#THEN I LEARN ALL THIS CANON STUFF THAT IS ABSOLUTELY BONKERS

[terraether]

I’ve very recently started getting into buddie and literally every time I think I know all the super gay moments between them I stumble upon something else and it always makes me insane !!!!! Bc like wHAT THE FUCK???? HOW WAS THIS CANON HOW DOESNT EVERYONE EXPECT THEM TO BE ENDGAME ?!?!

The most recent case of this was, I saw a gif set of Eddie’s ex wife? And they were arguing and she said “I needed you to have my back to be a co parent!” AND I LEGIT DID A TRIPLE TAKE. I thought it was an edit or something!!?! Bc one of the first Buddie MomentsTM I learned was their first episode together when Eddie goes “you can have my back any day” and buck says “and you can have mine” W T F

Girl… GIRL !!! AND NOW BUCK IS LEGIT A COPARENT WITH EDDIE GODDAMN IT. ITS CANON

If Eddie’s wife never died I just imagine she’d be like “wow Eddie so you CAN be a coparent and have their back, JUST NOT MINE 😒” bc that’s the truth fr this woman never had a chance with Eddie “3 minutes 17 seconds” diaz

[iaus]

okay. i figured it out. putting this under a read more because i'm absolutely fucking bonkers and this went deeper than i expected to.

wall of text under the read more eheheh.

let's start out with jace (my beloved) who made making a character sheet so easy by being an obviously straight up sorcerer. i'm making the assumption that all teachers at aguefort somehow got to level 20. and here is what i came up with using standard array, no rolls:

strength: 10 (+0) dexterity: 14 (+2) constitution: 17 (+3) intelligence: 8 (-1), it is a 5 in my heart but i'm not messing with numbers for standard array purposes. wisdom: 12 (+1), which i think is in line with canon because i feel like i remember him having to make a WIS save and bleem said he only had a +1 charisma: 20 (+5), i think an argument could be made for his CHA to be higher but i don't... remember him doing any damage spells or having to make and CHA saves so. again, for standard array purposes i'm leaving it. he's at least 22 CHA in my heart.

but so with all the numbers out of the way... that leaves figuring out spell splots/subclass. because of fanfic (do i need to namedrop? we know what fic) i went with divine sorcerer.

gave him heightened, subtle, quickened, and careful metamagics but could be convinced of others.

for feats i lined him up with:

fey touched: misty step without giving up a learned spell slot as well as a +1 to CHA bringing it to 18 actor: +1 charisma to bring CHA to 19 as well as advantage on deception and performance checks when trying to pass yourself off as a different person. prodigy: expertise to deception as well as proficiency with a language and tool kit didn't think about language or tool proficiency... but i am strangely fond of jace having proficiency with a forgery kit. skill expert feat for another +1 to round him out to CHA 20 (as well as expertise in persuasion).

now i also figured that even if he isn't an adventurer, he might have some gear so gear wise i gave him a ring of protection, bloodwell vial +3 (brings his spell save to a whopping 22), and a barrier tattoo (rare) which sets him at a comfortable 18 AC and takes up 3 attunement slots. (i know he did not have 18 AC but i love him more than bleem)

now. spells.

taking into consideration that jace has canonically used or implied to use: enlarge/reduce, misty step, counterspell, bigby's hand, and flesh to stone (which... i hadn't realized was a sorcerer spell), and detect magic. that leaves SOME wiggle room with the rest of his spells.

this is the spell list i generated thinking about my own characterization of him and considering that i think he might've been more used for control magics and they probably would have used oisin for more offensive stuff since... wizard.

and as i was typing this i realized that jace and oisin did use some sort detect thoughts or something.... though. it could have also been a dominate spell? anyway.........

cantrips to level 2

3 to 5

and finally 6 to 9.

so OF COURSE this is gonna be so different to what bleem used because he probably used an npc stat block and just added very minimal flavor to it. but this is what i've come up with.

now. porter is a lot more straightforward literally between my textpost about his multiclass split to now i finished his sheet.

once again i used standard array. and made him an 18 barbarian path of the zealot, and 2 level paladin. he does not get an oath with only 2 paladin levels which i think works for his narrative.

strength: 20 (+5), however i do want it noted that porter HAS to have a 27 to strength to get his +8 and his +14 to strength saves and athletics checks. dexterity: 14 (+2) constitution: 17 (+3). considering that bleem said porter was health over AC, this means he has to have something artificially inflating his CON or just basic hit points. because a barb/pal multiclass with average dice is only 190 HP which for a bbeg is laughable. (again, i know that bleem did not use actual character sheets but, pre-final fight bear with me) intelligence: 8 (-1), his INT is also a 5 in my heart but not messing with standard array. wisdom: 12 (+1) charisma: 13 (+1), i do think that porter has more charisma than this. he is genuinely a creepy guy, but i think he's at least a +2 maybe even a +3. but i digress. i used standard array.

now for feats. i selected these with the thought in mind that porter's (pre-final fight) weapon is a vicious maul (extra +2d6 on crits) and i'm ASSUMING he's just going for straight damage which is scary.

Great Weapon Master Crusher (+1 to STR) which basically gives him the ability to once per turn push a creature away from him if he hits it with bludgeoning damage. it ALSO gives him advantage on a creature he scores a crit that does bludgeoning on until the start of his next turn.... scary opportunity attacks Athlete (+1 to STR) and makes it so it only takes 5 feet of your movement to stand when knocked prone, climbing doesn't take extra movement, and you can make a running jump with only 5 feet of movement vs 10 ability score increase (+1 STR, +1 CON) brings STR to 20 and CON up to 16 for a +3

now with the paladin multiclass, porter does not get access to the barb capstone and instead gets access to 2 paladin spells and smites. however, with this multiclass he can only smite twice.......... like bro....... LOL

his extra stuff is funny because he only has 10 lay on hands charges so he can technically get rid of disease/poison but only twice per long rest LOL. 2 divine sense which eh. and then 6 rage charges which isn't bad. but. i digress.

anyway. this was more of a huge thought exercise in order to justify what i'm doing in my fic. and also to think through if i really do want to multiclass my own barb.

funnily enough...... realized path of zealot gives me some wiggle room with stuff.... ehehehe.

[lokiina]

I FINISHED THE GAME (BG3)

I'M GONNA- THERE'S BIG SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT. So if you don't wanna hear about end game stuff don't click it cuz I'll be 100% explaining my ending and adding some screenshots in there too. You have been warned.

Proceed with caution. Like Gale hiding behind Cas.

Kay omg. SO, I'm really curious now how other choices end up playing out cuz for the most part this was a fairly happy end. Not 100% happy, as some people didn't get important things but all things considered things went well.

BUT.

I chose to side with the Emperor for this play. I know it was kinda sus on whether or not he was lying and using you as a means to an end for his own selfish needs, but I decided to take the chance and just follow through with the things he wanted. (Except taking the fancy worm to evolve, I was too scared to do that.) I only used a small handful of the worms through my play, and it ended up not being a problem at the end. My boy was completely fine and cured of his brain worm problem.

also this happened while trying to confront the brain the first time. LMAO

Siding with the Emperor and putting complete trust in him involved giving him the nether stones and it did end with the Githyanki prince guy dying. Cuz in order to leave the prisim properly to help me with the fight he had to absorb his abilities.... which meant eating his brain....

RIP Prince guy. Sorry for that....

But after that unfortunate event he was able to adventure with me outside the prism and I could control him in all the fighting as an allied companion. So I had a crew of 5 running around instead of just 4.

BUT I ALSO LEARNED MY BABY OWLBEAR WAS OKAY. He had previously like.... vanished from my camp and I was pretty sure it was a bug. But the lil babu was all grown up! AND IN ARMOUR!

The allies became quite useful, you could call on a handful of people to come as allied game controlled characters in some of the fights cuz damn them end game fights didn't fuck around. They just swarmed you with enemies.

In the end moments I genuinely thought there was gonna be a moment when the Emperor was gonna pull some shit to like take control of everything himself but he never did. He genuinely just wanted the brain gone. So we were 100% on the same side and so giving him the stones and everything was not an error it worked out.

Now in the cut scenes following the destruction of the brain my game kinda shit itself and stopped loading textures so things started to look absolutely bonkers for me and was a lil hard to follow. I think it's cuz I had been playing for so long my poor lil baby system was struggling to keep up with all the stuff it was throwing at me so I had to save, close the game and relaunch in the middle of the end stuff. Lae'zel peaced out, she was obviously not vibing with the fate of the prince guy. Understandably so. She did thank me for everything else that was done tho. Astarion was really upsetting cuz he was all ready to party, and then the poor guy started to burn in the sun and had to book it. kfdjghdkfjgh and then Karlach. Oh GOD. My poor heart.

I almost fuckin cried fam. She was about to die, and Wyll bust in going NOT ON MY WATCH and the pair of them peaced out to Avernus to save her and kick ass together. I would have offered to go with them but I had a funky lil wizard to worry about too. But I knew with the two of them they'd be okay.

The Emperor was just content everyone was free he said he'd miss my boy and thanked me for trusting him when most people wouldn't have. dkjfghdkfg He's a pretty cool dude.

And then there's this guy. This loveable lil nerd.

SO LIKE CAS IS GOING TO WATERDEEP TO MARRY HIS WIZARD.

It's actually fucking cute as hell and very fitting. I hadn't given Casvius a surname at all cuz they;re hit and miss with Tieflings. Some have some some don't, it's often a reflection of whether or not they keep family ties or if they've grown up outside of human culture influence and the like. I had it head canoned that he basically grew up in the Baldur Gates streets without a family but like managed and turned out okay. But he didn't have a surname at all cuz he didn't know what family he came from and didn't really care to find out. He figures his parents fucked up and he was the first tiefling in their bloodline and they panicked abandoning him. It wasn't an uncommon thing to have happen so it's what he kinda adopted as his own scenario too.

BUT NOW, HE CAN HAVE ONE. He can go marry Gale and be Casvius Dekarios. A name he's happy with and more than glad to adopt as his own.

ANYWAY This fuckin game is brilliant, and I hope it wins game of the year. Fuck. It deserves it. The scope of this game is unreal and you can tell a lot of love was poured into making it.

I'm probs gonna remake this boy and play again later so I can go back through parts that had been previously bugged and patched after I had passed them.

[villabella12]

@arcvmonth Day 18: D/D/D - Different Dimension Day (Pt. II)

Second part of the same prompt since there's little context provided there but here's some concepts + an AU I forgot to add in the previous post I have for the last two on the same post but then again, I'm no writer, I just wanted to share stuff

A bit heads up: I will spoil the name of my OCs in this post but the design of them will be out next week

TW: Mention of Scars

The Cards Has Bodies In Them

Rhen Dharmas' origins dated WAY back in the early 1930s, with a farmer from a european village picking up the first ever card of its kind and slowly but surely turns him and the rest of the town into cards

A bit of a fruitshipping moments here and there (Yuzu going absolute bonkers whenever someone tries to harm her "boyfriend" while he's in his draconic form)

The thief could be a minor character from Zexal (either Erazor or that gangster duo Shark used to hangout) or someone entirely new who wanted the Rhen Dharmas to exploit them to win multiple duels

Maria was the one who brought up the entire "Rhen-Dharma" conspiracy, does research abt it, HASNT SLEPT IN DAYS, friends suspect it would be the influence that's driving her crazy, nearly drowned in her brother's bathtub, nearly SLIT HER NECK FOR A SACRIFICE, then was sent to the hospital and she's alright... for now...

Interesting lore drop between a conversation Maria and her ace monster, Ibong Adarna (they/them) have regarding Duel Monsters and their secrets overall

1V2 between the thief and Yuya (in his draconic form) and Maria (OC)

^ An INCREDIBLY intense and brutal duel that Yuya will never forget, even worst than the ones he had faced during the Dimensional War because

^ 1. The monster's effect may inflict damage but the way it did is a bit of a horrific process and 2. If they lose they'll turn into ACTUAL Monster Cards

Sawatari has character development :)

Also Maria bonding with the XYZ gang cus they like her energy + she needs more friends

Raya being sketchy (not in a bad way nor a good way)

Yuya still has nightmares abt losing control & harming his friends whilst hes in his draconic form and fears that those nightmares might come true someday (it did...)

And then he learns to find ways on how to live with it, and learns to accept it as a part of himself, despite his wishes for it to be gone

Duelists in the Backrooms

Maria also learns how to let go of the burden to protect others over herself and also lets herself be more open

Concepts of this AU is being brainstormed over so here's maybe a sneak peak of how it plays out

There are four groups that reside in a specific level in the backrooms: The Lancers (Level 170), The Resistance (Level 20), The "Signers" (Level 11.1), and The Rebellion (Level 179)

There isn't as much duels in this AU unlike TCHBIT, the duels only happen if there's a misunderstanding or disagreement

There's also solo survivors that doesn't join a specific group and/or joins them but just survive independently (i.e Maria, Meiru, Dennis, Michio, and Asuka)

Instead of dying and losing their items, they just restart to a completely different level and their items will be scattered around them once they restart (meaning they're going to be stuck in an endless loop of survival and death)

^ The wounds they have obtain from fighting the entities will also appear as scars

Theres going to be underrated duo moments here and there, some are serious, some are not

Summoning Monsters can also be helpful for combat and transportation but are limited due to certain levels being strict abt said monsters

Zarc and Ray's influence over the Yu-Boys and Bracelets Girls are stronger than in canon

Leo has something to do with all characters being stuck in the backrooms

The characters aged regularly but due to how slow the time in the backrooms are, their bodies ages slowly (in this au)

The Curse That Will Never Be Unfold

The father side of Yuya's family owns a really popular circus, with his father, Yusho, being a ringmaster and him being one of those a daredevil acrobats

His mother is a gang leader (that doesnt terrorize) like in the anime, but instead of retiring from it she continues to help others with her gang

Yuzu is somewhat a badass bard warrior, her main weapon being the violin. Her father, Shuzo, owns a instrument shop and works alongside with Yusho

Raya, Gongenzaka, and Sawatari are somewhat townies (with one of them being secretly a samurai warrior) that soon learned to fight with secret abilities they didnt know exist within them

^ Maria can transform into certain terrains (small terrains) and also animals that may represent, symbolizes, or is connected with nature

Maria is a forest spirit that is under Lethia's mentorship, alongside her twin brother, Mariano, and younger twin siblings, Olive and Oliver

^ Born from the blood of two humans that were received from a cut during their work hours that soon dropped into the leaves, grows out of a giant ass flower, then the couple proceeds to drop one into the water and then BOOM her brother is born out of a seashell

(^ Then they decide to do it again 10 years later then was given the results, a fire and air child...)

Yuto, Ruri, and Shun will accompany the group at some point, with the three of them developing a close bond the group, especially Maria

The Synchro and Fusion squad will appear but idk what their roles are still...

Zarc and Coralline are siblings, with him being the god of destruction and her being the goddess of death, underneath the alias, Morgana

^ Zarc and Ray are still bitter enemies, but over time grew close as Zarc starts to realize that he is not the villain that everyone thought of him was

^ Zarc doesnt have a close relationship with his siblings. He, Virgil, and Carolyn always fights, he and Cora arent really close, and Marilena is deeply afraid of him. He hates to admit it but, he wishes he can spend more time with them but his lust for violence prevents him from doing so

^ Also she fell in love with a human who has secret eldritch magic, in which enrages Zarc, gets teased by Virgil and Carolyn, but Marilena is oblivious to the concept of love (despite being the goddess of love herself lmao)

Cora and Maria are besties secretly, neither of their friend group (minus Cora's) knows abt it

[scripted-downfall]

The Archangel Gabriel, in triplicate and nothing alike

I find it absolutely hilarious how all these different writers seized upon the Bible and angels and all the mythos entailed as a well from which to draw plots and characters — I’m thinking especially of Supernatural, Good Omens, Lucifer, etc — with such amazing variations in the same characters across the shows (for example, GOmens Michael is nothing like SPN Michael is nothing like Lucifer Michael, and so on and so forth) but they all 100% came to the conclusion that, whoever Gabriel was going to be, they absolutely weren’t gonna be who they were supposed to be in biblical canon.

Like, you’ve got the Bible, in which Gabriel is the one to appear to Mary and tell her that she’s gonna have Jesus, and he’s all archangelic and Be not afraid and You’ve been chosen by God, and that’s just how it is…

And then you have Supernatural who decided that Obviously, this angel, the Messenger of God, was gonna be the definition of scruffy hair and debauchery, who spends his days eating all the sweets he can magic and rewriting the definition of immaculate conception with a little less immaculate… Who, when trying to think of a safe hiding place, decides that the Very Obvious black Impala belonging to the people he was kinda allied with that was sitting right outside the building was absolutely the best place… Who passes important, life-or-death, End-of-the-World messages through pornos that feature the line I have the kielbasa you ordered… Who would probably convey the baby message in a conversation that went along the lines of Hey, Mary, wassup… How’s it feel to be preggers, huh?  Oh, wait, you didn’t know?  Damn.  That’s rough.  Whoops. with a Tootsie Roll pop hanging out of his mouth.  (No one knew what that strange candy-like thing was, or how he got a hold of it, but things made a lot more sense when they were invented in the 1900s.)

But then you’ve got GOmens Gabriel who’s staid and proper and how dare you consume gross matter with this matter-of-fact this is how things are gonna be and you’re gonna accept it or else.  The guy who only likes Earth for clothing and shouts Very Loudly about his desire to (“secretively”) buy pornography because he thinks it’s Very Inconspicuous.  The guy who — at least if you trust deleted scenes, which I absolutely do — was fooled by Crowley talking to a dress mannequin about How Very Cunning his demonic wiles were and how Aziraphale had thwarted all of them.  (And that baby conversation probably went along the lines of, So.  Mary.  Long time, right?  Listen… You’re gonna have a baby.  Very important, big stuff.  So.  You should be honored.  Congrats from Up There. complete with flashing violet eyes and that clasped-hand thing he always does that manages to be very pretentious and definitely patronizing.)

And then there’s Lucifer Gabriel, who is basically just the gossipiest gossip ever to gossip, who dances when her enemies (Lucifer and his allies) start the incredibly awkward, horribly embarrassing flash-mob-without-music to Can’t Touch This.  Who spams the celestial email accounts with every little thing she comes across and quotes Avengers movies with a divine li’l twist.  Who can keep secrets all she likes (looks askance at her role with Azrael’s dagger) but just… you know… chooses not to.  (And who absolutely told literally everybody that Mary was gonna be pregnant until the last person to learn that Mary was gonna be pregnant was Mary herself, until she was absolutely looking at the strange rambling angel hovering in front of her like she’s absolutely bonkers because she’s just saying stuff like, Hey, Mary, you’re gonna have a kid and it’s gonna be bitchin’.  Peace! before fluttering away again.)

It’s just… With all the differences across these shows, the only thing consistent about Gabriel is that their character is wildly inconsistent, and that is peak humor.

[audaciousanonj]

Naruto AU: Rotted Leaf

ok listen i am having THOUGHTS on my Rotted Leaf au again (which i have never shared here) and Want Engagement except the au is too sad for blorbo from my mutuals to engage with right now so I am just going to throw this out into the void and see where it lands. Feel free to make content for this fic as long as you tag me with it / make sure i am aware of it, and also keep in mind that Kakashi is just in an absolute bonkers mental state. Like he's really at peace with himself! His worldview makes perfectly valid logical sense and is internally consistent with his experiences! It's just that one of the basic premises of his worldview kinda sucks extremely for everyone else.

If you would like to read the prologue @miniongrin wrote for it without being spoiled you should do so now because its REALLY GOOD. (Read the tags though)

cw: Standard Naruto canon stuff including Uchiha Massacre and the implications thereof, and also you probably shouldn't read if you're not in the mood for frank discussions about losing an entire generation of academy students.

Anyway. now that you have read the awesomeness that is Spring Harvest, onto the premise/summary.

So! What basically happens is that Itachi does the Great Uchihan't, and Kakashi, in his attempts to process what his little kouhai has done, basically loses his entire goddamn mind until he snaps like a pocky stick without anyone noticing, unfortunately for Konoha. I wrote a tiny fic about it here.

To summarize, Kakashi basically believes its better to be dead then alive, but like. for everyone. so instead of suicidal tendencies, he now has mass murderer tendencies, because he believes that he's helping people that way.

Like, remember that part in canon where Kakashi said he had to save the past obito by killing the current Obito? Yeah. Now extrapolate that to every pregenin in Konoha. Remember the content warning about losing an entire generation of academy students??? What happened there is that Kakashi decided he would save all these innocent kids from the horrors of the world.

Now, if you read That Awesome Fic I linked earlier, you will note that Naruto survived. This is because Kakashi made the tough choice and decided that he would keep Naruto alive. Not because he's Minato's son though, if anything that would make Kakashi want to kill him first! it's because Naruto is a Jinchuriki, and Kakashi didn't want to release the Kyuubi without any way to control it. Or worse, kill the Kyuubi and have to wait a hundred years for it to regenerate!

See, what Kakashi decided while he was planning out the merciful deaths of the academy students, was that he wanted to kill/save as many of his precious comrades as he possibly could, and as October 10th proved, the easiest way to kill lots of people at once is with a Bijuu! And weren't there rumours of the Kyuubi being able to be controlled by a sharingan? So he kept Naruto alive for that purpose.

So now Kakashi is going to find Itachi! Either he'll get info on "how to possibly control a bijuu", but if he doesn't then honestly Itachi could probably help him slaughter a lot of people at once anyway since he killed his entire clan.

What he is not counting on is Itachi learning that he killed Sasuke and flipping his shit. Kakashi vs. Itachi, Fight!!!

Unfortunately for everyone, Itachi is emotionally destabilized. Also this takes place not two years after the massacre, so he isn't older than 15 at the time. All of which is to say, he falls victim to this Kakashi's version of talk-no-jutsu, which is the exact opposite of naruto's: instead of giving people hope that things can get better, it saps people of that hope and makes them think things will only get worse. So Itachi totally cracks and decides death is too good for Kakashi, but while he was having his mental breakdown, Kakashi just gives him a swift and merciful death.

But that doesn't mean that Kakashi failed his goals, no sir! You see, Kakashi was looking for an Uchiha who Killed His Entire Clan and Perhaps Could Control A Bijuu into Indiscriminate Slaughter, and boy does he find one.

So now "Madara" gets to introduce Kakashi to the Akatsuki, and fun things happen. You see, Pein explained his "end goals" of creating the Juubi and using it to destroy half the population so that wars could end, and Kakashi gets it, he really does, but maybe it would be easier to end wars if... perhaps... the whole population was destroyed instead? So he keeps pushing Pein on this, and this back and forth is enough to get Nagato to question if his plan is really worth it. Seriously. Somehow, listening to Kakashi just makes the plan sound really dumb for some reason.

That's when "Madara" takes him aside and reveals his true identity. And wow, Obito survived, and now is scarred and full of hatred and hurt and pessimism where he was once happy and bright and optimistic! This is definitely validating Kakashi's belief that it's better to kill kids before the world can hurt them (Hey remember, it's canon that Kakashi said he had to save the past Obito by killing the current Obito. That's an actual line. Kakashi v. Obito.) Anyway, Kakashi stops pushing Pein, now that Obito explained his plan and that it's not to kill half the population, it's to put the whole population in a genjutsu of a perfect world!

"...And then kill them? I mean, yeah a perfect world sounds nice and all, but what happens when they die and go to the pure lands and peoples memories don't match up? Also, how long is that genjutsu going to last, like a week? Can't be that long, people are gonna end up dying of starvation or dehydration, are you sure we can't kill them faster-"

Obito would really like to resurrect Madara real quick and ask him some questions, actually. ANyway, Kakashi keeps pushing Obito on this, and this back and forth is enough to get Obito to question if his plan is really worth it. Seriously. Somehow, listening to Kakashi just makes the plan sound really dumb for some reason.

That's when Zetsu takes him aside and reveals his true plan, the actual plan and outcome for real this time. And Kakashi's totally on board! Even he didn't think he could manage to completely wipe out humanity, but if Zetsu can do it, can kill everyone with the god tree and completely halt the cycle of reincarnation itself, allowing everyone to stay in the pure lands forever-! It's almost too good to be true, really!

So Kakashi stops pestering Obito. This is suspicious, because Obito has seen this pattern of question-stop before, and it happened to Pein when Obito revealed the true plan to Kakashi. But surely no one else is piggybacking on his moon's eye plan and using him, right? ...right????

the truth come out: does zetsu is stringing us along. Pein & Obito v. Zetsu, Fight!!! How it ends is basically Nagato ends up transporting them all to another dimension and then trapping them there by destroying their eyes.

As a result, the Akatsuki implodes, and Kakashi gives up on the Bijuu plan bc he doesn't know how to use the statue and never got to learn how to control a bijuu with the sharingan. So he makes his way back to konoha, because if he can't save everyone, at least he can save his dear comrades.

and BOY yall haven't even heard what's happening there, but im gonna elaborate in a part two because this post is getting pretty long. I haven't even touched on all the Rot and Infection symbolism surrounding Kakashi yet.

EDIT: I have a part two now but I still haven't elaborated on Kakashi's philosophical rabies. Part three coming soon eventually.

[restlesshush]

Fuffy for you too :)

Hi!! Thanks for the ask!

1. What made you ship it?

Credit here absolutely must go to @burrito-of-fury for opening my eyes, because in my actual watches of the show (I’ve actually not rewatched any fuffy episodes since getting into fuffy and Should. I know I’ll have a great time) I never really paid much attention to Faith? I bought into her bravado-y-ness too much and I’m not really interested in genuine bravado-y characters, so I just didn’t think about her all that much. Probably if you were really dedicated you could go through me and Rosanna’s DMs from like a year ago and track them slowly winning me over, so massive shoutout to them for that <3 And then also the first thing to actively give me fuffy brain worms as opposed to just “this comes off as gay and that’s fun” was the buffering song for Enemies because it hit me like “godd. I didn’t realise but this storyline is a tragedy. No one else can understand Buffy like that and she’s lost her.” Very compelling concept.

2. What are your favorite things about the ship?

As is probably evident by the fact I also accidentally became a destiel blog this past year lol, I do love frying my brain with bonkers gay subtext. All the structural stuff like the s3 fuffy/s2 bangel parallels is particularly fun to me, and just the fact that Faith literally does not make sense as a character unless you think she’s in love with Buffy. The way that that’s not what they were going for, but it 100% is the Occam’s razor reading of the text. This is why when I fantasise about what the show could have done differently, I mostly don’t really think about them actually getting together, I think about what would have happened if there’d been fuffy episodes written by Ben Edlund. Had a great conversation about this with @shittinggold the other night because she is also very similarly minded here: love entangling the bonkers subtext, would be delighted if it was even more brain-frying.

But also!! Also just on a thematic/character level, it is just the logical conclusion for both of them and it’s gorgeous. It’s about getting to forgive and love your worst fears about yourself on one end, and on the other end to learn that the idealised version of you wasn’t so perfect after all, and to forgive yourself for not living up to that. This is why the concept of season 6 fuffy is everything to me as a really neat place to do that, but it’s what season 7 or post-canon fuffy is too!

Also do enjoy those homoerotic fight scenes (which you can read through the lens of fuffy hayes code) <3

3. Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

I’m not sure how unpopular this is overall, but possibly the fact that I’m deeply uninterested in a season 3 without Faith’s turn. The tragedy of that and all of the potential for juicy stuff while exploring their relationship having to recover from that is a big part of the appeal for me, and I’m not interested in a season 3 where it doesn’t happen. That’s not to say I wouldn’t like Faith to have had way more screen time: I have an alternate ending Who Are You one-shot, after which I think Buffy and Faith having a tender, aching slowburn and then ending up with each other is actually inevitable, and I also love @chasingfictions’s Faith-joins-team-Angel AU, but yeah, I do want my fuffy to have that betrayal in it. “Knives to the throat or don’t bother”, as they say <3

[guynamedultimax]

What if Kirby had a traditional fighting game?

Listen, I know I should’ve done more “FNF fighting game characters” but i doubt anyone cared for that, and even then I lost a bit of interest, so if you actually cared sorry about that, you can still come up with whatever you want for the characters I didn’t talk about!

That being said, I think all Kirby fans here know Kirby Fighters 2. Personally speaking most of it was just the same as Kirby Fighters Deluxe BUT there were five playable Dream Friends. FIVE. Priority to the Copy Abilities a bit too high, isn’t it HAL? Sometimes it feels a bit barebones if you ask me. So I’m here to discuss what would a non-platform Kirby fighting game be.

THE GAMEPLAY

It’s the same as any basic fighting game, there isn’t really that much that the Kirby franchise can offer to make the genre a bit more varied, and that’s mostly due to the fact that Kirby makes friends wherever he goes and combat is pretty much straightforward in these platforming games, the crazy stuff comes from learning specific moves with each copy ability/character in the games and that’s also true for this game.

THE PLOT

I have quite a few ideas for how this can go:

-It’s a “what if” re-telling of Kirby Star Allies where Hyness’ ritual (somehow) also causes space-time rifts across the entire universe to be generated, pulling in Kirby villains from previous games but also allies, which would ALSO explain Dream Friends in the game’s canon a bit more properly.

-It happens in an AU. Plot would basically be Kirby Battle Royale’s but instead of shooting a loadshit of Kirbies onto Kirby, Dedede would just call upon all of their friends to fight for that cake before things escalate and Dedede loses control of the tournament to greater evils, forcing him to work with Kirby to stop the threat, be it old or new.

-Another AU idea but this time it’s original/based on Milky Way Wishes. Galactic NOVA appears every thousand years above Pop Star’s skies, and everyone tries to fight for the right to get the wish. Villain wouldn’t necessarily be ONLY Marx though, most of the Kirby villains could easily win against him if they get to NOVA and get their wish granted. Which means yes, all plots happen at once and Kirby has to deal with everyone at once.

-The least interesting idea: it’s Kirby Fighters 2′s plot but without tag team duos and with all Kirbies replaced with the roster.

THE ROSTER

Now we’re about to have some fun.

RETURNING CHARACTERS: The Dream Friends (and Kirby, of course)

-First up, all Dream Friends are coming back. You don’t even need to change their movesets that much, just add/tweak things, but just for funsies (and for a specific reason too) we’ll also give them specific copy abilities or more than one to categorize them.

-Kirby is the specific reason. He has the same moveset as his Smash Bros incarnation, although he incorporates more copy abilities (and also super powerful stuff like the Star Rod that he usually uses in endgame fights) in it now due to being a traditional fighting game. And yes, he still has his inhale. Using it will have the inhale be replaced by another move in-game, the closest one to a “neutral special” in the opponent’s arsenal. His copy ability is therefore, Smash Bros. And since the game has multiple super moves, we can make his gimmicks from the Kumazaki games the super moves: his level 1 would be a random Super Copy Ability from Return to Dreamland (cutscene is random everytime but damage is always the same), his level 2 would be using the Robobot Armor to stomp foes around, ending with a giant ground pound/fist to the ground and his level 3 is Hypernova Kirby due to the inhale being one of his most unique properties.

-Meta Knight and Dedede will also have heavy Smash influences but they’ll also use techniques from most of their boss fights, such as Meta Knight splitting himself in four clones temporarily for an attack or Dedede actually pulling out an axe instead of his hammer for some attacks based on his Triple Deluxe incarnation. Their copy abilities would formally be Sword and Hammer but with heavy Smash Bros inspiration. Meta can also call in for the Meta Knights to help him in one of his unique super moves. They’d all be there except for Sailor Dee and Captain Vul (one’s an alternate costume and the other is never seen outside of dialogue text).

-Bandana Waddle Dee’s moveset incorporates both Spear and Parasol, but due to the Spear being his most used tool he’ll be categorized with that.

-Marx is the first character with Unique as its own copy ability due to his arsenal being entirely based on his boss fight. Inhaling Unique characters doesn’t always allow Kirby to get copy abilities but when it happens he usually has their most basic move replacing the inhale. Gooey is in the same situation, but i have no idea what would Kirby get from him as an ability since he’s technically player 2 in the Dark Matter trilogy’s first 2 games. Rick, Kine and Coo would technically be categorized as Unique only because they have Fire, Water and Wind in their moveset. You could say they’d be stance characters while Marx is a zoner and Gooey a rushdown character.

-Dark Meta Knight is categorized as Mirror, and Adeleine (with Ribbon as an assist of course) is Artist. Daroach would be Animal, which is missing since its debut in Squeak Squad, as far as I can remember, but he naturally still retains his moveset of calling the Squeaks to help him.

-It’s pretty easy to categorize Magolor as ESP, and Taranza as Spider, while I have no idea what would Susie’s ability be even. Spark? She is mostly around in the Robobot Armor to be fair. The Three Mage-Sisters would be treated equally to the Animal Friends

THE NEWCOMERS

-NAGO, CHUCHU & PITCH: The other set of Animal Friends. I theorize a moveset revolving around the Cleaning ability like in Star Allies would be easy to make, although it can also incorporate moves from other abilities that have been in Dream Land 3.

-CHEF KAWASAKI: I think it’s safe to say this one is pretty easy to do just like the returning Dream Friends. He has a unique moveset in comparison to Chef Kirby that also has him use Kirby’s Final Smash from Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

-LOLOLO & LALALA: Aside from pushing boxes and Gordos they can be the Ice Climbers of the game, and most importantly one of their super moves could have them fuse into their original form in the anime to reference that further.

-SHADOW KIRBY: A clone (in terms of moveset) for Kirby that lacks the inhale ability and has more attacks based on his appearances in Amazing Mirror (and also on Kirby’s unique ability to split in four in these games) and the Kirby Fighters spinoffs. Simple as it is.

-THE MIDBOSSES: They all play the same as their fights too, so doing a paragraph for each of them would be a bit redundant. I chose to add minibosses in because most of them are pretty iconic among Kirby enemies and some of them are also technically friends of Kirby’s. I picked Bonkers (whose coconut throwing and some special moves could make him different enough from Dedede if you ask me), Mr. Frosty (also because we don’t have an Ice-based character in the game), Buggzy (which I can see being the ultimate grappler), King Doo (because we don’t actually have a Waddle Doo in the roster and he’s technically not only their king but also the most unique of them) and Grand Wheelie (look, I like Wheel as an ability ok? it’s like playing as Sonic in a Kirby game)

-KNUCKLE JOE: Taking stuff from both his Star Allies moveset and his Assist Trophy from Ultimate PLUS a few references to the anime and you have the ultimate Shoto character in the Kirby franchise. Ryu mains, this is the character for you.

-GIM: Look, my three favorite abilities are Yo-Yo, Wheel and ESP, in no particular order, so I HAD to include him and the Grand Wheelie. Magolor covers for ESP enough. This lil fella looks more unique than most of the generic Kirby enemies and even among the copy ability ones he’s always been a bit of an oddball due to being a robot. The trickshots you can do with this copy ability make Gim perfect to camp, so he’d be a pretty good zoner as well.

-TAC: He’s been a Helper in Super Star where he also has an unique moveset. Expanding on it and on Tac being generally a copy ability thief could mean more copy abilities can be implemented in a moveset, probably even more than what Kirby can do. Also his design just screams potential to me.

DLC FIGHTERS

WAVE 1: Spinoff Dream Friends

Cuz these guys have been done dirty by Star Allies’ devs. Elline would be the other Artist character in the game and call for Claycia’s assistance in specific attacks. Prince Fluff would play mostly just like Kirby himself did in Kirby’s Epic Yarn and implement specific transformations in some attacks, ending with the tank one from the end of that game. Then we have Gryll. If you know how to make a Tetris/Puyo Puyo based character in a fighting game then good for you, I absolutely don’t know how. What I KNOW however is that she has a float like Peach’s in Smash Bros and I-No’s in Guilty Gear.

WAVE 2: Dream Villains

These guys would all play exactly like their boss fights. Hyness and Sectonia would remain mostly unchanged while Haltmann in terms of moveset is the same as Susie, just without every non-Robobot move that she has.

WAVE 3: Clash of Blades

THAT’S RIGHT, IT’S ALL ANIME SWORDFIGHTERS. They all pull from their boss fights, but Morpho Knight is gonna be a bit more unique compared to Galacta, Dark Meta and Meta Knight, having in the swordfighter equivalent of Akuma’s Raging Demon. Meanwhile, Dark Matter Swordsman and Galacta Knight are completely faithful to the source material, but they’d probably be a bit nerfed due to Galacta’s universe-breaking powers. (you can bet that if we get the remaining legendary heroes who sealed Void Termina in future games they’d be their own separate Wave 5 DLC pack)

WAVE 4: Revival of Old Faces

Nightmare and Drawcia are back and they’re here to stay! Their movesets don’t really need that much changes. Void however is an entirely different beast. He’d be a mix of Kirby, both Zero incarnations and Dark Matter. His design wouldn’t just be giant orb that switches between Kirby and Dark Matter faces, he’d be Kirby-sized and with legs and stubby lil arms like the pink puffball. And you can bet your ass he’d be broken as fuck.

SKINS

If a character’s appearance changed across the series’ history (like Marx Soul, Girl Blob Gooey, Shoppe Magolor, Mecha Knight, Dark Taranza/Taranza in the Super Kirby Clash games, Masked/Shadow Dedede, Anime!Knuckle Joe, Parallel/Pres. Parallel Susie, EX versions and so on) they’d just be an alternate skin/palette swap for the specific character. Multiple characters of the same species with little changes (like a normal Waddle Dee or Sailor Dee, or literally all Kirby colors including Keeby) are the same. I’m also debating on how Dark Mind would be a skin for Nightmare or if there’d be a skin inspired by him for the Dark Matter Swordsman. Zero and Zero Two would probably be turned into palette swaps/outfits for Void (imagine a white Kirby cosplaying as Zero Two that’d be so cute lol).

ATTACKING ASSIST CHARACTERS

Characters who appear in other characters’ attacks. Like the aforementioned Squeaks, Meta Knights and Claycia. Normal Dark Matter would appear in DM Swordsman’s attacks in some capacity outside of the eye laser and the Gordo Throw would return from Dedede’s previous Smash incarnations alongside the Waddle Dee Throw from Brawl. And naturally Magolor can call in the Lor Starcutter for one of his super moves. I am actually considering giving Tac the ability to throw random items/enemies at opponents, with the Bomber being one of these. It’d be a very RNG attack with the Bomber being the best outcome, blowing on the opponent’s face.

HELPERS

All characters in the game can be called on for an Helper attack, that can help you in some form against the opponent by either damaging or tampering with the opponent or by having you get healed or with some buff. Outside from the playable roster enemies that give you copy abilities would also be Helpers, but the specific ones I’m not so sure on.

BOSSES

Characters you can fight in Arcade mode, in Story mode or in a specific Boss mode. There’d also be a Ganon’s Fury (Hyrule Warriors) inspired mode where you’d play as the bosses pitting them against each other. I specifically picked Dyna Blade, Whispy Woods, Landia, Star Dream, Kracko, Great Edge, Pyribbit, Ice Dragon, Fire Lion, Masher, Grand Mam, Metal General, Kibble Blade and Pon & Con.

STAGES

There’d be quite a lot of stages, but I haven’t thought out specific ones except for Green Greens, Butter Building, a Ripple Star stage, one for Dedede’s castle with stage cameos by Tiff, Tuff and Escargoon from the anime and every final boss’s fighting arena.

THE MUSIC

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is gonna be nothing compared to this one. We’re getting all the important music from all pre-Kumazaki games, all music from Kumazaki games and spinoffs, and online arrangements with focus on orchestral (Desolo Zantas), metal (GaMetal, of course) and EDM (Acid Notation, Qumu and various others), including stuff like Itoki Hana’s vocal arrangements. We’re going all out on this one.

Aaaaand that’s it. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. Stay hydrated.

[seawing-vibes]

hey i just wanted to say, i’m learning to draw and your art has been such an inspiration! i really want to get good at designing dragons (and like, characters in general) and your designs are STUNNING, i’ve been studying my favourite fan artists a lot of late to figure out what makes their art so good and understand all the steps they might have taken to make a drawing, and how to make something that cool and original myself someday, and i’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time ogling at your art, it’s absolutely phenomenal!!! you must put so much work into it, and i really appreciate it. ❤️

ANON YOU AH HGRHN 💕💖✨/pos

THIS ASK IS MAKING ME GO BONKERS THANK YOU SO MUCH,, ah it means a lot that my art has resonated with you I’m so glad your enjoying the content thank you so much geggebwbw!! I wish I could give you a good insight on how I design and whatnot to help but honestly I do what you do hehe!! I tend to look at canon deigns & fanmade ones to see common pattern and color variations so the character(s) look recognizable and them just slap stuff down from there until I think it looks good e! Either way have fun on your art journey! Design is a very fun thing and I’m so glad my art has been an inspiration to you, your works gonna look great, it sounds like you’ve spent a lot of time in it too Ah ! ✨💕 Thanks so much for this ask again it’s just so kind and I’m glad you sent it, if ya ever post your art online at any point feel open to tag me in it if ya want!! I’d love to see what you create, either way anon you are so sweet & cool thanks a lot for this ask I hope you have fun doin art!!! 💕✨💖✨💕

[omegawolverine]

Plesse tell me about queerness in the get down!!

okay okay queerness in the get down let's fuckn goooo

disclaimer: I havent watched this show in full for like 5 months at least, probably gonna get something wrong and/or forget some more important bits. also this wasnt proof read I just word vomited

tws: period typical homophobia, abuse mention, f slur use, bury your gays trope, overdose mention, mention of a creepy possible age gap (the age gap hasnt been confirmed so that's why its possible), cops

going from least to most prominent queer characters, let's start with mylene cruz!

so, from the beginning of this show she has an established romantic relationship with ezekiel (although the status of their actual relationship changes frequently throughout the show) and though this was a relationship she was hesitant to pursue, it is clear that she does have romantic feelings for him and if not for them both having growing careers in very different music genres (zeke specifically working in a genre that she repeatedly labels as bad because she thinks they're ruining records + that it isnt real music because they're using someone elses piece and rapping over it, that's not really important here tho lol) they probably wouldve had a much healthier, smooth sailing romance. that being said theres a few things that happen in the show that, while not explicitly clear, or even really good coding at that—to the point where you wont catch if you really arent looking for it (and trust me, I always look for coding, hers was just so little that it flew over my head until I saw someone else mention it)—are still cool to think about!

so, for starters, I wanna mention the toy box performance, which was performed by mylene and regina, who are best friends. that's all cool and shit, and you dont really think much about it...until you hear about the fact that the show runners purposely colored a lot of the scenes in that performance with the bi colors. like. the writers after the show ended basically said "oh yeah there was plans to make her coding more explicit, but our shit got cancelled soooo" and then dropped the fact that she was gonna be bi (or at least implies bi) in the series, which puts a new twist on a few things.

now, besides the bi coloring in the background of the toy box performance (which was mostly on scenes with her and regina, which involved a lot of uh,, lowkey lewd dancing. with each other. in very revealing outfits. wooooo), there's her music! I dont tend to read too much into this one bc, like I said before, her coding is fucking light and the writers themselves said they didnt really get to do much with it, but I think some stuff with her music is interesting. specifically how her, yolanda and regina's song set me free blew up because dizzee, resident (lowkey enby coded) bicon, got their song played in a queer club. also that the song was majorly important to dizzee and started playing literally right as he kissed a boy for the first time and realized "oh shit I like boys that's bonkers". also that the song can be taken in a gay way since literally the entire thing is about becoming your true self, fully and unapologetically, which is what both dizzee and mylene's entire character arcs are about. dizzee (and a lot of other queer people, apparently), heard this song about being set free and it resonated with them so much that they got that shit most of its popularity.

speaking of dizzee and mylene, they parallel each other a lot in the way that their arcs are about them realizing who they are, coming into themselves and no longer just letting people treat them like shit in a sense (dizzee starting to tell people essentially that they can call him weird all they want, they can make fun of how he acts, what he likes, how he dresses, etc. but he likes how he is and quite literally saying "it's okay to be an alien" as he has consistently compared himself to one throughout the show vs mylene learning that if she wants to be a disco singer she needs to put her foot down, not let anyone, not even the love of her life, not even her abusive father, stop her from achieving her dreams, etc. and continuing to pursue her career with or without their support). one more little parallel that I think is interesting is during I think s2 towards the end of the show is when dizzee and thor are shown together having fun with each other, painting all over the building and each other and are basically just being happy and in love together and then they have these clips of them being interspersed with clips of mylene at a party where she is starting to realize that if she wants to get anywhere she needs to be her own main priority and that she needs to put her career and her dream, which is what makes her the happiest, above all else if she wants to succeed. idk I just think how the show made these two into a weird parallel, accidental or not, is neat. maybe not an explicitly queer parallel, but I think at least how her music and whatnot helped dizzee, the main queer character in this show, blossom, is important.

moving on we got shaolin fantastic also known as "oh no your internalized homophobia is showing-"

so, heres a quick list of...interesting shao facts:

Consistently referred to as fag/faggot (shaolin fanfaggot is my personal favorite); he gets really defensive about this despite nobody actually thinking he's queer, it's just people being assholes to be assholes, and he is the only character consistently referred to using a slur, especially a homophobic one, especially for a "straight" character. dizzee, a canonically queer character, is called a fag less than shaolin is even though dizzee actively goes to gay clubs, has a not so secret dude he "hangs out with" and wont let anyone properly meet, paints his nails, wears less than straight clothes even by the 70s standards and is just all around the definition of fucking queer (and I mean like in the weird way, not the gay way). in fact theres only like once I can remember him being called a fag and it had nothing to do with him actually being gay it was literally just like thrown out there the same way you would call someone a bitch.

Has only shown sexual interest in women, yet refuses to have deeper relationships with women in general (possibly because of trauma but who knows) but takes his relationships with his "brothers", specifically zeke, very seriously

Tells zeke and zeke ONLY his real name when zeke was planning to stop being his friend bc shao more or less got boo boo, a like 14 year old black kid, arrested for selling hard drugs; he was clearly scared and trying to do anything to keep zeke around, literally chasing him down the street and hounding him until he got zeke to stop and argue with him

Kept threatening to beat up zeke in the end but couldn't actually bring himself to do so, instead saying that zeke is "fucking lucky" before walking away

Let's zeke get away with things that nobody else can, in general just has a weird soft spot for ezekiel that he shows with nobody else

when shao found dizzee with thor in a vaguely compromising situation (like they were just shirtless covered in paint sleeping next to each other but shao had also seen everything they painted on the walls ((which some of it was sus)), it was clear they had painted on each others bodies and dizzee had been routinely disappearing with this guy for weeks now yet not producing nearly as much art, at least, as far as we audience members know) he didnt judge him but instead, waited for him to get cleaned up and then told him something along the lines of "theres a reason why im so secretive blah blah blah [not everyone needs to know everything about me]", which, in context, kinda implies that he might be a lil. a lil homiesexual. jus a lil.

whenever even the possibility of zeke leaving him comes up he absolutely loses it. he has literally cost ezekiel life changing opportunities because he thought zeke would just up and leave him for them. this could be abandonment issues bc he's a severely traumatized character, and that probably does contribute to it, but it also is just not a reaction he has to any of their other friends just randomly dipping in and out of his life soooooo

generally speaking, this mfer has got either bisexual with a big hard on for zeke coding or homosexual with terrible internalized homophobia and still a hard on for zeke coding. either fucking way, that nigga gay. he gay as hell. gay as fuck man. there wasn't really much to analyze here tbh bc the coding is just so fucking obvious if you look for it or you are/have been a gay person who's dealt with at least a little bit of internalized homophobia.

also, just a sidenote, idk how fucking old shao, but I'm praying hes like at max 19 bc I'm pretty sure zeke is a minor in this show and shao definetly is not so the whole him being heavily implied to have a crush on ezekiel thing is kinda. oof. not oof if zeke is like 17 but any younger than that? OOF.

edit: apparently the characters are only supposed to be a year apart in age but i had no clue about that before writing this post and since shaos age was never actually stated in the show i naturally assumed he was an adult since his actor Looks Like An Adult. this is definetly on me to a certain extent, but i also never saw anything about this when trying to find our their ages so 🤷‍♀️ maybe i just didnt look deep enough, sorry!

now moving on to the main event...marcus dizzee kipling :]

so, first things first, let's talk enby coding bc him being bisexual was already confirmed!

um, to start off, I just wanna say I dont think this enby coding was intentional or even really coding, it's just moreso me being a dizzee kin on main and knowing as a transmasc enby he has very transmasc enby vibes. for example:

cool, gender neutral nickname that everyone calls him

paints nails various different colors

the whole wardrobe is just a transmasc enby heaven...fishnet shirts, jean overalls, jackets and cuffed pants galore, the big colorful pins, etc

gender neutral hairstyle (when I had my fro it was very sexy and made it easy to transition between hyper masc and vaguely fem, which is pog)

comparing himself to/representing himself consistently with an alien character (though this is meant to represent his sexuality, it could also double as a gender thing too, not neccesarily bc of the whole nonbinary alien trope but bc an enby who likes aliens might heavily identify or compare themselves to whatever their idea of an alien is, whether that just be a genderless entity or a motherfucker with fly style and no need to be perceived as anything other Wacky As Hell)

moving on from there, let's talk about how his queerness is presented to us and how, while it may be a really good piece of representation, especially coming from netflix, it still lacks in A Lot of places.

so, let's start with good things!

i personally really like the get down's queer rep with dizzee bc it's (for the most part) nonsexualized and very very soft, about dizzee figuring himself out and realizing there is a place where he fits in, and about two teenagers in the 70s falling in love over their shared passion for street art. it also features an interracial couple where both boys challenge stereotypes both about queer men and men of color, which is epic poggers and very sexy. this piece of rep specifically is very important to me bc I am a queer black person and even tho interracial relationships are mostly normalized now, I've still had people give me shit for primarily dating white people in a town that is...primarily white lol

mm anyways, I can also appreciate how in the get down, dizzee being represented by rumi the alien is not a thing specifically related to gender (as it often is) and instead is about his sexuality and just in general weirdness and how it has led to him being alienated amongst his peers, poc or otherwise. him seeing himself as an alien is not about just his queerness, which is important, it is about him being a queer black man who talks different, acts different, dresses different and is "soft"—he isnt a walking black male stereotype and he wouldnt have been seen as masculine back in the 70s by any stretch of the imagination. this can be relatable to a wide spectrum of queer poc, from queer black men currently who still have to deal with this shit or to people like myself who are afab neurodivergent mixed race enbies that have always been signaled out as weird and alienated for it. dizzee is god rep bc while he has a small part in this show, his parts are very impactful, hard hitting and show queer poc of all ages that they arent alone and that it's okay to "weird", you just need to embrace it because somebody will love you for you, as thor did for dizzee.

that being said theres um. some minor problemas here,,,

namely:

dizzee and thors first kiss

the lack of development this pairing got

the way dizzee was confirmed bisexual off screen, he never said the words himself, just showed interest in both genders

the way dizzee and thor were never even confirmed boyfriends or just fwb so most of the fandom just calls them boyfriends bc Why Not

dizzee was implied fucking DEAD??? AT THE END OF THE SERIES?????? AND THOR WAS IMPLIED ARRESTED?????????????

now, these might have been things that wouldve been fine had the show been given it's full run but it wasnt which is why we are now left with probelms.

so, from the top, let's go over these: dizzee and thor's first (and only "on screen") kiss was one that was shown in a montage of other queer people making over and doing other vaguely romantic/sexual things, one of those things being a whole ass naked titty being mouthed at, but the actual kiss...was just not shown? like they really did just say "yes they kissed <3 you know this from the context clues of it being in a montage with kissing, hickey giving and titty sucking <3 but no we will not show it <3" LIKE HELLO? I SAW A NAKED BOOBIE BUT NOT TWO MEN KISS??? HUH????????

also, dizzee and thor were both fucking high as hell during this bit like this isnt a terrible thing but it's also like sometimes you do shit when you're high that you wouldnt do sober and they just never kissed again on screen so like?? like idk that's not that bad but it does kinda irk me since they deadass got no other on screen intimacy after that unless you including painting on eacher other or sleeping next to each other on a shitty mattress but not touching at all during it bc they were both at opposite ends of the mattress like half way off it

so yeah, that was trash. then we got lack of development, which kinda goes with the "dizzee being a bisexual but he never says it in canon" thing cause like...okay dizzee was already sort of a side character from the get go like he wasnt the mc by any means, but he became way more of a background character as things continued until we basically only saw him for performances or when he was with thor, yet they got no fucking development as a pairing other than "dizzee realize he gay, he like thor, he and thor spend time together and ig probably do some gay stuff but we dont really know bc we only ever see them do graffiti together now" like?? tf am I supposed to do with that shit. answer. quickly. and then theres dizzee not being confirmed bisexual, which is just a running problem with shows literally doing everything to say a character is bi except for having the character just...say they're bi? which would be so easy? like a good way dizzee and thor couldve had some development is by thor teaching dizzee things about the queer community that he didnt even know existed, thor couldve helped him understand what being bi meant and helped him label himself and whatnot but instead we got an off screen confirmation that the writers had bisexual in mind when writing him. which is garbagé.

the whole thor and dizzee never having a confirmed relationship status is also a development problem cause like literally nobody knows if they were just friends who made out, maybe fucked, who knows, or if they were dating bc dizzee does give a love confession but a love confession doesn't mean there is a relationship, especially since thor didn't say he was in love either (as far as I remember, I could be wrong, plus whether or not that really happened or was apart of dizzee literally overdosing during a performance is unclear so 🤪)

and now for the biggest issue...bury your gays trope.

during the season 2 finale, dizzee and thor are chased by cops after they are found doing graffiti, one of the cops is able to catch thor while the other chases dizzee into a train tunnel and there is a train seen headed straight for him before the show cuts to black on a train horn. the show writers claim that if they had gotten another season, dizzee wouldve been alive but since they didnt and since that's essentially super fan trivia knowledge, most people dont fucking know that and instead had to watch a black queer teenager chose death over being fucking arrested by a white cop. on top of that, thor didnt see any of that shit because he was caught and the cop started hauling him off while dizzee was still being chased so thor literally has no clue where his friend/possible boyfriend fucking is or that he's likely dead in a goddamn tunnel all alone, unless you count the fucking pig that chased him in there who wouldve died too. this shows rep was so fucking good as far as most shows go on not having major fucking problems, on not being toxic and over sexualized, etc, etc. and then they just. killed a black queer teenager for no fucking reason. like it was literally the last episode ever, it would add nothing to the plot, it would just devastate fans and devastate it fucking did. I dont cry easy but seeing a character I identified with, who I had hyperfixated on, die because he'd rather that than be arrested is terrible. it fucking sucked.

so yeah. that's my all too extensive thoughts/analysis on the get down's queerness. theres definitely stuff I missed, or misinterpreted, or looked too much into, etc, etc., but this was a fun thing to spend time writing sooo yeah!! thanks for the ask anon, sorry this was just a big rambley info dump, but hopefully you get some enjoyment out of it since it took like 3 hours at least 😭😭 feel free to ask clarifying questions lol

[katzkinder]

Cain vs Abel. Envy vs Lust.

While talking with a friend about what we wanted to see from Servamp going forward, the topic of a real Envy vs Lust pair fight came up and boi, gimme a brother versus brother smackdown for real, c’mon Strike, please, it would be such a great way to showcase Misono and Lily’s growth, as well as how their relationship has evolved.

Specifically I want Misono to beat Mikuni’s cocky ass into the dirt, and as my friend Fibi put it, eat his cowboy words from back in Volume 3 when he said that “your Lily can never beat my Jeje.”

But I also want Misono to grab Mikuni by the front while he's on the ground, tears in his eyes and screaming in his face to let him help him, stop doing everything on your own, you have people who love you! And Lily's behind him, injured but still standing while Jeje doesn't dare move from where Lily has him pinned with his scythe to his throat because the only way to get Misono off of Mikuni would be to hurt him, and he has no illusions about just where he ranks on Mikuni's ladder of importance.

At the same time, I feel like Mikuni is holding back massively in terms of what he can pull off with Jeje, but that Misono, once Lily has been cured, will also pull out some absolutely bonkers stuff... But he's weak in terms of creativity, which is what makes a Servamp Eve pair's arsenal the most potent. Mikuni has creativity in leaps and bounds. So if Misono wants to beat him... He's going to need input from his friends.

Something in specific I’ve thought about is Misono getting an idea from Greed pair’s Jekyll and Hyde technique, coming up with an ability that allows him to “castle” with Lily.

For anyone who doesn’t know what that means, castling is a type of special move you can do during chess that allows you to change the positions of your Rook and your King, where the King will end up behind the Rook. Basically, this ability of theirs would allow Lily and Misono to swap places with each other. Pretty nifty, right? Especially for someone as physically weak as Misono, to be able to have his Servamp tag in and take a blow for him would be incredibly useful.

--But for dealing with Mikuni in particular, it gets even better.

You see, something else Misono needs to do, and something he hasn’t really gotten the opportunity to do yet, is learn to work with Lily’s innate abilities properly, rather than being so straightforward with his attacks. I also think, by the time this showdown takes place, Misono would not only be secure in the fact Mikuni loves him, but also crafty enough to realize Mikuni won't severely hurt him, will literally command Jeje to pull his shot if he gets too in the way, and making that his advantage.

How is this important? Because of the way My Fair Lady functions. My Fair Lady is an ability that isn’t indiscriminate. It is bodycount based, and that is very important here because Lily? Lily has absolutely killed people. But he’s also a Servamp, so using it on him won’t kill him, no matter what. It’ll just neutralize him.

Now, Misono? Misono has not killed anyone. And he can use that.

Normally that castling technique I mentioned would be used to pull Misono out of the line of fire. But, against Mikuni… He’d use it to put himself in it. In the way of Mikuni’s Lead.

Another thing I’d love to see is Misono “breaking the game,” so to speak, because it was never Misono getting frustrated and quitting that stunted his growth as a tactician. It was his father and his brother not allowing him to lose. He’d always be sent to bed before the game was finished, which is why the first ability Lily gave him was so important. 

No one leaves until the game is done. 

And honestly? That is an incredibly powerful ability. To create an entire alternate reality in which to fight in, away from interference, the cavalry, and escape... Misono is so much stronger than anyone realizes.

And I feel like canon is purposefully trying to nudge our eye away from that.

Like, let’s look at Misono’s Lead for a moment. He's able to bring it out and dispel it so easily that no one even notices anything strange aside from "where did that chair come from?" Wielding his own and Lily's abilities are as easy as breathing for him. I also love how smart he was with the way Execution Block of the Red Queen is set up, because he knows that an Eve is at their most vulnerable without their Servamp, and he knows that opponents familiar with the contract system are going to instinctively gun for him when they notice Lily has separated from him, becoming overconfident in the fact Misono is weak and Lily appears to be so airheaded that they don't think for a second that Lily going so far from him is 100% on purpose

And not only is the way it's implemented fantastic, because it's a move that attacks the target's psyche and does no harm to their body, it's great for taking hostages. Misono is cutthroat and it is ridiculous.

A lot of times, when people even bother to remember Misono at all what bitter no I’m totally not bitter, they mistake his inexperience for naivety, his reluctance to disobey his father’s emotional manipulation for obedience, and his smart mouth as being something that’s just for show. Goody two shoes misono is so funny, like

Mahiru literally had to be like "no?! what the fuck is wrong with you??" when Misono suggested interrogating lilac, and then had to be kind of forceful with him again when he suggested they doublecross Tsubaki and keep Lilac as a bargaining chip. Not to mention the fact that he drugged! Sakuya!! In a basement!!!

He is so incredibly shrewd it's not even funny

--But he is also… Very kind. And sweet. And loving. He listens to Mahiru’s concerns. He wants to do whatever he can to comfort Tetsu in his time of need. He trusts Lily so, so much, and that trust shows itself most readily with… Again, Execution Block of the Red Queen. Like that move is dangerous, though the danger is part of the point. Still, it requires utter faith that if he allows Lily to stray from him and makes himself into a decoy, Lily will be ready to pull off the attack before Misono is hurt. And Lily is always exactly where Misono needs him to be.

Speaking of how kind Misono is capable of being while also being a ruthless son of a bitch… I have another, separate post in the works about two important groups of foils to one another in the Servamp universe, and I’m super looking forward to sharing it, so please look forward to it!!

[c-c-cherry]

OOH I GOT A GOOD REQUEST,,,, How about Jonathan’s reaction to each of the jojos, and their jobros?

*Jonathan looking down at his absolutely fucked family tree, a single tear running down his cheek*

Listen...I always say that *insert literally any character* is the best parental figure but it's Jonathan hours which legally means I can call Jonathan best dad in this post regardless of anything I’ve said in the past about any other best dads.

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Lemme just implement my soft Jonathan headcanons first: 

-Soft man. The king of manly tears. Tears down toxic masculinity like a fucking bulldozer

-Knits AND crochets. He never had a mother growing up so when Erina came in with all these lovely, traditionally feminine skills, he wanted to learn ALL OF IT

-Arguably gives the best hugs out of every Jojo (Josuke is a pretty close second, though)

-Since this post is just an impossible dimensional pocket where anything can happen, him and Erina live in one of those old grandma cottage-houses with a comfy, old couch and tacky curtains and a really cute little garden

-Again, if this is a pocket dimension he’s definitely hosting the Joestar family reunion there

-Just one of those houses where everyone feels comfortable

-Is impossible to piss off (except if you do anything to the people he loves)

-Always speaks in a very soft, understanding voice even when he’s mad/disappointed

-The father figure all the Jojos wish they had

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Part 2:

-You know that face you make when you watch someone you love do something insanely stupid but you’re still trying to keep positive because you know from experience that trying to stop them is futile?

-Just this constant, wincing smile?

-Yeah. That pretty much sums up Jonathan’s expression within any vicinity of Joseph Joestar

-He loves the man. He really does. But oh my god is he a dumbass

-Jonathan is the type of man to like,,,make bread and talk about his feelings but Joseph wants none of that shit and that’s ok,,,Jonathan can and will find another way to bond

-Regardless, he loves his Himbo grandson and the two of them end up talking about Erina and Speedwagon and a lil bit of Hamon too :3

-CAESAR on the other hand—Jonathan is so fucking happy to see a descendant of the Zeppeli’s continuing the whole Hamon thing and managing to be friends with Joseph

-Although Joseph never wants to talk about it outside of fighting, Jonathan and Caesar both share this tender love for the healing aspect of it :’)

-He teaches Caesar how to do stuff like grow/heal plants and flowers and Caesar ends up growing his own sunflowers in Jonathan’s backyard :)

-Smokey reminds him of Poco and he literally just wants to protect him with his whole heart hhhhhhhh

-Suzi Q also reminds him of Erina, but he still has no idea how she puts up with Joseph’s bullshit (and whenever she can’t decide what to wear, he always helps)

-He penalizes Lisa Lisa for being a fucking Hamon coach and also smoking cause like-

Part 3:

-Hgggghnn HEAR ME OUT but between him and Joseph, Jotaro arguably has more qualities of Jonathan including this wonderfully secret, sweet, sensitive side

-Jonathan grows flowers using Hamon and braids them into Star Plat’s hair (he has practice when doing it with Erina) :))))

-Joot claims to hate the bread that Jonathan bakes but if he DOES make it y’all know you’ll find him sitting there, eating it, and talking about his feelings like a good man should (but only if no one else is around)

-Arguably the only responsible father figure in his life and the only one who would scold him for literally going to jail

-Also apologizes profusely for not killing DIO the first time ;(

-Kakyoin is the kind of person you could just sit in silence with for hours doing shit like reading or painting or something and Father Jojo is loving the vibe

-YES JONATHAN WOULD HAVE A HOME GARDEN and every year he grows cherries for Kak >:)

-Pol is a bit extreme for him, but if he can handle Joseph then he can handle this man

-As rich, Victorian boys often did, he definitely studied french as a kid and can surprisingly hold a pretty good conversation

-Him and Avdol!!!! Feed his chickens together!! And engage in lovely, civil conversation :)))))

-Holy definitely inherited Jonathan and Erina’s sweet nature and she’s always down to compare knitting techniques with him :)

Part 4:

-Is it....is it safe to say that Jonathan just adopts all of Morioh?

-Ok but Josuke gets along with everybody (Rohan doesn’t count hgfjgh) so you already know he’d be up for some nice familial bonding (though he wouldn’t show it initially)

-I feel like he’d be hesitant at first because him and Joseph are already on weird terms and he doesn't wanna “intrude” on the Joestar family or anything like that

-But our man Jonathan is here to reassure him that he’s still a part of the family and his cute little grandma house door is always open for him when he needs it

-Jonathan would bake that bread and Josuke would be sittin’ on that couch pouring his heart out before that shit even comes out of the oven

-Josuke’s the biggest out of his friends so getting completely engulfed in a nice, warm, loving Jonathan hug is the best shit

-Like instant serotonin :)

-Crazy Diamond doesn’t have any hair so no stand braiding :( BuT Josuke will let his hair down sometimes and you already know master weaver Jonathan Joestar is braiding in some purple flowers and shit :)

-Okuyasu isn’t that smart academically, but our man has a big heart and that’s all Jonathan cares about

-Jonathan always makes soup for him whenever he’s down because Oku’s mama used to make him soup when he was sad too ;-;

-The two bond over losing a mother at a young age and never being close with their father and feeling unwanted growing up and its the sweetest shit

-Koichi would just,,,,stare in awe because between Jonathan, Joseph, and Jotaro he feels like a fucking ant (and is honestly kinda scared)

-The first time they meet, Jonathan tries to ruffle his hair and accidentally PUSHES THE BOY INTO THE CONCRETE and he feels so bad after, that he spends all night knitting him a new sweater

-He gives it to Koichi with apologetic tears in his eyes and Koichi fucking LOVES IT with all his heart

-Rohan is extremely intrigued by all of this shit and they two of them spend hours talking about Jonathan’s life

-Rohan ends up giving him a painting of Erina and now Jonathan sends him his favourite cookies on his birthday every year

-Also him and Tonio are real good buds and Tonio never yells at Jonathan for “eating impolitely” like George used to because he knows its just a sign that he loves his food :)

Part 5:

-What can I say? Both Jonathan and Giorno got a love for flowers and life, and that’s literally all they do together

-Like,,,their happiness is in one giant, contagious loop because when Jojo’s really happy, his Hamon will just make shit bloom everywhere and when Giogio is happy, his stand will go fucking bonkers and change shit into plants

-Ok but what if,,,they braided flowers into each other’s hair? :D

-Jonathan would bake the bread. Giorno would sit hesitantly on the couch. The moment this kid takes a bite with that GOOD jam he’s like “HAHA there goes my stoic front whoops-”

-Jonathan thought Giorno would get cold in the winter so he crocheted a heart the size of his tiddy window and gave it to him for Christmas

-As I said previously, him and Bruno would go fucking hard on tea parties and all that shit -Both are the obvious mom friend, it’s impossible for them not to get along

-Abba’s a little,,,iffy about him, but eventually grows on him the more Abbacchio actually starts warming up to Giorno (for whatever reason)

-Jonathan’s never really had to deal with teenagers that much (aside from when he was one himself,) so he really has no idea what the hell to do around Narancia and Mista because they’re so young and he feels like a fucking grandma around them

-But they’re always really sweet to him and ask if he wants to play COD but Jonathan has no idea why they could wanna play with a fish so he just smiles and laughs and hopes its a joke :’)

-When Trish wants her nails done, best jonadad is here to do it. She wants her hair done? Jonathan’s got that special brush that doesn’t hurt when you’re doing tangles. Hugs? Infinite hug supplier, babey. He’s really out here doing whatever it takes to keep best girl happy

-Fugo is,,,quiet,,,but he always comes over and eats the strawberries in his garden when they’re ready for harvest

-He even helps make them into jam :)

-He also teaches Fugo Hamon breathing techniques when he caught wind of his anger and it actually helps him a lot

-He considers everyone in that house his family too, and always invites them over for social events at his pocket dimension grandma house

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Jonathan Joestar lives in my head rent free...

If you’ve got a head canon idea, my ask box is always open!! <3

[thegleeacademy]

If we want our character to get a pet with the pet fair, do we just say it happened or is there something we need to do? Is there a weight limit for dogs or anything like that?

I'm getting to this a little late, I ended up going out with friends for few days and just left the internet. Whoopsies. Usually, I'm pretty relaxed when it comes to things. I feel like I have to be a stickler for things like drugs and alcohol and who gets to play staff because if I'm not, history has proven to me that shit will go absolutely bonkers and it's just too much. But when it comes to pets, not only have I never allowed pets at TGA so I don't have history with it, I figure... it's rp. The one place you can have any pet you want. So long as we all know that this is fantasy and not how real life should work, you can literally get a tiger baby for all I'll restrict you. Joe Exotic, look out. It's a fun reason to start researching different animals too, and learning more about what they need. When it comes to more wild animals like this, they would be domesticated obviously. We'll say their wild animal parents were rescued from bad zoos and they were born in the rescue or something so they're all just super chill and unrealistic but like I said... this is rp. I've seen people do pet monkeys and little, tiny wild cat things in school rp before. Also, this would be one of those reasons why people might end up with a bigger suite, or a suite with more customized wild cat stuff, like hobby trails or something. I will also be putting up outside space for animals to be put outside safely and comfortably with enough room to hang out and vibe while students are in class. Obviously, I don't really expect anyone to decide they want a tiger, but the point is that I'll make whatever work.

We're still going to stick with the one pet per person rule so things don't get too crazy, especially with claims being a thing. Imagine claiming two subs and you've got 10 cats, one sub has 12 monkeys, and the other sub has 20 dolphins. Have fun in that suite. So we'll stick with one each, I think that's fair. If there are circumstances where someone wants 2, they can talk to the Headmistress about it. That will definitely be allowed in certain cases, like if someone wants 2 mice or other such small pets. Service animals are also an option here. And the pet fair will end at some point, which means there will no longer be a vast array of animals just chilling on campus for your characters to go pet and play with, but the academy will continue a contract with the animal shelter for future characters that also want to adopt; they can just say they looked online at their website to pick and adopt if they're interested after the fair is gone.

So no weight limit. As for how it happens, you can go ahead and talk on the dash about visiting the pet fair. You can even para it out with other people, or do like... text or dash chats where you're talking to each other about what kinds of pets you might like to have. Then you just say it happened, yeah. I'd suggest posting a picture to social media to announce it so it's canon on your blog.

[puppy-phum]

For the "opinions on a character" game: Pangzi!

oh damn i never expected to get my aries pal pangzi for this but!! i am so happy i did ;; finally i get to think about him a bit more!! i always feel like there’s no space for that when pingxie are just so intense (also fyi this is my second time writing this damn answer bc tumblr threw me off the page just as i was finishing this the first time and i am so pissed gaaahh am sorry)

give me a character

(placing under a cut! bc apparently i have much to say about him after all)

How I feel about this character

Pangzi always gives me some conflicted feelings. There is so much good in him and I adore him for many of his qualities. He’s caring, confident, funny, strong, unapologetically emotional and affectionate with the people he loves. He’s also such a dad and I love that for him. I want to go outside and travel with him and drink something and eat his cooking and joke with him and sing karaoke very badly and then fall asleep on an old couch happy and safe. I want to see him at his shop, selling stuff and rambling about antiques. I want to hang out with him. Learn stuff from him. Maybe practice some pyromania. You know, the usual Pangzi stuff.

But then all the bad stuff comes in and… I think I’m going to talk about this later but let me just say that Pangzi has been the hardest one to grasp out the Iron Triangle. He just keeps changing so much between the different dramas. There is always that certain essence to him that is very Pangzi but he keeps getting different layers with different actors. There are these tiny details that make me look at him in a different way every time he gains a “new face” for himself. I enjoy it but it also puzzles me. He’s not as easy a character as I first thought when I got introduced to him through Reboot. He is complex. He is surprising. He is very interesting. And that just makes me very fascinated by him. He’s a great person, once he grows into it.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

I haven’t really given much thought to Pangzi’s love life. I’ve mostly just grimaced when it comes to his random crushes while they travel in search of new tombs because most of those are very cringe (or worse). But I did adore him with PiaoPiao in Reboot. Those two were just simply lovely, and all their scenes together made me incredibly fond. I felt warm within their love. I felt like Pangzi belonged there, with this woman who he had known since he was a kid and who he came to protect so fiercely. It suited him. Being with PiaoPiao felt perfect for him. And for the first time, his feelings got returned! He got loved back (even if PiaoPiao had some other plans there). He got to actually be in love. Their date scene in season 2 lives in my head rent-free. I was crying out of happiness. I miss them, and Pangzi would’ve deserved to have that and not just the kid he can’t even adopt now but won’t abandon anyway.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Oh boy, there are a lot of relationships when it comes to Pangzi because he’s such a social butterfly. He knows everybody. He’s friendly (or enemies, there’s no in between) with everybody. And I adore how different drama adaptations have given different takes on all these relationships (or added completely new ones). Because through that, I’ve gotten to see the awesomeness that is Pangzi with people like Xiao Hua, Hei Xiazi, Xiuxiu, Kanjian, Liu Sang, Huo Daofu, Bai Haotian and the whole of Desperado Fam in Reboot. He is amazing when it comes to people.

But, above all else, is the Iron Triangle. Because how can I talk about Pangzi without mentioning his two best bros? They are just so good. I love that trio so much. And every time I think about them, I just have to say that am absolutely euphoric over the fact that they found each other in this world. And in what way? Bonkers. What are the chances even, to just suddenly bump into each other in a Mongolian desert and then come to realize that hey, you will be bumping into each other a lot for the rest of your lives? Less than zero, probably. But they did it! I am so happy for them. They deserve to have all their lazy retirement days.

Because, at the end of it, Iron Triangle just works. And especially Pangzi, as the heart of this triangle, makes me so emotional because emotions are his thing. That’s just what he does. He cares about all their emotions. He makes sure that they can relax and have food and comfort and warmth and a home and nice things to do when they have the time for it. He makes sure that Wu Xie doesn’t just lose it every other second and that Xiaoge knows that he’s allowed to be human under all his pain. He’s there to make them laugh (and to able Pingxie’s shenanigans like a pro). He’s there offering hugs and affection and smiles. He sings. He fills the silence. He’s – Pangzi is just an amazing friend (and I really think Pingxie need to give their thanks to him after all these years of Pangzi suffering through their idiot gay bullshit. He’s very tired, I can see that).

I’ve been so happy that the latest dramas have given us so many good moments related to both of these relationships Pangzi has with his best friends. Because, as much as I adore them together as a trio, I am overjoyed when I get to see Pangzi with either Wu Xie or Xiaoge. Reboot gave us him with Wu Xie; their old married couple life in their tiny apartment, just showing the best platonic love I can imagine. Zhu Yilong and Chen Minghao really aced that (Chen Minghao is my favorite actor for Pangzi in general, he just really captures that character so well, be it in Reboot or Sand Sea). And then in Ultimate Note, we get to see Pangzi with Xiaoge; joking together and being affectionate and showing how much they care about each other under all the “bickering” (quotation marks because well, Xiaoge doesn’t say much). That was so amazing to watch. I am so thankful. The Iron Triangle feels much more complete now and my love for them overflows. I could write novels about them but for now, am stopping here.  

My unpopular opinion about this character

I really don’t know if this is popular or unpopular but it’s an opinion! Related to the foreshadowing in the first part. So here goes:

Pangzi as a character manages to be a bit of a dick towards women.

At least sometimes. Because as I said, he gives me very conflicted emotions. All of this might be tied to the writing (and the inconsistency of it between the different dramas) and to the fact that NPSS treats the women of DMBJ like shit, but it is Pangzi who portrays such behavior the most. He has some of these very questionable lines or comments towards women, and like I said, even his love interests are quite… random. Controversial? Because I am not very into him trying to hit on some young girls all the time. That is creepy. Please don’t ruin him like this. He already suffers from the fact that all his love interests just die, and the whole of DMBJ’s women suffer from that too. We don’t want to see women dying for some male character’s development. I am sick of that, and Pangzi deserves to be his wonderful self.

Which brings me to the fact that he does redeem himself quite often. I think his comments mostly bothered me in The Lost Tomb where he said some things to A-Ning. After that, he’s been better? I remember loving him a lot in Explore With the Note because he had this whole new feeling to him. He was so carefree and cool. I love that one mirror scene in the Underwater Tomb where he is just “combing” his hair and playing with that tiny scarf and looking pretty. That is the Pangzi I adore! That silly man who doesn’t care about things like idk gender. Because he would be iconic like that. He’d rather burn for equality than make stupid misogynistic comments on women. I trust this, especially when you look at him in Reboot. Maybe he has grown. Maybe that is how he changes? I have no idea. But please let him be amazing without these stupid mishaps that don’t even seem to fit his character hhhh

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon

I’ve already mentioned his relationship with PiaoPiao. I wish he could’ve kept that, it was so good for him ;; I will forever be bitter that they brought PiaoPiao into the drama just to treat her as a warning to Pangzi of what would happen if he dared to meddle with the “normal life” while still being in tomb raiding business. That was just stupid. Let them be happy together with their kid!!!! (Because I support Pangzi Dad Rights in this house)

Another thing would be: Let Pangzi be sad (tho this goes to many other characters too because DMBJ tends to rush over all the pain the characters feel in favor to get to the action). I know he gets a while in Ultimate Note to mourn Yun Cai but in Reboot, he basically never got to grieve PiaoPiao. I know their relationship didn’t get to develop very far but he was obviously in love with her! He cared about her! There were many things unsolved between them! He should’ve been allowed more time to be sad about it or just bringing it back up again. To be honest, I wish we saw Pangzi’s true emotions more often because he tends to just hide everything behind a joke. But well, the same goes, once again, for so many other characters too so I don’t know if I can really demand that from him. But I wish his emotions got their while too. That he got some more focus in the dramas. He deserves more than just stupid jokes or embarrassment (and I don’t even want to start about the stupid fat jokes). 

thank you for sending me this ask!! i had so much fun trying to figure out pangzi in my head ^^ i hope you got something out of it! have a very lovely day ♥ 

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Forged Through Fire (7/13)

Summary: Amestris. Once democratic, now a military dictatorship. Prohibition is strict; personal freedoms curtailed. All alchemists must be state-licensed or face imprisonment. Foreigners are met with suspicion. It’s a grim place and a grim time, but there are some people able to bring a little light to the world. Behind an innocent-looking bookshop, speakeasy proprietor Chris Mustang has formed an unlikely alliance with unlicensed alchemist Van Hohenheim to provide alcohol to those who want it and medical care to those who need it. When Riza’s newly complete tattoo becomes infected, Roy brings her into this underworld, little knowing the way it will change their lives in the future – uncovering the secrets of the mythical Philosopher’s Stone and the schemes of a Fuhrer hell-bent on achieving immortality, all whilst navigating what they mean to each other.

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Rated: T

[One] [Two] [Three] [Four] [Five] [Six] AO3]

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Note: So, just in case you read the previous chapter before I edited it, a note on timing. I managed to  mix up centuries and millennia because… wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff. To clarify, Xerxes was destroyed about 450-500 years prior, like in canon. Not 50 years prior, like my brain decided to originally write…

Also, Atticus was picked as a random Ancient Greek name, there’s no deeper reasoning behind it.

===

Forged Through Fire

Seven

Riza looked up from the counter as the bell over the shop door tinkled and Gracia entered. 

“Hey Riza. How’s he doing today?”

Riza laughed. “He’s stopped rambling and he’s now annoying everyone, so I think he’s getting better. I know that Chris can’t wait to get him off her hands, but we’re a bit concerned that someone might try to shoot him again if we let him out of our sight.” She went and flipped the closed sign, locking the door. The speakeasy was still doing limited trade in order to keep the money coming in, but it was only open to trusted regulars who had forewarned that they would be coming in advance. 

Gracia followed her down into the bar. For all she could joke about it, Riza could feel the tension in the place. Hughes had stumbled upon something so big and so secret that it would affect all of them in the long run. 

As suspected, it now appeared irrefutable that Bradley had the military alchemists working on creating the Philosopher’s Stone. So far, they’d had several failed attempts, but a recent covert expedition to the ruins of Xerxes had uncovered some interesting documentation. Barely anyone could read it, but it was nevertheless causing a lot of excitement among the upper echelons of the military. 

Or, to put it simply, Fuhrer Bradley was trying to make himself immortal. 

“Can you think of anything worse than an immortal Bradley?” Hughes was saying as they entered his sick room. Roy was in there too, sitting in the office chair with his feet up on the end of the bed. There were papers scattered everywhere. 

“No, right now I don’t think that there’s anything worse than an immortal Bradley. Hi Gracia, hi Riza.”

“Hello Roy. Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“I’m very hard at work attempting to bring down a conspiracy in the military!” Roy protested, gesturing around at all the papers. “And no. Officially I am taking a leave of absence to care for my sick aunt.”

Madam Christmas, who had entered the room behind them, gave a pathetic cough. 

“See, my sick aunt. I’ve got Havoc and Breda running interference and Fuery’s been sending all kinds of mixed message telegrams. The top brass are so concerned with trying to work out whether or not Hughes is dead that they shouldn’t be paying too much attention to my whereabouts.”

“Right.” Riza shook her head in despair as Roy swung his feet up off the bed, leaving the room with her and Madam Christmas to give Gracia and Hughes some time alone together. 

She waited until he had poured himself some coffee from the large pot that had been left on the bar and they’d settled down at their usual table before she spoke again. “Have you found out anything new?”

“Bradley nearly declared war on Xing as an excuse to get in there and try to find the Philosopher’s Stone, but even his closest allies decided that would be a bit much and it would be better to try and create their own.” Roy took a long sip of his coffee. “You know, I wouldn’t put it past him to just lead a one-man charge on the place, he’s certainly bonkers enough.”

“Is it even the kind of thing that can be created twice? I mean, I know we should all take myths and legends with a pinch of salt, but at the same time, all the bits and pieces I’ve read about it talk about it as The Philosopher’s Stone, as if there is and can only ever be one.”

“Well, I think the military are certainly testing that theory.” Roy sighed. “The worst thing about it is that I have no idea what kind of unethical experiments they’re getting up to and as an alchemist I could be dragged into them at any time. I mean, my specialism sort of keeps me safe unless they need to burn a bunch of stuff but considering the lengths they seem willing to go to in order to both keep the secret and try to succeed, I don’t want to rule it out.” 

Riza inched a little closer to him, chancing to put an arm around his back, and he leaned into her side, head drooping onto her shoulder. 

“I’m so glad you’re here,” he mumbled to her. “Thank you.”

“Any time.”

He gave a little huff of laughter. “That’s my line.”

“Well, maybe it’s time for me to take care of you for a little while. You’ve taken care of me enough in the past.”

“Thanks for following us out the other night, as well. I was so frantic; I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been there being calm and wonderful.”

Riza laughed. ���I’m sure you would have survived somehow.” She held him a little tighter, and he burrowed in closer. 

“It feels like everything’s been turned upside down. Except you.”

He looked up at her then, his dark eyes so sad and tired, and Riza’s heart went out to him. 

“We never got to finish our conversation from yesterday,” he said. 

“The ‘What happens between us now?’ conversation.”

“Yeah. That one.” Roy sighed. “I know that we’ve just ended up in a potentially really dangerous situation, and I know that this is the worst time ever to be talking about it, and thinking about it, and God forbid thinking about the future. But I also know that you’re the only person I would ever want by my side throughout this whole thing, and if we all end up skewered through with one of Bradley’s not-at-all ceremonial swords tomorrow, then I know that not taking a chance with you would be my only regret.”

“Oh, Roy.” Riza leaned in to kiss him softly. “There’s nothing like people being shot to put things in perspective, is there?”

“Nope.” His hand came up to cup her cheek and he returned the kiss, gently and a little hesitantly, but with definite hope and want behind it. “Perhaps I’m starting to see that sometimes the universe just really wants to screw us over, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

“Exactly. It’s time to let go of the guilt, Roy. There’s nothing anyone can do about it.” She found herself stroking his hair as he resettled against her shoulder. 

“We make quite the pair, don’t you think? Both broken up in our own ways.” 

“Perhaps.” Riza kissed the top of his head. “But we’ll stick ourselves back together. I think that’s the one thing that I’ve learned the most since leaving home and coming here. The sticking myself back together part. Because I haven’t been sticking myself back together, not really. I’ve had you and Rebecca and Madam and Hughes and Trisha and Hohenheim and all the rest of the crew helping me stick myself back together. And when you get broken, I’ll help you stick yourself back together as well.”

“Thank you, Riza.”

They stayed like that for a long time, and although her arm was going numb, Riza didn’t mind at all. She was enjoying this easy closeness. They had been so close back when he had first known her – perhaps they had never been this physically close, but they’d been so close as people. A part of her had always known that they would end up like this somehow. Maybe not as romantic partners, but definitely as friends. 

It was only when Madam Christmas came out into the bar to take over serving and gave them a knowing look that Riza realised Roy had fallen asleep on her, and she just smiled. They’d had a fraught couple of days of it, what with everything Hughes had found out and the aftermath of that; she wasn’t really surprised that it had taken it out of him so much. She was just glad that he trusted her enough to be this vulnerable around her. Well, she trusted him that much, and she guessed that it went both ways. 

Madam Christmas came over with a glass of wine; Riza took it with her free hand. It was her favourite, and she savoured the rich taste. 

“On the house.” Madam Christmas winked. “I think we could all use a little pick-me-up right now. It’s been a day. I had Rebecca on the phone earlier, she’s been picking up all kinds of stories at the paper.”

Over the last few months or so, Rebecca had become a great friend to them in giving inside information as to what kinds of propaganda were about to be sent out to the general population. Of course, most of what she wrote herself ended up cut and censored by the government-employed editors by the time it appeared in print, but the unredacted versions were always circulated through the speakeasy to great interest. Riza had been happy to set her up with Havoc.

“Good stories or bad stories?”

“A bit of both. Everything’s being swept under the rug, though. As far as Central City’s citizens are concerned, absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happened in the park two nights ago.”

“Huh.” Riza felt the uneasiness beginning to creep back in. “I don’t like how that implies that people do know that something out of the ordinary happened in the park two nights ago.” She thought back to Hohenheim and the frighteningly powerful alchemy that he’d performed on Hughes, something unlike anything she’d ever known before, and in turn she found herself thinking back to the day she’d burned her back, and his warning that removing her tattoo completely would be too traumatic. 

If that was what he would have had to do, she could well see why. Hughes had been unconscious and on his last breaths; she wouldn’t have wanted anything like that to happen if she was anything other than at death’s door. 

“No,” Madam Christmas agreed. “It’s worrying. I’m just hoping that there’s nothing that can tie it all back to this place. Rebecca doesn’t think that there is, and she’s running as much interference as she can. Still, I think keeping a low profile for a couple of weeks will be a good idea.” She glanced at Roy. “Are you comfortable like that?”

“Not really. My shoulder’s gone dead. But I don’t mind.”

“Oh, to be young and in love once more. Don’t deny it, Miss Hawkeye. I’ve known you long enough.”

Riza shook her head, but she didn’t respond. Something good would come of it all. It had to.

X

“Do you really think that Bradley would risk wiping out the entire population of Amestris in order to gain immortality? I mean, surely the whole point of him gaining immortality is so that he can remain Fuhrer and rule over us forever. It wouldn’t be much fun being immortal if he was literally the only person in the country.”

Two more days had passed, and the rag-tag bunch of investigators had become a full-on research force, although they weren’t any closer to finding out what was going on in Central Command than they had been before. Every new piece of information they uncovered just seemed to be adding to the confusion without clearing anything up. 

“I mean, if the legends of Xerxes are anything to go by, then he’d get wiped out too.” Hughes brushed some peanut shells off the table and slammed down another piece of paper. “Take a look at that.”

Riza looked up at the clock; it was almost eleven but none of them showed any signs of stopping. The entire crew of Roy’s friends from Central Command were gathered in the bar, and Madam Christmas had closed up shop temporarily to allow them more space to spread out in the main area rather than everyone being cramped in the office that had been Hughes’s recovery room. Hohenheim had given him the all-clear earlier in the day, but he still hadn’t actually left the speakeasy and gone home. Gracia and Rebecca had joined the party as well, and although Madam Christmas was trying to remain as aloof from it all as she could, more concerned with keeping them all safe in the bar than with the military conspiracies going on, she was offering insights wherever she could. 

Hohenheim and Trisha had gone home. Riza hadn’t seen all that much of them since the night Hughes had been shot, and she got the impression that Hohenheim was trying to avoid everyone in the wake of what he’d had to do. Not that anyone who had been there and who knew what had happened held his strangeness against him, quite the opposite in fact; they were all extremely grateful that he’d managed to save Hughes’ life. Still, if he wanted space then they would give it to him. 

Riza craned over the others to take a read of the paper that Hughes had put down, but the writing was too small for her to make it out. 

“What is it?”

“It attributes the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone to an alchemist named Atticus, who was the King of Xerxes’ personal alchemist. But it also says that Atticus died in whatever catastrophe wiped out the rest of Xerxes, so even if Bradley does succeed in creating the Philosopher’s Stone again, it won’t leave him any better off than when he started.”

“Just another hunk of rock in an empty country waiting for some Xingese merchants to take it home to Tim Marcoh,” Roy mused, and Riza couldn’t stop herself from bursting into laughter.

“Sorry, sorry. I know it’s really not that funny. I think I need more coffee.” She extricated herself from the gaggle around the table and went over to the coffee pot. Considering the vast array of alcohol that was available behind the bar and the fact that the coffee pot had never seen all that much use before the night Hughes had been shot, it was certainly earning its keep now. They’d been refilling it almost constantly all day. 

“Hey.” 

She looked up to find that Roy had followed her over. They hadn’t really had the chance to spend all that much time together since they’d had their talk. Well, that wasn’t strictly true since they’d spent most of the intervening two days in each other’s pockets whilst trying to work out what on earth was going on in the country, but they’d always been surrounded by other people. This moment leaning on the bar was as close as they had come to having a moment to themselves. 

“Hey yourself.” She smiled at the memory of the other night. Roy had been so embarrassed when he’d woken up, and it had been sweet to see him so flustered. Naturally, she’d had to kiss him to stop his litany of apologies for falling asleep on her. 

He helped himself to another cup, draining the pot. “How are you holding up?”

“All right, I guess. It’s just so surreal that I’m having trouble believing that it’s all happening and I’m not in some kind of crazy dream. More like a nightmare, actually. How come none of this has ever come to light before? Something this big and all-encompassing, surely someone would have found something out.”

“Someone probably did,” Roy said grimly. “And that someone, and all the someones who came before and after them, probably met the same fate as Hughes would have met if he hadn’t had a handy Hohenheim around.”

“It just boggles the mind. Who would even want to be immortal in the first place? Can you imagine having to live on and watch everyone around you grow old and die?”

“I don’t think psychopaths like Bradley really see it in that way.”

“But what about his wife? Their child?”

Roy shrugged. “I don’t think he sees it that way. If you want something badly enough, then everything else falls by the wayside.” He paused. “I… No. Sorry. That’s not an appropriate train of thought.”

Riza raised an eyebrow. “Well, now you have to tell me.”

“It’s about your father. Are you sure you want to hear it?”

Riza nodded. Although her feelings for her father remained complicated, the time and space between them made it easier to look at things through a more neutral lens. She didn’t think that she was ever going to forgive him for what he had done to her, but at the same time, she was no longer wasting her energy being angry at either him or herself. He simply wasn’t worth the emotional investment she had given him for so long. 

“I was thinking that I can see certain similarities between Bradley and your father.” Roy glanced at her, but she nodded for him to continue. “There’s something about them both, that single-mindedness and that disregard for others. Your father’s desire to protect his complex array above all else, his willingness to completely destroy your life in order to achieve his own ends… I can see that same drive in Bradley, and I dread to think what would have happened to you if Hawkeye’s goal had been immortality instead of anything else.”

Riza shuddered. “Yes. When you put it like that, I can see why Mrs Bradley and Selim wouldn’t cross his mind at all. I don’t even want to think about my father being immortal. He did enough damage in the fifty-three years he had.”

Roy reached across and took her hand. He didn’t apologise; perhaps he knew better than that now. After so many years of carrying guilt around, Riza had hoped she’d made it clear that he didn’t have to anymore. 

“At least it’s over now.”

Riza nodded. “Yes. It’s over now. And in the end, I don’t think my life has been completely destroyed. I mean, it might be if Bradley does something drastic, but I can’t lay that one at my father’s door. I think that I’ve still found something good in spite of him and his disregard for everything.”

Roy smiled, and Riza could see the colour coming up in his cheeks. It was sweet to see it; the persona he wore within the military and when he was around the rest of the customers in the bar was always confident and self-assured, an easy-going ladies’ man, but Riza had known him long enough to know that the real Roy was just as flustered around her as she had been about him when she had first realised that she liked him as far more than a friend. 

They were settling now, having put the cards on the table the other night, and Riza knew that, if the circumstances in the outside world had been easier, they would have been moving ahead with the relationship without any concerns. But the circumstances were what they were, and with danger lurking in every corner, it felt premature to be making any kind of long-term plans beyond the fact that they wanted to be together right now in case they never got the chance in the future. 

Roy’s fingertips brushed her face, touching the frown line between her brows. 

“It’ll be all right.” He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Somehow, it’ll be all right.”

It wasn’t the firmest or most confident of statements, but it gave Riza some hope, and she smiled, knocking her coffee mug against his in a toast before they went back to join the others. Breda and Fuery were pouring over a book so old it was practically falling apart, and Riza wondered if it was stock from the shop upstairs. 

“Can you make out this transmutation circle?” Fuery thrust the book at him. “Armstrong doesn’t recognise it, but he thinks it’s a forbidden one.”

Roy grabbed the book and turned it this way and that, before his eyes widened.

“I think that’s for human transmutation.”

“Ah.” Breda and Fuery exchanged a worried look. Even the layman most ignorant of all things alchemic knew that human transmutation was the ultimate taboo, not just in Amestris but in general. 

“So, once we get our hands on someone who can read Ancient Xerxian, that one could prove to be a game changer,” Breda muttered. He shoved it on the ‘keep’ pile of documents, and Riza went to sit beside him and take a look at what they had so far. 

She had only just settled down when she jumped out of her skin as a pounding against the door began. It was the back door that led out into the alley with the garbage, the door that Madam Christmas brought all the booze in through; the door that would serve as their emergency exit if the speakeasy ever got raided. 

No one used that door on a regular basis, and Riza felt her blood going cold. She looked over at Madam Christmas, who, although as guarded as ever, looked genuinely concerned. She gave Riza a nod and reached under the bar, grabbing the rifle that was always kept there in case of problems and tossing it to her, and the two of them made their way through the bar towards the door. Roy followed them, pulling on his gloves and getting ready to strike. The pounding was not letting up, a steady and frantic hammering, and as tense as the noise was making her, Riza thought that the fact it wasn’t being punctuated with ‘open up in the name of the law’ and threats of the door being blown in meant that they weren’t being raided. 

“Please!” The voice was muffled through the thick wood and obscured by the constant pounding, but Riza could recognise it in an instant, and ice ran through her veins afresh. “Please let me in! Please!”

Madam Christmas unbolted the door and threw it open, catching Trisha as she fell in through the doorway. 

“Trisha? What’s going on?” Riza rushed to help her back on her feet.

“They’ve got Hohenheim!”

[recurring-polynya]

🔆 — obviously they end up married and procreating, but in your headcanon, do you see them expanding their family? Having more kids? Being content with just Ichika? She seems like 2 kids in one kids body. Where do you see the Abarai family in the future?

🔆 do they see themselves together for the long run ? like , getting married , starting a family , and all that jazz ?

So, when I first found out the timing on Ichika, I was honestly pretty upset about it. Part of it is that I think it’s nice for people to be married for a while without kids. We don’t know when Rukia and Renji actually started seeing each other romantically, but my personal preference is that it happened late, possibly during or after the TYBWA. We do know from WDKALY that they had a pretty short engagement, and then conceived Ichika almost immediately following the wedding. It’s kinda depressing to me that they would have this huge separation, followed by two years of slow burn, followed by six months of dating -> engaged -> married and then BAM preggo. Dang.

Secondly, even though she’s been a lieutenant for a year, tops, Rukia is now acting captain of a squad that has just taken enormous losses, one of her top officers has just transferred to Squad 4, and the Soul Society is in ruins. This seems like... a terrible time to have a baby?

On top of all this, Rukia has never struck me as a person who has always dreamed of being a mom or would be particularly delighted to find herself pregnant. I’m not saying she wouldn’t want to be a mom, or that she wouldn’t be a good one (I am not a particularly maternal mom, and to be honest, I think we could use some better representation). I think Renji would both like to be a dad and would be an excellent and intuitive dad, but he loves Rukia for who she is. He would accept not having kids before he would try to talk her into doing something she didn’t want to.

I am a compulsive fix-it person, but within the confines of canon, so I spent a lot of time trying to make sense of all this. In my ongoing, low-burn, canon-spanning fanfic epic, I tried to put in a few earlier scenes where Rukia interacts with some Kuchiki family members who have babies, and starts to feel some stirrings that having babies doesn’t mean quitting your job and your personality. She’s always valued her independence, but she’s also been alone for a really long time, and at the same time she is trying to adjust to the idea of maybe she would like to have a romantic partner, she’s learning the trials and tribulations of having a sibling, and she’s really re-examining her entire concept of family.

I have never been particularly fond, either, of the idea that Ichika is somehow the Kuchiki heir (and I don’t think she is, especially since she has Renji’s name, but we really don’t know for sure and it’s a common enough idea in fanfic), because the entire Kuchiki family is kind of a drag and also they are problematic billionaires and I don’t like Rukia and Renji just blindly assimilating into that. As a compromise, I came up with the idea that maybe Byakuya named Rukia and Renji a branch family to the Kuchiki (his favorite branch family, don’t tell anyone), so they’re part of the family, but pretty far off from the actual succession and they have a lot of freedom to Start Shit and make the other nobles clutch their pearls constantly.

Bringing it all together, I can finally start to make some sense of this. Rukia and Renji get married with the sense that they would like a family, plus they are somewhat obligated to generate an Heir. It’s shitty timing for sure, but the timing is only going to get shittier. I have heard of women who get PhDs and have babies in grad school. On one hand, this is an absolutely bananas thing to do. On the other, if you know that’s what you want, it is entirely rational, because at least most grad students have a flexible schedule and it’s better than having toddlers when you’re trying to get tenure. If you can manage it, this is actually a really effective way to manage a scientific career. So, in other words, they had their (1) baby, and then Rukia got down to brass tacks, training her bankai and getting her squad in shape. I can definitely see Renji in a primary caregiver role (I think they have a nanny, but he scales back at work and takes care of a lot of stuff), and that also partially explains why he’s still a vice-captain. (If any of this is compelling to you, I did write a short story about it once)

Now, I am actually going to get to your question and the answer is: it depends on what happens in a theoretical continuation of Bleach.

Rukia has just been officially been named a captain in the Bleach epilogue. I think that if things continue to be peaceful, and she settles into her role, after a few years, I could definitely see them sitting down at dinner and saying “you wanna have a big family?” Maybe two or even three more. Ichika is practically an adult at this point, but given the longevity of souls in Soul Society, I feel like it’s not uncommon for kids to have even multiple decades between them. I don’t think she would have any bitter feelings about this, she has always appreciated as being an integrated part of their lives, even when it got a little hectic and also she really loves her baby sibs.

On the other hand, if there’s another big war or an extended period of low-level conflict, I don’t think they would have any regrets if Ichika turned out to be an only child. Rukia and Renji have had a tremendous number of awful things happen to them in their life, and I think they have a tendency to focus on what they have instead of what they don’t.

The primary thing that I think would put a crimp in further kid plans is if Renji had to take a captaincy. I don’t think Renji particularly wants to be a captain, although he would be an excellent one. The way the setup of captains is after the timeskip, I cannot imagine anyone retiring, so I can’t see this happening in the peaceful scenario. I have no idea whose place he would even take. In fact, even if some captains got killed in some future conflict, I would think that by that point, Kira or Hinamori, for example, would be more likely to step up and take over their squads than to bring in Renji. Renji certainly wouldn’t take 1, 2, 4, 12 or 13, and they already blew the storyline where Byakuya dies and he takes 6. I suppose he could take one of the other squads if they lost both captain and vice-captain. Renji becoming the new Kenpachi is the spiciest possible take and I would read the shit out of that.

The actually family development I would like to see would be for Byakuya to get married, dude it is your job. Are you guys ready for my dream Byakuya love story that I will never, ever write because I do not ship him with any existing characters and I would die if I had to tag something Byakuya x OC? TOO BAD, here it is anyway: I think Byakuya doesn’t think he could ever fall in love again, and up until the main Bleach storyline, the idea of being remarrying is abhorrent to him. After a few years of being an ancillary part of the Abarai family, though, I think he could finally bring himself to find some suitably noble wife to Bear Him an Heir. In Byakuya fashion, I imagine he would dig through a bunch of genealogy records and find some woman who is the dead end of some old lineage of Great Soul Society Generals or some shit and out-of-the-blue proposes to her. This woman is the Spinster to End All Spinsters. She is like, 400 years older than him. She is not conventionally attractive and wears a lot of sweaters she knits herself. She has a lot of special interests, including carnivorous plants, and is extremely hardcore about her hobbies. She is the Sybil fucking Ramkin of Soul Society. Her spiritual energy is bonkers. She and Byakuya do not get along at all, but that’s okay because they have big plans to ignore one another (aside from procreational intercourse). Rukia is losing her mind. Renji is trying to smooth things over. Nothing is smoothed. Hitsugaya rather likes her and keeps trying to give Byakuya pep talks. Finally, like, Byakuya’s prize orchid almost dies and she saves it and Byakuya goes full heart eyes for her, and he has to be romantic at her. He wears an ill-fitting sweater she makes.

So, to sum up: Rukia and Renji get married, have Ichika. Byakuya gets remarried, makes an heir or three. Twenty to thirty years later, Renji quits to go be the stay-at-home soccer dad he’s always wanted to be. Byakuya Jr. becomes Vice-Captain at the Sixth (or possibly Ichika? That would be fine, too). Rukia eventually becomes head captain. When the younger batch of Abarai kids get old enough, someone convinces Renji to run for office and he becomes the Leslie Knope of the Central 46. Bam. The best timeline.