural next step that seemingly just.. didn't happen. Ike Pearlmutter's attempt to dempahsises it probably is why and Hickman having completed his sweeping epic across several titles, was ready to go to dc. THen Marvel, desperate to revitalize the circle x.. offered it to hickman. And a thing I didn' tknow is while he got what made the ff and avengers work perfectly.. hickman wasn't a fan of either going in. He did his through homework and you honestly can't tell he dosen't, but X-Men on the otherhand was his teenage obession. Like me, it consumed him and he jumped at the chance to do it his way.

He also saw a franchise that post avx had stagnated, not really inovating and growing and gave it a shot in the arm. Just like New X-men before it, Hickman decided to ditch where the franchise had been stuck, in schools with never aging classes and wars with each other and try something entirley new, something that could not be walked back easily and that even going back to basics, the current run is still feeling the repurcussions of. With 6 golden words:

Hickman in his epic pair of mini series that are really one big 12 issue series, House of X and Powers of X flipped up the wohle gameboard and erased problems that had been plauging the x-men: The constant climate of fear? The X-Men decided to fuck off to their own island nation, Krakoa, the island that walks like a man and is now cool with them. Humanity hating and fearting them? still a problem but they can sue for peace with some mmmm drugs and deal with those who don't take the mmmmm drugs. And they could just give these mmmm drugs that cure brain diseases free but after the rampant genocides, not hyperbole they have a statistic

Their saying enough. And the various mutants killed off for shock value? Well... death no longer matters. In a game changing final reveal, mutants can now be revivied from teh dead thanks to 5 working in concert. Add in a meta riff with Moria Mactaggerts 10 lives and you have a brilliant start

And HIckman did'nt stop there, as his next book , X-Men and i'ts companion piece Giant Sized X-Men was less one long narrative and more a series of ideas for the universe he was creating, a series of brilliant one shots following Scott Summers in a good place in his life: His wife is back from the dead, their embracing polyamory so he can still see emma and Jean can see wolverine who lives with them, both their kids are alive and well. It's a dream. And with every issue hickman provided a great adventure from magneto standing against a tie in, to discovering Krakoa's lost sibling setting up the massive x of sowrds crossover, to a family roadtrip into space to dela with the brood, to the savage land ot fight the golden girls, to a hidden vault to face the future, there was never an end to his creatviity or clever ideas.

Sadly there was an end to his run with Inferno which left on a high tying up some threads and leaving the rest open for those to take up the sword after he left. Hickman's run is gorgeously drawn by a bevy of the best in the buisness, well throught out and stylish and I will likely read it forever. While Krakoa sadly didn't last this run stands forever as what it is : MUTANT.

2. X-Factor By Peter David Art by Peter David and Pablo Raimondi, Ryan Sook, Dennis Calero, Renato Arlem, Roy Allen Martinez, Khoi Pham, Scott Eaten, Valentine De Landro, Larry Stroman, Marco Santucci, Bing Cansino, Emanuela Lupacchino, Leonard Kirk, Neil Edwards, and Paul Davidson Madrox 1-5, V3 1-50, 200-262 , X-Factor The Quick and the Dead, X-Factor: Layla Miller and Nation X: X-Factor 119 Issues

Peter David might be my faviorite x-writer and is the other major reason I fell as hard for x-men as I did. Starting off at marvel with his character defining run on Incredible Hulk, he did a short stint on the x-side of things with X-Factor, following up the original run by focusing on a bunch of lesser focused mutants who weren't afraid to pepper things with jokes, weren't immune to tragedy, and threading a nice line between real danger and humor. It sadly didn't last long, but what we got was great.

So come the 2000's, he returned to marvel after a long stint at dc and another sensational run with young justice, Peter David asked "Are you ready for the sequel?" So came X-Factor, also known as X-Factor Noir to defretate it from the previous two runs, a decade long run rivaling Chris Claremonts in character, franchise impact and sheer girth. David's come the closest to Claremont's flair for shakeups, cast rotation and soap opera.

X-Factor primarily stars Jamie Madrox, an also ran mutant who could multiply who was the comic relief in David's previous run then kinda thrown aside like garbage and used in backgrounds. Clearly liking Jamie and seeing potential in him, David brought his boy back as a private eye working cases in mutant town. What was once the mutant burogh of new york is now filled with those who lost their powers on m-day, something our heroes also investigate as Wanda's mental breakdown wasn't exactly common knowledge.

Helping Jamie in his noir detective fantasy are Strong Guy, his best friend and the best character of the previous run, Wolfsbane, who was also on that team but is now older and angister, even more so after she leaves the team breifly to join x-force, Siryn, jamie's dupes ex and daughter of the banshee and M, monet st croix whose better than you and knows it. Monet is STILl a major fan faviorite and player to this day thanks to this run and everyone got a bump. This included later additons longshot and shatterstar, the latter of whom became a pansexual icon.

The run is massive and something I hope to cover someday in SOME form but loops our heroes as they do buisness in mutanttown, move to the east for goverment work, come back to nyc, and deal with everything from a manical man from the future to the invisible woman going missing. It's a fun run full of deep character development, well executed twists and while I used to feel it had a huge downturn, it seems far more coherent now.. though i'd still have to reread to see for sure. But what's ther eis one of the best runs in x-men , one of my faviorites.. and only one tops it you can transparently see coming

Uncanny X-Men By Chris Claremont Art by Dave Cockrum, John Byrne, Paul Smith, Frank Miller, John Romita Jr, Barry Windsor-Smith, Marc Silvestri, Rick Leonardi, John Bogdanove, Al Milgrom, and Jim Lee Uncanny X-Men 94-279, X-Men Annual #3-12, 14, Marvel Graphic Novel #1, Wolverine #1-4, Kitty Pryde and Wolverine #1-6,X-Men/ Alpha Flight #1 and 2, X-Men Vs Fantastic Four #1-4, X-Men #1-3 214 Issues

Hail to the King Baby. Having recently finally read EVERY issue of this run, I can say Chris Claremont defines the x-men. Even as things change, the basis was set by him. While Lee and Kirby created the x-men, Chris Clarmont made them truly exceptional.

Most of you don't need an intro but just in case: Chris Claremont was an up and coming writer at marvel who exploded when he took over x-men from Len Wein. Wein had relaunched the x-men with giant sized, creating a brand team with artist Dave Cockrum: Xaviers Original students were quickly written on in Wein's planneed next issue leaving only Cyclops, now moodier, as the vetral to command a group that was not 5 teenagers with attitude, later 7, but adults from radically diffrent backgrounds: A near feral and terse secret agent who once fought the hulk, a russian farm boy who can turn to steel, a woman from cairo who lived as a goddess in kenya, a former foe turned experinced ally, and a circus performer with the face of demon but the kindest soul of all.

Claremont would take this great setup and run with it once given full control. He reinforced the mutant metaphor which was present on and off in Lee's run, but now came blaring out, with the series first overarching villian being a mad scientest who speaks of mutants like a feral monster and has an army of shiny new sentinels, as opposed to the misguided previous users of them. The X-Men's rep takes a hit as the series goes and their forced to wipe goverment records as it plots against them. As the run goes on the racisim grows, as the goverment turns against them and the x-men are left as outcasts even among other heroes, going to war with both the ff and the avengers for diffrent reasons. In his most powerful use of this the x-men have to face Revered Striker, a fire and brimstone preacher with a secret paramilitary death squad.

But more than that he gave the franchise humanity: The X-Men here are fully fleshed out people: Scott strains under the role he's been given and trained since childhood and his rough past, Logan grows from a feral asshole who nearly kills nightcrawler for laughing at him, to Kurt's best friend and a wise if still gruff man who loves his found family. Ororo has the biggest evolution: from a shy woman discovering the world, to a goddess, to someone grappling with the darkness in her and the things she must do to keep her found family safe. Colossus grapples with the violence and confusion of his new world and of finding love even if it hurts someone he cares about. Things only get richer as new characters are rotated in: Jean is thought dead after joinnig breifly and leaves an impact and banshee goes to join his true love on a scottish island. This leaves the board open for Kitty Pryde, a 13 year old written shockingly well who grows up year by year and has to deal wtih the reality of being an x-man and of having a crush on a 19 year old and Rogue, who goes from a foe of the x-men they slam the door on badly haunted by her fractured psyche to.. well the last part dosen't go away but she's one of the most trusted x-men with time .

Claremont wasn't afraid to shake this up either: over the course of his run the x-men are thought dead by xavier and left to their own devices, loose jean, cyclops leaves, the mansion is breifly destroyed and their forced to live on magneto's spooky island, the new mutants arrive, and you never get a full sense of peace. When one status quo has set in a while, it flips. Just when the x-men were getting used to rachel summers, jean's troubled daughter from the days of future past, rachel flees and half the team is horribly mauled and they have to almost start over. The x-men sacrifie themselves and use their newfound supposed death to strike from the shaodow. and the final stretch of the run has the x-men scattered to the winds and coming back together.

Change is the constant as is a parade of intresting foes: Magneto is reconfigured from cackling super villian early on, to the troubled complicated man he becomes later, trying hard to be better while the world says no. The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants is reformed into a more modern for the time terroist group with the cunning mystique.. who tehn has the team work with the goverment when she finds that safer. Mastermind is taken from Magneto's lackey to a truly frightining figure whose only beaten because the person he was manipulating with. Then Claremont adds his own: The Hellfire Club, rich mutant assholes hiding in plain sight woh easily outflank our heroes, Nimrod, a robot from the future sent to kill mutants but who sees himself as a hero, the Brood, terrifying xenomorph knockoffs, and the Shadow King: Xavier's oldest and deadlist foe.

Ther'es a lot here: Our heroes go to space, grapple with demons literal nad metaphorical, spend time in the outback with a wiseman who can teleport, go to another dimension or two, there is FAR too much in this decade to recap but it is special

The run isn't without flaws and the age spots may be an issue: there's the entirely stupid and gross kitty pryde and colossus romance which is thankfully kept to mostly a crush but wolverine treats like Colossus wronged her by.. not wanting ot date a 13 year old and finding someone else. The bunche sof brainwashing. Kitty Pryde using the n-word twice. Coloring native american characters bright red. Ther'es a lot of stuff left over from the 80s in here that we'd rather throw back. Now Claremont's bdsm fetish on the other hand.. eh fair enough.

But if you can get past it, you'll find an epic like no other, one continuious story that nicely weaves with it's sister book new mutants. A story you can hop in at any point and enjoy (except maybe those last two years. Yeesh) yet as this glorious whole i've discovered now owning most of it and reading it often, it's a wonderful saga with tons of planning, and it'll likely never be topped in scope, though many of these fine runs equal it in quality. It's the basis for some of the best comic si've ever read, and I'm pleased to have read it all. Thanks for reading and please.. read some of these.

[theneighborhoodwatch]

Found this welcome theory video that i found interesting: https://youtu.be/9Lz6OcILeSc?si=tcPnCX3QC4JmAyC-

Thoughts :3?

(functional link to video)

i tend to avoid youtube coverage of welcome home because i'm petty, but fuck it, it's a new year and i've never actually heard of this youtuber before. i'll give it a shake. liveblog under the cut:

"y'know if it wasn't for the unsettling mysteries, the feeling that somebody is always watching you, and the mold.... i'd wanna live in the neighborhood" that's exactly why the mold and paranoia's so scary babeyyyy

"update number two" Tch.

i'm less inclined to call the writing in this update character development so much as it is just character establishment. especially since before the july 22nd update (bc that's what this video is about) all we knew about the other neighbors was what the WHRP was willing to tell us. i feel like i'm preaching to the choir though.

ok i laughed at the grindset alpha male howdy joke

"now i wanna move onto eddie bc i wanna make a connection between [eddie and howdy]" :D OH DO YOU NOW.

i do love the energy in this video, very infectious. i too have recommended people welcome home solely on the basis that they would have the hots for eddie and y'know what i haven't been wrong yet.

I WAS GONNA SAY SOMETHING ABOUT HOW LIKE. almost all of the characters have that backstory element of having coming from somewhere else before settling down in home, but i see the point about howdy and eddie specifically dealing with stuff that comes from someplace else as like, an actual job. putting a pin in it.

i'm not Sure how i feel about the idea that the world of home/the world in which home exists is Within our world? pretty much from the beginning i assumed it was running on re:creators/deltarune dark world rules (i.e. it is a world that was born from human thought and its existence is dependent on/influenced by our world, but at the end of the day it does exist on like a separate plane of reality) and i still stand by that. barbieland in barbie 2023 is a more apt comparison though.

"possession route" Tch.

ok actually i can't tch at that because i have talked about it in my own posts. TL;DR: i think possession/haunting theory could work but only if it's anything other than actual literal ghosts. as soon as you try to make it FNAF 2 i sleep.

don't have much to say about Real Poppy Lover Hours except emphatic smiling and nodding. although i will say i have seen people use "oh she's more like a mom/aunt/etc.!" as an excuse to sideline her in fanwork bc for some reason some folks think that her having a motherly personality means that she can't be shipped with anyone? even though all of home's residents are adults who aren't even related to each other? that's a gripe for another post, though.

THE CONCEPT OF SALLY BEING AS BIG AS POPPY IS KILLING ME. I PROMISE SHE'S SMALL SHE JUST HAS A BIGASS HEAD. she would want to be big though wouldn't she.

...actually now i want big sally. note to self to draw that later.

i do like the examination of whether or not sally referring to the audience is meant to mean anything. personally i think it's just a bit of wordplay/red herring action but You Never Know!

i misheard "girlboss bossgirl slay" as "girlboss boygirl slay" for like a split second. still fits tbh.

IT'S FUNNY THAT THEY MENTION THINKING THAT THE WHRP IS A SINGLE PERSON bc i do have an ask about that right after this. i'll save my thoughts for that response though.

it's funny that "was the majority of the gang being some form of queer/disabled/nd/etc. planned in-universe" is a question at all bc at the risk of sounding like an asshole it feels so obvious to me that it very much was not. the interview is definitely playing into those themes though.

"them <3" yeah

again. extremely refreshing to see a welcome home video from someone who actually likes welcome home instead of the clicks that covering it will give them.

BARNABY-SANS COMPARISON IS... DISTRESSINGLY APPROPRIATE.

he always knows when to show up, huh.... huh.... i've been trying to break away from being so self-referential ever since welcome home and consequently this blog blew up but. huh...

do i think he's a service dog? i think to answer that question we would first have to answer the question of whether or not he's even a Dog or just Shaped Like A Dog. the laws of his reality say he is a dog, but we can at least guess that even even those can't be trusted. i think it's possible that he may see himself as in service to wally, that he worries about what will happen if he doesn't butt in, but i don't know if this is an objective truth.

"[wally] being so mysterious i don't think is like, him wanting to be mysterious. [...] there just may not be that much about him." and then relating that to how typically protagonists in puppet shows have more subdued personalities than their co-stars so they can be more relatable to the audience. Teehee. (this is positive)

oh there's something kind of poetic about the idea that each bug video ends bc wally's snapped out of his dissociation by one of his friends calling his name when paired with the idea that he's disassociating in part due to his connection with the audience isn't there. being reminded of one's own personhood through your connections with others, and how that has the potential to become more bittersweet the more wally continues to risk it in the process of regaining a sense of purpose as The Audience Surrogate. oogh. that's just me waxing poetic though.

oooh that whole passage about the idea of remembrance and the pursuit of a "correct" story and tying that back into how welcome home in-universe has been almost universally forgotten and the themes of living as a disabled or mentally ill or queer person. beautiful connection.

"hmmm, how much agency do you have in your life actually" AHEHEHE. HEHEHEHE. HEHE.

conclusion: Good Video. thank you for sending it.

[onboardsorasora]

Mmm not sure how much I like this but I’m also my own worst critic lol just dropping this off on mobile lol someone remind me to link these at some point please. Of course I haven’t reread it, would I be me if I did?

How they met | Lewis Signed to Ferrari | Winter break | a lil backstory | Dior Fashion Show afterparty | The apartment | John Elkann | Future Pregnancy drabble | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 |

Lewis walked in, stretching from his run. His workout had been good, the crisp air outside felt good on his face and in his lungs while he kept pace.

There was the sound of a crash and a curse and he sprinted to the kitchen to see Daniel glaring down at shattered porcelain and spilt cereal and milk.

“Are you hurt?” Lewis asked immediately, getting ready to lift Daniel out of the kitchen if necessary.

“I’m fine— please don’t touch me. I’m having an irritable morning.” Daniel grumbled. Lewis thought he was pouting but knew better than to voice that thought.

They’d worked out a system early, when Daniel used to snap at him seemingly without warning sometimes. Now, when Daniel was feeling anything less than baseline ok, he would let Lewis know so that he didn’t accidentally annoy him. Daniel was growing a whole human, he was always tired and cranky and on the verge of being annoyed.

“Why don’t you go lay down on the couch, I’ll clean up here and get you a new bowl of cereal.”

Daniel looked like he wanted to argue (for arguing sake) and Lewis lifted his hands up in a passive gesture.

“I can clean up after myself– I'm not–”

“An invalid, I know. I just don't want you to cut yourself babe.” Lewis gave Daniel a soft look that usually earned him a fond scoff and maybe a kiss.

True to form, Daniel scoffed. “Fine. But I'll make my own breakfast.” He bargained, folding his arms across his chest, overtop Lewis' hoodie that he wore yesterday.

Lewis withheld his victorious reaction. “Deal. Now how about I carry you to the couch so you don't accidentally cut yourself and I'll clean up here?” He offered again, this time smiling when Daniel lifted his arms to be lifted.

Lewis settled Daniel on the couch, kissing his forehead sweetly before going to the kitchen to clean up the shattered mess. He was thorough, making sure that he swept and wiped the entire kitchen– just in case.

Peaking into the living room, he saw Daniel scrolling through his phone idly, he was softly stroking the tight skin of his bump. He'd only started showing recently and they both couldn't get enough of the newly popped bit of belly.

Reaching into the cabinet, Lewis took down another bowl and went about pouring Daniel a new bowl of cereal.

Daniel's smile was radiant when he saw Lewis with a new bowl of cereal and a glass of milo. Lewis offered the milo first and Daniel tilted his face up for a kiss.

“How are you so perfect?” Daniel hummed.

“Practice.” Lewis sat on the couch, pulling Daniel’s legs in his lap and holding the bowl of cereal aloft. “Do you want me to feed you too? You can relax and just open your mouth for me— you’re already good at that.” Lewis teased.

“Of fuck off.” Daniel laughed. “Though… if you’re offering…” Daniel looked at him consideringly and Lewis smirked.

Later, when Daniel was laying bonelessly in their bed, Lewis kissed his little bump tenderly before going to make a new bowl of cereal that he will actually feed to Daniel this time.

[suite-purgatory-a-hh-what-if]

(If anyone is wondering no the image behind Alastor isn't a Vodou symbol of any kind I'll explain it later)

Alastor Lavigne:

Not much info was known about Alastor Lavigne's past life for what is known about him is only very few details and information from the little friends in his life from earth who have known him has been compiled into this small backstory:

Was Raised in Louisiana, Alastor was a simple radio host for a popular radio station, he lived his life quite normal in some ways, he went to work, hunted bi-weekly for both sport and meals, attended one of his late friend's performances, you know the works.

What the people on earth didn't know was that he was also a serial killer.

When he was alive Alastor killed people although he had a sort of moral code when it came to killing the deaths of the people he killed felt a bit inconsistent, it was tough for the press to find what was the pattern all the “victims” had so that they could piece together possible suspects; although surprisingly alastor was maybe considered a suspect but never brought further due to his Charisma and Silver tongue which made getting away with his crimes much easier to him.

Around 1934 Alastor had bought himself a new shotgun and was going to test it out one night with one of his favorite meat/hunting playthings: The Deer. Oh, how he loathed the deer… but that's for another time.

He had forgotten about it around the time but there was news of rabid dogs around the bayou area where he went for his hunts. Alastor wasn't worried due to thinking he could kill those smelly mutts and have fun doing it too.

However, deep into the bayou, he ended up encountering one of those rabid dogs. He grabbed his gun and was about to kill it. The gun jammed on him. The next few minutes were blind for him as he remembered screaming and yelling at the dog that was continuously biting him until Alastor killed the dog by jamming the gun end to the dog's skull, however, Alastor was feeling very delirious, saliva was running down his mouth as he felt his mind going all over in many directions he didn't know what is what and his mind was going all over the place.

He was laughing through the delirium when he heard a sound in the distance thinking it was a deer he grabbed his shotgun and headed north the sound came from two other hunters and Alastor in his state tried to kill them and in self defense one of the hunters killed Alastor straight in the head ending the famous radio hosts life.

When he got into hell he despised how he looked, his metal antlers were too annoying, his deer ears were too big and while his first layer of teeth was able to move up so he could eat his second layer of teeth is disgusting, although he appreciates his two little knobs on his clothes for being able to control what his volume and what he can hear.

After two months of getting into hell, many people didn't take him seriously thinking he was just an ordinary bird, soon one by one many big league overlords and wannabe ones who were dominant in hell started going missing, it wasn't until a radio broadcast started to go out all over hell where there were these mysterious screams came from these broadcast and then Alastor revealed himself as the radio demon and dared those who cross him would have a miserable fate worse than death… let's say there was always new screams on his broadcast.

After a long time around 80 years of doing this, he had a 7-year break no one knows where he has been for the past 7 years and the only thing people know is that he is back and is working with the delusional princess on her dreams for a redemption hotel clinic place which makes people wonder why is he doing this? Why indeed…

Redesign:

-Kinda a big overall in a way but I still kept some things from canon like the dear motif, radio symbolism, and the red color scheme.

-He has curly hair now and a pencil moustache cause my boy is from the 1930s and should have one

-His deer motif is slightly different, he has metal antlers and his deer ears are located where his normal ears would be.

-suit is pinstripe, his shoes are deer feet inspired and if you look closey behind his legs theirs a deer tail. Bow tie is swapped for a Tie.

-wears a bone corset/belt that was a gift from Rosie.

-the Radio knobes on his collar are different left is for his volume and right is for his hearing, and he has a speaker like teeth

-his cane can transform from a simple cane into a 1930s-style microphone

Facts about Alastor:

He was born around the fall of 1899, and was around 35 when he died.

He has no Vodou connections in this AU at all(I love Alastor and all but if there's one major flaw; it was that I didn't like the Vodou parts and felt as if it was done rather poorly) His magic is rather Lovecraftian-inspired with there being original (no vodou)symbols to it.

Was a Mama’s boy when he was alive and his relationship with his father… is complicated

While alive he and Mimzy knew each other when she lived in Louisiana for a couple of years(He ended up going to her funeral around 1929 and he may or may not have killed Mimzy's killer afterward)

(Slight sexuality change)He is gray-aro/ace and has dated someone once in his life on earth although he doesn't realize he's on the aspec.

He’s around 7ft(7’4 includes the antler)

His microphone has two forms microphone form and a cane form.

His favorite foods include; His mother's homemade Jambalaya; raw, rare, or medium rare cooked venison,(he secretly enjoys pineapple pizza but he would rather die again than tell anyone he likes a more modern food), and he also enjoys whisky neat and no hell foods.

His corset/belt was a gift from Rosie

His Voice actor in this AU would be Daveed Diggs

Ok so for the AU, Alastor will have no connection to Vodou out of respect for the culture/religion. Still, I wanted to give Alastor a power that stands out and makes it contrast with what people would think at first glance when you see a radio+deer demon. So he will have rather Lovecraftian-inspired powers with these symbols being more original and in a way have a purpose. This symbol right here is meant to be an important and deadly symbol that will appear later on and have some plot relevance with Alastor, Angel Dust, and the remake Vees(mainly in seasons two/three)

(Reblogs are allowed but please no use of anti in the tags; and thank you)

[incomingalbatross]

I gotta check in on Slaybel and Slipper, I know there's been some backstory changes lately and am very very curious.

Thank you! I am going to give you a Lengthy Summary of the backstory, because I can.

So on the surface it looks pretty similar to my previous version (which I may or may not have described before). As follows:

Dipper, twelve, alone, wakes up in some kind of safe house. His parents have just been killed by vampires and a teenage girl busted in and saved him just as the vampires were about to turn him. He was taken away from the house and fell asleep somewhere en route, exhausted.

Someone comes in and tells him he's being relocated to foster home in a different town for his own safety, since he has no relatives to go to.

Either during this conversation or at some later point where he's slipped out of his room, Dipper has a run-in with a strange six-fingered man who wants to know about the vampire attack. Dipper's memories of it are fuzzy, and it's only after prompting that he remembers the lead vampire called him "Slayer's twin" and said something about a prophecy right before the older girl staked him. Six-fingered man writes all of this down, looking concerned.

They have a little more conversation. Ford gives him more info than anyone else has about Slayers and Watchers, but then someone else comes in and Dipper's getting shipped off.

Dipper starts journaling in imitation of Ford, because I love Dipper's journal-writing and I think it's a fun narrative tool.

Bothered by that "Slayer's twin" bit and by various odd feelings/dreams that he's missing something, Dipper goes Kid Detective in his new home and starts trying to track down vampire activity. After several months, he spots the Slayer again, and manages to trace her to her base of operations. Somehow he gets in there and finds Watcher info on him. (I DON'T know how. He may need help.)

Finds out he has a twin sister. Being raised by the Watchers.

Finds out where she lives and sneaks in to see her. They bond immediately. There's an Awkward Sibling Hug. (WITH the pats. The pats happen spontaneously. Maybe it's something they did as toddlers? They're really not sure when Mabel was taken.)

Mabel hides him for a day or two, but then they get caught. Brought before the Watchers' Council (American subsection) to figure out what to do with them.

Turns out not only is Mabel a Potential Slayer, there are prophecies about things happening when a Slayer has a twin. Apparently Dipper would share some of her powers and that could lead to very good or very bad things happening down the line. The Watchers have been trying to figure out how to control the situation - at first they were trying to cut Dipper loose from the equation but, well, that's not happening. So is it safer to train them for Slayerhood together or separately?

There are factions for each position. Dipper and Mabel obviously want to stick together, but they don't get a vote.

Finally the "separation" spokesman argues "and anyway, are any of you prepared to train two children at once, with different needs and regimens? It's not fair to make the girl's Watcher take on a second charge against his will"

And Ford breaks his pen against the table and goes "If that's your biggest problem, I'LL take them."

This takes the wind out of the opposition's sails. Ford "has only ever done research, never trained a kid in his life" Pines is ADAMANT that he'll take them. Everyone else just ends up glad to be done with the issue.

(Ford spoke up because raising twins separately is Wrong and Unthinkable. Not that he'd say that part out loud.)

They become Ford's charges. Dipper is very bristly and defensive at first even though Ford is really cool and smart and willing to teach him all this stuff. Mabel is more willing to make friends. Over time, they all sort out that they're on the same side.

There is more to the backstory but it's a Twist, and I keep going back and forth on whether to add it here. Might put it in a reblog? Under a readmore? Or might save it for the hypothetical time when I have this written out into a full draft.

[crplpunkklavier]

I'm rereading Exorcism (now that its finished! yahoo) and I love Kitty Poes sm shes such an interesting characterrr would you wanna tell me about your process for developing her? ig I couldve DMed you but I myself love a chance to rant publicly so here you go lmao. I am unfortunately only on chapter 14 (though I got further than that last time) so if you wanna be spoilery just give me a warning and I'll read it later >:3c

kitty my best friend kitty

i think i can go over this without any spoilers past chapter 14! you have already seen her big arc and i am sooo happy people liked her <333

so! i've never mentioned this to anyone before, but kitty is a bit of a riff off of one of my oldest OCs. when i was about 18, i was big into katekyo hitman reborn, mostly because i was even bigger into organized crime as a general topic. catalena foggia was the youngest of four, and after a rival family took out her parents and all three of her older brothers (you know, the sort of backstory you give people as a teenager) she very grimly stepped up to the throne.

now whenever i need a female character with a "hello, i Run This Place" air about her, my mind goes to catalena, who of course was called cat by all her friends.

and i knew that i wanted a character like that as klavier's manager. generally, whenever i get to make OCs for my aa fics, i try to make most of them women if they aren't already implied to be men by canon like the rest of the gavinners, since aa refuses to have adult female characters that don't die. the gavinners started out as a bunch of teenage guys, the music industry is tough as nails, LA is horrible..... nobody but cat could've done it, man.

the whole dutch connection sort of happened on the fly. i knew i didn't want to call her catalena foggia, even if nobody but, like, the two irl friends i still have who knew me at 18 lol, knew of that oc. it was still important to me to differentiate, because this wasn't cat, this was a new oc who was very similar to and inspired by her. i remembered that kitty is a valid first name, so i went for that, because i like to think i'm funny. :^)

once you reach the end of exorcism, you'll find a little gdoc with bonus content i left in the end notes there, which among other things contains explanations for all the pun names i've used in the fic. including kitty's, but i'll reiterate here: the reason i stuck with a cat theme was that klavier gavin, in my mind, is absolutely a golden retriever, so i wanted to give him a manager/babysitter who is a cat. a big cat. kitty is short in stature, but i mention her lion's mane of hair often enough in the text, so, u know.

that's also part of what i wanted her to be. yeah, she had to be tough simply for the industry and for the fact that she was managing teenagers for a while, but i also knew that i wanted to give klavier friends, and people in his life who really care about him, and will stick with him through all this. kitty is lawfully loyal: if she doesn't agree with something, she has no trouble walking out, but once she actually takes to someone like she took to klavier, she will be fiercely protective. i never mentioned her age, but i imagined her in exorcism to be somewhere in her mid to late 40s. she's seasoned, she's experienced, she's capable - she's what klavier deserves!!! that's what i wanted. kristoph and daryan are so painfully incompetent, when it comes down to it. klavier needs people in his life who know what they're doing.

so, i wanted a big little lion lady for my dog boy. i sort of just clicked through my various dictionaries for a while looking up different cat terms in different languages to see if any of them sounded enough like a last name, and that's how i landed on poes. only after that did i decide to make the dutch conundrum A Thing.

thank you for asking about her <33333 enjoy the rest of the fic, feel free to keep me posted about ur reading experience too :3c