#and also have plot armor irl.

[cimicherrychanga]

ngl, modelling yourself after an anime boy makes me uncomfortable in an east asian fetishizing kind of way....

HUH????

YOU MEAN THESE FUCKING ANIME BOYS??????????? ARE THESE THE ANIME CHARACTERS WHO LOOK LIKE ME THAT LED YOU TO SAY IM BASING MY IDENTITY OFF OF THEM FOR FETISHISTIC REASONS???

ANON LOOK ME IN THE FUCKING EYES ( under all this hair) AND TELL ME WHAT YOUR THOUGHT PROCESS WAS

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

This wine tastes like pigs blood!

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[fountainpenguin]

Tango POV Session 3 highlights (My first POV this session, jumping in with no spoilers)-

Skizz: "I want a giant blinking heart in the sky" Tango: "Cool idea :) You're doing the redstone, right?" Skizz: ... Tango: "YOU'RE doing the redstone for that, right?"

Skizz: "While editing I was like... 'Am I a loser?' Tango: "No, no, no! It was well before editing that I realized that."

I do love the server dynamics that give us gems like Mumbo sprinting across the ground yelling about how he has a quick, urgent thing he needs to do... Just an average day in the death game.

slkdjf Tango and Skizz finally found someone just as desperate and needy as them... Enter the man who has been shunned for 3 seasons because of his boogeyman kill. We love a BigB!!

BigB: "Skizz, this might be time to point out my weak building skills-" Skizzleman: "Oh no, don't worry. That's why we've got ourselves a Tango!" Tango: /incoherent shrieking and denials

Tango assigned homemaker by the narrative.

So just to be clear, we've got Tango "I will teach you redstone and cheer you on" (Mansplain), we've got BigB "There is no hole in the mesa" (Manipulate), and Skizz "I built the base" (Malewife). Good for them.

Skizz: "At my IRL job when I had to create blinking lights, I literally had someone go back to the breaker and flip it."

Tango, to Cleo: "That's all we are! Cringe 'R' Us!"

sdlkfj Tango hugging and comforting Torchy over how scary Etho's water bucket attack was. "If he comes back, I will take care of this."

BigB: "I have an anvil." Tango and Skizz losing their minds: "BEST TEAMMATE EVER!"

Heart Foundation: "We will join forces and gift our hearts to a randomly selected person. Everyone will like and protect us; we are creating our own plot armor." Etho, immediately after receiving his hearts: "I am a huge fan. Sign me up. Whatever I need to do to stay on. I will let you use the enchanting table. I would be dead if it were not for the Heart Foundation."

Gem and Scott riding up on their zombie and skeleton horses would be SO terrifying. Can't wait to see the fanart of that sdfklj

Tango killed it this session, he did not cut corners in babbling to Torchy.

Gem: "I think your task is to remove light sources from the server." Tango: "That would be very incorrect." Tango as he sprints away, muttering to Torchy: "I know?? They were standing right by us and they didn't even notice??"

Torchy has such boogeyman tendencies, geez. Is this Leven Thumps; did we confine the spirit of the boogeyman to a piece of wood??

Tango, raiding someone's base: "You want to? We could."

I enjoy the new rule about Yellows having one chance to call people out on their task. I think this is a good move to up the tension and also encourage people to do it because you only get one shot per episode. Don't wanna waste it!

slkdjf @ Tango chatting with Etho, Etho susses out his task, so Tango immediately runs to Grian to confirm the rules. Grian tells him no problem, Etho's green so he's in the clear. Tango runs off crowing in laughter.

Lizzie: "I've heard some weird things about you." Tango: "We are excellent today." Lizzie: "That's the weird stuff I've been hearing."

?? Is Tango's official canon that redstone exposure turned his eyes red? Neat.

lksdjf Skizz seething about Impulse.

Tango: "What did he do?" Skizz: "His task was to find somebody who's got greater than 25 hearts and find a way to - air quotes - "accidentally" get them to lose 5 hearts. So he made sure I lost 20."

Yeah, that tracks.

Freaking goodness, Tango put his entire heart and soul into this invisible friend task.

Bdubs' globe is looking amazing <3

?? Etho running up to Joel and saying "I love you?" What is the context; looking forward to figuring that out.

Etho: "I love you." Joel: "Okay, I know you're obsessed with me, I saw you made me your thumbnail of your first episode, but come on..."

Called out at the end!!! Devastating!!!

That is the end, but what a great session. So much death...

[artbyblastweave]

So I blew through Ultimate Marvel Team-Up in order to get context for when Daredevil starts sticking his horns back into the main Ultimate Spider-Man book, and what's really interesting to me is that Bendis's rendition of basically every non-Spider-Man cape who shows up in that gesture at what could have been an extremely cohesive Ultimate Marvel setting;

Hulk is very visibly classic Hulk in every respect, but with the added implication that he's currently neck-deep in a thriller-conspiracy uncover-the-truth kind of plot regarding the government experimentation with super-soldiers that's upstream of all of superhumanity in the Ultimate Universe. This idea was later binned, Banner was framed as neck-deep in spook shit and unlikely to try and defect from it in the way he was implied to be trying to do.

Iron Man's origin is changed so that he got abducted by rebels while attempting to sell weapons technology to a right-wing U.S-backed junta in Guatemala during the Reagan Admin, and moreover in direct retaliation for attempting to do that; this is upstream of his decision to stop selling weapons technology, and the two-shot where he teams up with Spider-Man involves Latveria attempting to steal the Iron Man Armor- with Tacit SHIELD Backing, because Nick Fury is willing to let Dr. Doom have that tech if it increases the chances of the U.S. Government eventually getting a crack at it. This extremely interesting cold war dynamic between stark and Fury also mostly got binned.

The Fantastic Four are nearly identical in function to their 616 counterparts, except that instead of a spaceflight they got their powers on a years-long expedition to the Negative Zone, having Challengers-of-the-Unknown style adventures, which both neatly resolves the datedness of the spaceflight origin and allows them to have their veteran hero status simultaneously with the idea that the heroic age is just starting out. The Negative zone was also mentioned to be the home dimension of the Skrulls, Kree, and possibly Galactus, neatly explaining why so many spaceborne threats keep making themselves earth's problem so specifically. Ultimate Fantastic Four was just good enough (And Bendis's two shot otherwise boring enough) that I can forgive the parts of this that they binned. I mean we got Marvel Zombies out of it, that's worth everything in the world

Ultimate Dr. Strange is interesting in that he's the son of the original Dr. Strange, whose origin, career and supporting cast are actually largely exactly the same but also linked to the IRL time period of Strange's debut, the early 60s through the early 80s. Stephen Strange Jr. is the inheritor of a legacy his disillusioned Mother Clea spent twenty one years trying to keep him well away from, rapidly attempting to learn the ropes under the apprenticeship of a long-suffering Wong and largely coming across as a scientologist-adjacent crank in the media. This is actually a really fun way to put Strange at the Metaphorical kids table with the rest of the aged-down heroes while also keeping him from breaking every story, and although Bendis did get to keep using him in this capacity it ultimately didn't amount to much because he got turbofucked during Ultimatum after only a couple of appearances.

Shang Chi is introduced in the middle of a Kung-Fu walking-the-earth situation, with Spider-Man haphazardly (and unsuccessfully) seeking him out for martial arts lessons when he realizes he's just leaning on his powers as a crutch in most fights. He offers him like 20 dollars

The broad outline of a lot of these ideas, and the political themes they were gesturing towards, survived their later delegation to other authors to some extent, but were corroded by Millar's cinematic bombast on The Ultimates in particular. I mourn the version of the Ultimate Universe where they just gave Bendis enough amphetamines to have him do all of it. At any rate you bet your ass that if I ever commit to trying to do some kind of fanmade unified Marvel Timeline I'd poach all of these

[curedigiqueen]

Why I think Appmon is the Best Digimon to Start With

Digimon Universe: Applimonsters, better known as Appmon, is the forgotten digimon series, because it quite frankly barely counts as a digimon series. In fact digimon only appear in one episode. And that is exactly why it is the perfect season to start with when getting into Digimon.

Appmon is just a show I'd recommend on its own, even if it wasn't a digimon show. It's got a lot going for it. It's character's are fun, both larger than life and compelling. The characters start immature and flawed, before growing into themselves. Their character dynamics are honestly also unique and fascinating. The plot is well constructed with regular progression, ample foreshadowing and well-earned twists. It's one of the best shows in the franchise.

A lot of the best things about Appmon, are the reoccurring elements that I love about digimon to begin with. The human/monster relationships where the monster evolutions reflecting human growth, themes about humanities future and cross-cultural interactions, strong sibling relationships, and normal kids growing into heroes. Appmon is very much everything I love about Digimon, and thus showcases some of the best the franchise has to offer. But without, the baggage of being a digimon season.

Digimon can be intensely metatextual. While individual digimon stories may be complete unto themselves, its very common for digimon stories to make reference to other lore and themes. Glossing over them for the older fans. Things like Yggdrasil, Royal Knights, Jogress, File Island, Homeostasis as they appear. They are explained when relevant, sure, and often are excluded more than included but any given entry (Cyber Sleuth for example) may throw a whole heck of a lot of them at you without a whole lot of elaboration on the idea. Appmon almost completely strips out the metatext. It strips out the recognizable monsters and by extension, the virtual pet elements (thus the two baby levels and eggs), the character archetype shorthand's, and general digimon reference book references. No Leomon or Wizarmon variants to wave death flags. No virus, data, vaccine types nor armor or hybrid levels or x-antibodies potentially randomly dropped in without context. Because it's not that context is ever really needed: they'll explain if they are, but there is still the decades long, exceedingly over-complicated metalore cooking in the background of any given digimon series. Instead the Appmon being Apps means that any context on the creatures are rather self evident, their app type. The simple act of living in our modern society provides enough context. There are a lot of references to IRL AI culture, such as all the protagonists being seemingly named after AI, and the Dartmouth Workshop of 1956 being a plot point. Appmon has plenty of references and lore, it's just not overly all about Digimon. It doesn't completely strip out metatextual references to digimon, but it is kept subtle and unobtrusive. Haru has goggles because they make him more protag like, the kids find a phone booth, the kids are called "chosen children" once, and episode 44 does bring in Agumon as a video game but its non intrusive and isn't really used as any sort of shorthand. You can know that goggles that do nothing is a very extra character design element denoting protag status without knowing its a digimon thing. Old fashioned technology and modern kids is always funny. The kids were in fact chosen. And one episode out of 52 being a cute and heartfelt crossover is nothing. In short, Appmon doesn't have any of the baggage that might make a traditional Digimon season difficult to get into.

Which is probably the reason they made Appmon, well Appmon to begin with. Why they decided to start the franchise fresh so to speak to target the child (new) demographic while tri. targeted the older demographic. Appmon's come and gone, and they've abandoned that strategy, so newer entries of digimon still try to capture a new demographic while building on the old, so Appmon still remains as most stand alone entry of the anime.

But it is still very digimon in the ways that matter, meaning that if you DO like Appmon, you're very likely going to find at least one other season worth looking into. Logistically the season is a lot like Hunters and Ghost Game, with how evolution and the digital field works, the characters vaguely (with heavy emphasis on vaugely) resemble the Tamer's cast, the way the human digimon relationship's function resembles Savers imo. It's themes of humanities future and chosen one narratives are very Adventure. In other words it feels like a digimon season, because it works a lot like what came before it. Really, digimon seasons vary a lot. For the most part no two seasons are alike, there are very few things consistent in Digimon. Just a lot of things that reoccur frequently. So in the end, Appmon feels like a Digimon season, because it's just like a Digimon season in every way EXCEPT for the actual monsters.

Appmon is particularly similar in it's themes. Digimon often tackles themes of identity, alternate selves, destiny and responsibility, humanities evolution, humanities relationship with digital technology, and cross cultural exchange. So an entry may dive right into: what happens when you abuse your alternate self, or where does the locust of the self actually lie, glossing over the lighter "what would it be like to have an alternate self". Appmon covers many these themes too but it does so through the fresh lens, of Apps and realisticish (Heavy emphasis on the 'ish') AI, building its case from the ground up rather than falling back on typical digital world backstories. What makes an AI a fully fledged person, what is the point of being alive, how will humanity handle being overtaken by its creation, humanties newfound dependence on various AIs, and how can humans and sufficiently advanced AI coexist without one taking advantage of the other. Many of the same themes Digimon usually covers, but in the more specific context of a war between hyperintelligent super AI. Rarely are digimon significantly more intelligent than a human, but Appmon builds itself around the idea. Being Very Digimon, while also bringing something new to the table.

Appmon may have come out in 2016, but it's themes of AI transcending humanity are perhaps more topical than when it debuted. The original Digimon was on some level born out of the mystique of the new technology that the internet was in the early 2000s. As such, while Digimon generally toes the line between sci-fi and fantasy, it usually incorperates Sci-Fi aesthetics, but fantasy worldbuilding. Appmon's worldbuilding actually is heavily sci-fi, no implications of magic, but the themes and motifs of the story border still on mythological. Something closer to our modern understanding of technology. We know our internet, it's nothing special to us anymore. But we forget to a certain extent the power held by the internet in the modern day. Who is this power meant for? Digimon is in many ways, conceptually, a holdover from a bygone era, even as it seeks to stay modern. But Appmon is unapologetically modern, in a way that feels like it should have aged super fast, but somehow still feels contemporary 8 years later.

The other side of what makes Appmon the best to start isn't just that it's good to start with, it's that the other seasons are worse. To start with that is. I love them to death, and I don't think they are necessarily bad, but if you aren't already interested in what digimon has to offer, it might be a bit harder to sell. With how metatextual digimon can be you might think the first season would be the best place to start. I mean how could it not be. It's the first. Well, not exactly. Adventure is both the best and worst place to start otherwise. It is one of the cornerstones of the franchise, and so much of what comes after calls back to it. Adventure is a subtle story in a lot of ways that leaves a lot of the details to be parsed on rewatches. It's a genuinely passionate piece of art. In fact, the show is so detailed they many of the details didn't even make it in the show, with lore clarified in side materials. Most of these details aren't incredibly important, but they do provide insight into some of the shows otherwise confusing choices. Also, most were never officially translated into english. Also, the shows attention to detail left the show rife with opportunities for translation to be mishandled, leading to additional issues. Not to mention the 90s weren't exactly known for their faithful dubs, and this is true of Adventure too. Though Adventure itself still suffers a lot from metatext even outside of its own lore. Taichi's name and design are reused from the manga. File island, Server Continent, the idea of "raising digimon", the frequent presence of "garbage" digimon, and the disjointed evolution lines, are all borrowed from the general V-Pet lore. And ultimately Adventure is even more complicated by the franchises refusal to let it go. New releases, and cameos in other works are varying degrees of canon incompliant. Sometimes recent releases are insightful to the original work, sometimes they perpetuate misconceptions about the original work. Sometimes both. Sometimes its hard to say one way or another. To be clear, Adventure isn't really that complicated, itself. Very enjoyable even if you don't think too hard on it. But it's barely covering a whole maze of rabbit holes. I do recommend Adventure and 02, and it can ABSOLUTELY work as a first digimon series. But it does leave itself open to a lot of bad takes.

But, a familiarity with Adventure is sort of required to get the full effect of Tamer's, which serves as a sort of deconstruction of Adventure era digimon to a certain extent, or to actually understand Digimon Survive (a visual novel) which is in many ways a more mature retelling of Digimon Adventure. Otherwise Digimon series are either too unique in premise (Frontier and Xros Wars), and/or not very good (Adventure: 2020, Ghost Game) to warrant as a recommendation for a "first" digimon series. In all fairness, all digimon season are a perfectly fair place to start. None of them depend on each other to tell their story. I'd even argue that 02 is an acceptable place to start, if a baffling one. You don't need to know the meta-textual elements to appreciate their stories and characters and worldbuilding. That's how the franchise has survived through its multiple iterations. But when Digimon throws "Armor" level around casually, an artifact of an old storyline, it's kind of hard to argue that on some level digimon doesn't have an overwhelming history.

Savers is my second choice recommendation of a first digimon season. It too has its own metatextual elements of course, they are less overt and Saver's also just does its own thing worldbuilding wise a surprising amount. Otherwise its a solid story that utilizes typical digimon tropes, but doesn't explicitly call back to Adventure in its premise.

Of course there ARE other digimon media. The original Digimon media was the V-pets, which are fun, but have niche appeal. The same applies to the Digimon World games. Speaking of which, Digimon Games are generally not the best way to get into the franchise. They're mostly not very good, and I'd also add that Digimon games are even more heavily marketed to pre-existing digimon fans than the animes are. Digimon Cyber Sleuth is maybe the only exception, but even that very heavily pays homage to Digimon Adventure. Though, some of the manga, like Liberator or V-Tamer might be good places to start too.

There is one big problem though with Appmon as a first series. No English dub. Now, generally speaking the digimon fandom is plagued by bad translations. So many of the dubs generally kinda suck, so I usually recommend subs anyway, but I recognize not everyone can handle subs. There is a french dub, for those who understand French. I don't so I don't even know if its a good dub. If you're a dub only person honestly I recommend Tamers as a first season. It was the first one I finished. Its got a few issues that hold it back as an ideal first show for the uninitiated, but a solid story you don't actually need any context for. Adventure and Saver's dubs have problems imo that keep me from recommending them. (There IS a more supposedly more accurate SE asian dub of the early digimon seasons out there, but its harder to find + I haven't actually watched more than a few clips so I feel I can't exactly speak to its overall quality).

Ultimately, Digimon is the kind of thing where you can jump in anytime, and the kind of thing where there are plenty of fans who would be happy to explain the weird stuff. But you DO have to start somewhere. I just personally suggest Appmon.

Appmon is overall, just a solid children's tv anime on its own, as well as a fantastic example of what a digimon season can be. But without the 20+ years of baggage.

[yourdeepestfathoms]

TADC Playing D&D

(ALL PLATONIC/FAMILIAL.)

Caine is the DM obviously

Pomni plays a Firbolg Warlock (but her Firbolg’s design is the one that looks like a cow. y’all know the one. it’s the only valid design for a Firbolg)

Jax plays a Tiefling Rogue (obviously)

Ragatha plays an Aasimar Cleric (also obviously)

Zooble plays a Changeling Barbarian

Gangle plays a Gnome Druid

Kinger plays a Warforged Artificer

And then Caine reveals the plot twist: it’s gonna be irl dnd, and they ACTUALLY PLAY their characters

They’ve got costumes and their character traits and everything! Like, Ragatha gets angel wings, Jax has horns, Pomni gets a tail (because, again, cow-like Firbolgs are the only right way to design Firbolgs, and you can pry that from my cold, dead hands)

The terrain also changes into the same terrain as wherever they adventure to

Antics ensue!

Zooble is the tank

And they can instill the fear of god upon man

But you know who else can be scary as fuck?

Ragatha

Have you ever fought a Forge Cleric before? Did you know those bitches can wear Heavy Armor?

Combat is WILD when they’re actually acting it out

Though, it can barely be considered “acting” because Caine has somehow made magic possible????

Kinger asks to make the most wild shit because he thinks it’s fun

Gangle once got downed, got to two (2) failed Death Saves, was brought back up, and then was IMMEDIATELY downed again

Pomni gets anxiety over even the most mundane of rolls

She was asked to roll Perception, and she was sweating buckets, afraid to fail and screw everything up, and it was literally just to find a nice bakery in the city they were at

Jax asks to pickpocket orphans

Ragatha: Pomni, why is your Strength a seven???

Pomni: i don’t want to talk about it

Her Unarmed Strike literally does zero (0) damage

She never uses her weapon ever

Only Eldritch Blast

She also uses other spells ofc, but Eldritch Blast is her go-to

“Doll Face, i’m down” “Pomni’s having a panic attack” “okay, and? i’m downed”

Jax and Ragatha have beef the Whole Time

“why did you think you could hide in an empty arena??” “because i’m a Rogue, and they have Advantage on hiding!” “IT IS AN EMPTY ARENA WITH NOTHING BUT SAND.” “I AM A ROGUE WITH ADVANTAGE TO HIDING.” “THE ARENA IS EMPTY. THERE IS NOWHERE TO HIDE.”

Despite being a Firbolg, which is considered a race of Giant, Pomni is STILL considered as a Small creature (due to her own height)

Because of this, she can ride every single other person in the party, as the Ride rules in dnd state that a willing creature at least one size larger than you and has appropriate anatomy can serve as a mount

This has started a “technique” the group has named “War Horsing”

In which Pomni sits on someone’s shoulders and spams Eldritch Blast non-stop while the other person wrecks house

(She usually sits on Zooble’s shoulders and Cure Wounds them whenever they take too much damage)

She’s also called the “cannon” of the group because she’ll sit on Zooble’s shoulders and use Fireball

Speaking of Fireball!

The gang once found Beads of Fireball, and Jax, wanting to be a boss bitch and show how much better than everyone he is by single-handedly killing this super hard boss they were fighting, thought that because he’s a Tiefling and Tieflings have Resistance to Fire Damage, he could easily survive a blast.

Anyway, he ended up taking 80d6 Fire Damage after he threw all ten (10) beads at once.

Even when the damage was halved, he still died instantly.

Ragatha considered if it was worth it to Revivify him.

Pomni uses Speech of Beast and Leaf to speak with plants, and the plants just cuss her out.

Zooble: can i roll to pick up Pomni by the ankles and swing her around as an improvised weapon?

Pomni: ?!?!?!

(Caine said yes)

(Zooble ended up doing five whole damage with Pomni’s body)

Caine once rolled 200d8 Bludgeoning damage because Kinger fell off a mountain (he was Revivified by Ragatha after)

“COUNTERSPELL THIS, B[@&$%]” -Zooble, right before decking an NPC straight through a wall

When fights get too hairy, Jax will Disengage and leave the party to fend for themselves

There was once this HORRIFIC chase scene the party had to try to survive

Zooble: *polymorphed into a mountain goat by Pomni, sprinting as fast as they can*

Gangle: *Wild Shaped into a mouse, desperately hanging onto Zooble’s fur*

Ragatha: *flying away while holding Pomni*

Pomni: *clinging to Ragatha like how a baby sloth would cling to its mother, shooting Eldritch Blast at the monster every turn in a desperate attempt to slow it down, screaming*

Jax: *already 200ft in front of the others because he ran off way before them*

Kinger: *wondering if it’s a good time to tell the others he has Longstrider prepared*

Jax got maimed by a Mimic because he couldn’t help but not loot a chest he found

He then proceeded to get maimed by ANOTHER MIMIC in the VERY NEXT ROOM because he also tried to loot that, too

Zooble: does a 22 hit? 😏

Caine: no

the entire party: 😟

Pomni got bitten by a werewolf and failed the Constitution saving throw, so she ended up becoming a werewolf. During her first transformation, she lost control after failing the saving throw and immediately started mauling Jax.

Everyone just kinda stopped and watched in awe for a moment before they realized they should probably help him.

���He needed the humbling” -Zooble

Kinger crafts Pomni a gun and gives it to her

Caine: so you all see the werewolf pull out a Tommy gun

The party had to fight this giant frog, and they all thought it would be a walk in the park, but then it swallowed Pomni, and the simple encounter turned into a fight for Pomni’s fucking life because Pomni was actively suffocating inside of it, and Jax wanted to blow up the frog with a magic grenade he had, despite Pomni being in there (he was well aware that she would also take damage), and Ragatha was trying to see if she could heal Pomni from inside the frog, and Gangle ended up Wild Shaping into another frog and begging it to let Pomni go.

Pomni was traumatized.

Caine: who’s done a good job at roleplaying recently?

Kinger: well, Pomni did have a panic attack

[imustbenuts]

ouggh could you please elaborate on your criticism of brave Alfonse ...I like hearing your thoughts (⁠人⁠ ⁠•͈⁠ᴗ⁠•͈⁠)

alright. so this is just a messy sloppy thought vomit essay again im so sorry in advance.

and i am salty overall about this.

in 2 words: traditional conservatism

in many many words:

ALFONSE. OPEN UP YOUR WAY CARVE YOUR OWN PATH WHAT ARE YOU DOINGGGGGG IF YOU ARE SAYING HE HAS POTENTIAL JUST. FUCKING. COMMIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU COWARDS! HAAAAAAAAAAAUGHHHHHHHHHHHHG learn from your dad's ruling policy yes but don't become your dad and carve for the affection you cannot have jfc

IN MORE WORDS

gustav is. objectively speaking, not a good father in the emotional growth department. I've mentioned and maintained by him looking like an Asian tiger parent from my pov. even if he does lay out proper foundations and maybe good hc adjacent policy for country ruling, his approach of parenting is questionable at best.

I get him operating under pressure and sickness with a limited time left to raise his son in a manner befitting of the throne but like. All sink and no swim? No proper explicit guidance? You can't just be "I want my child to meet expectations and dispense no love", that's just straight up neglect my guy. hes very much the 2 faced proud big important parent person.

realistic, but yuck.

i dont think they even have a father son moment probably ever. Henriette and Gustav have a more functional relationship bc they actually dated and had proper human interaction, but it's likely given cultural asian and high expectations context irl, his kids were treated more like objects and successors. Despite everything he might have felt and expressed behind the scenes. again, the affection is not expressed and conveyed directly enough to his kids, and alfonse being his successor means. alfonse has major daddy issues and anxiety about succeeding the throne.

So now, brave alfonse, having lost this dad and understandably craving for fatherly affection and going through it in the plot, is. you know. in the process of redefining himself. arguably is always, but now, its either he's the successor of, King Gustav the Great II or The Next King of Askr. his role as with many many other of his type are to be a signifier of a new era. thats the whole point of successors!

hes even all "ILL OPEN THE WAY". implying that something before wasnt working out and a new path must be blasted open for a better future. thats the whole theme.

But the effect of Alfonse donning his fathers armor in this case is not respect, it reeks of insecurity! again, does alfonse know his father as Gustav The Person to a reasonable degreee? if by that we mean a neglecful parent but a decent king, okay. but why is there a need to repeat this cycle by wearing from head to toe, from body language to skill 1:1 of his dad. howis this a good thing...

dude. what the hell is intsys doing. do i need to call their parents or what the hell is this conservative traditional filial pathetic nonsense. what the hell happened to all of the other fire emblems who are 5 steps more progressive than this

(granted i do find FE to be very conservative on the whole now that ive stewed in the pot of it all but thats a me thing. it could also be dependant on the writer but idk them well enough to know who does what)

and heres my ideal fucking scenario, right. not very hard. id argue just picking up gustav's mantle OR axe and then working it into a new outfit that is explicit alfonse's would be miles better and what i would want. a signifier that alfonse the character knows himself and wants to walk his own path while honoring the good parts of gustav and discarding the bad.

not this. reanimation method of almost wanting to wear his fathers' skin. as if he cant move on and stand on his feet. as if hes unsure. as if they dont want him to commit (at least not yet bc we gonna milk FEH for as much as we can). despite. all the things that have been happening.

instead of rolling with the punches the armor feels like him not doing that. it might have been an easy alt to decide on, but character wise, i dislike it a lot.

[canonically47]

evil version of that previous anon: and what were your LEAST favorite parts of each of those seasons?

sorry i got to this so late! buuut

total drama

season 1: leshawna's elimination. just... utter bullshit. closely followed by geoff's. also utter bullshit. in fact heather's whole plot armor was meh

season 2: sorry guys but courtney's entire arc. i can't stand her in TDA. she's meh to okay at best in TDI and fine until the gwuncan stuff in TDWT, after that i just can't even. she's so annoying sorry <//3

season 3: EZEKIEL'S MUTANT ARC COME ONNN MY MAN DESERVES BETTER LET HIM BE HAPPY FUCK YOU

season 4: the all-men finale. we should've gotten a zoey vs cameron finale. boo

season 5: the fact that it exists. i have so many problems with it, it's hard to narrow it down to just one single part i hated most, but there is one! i hated how every character was dumbed down. heather just telling alejandro she had the idol. alejandro just telling mal he had proof he was evil. many eliminations. the fact that the final five was... well, that. but most, i hated mal's arc and how mike was 'cured' of DID by pressing a button. i won't speak much on it since it's nowhere near my expertise nor business as a singlet but i would imagine that is. not how it fucking works. at all and just such a sad sterotyped thing to add an eViL alter to the poor guy just to give him more substance. plus i've discussed this with a mutual before but mal just feels like max taken seriously by the narrative. yeah i hate this season there's a reason it gets trampled in my fic

season 6: there was so much potential for max to be a hero and stand up to scarlett. like. so much. i love him he deserved better. that's not the worst tho and if you're new here let me tell you I FUCKING HATE DAVE. OKAY. i have a BIG issue with that guy which is half because he reminds me of some asshole i know irl and half because he just fucking sucks. i don't get any dave ship, any dave love, anything at all. there is nothing to like about him. he is genuinely one of the very few total drama characters that i can't even make up the substance he lacks. just. fuck dave

season 7 (RR): the daters and best friends fell so flat for me in different ways. the daters were just so annoying and i couldn't have been happier at their elimination. the best friends just felt so forced to me. i mean i'm also a romance-repulsed(-ish, not always, it's complicated) aromantic but oh my goddd... they dragged on for sooo loooongggggggg

season 8: the jurasic fart episode. also how chase treated emma. again fuck these allos /j

season 9: PRILEB. OKAY LISTEN. i fucking LOVE prileb BUT i also fucking HATEEE them. they could've been so good if priya was just eliminated earlier. caleb could've had more to him than priya's misunderstood boyfriend, he could've made alliances and friends, but noooo just give him an entire miscommunication arc FUCK YOU yeah prileb could've been so good if it was good (total drama catchphrase)

disventure camp

season 1: fiore's betrayal to alec felt like terrible writing to me and i'll still stand by that. a character like fiore needs more than one side and alec was that other, softer, caring side. and they threw it all away for shock value! <//3 i really hope these two make up :( i miss them so much. oh also the downfall of tomjake like what the fuck happened oh my

season 2: some challenges were... creepy and weird to say the least. spin the wheel to see who to kiss? my aro ass could never. and when kristal indirectly outed aiden during the dares challenge? like, this yo host? trevor would never <3

season 3: whatever the fuck riya and connor, as well as tom and jake, as well as ally and hunter, as well as- FUCK IT WHATEVER THE FUCK THE COUPLES HAVE GOING ON. YES ALL OF THEM EXcept gabellie. keep going my loves you're doing great

[chaosk1ng]

Isaac Clarke somehow ended up with the Mandalorians again. I swear I didn't mean for this to happen again.

Fuck, I'm back at it again.

Another Star Wars x Dead Space crossover, this time it’s the original thought process! (I lied, it's the original era I had in mind but not the same thought process.)

So Isaac once again manages to get stuck in a galaxy far far away, only this time it's the prequel era, I’m thinking of the Clone Wars era.

If he’s in Mandalore then he could be mistaken for a new type of Mandalorian or knock off version that neither Death Watch or the New Mandalorians want. The True Mandalorians probably would have mixed feelings, he could be an asset but he’s an unknown party that doesn’t even seem to want to be involved and knows nothing about them despite looking like the Wish version of them. Maybe he accidentally gets involved with their plot, honestly I can’t see him helping Death Watch, the only way they could get him to help would be tricking him but not only do I think they wouldn’t want to be associated with Isaac but also because I think Isaac wouldn’t get tricked that easily by them. Then again, he did go to the Ishimura for his dead girlfriend who he thought was alive, but that was because of the Marker’s influence so that’s a pass. He probably would help the True Mandalorians since the New Mandalorians don’t like armor or violence which would suck for Isaac who just committed a massacre. The mental images of a blood stained Isaac appearing in a crowd of New Mandalorians is hilarious.

If he does get involved with all the Mandalorians jazz that goes on then he can do the other stuff after. Now I wanna expand on Isaac and the Mandalorians. Shootdangit. (Yes, I do mean that to be one word, that’s how I say it irl)

So focusing on this now, Isaac could (should) probably be placed before Jaster’s death (romance? No, not again. Stop giving me potential old men yaoi material. It’s not my fault they wear helmets). Man accidentally stops Jaster’s death if he ended up before it happens, but also consider this, if it’s after then Jango is parentless, Isaac is parentless, Isaac can become a bad influence on this kid. I’m not saying Jango should get adopted by Isaac cause they both now have problems they need to deal with at the moment to even think about that type of thing, but Jango picking up Isaac’s habits is funny to think of. Jango just curb stops everything, and learns curses from Isaac which would be headturners in this universe since they don’t exist, but please let someone say fuck. Jaster doesn’t need to die to have Isaac influencing Jango, I think he could get along with Isaac and understand where he’s coming from and why he’s confused and likely panicked. I was gonna say that maybe Isaac could try and fight Death Watch before Jango’s parents die but I don’t want to deal with the effect that would happen so Jango, it’s easier with Jaster since you still keep the connections and all that but also see how much the years have worn on them. Isaac needs someone to help him learn, if it’s between the three factions then the True Mandalorians.

HOLY SHIT I JUST REMEMBERED ARLA

I was writing a part later in this rant and remembered her and had an idea, Isaac saves Arla before meeting Jaster and Jango and basically adopts her, that or gives her to Jaster. I don’t care if Jaster isn’t their dad in either of the canons, he can be if I will it! I have the power over the canon of MY fic/rant, fuck you Star Wars writers! (jk, I love star wars, just not the crap in this Disney era, some was good tho.) Anyway, if Arla just kinda forces Isaac to adopt her or if something that happens subconsciously then both her and Jango can compete against each other about who has the better dad. Isaac is somehow getting by and Jaster has already been raising this boy for years up until now, you would think that Jaster would win but Isaac has some things on Jaster, like his weapons and modules and literally everything he possesses because I am very willing to bring up the crap his RIG can do. He can store information of different kinds, has a navigation system that has both a map and guide to show him where he needs to go and can store things of all kinds in it, he can survive in space with it and knows how long he can last AND not only walk on any surface while in the vacuum of space but also move however he wants. You can argue the Mandalorians can use their Jetpacks to do the same but my man’s abilities have not been hindered, he weapons all still work the same and so do his modules, the only thing holding him back is the fact he has limited air at a time and has only fought the Necromorphs. This is ignoring the other features the RIG has. Fuck you, he can hold his own decently by my standards which admittedly are not that high. Anyway, the sibling rivalry is real, one of them has a dad who was and is seen by them as the Mand’alor and this deeply traumatized man who only a few days ago just wanted to save his (dead) girlfriend.

Anyway, if he meets a different faction, he could meet the Children of the Watch. In my last rant of ideas with him in the Mandalorian, I had him co-parenting Grogu with Din, in this one Isaac can become a parent again but instead of Grogu it’s Din this time. He could either appear with the Children of the Watch a little before they rescue him or he could appear as they arrive to help. Either way, we can get Din getting raised by Isaac and him reluctantly becoming a parent, once again he could teach him curse words, have people say fuck in Star Wars, it’s fucking funny. I can’t see Isaac becoming a Mandalorian but I can see him having either good or neutral relations with them, some would like him and maybe befriend him for his winning personality but others may just like him for jobs they need done. Anyway, he could have connections to the Mandalorians and somewhat raise Din in that lifestyle, maybe just have it influence him so if he really wants to he could become one in the future. I could see him wanting to because they’re the closest thing to Isaac in the fact that they wear armor all the time and are warriors, he doesn’t need to know Isaac is just running on adrenaline while on fight or flight mode. Imagine his surprise when he finds out Isaac doesn’t actually know what makes a Mandalorian and the fact he’s just an Engineer and his one of a kind weapons are just tools he found, Din doesn’t need to find out about the Necromorphs until he’s older, hell maybe not at all. Point is that he could just have an accidental baby acquisition fic with him fumbling and eventually going into hiding as the Empire forms. Maybe we see his reaction to the Great Purge, maybe he helped a few of the few he was close to, maybe he finds out after it happened by a Mandalorian friend he had that he comforts, maybe he helped a few clans escape, maybe he was there and saw so many die, maybe he was hiding as he saw the terror unfold, either way he would be devastated at the amount of people he knew and their sudden deaths. He could help keep contact between clans since he isn’t Mandalorian and doesn’t look like one, either way he would be an asset to them after the Purge.

Another thing I want to briefly mention here is him meeting Revan, not long but just a little thought. If he went to the Old Republic and met Revan then he would be so confused if he stuck with him or had any form of contact with him. I love Revan and all but for someone like Isaac who has no idea what a Mandalorian, Jedi and Sith are he would be confused as hell to meet him, my man Revan has been all three. I just want to see how confused Isaac can get with Revan.

Anyway, Old Men Yaoi time™! I think I just like shipping masked men with masked men but still. Just like the last rant with the Mandalorian, this is just an excuse to have the two co-parent Jango and Arla. Maybe Arla does become Isaac’s kid and her and Jango think that since they’re both siblings and they both have their own dad that it only makes sense if they finalize it by getting them together. Basically they Parent Trap Jaster and Isaac, maybe the other True Mandalorians help or start a betting pool, some could try and sabotage it so they win said betting pool. Isaac could ask some of the parents of the group about tips in raising a child to which some could point him to Jaster if they’re trying to help get them together since he’s raising her brother, or if they’re trying to stall then they either will give him advice or warn him not to ask Jaster since he might become a father for Arla instead of him. I don’t think Isaac sees this as a problem because he knows they both have shit they have to deal with and he’s sure that he can’t be a proper father figure for her and does go to Jaster regardless who could give him good insight. Jaster could already have a thing for Isaac for saving Arla, his son’s sister who they thought was dead, and saving his life either before or after meeting the True Mandalorians, Isaac could’ve barely found them in time to save Jaster, maybe give him some medpacks so he doesn’t die. This could lead to him admiring or respecting Isaac to keep it platonic or have it also cause him to develop a crush on him and eventually develop as they talk more and get closer, add in the fact he’s raising the sister of your son and it’s already a done deal for Jaster, he will be too far gone while Isaac is hesitant as hell. I would like to say it’s one of those ‘Blank fell first but Blank fell faster’ but if they fell for eachother then it’s ‘Jaster fell fast and hard while Isaac is slowly walking down a slope at a snail’s pace.’ or alternatively, ‘Jaster fell fast and hard while Isaac is slowly climbing down like he has acrophobia.’

Anyway, this derailed again, it was originally gonna just be Isaac fumbling his way through the Clone Wars and somehow helping resolve it, y’know like other crossovers that are just fix-its and have goofy interactions with the characters but it once again ended up with Isaac getting caught up with the Mandalorians. You can see how my views changed as I went on. I need to stop, get me out the kitchen, this ain’t what I meant to cook.

[miralyk]

wait, even though you draw yourself, you don't want to associate yourself with f/o or selfshipping communities? genuinely curious, and want to be respectful of boundaries drawing gift art for you

had to look up what "f/o" means but yeah i think i get an idea of what you're asking... i have a bit of a nuanced and long-winded answer wrt the Topic, which will be under the cut for convenience, but to start for for Fanart, i'm still very conflicted about my appearance both irl and in art, so i'm cool w something like drawing something like my trainersona or my pokesona/foxsona, but not art Directly Of Me, My IRL Self Showing My Bare Face, hope that makes sense!

(full long-winded answer to this question and broad topic:)

i don't have a problem with selfshipping or self-inserts; any criticisms i have are just core "fandom issues" (out of character writing/art, ignoring serious themes/topics in the source material to flanderize or sanitize fanworks, excessive spam in tags, especially unrelated to the post and/or without proper blockable tagging, etc) that selfshipping/self-inserts can perpetuate like any other fanfics or fanart mediums.

for me personally, i technically do have "self-insert" stuff like trainersona/pokesona art and lore to even a selfship with riley called brilliantaurashipping, but i just try to keep it quiet and not bother anyone tbh. i don't have much confidence with my appearance or overall qualities as a person and the last thing i want to do is be ignorant and pretentious, which i feel like would be hypocritical just. constantly drawing myself. especially in a rose-tinted goggles and mary-sue "oh i'm perfect and nothing's wrong with me i have all the superpowers and plot armor in the world and i'm besties with EVERYONEEEEE" shticks,, it makes me wince for canon-compliance and "oh god i don't want to be someone shitty and ignorant like j*lloapocalypse" reasons.

i also don't want to risk annoying or bothering people... if you're autistic and/or a person of color too you may understand this struggle better, but i've had a lot of ""friendships"" where it turned out people who i thought mutually considered friends actually hated me the whole time and only held their tongue out of societal obligations, laugh behind my back as the "mean girl's autistic pet" thing, fail to communicate properly because of various social cues i couldn't process, and so on. i'd rather have up front, honest communication that doesn't sugarcoat anything or beat around the bush, so here i am doing the same with elaborating my thoughts and hope i'm not misinterpreted or have people make assumptions making things up based on lack of information too. this got a bit long but... yeah, overall i do like drawing, even of "silly" stuff like this, but there's a reason why the word guilty is in "guilty pleasure"

[stardusthuntress]

A Gala-ctic Evening (Part 2)

ARC Echo x AFAB!reader 

(Part 1)

Word Count: ~6k (hehehehehe! Here there be pure smut, friends!) 

Summary: Echo and the classic ‘night at the gala’ trope, continued. What a fun way to start a relationship with a sweet, flirty trooper like Echo. Corporal, ‘fix it all and flirt the whole way’ is your date for tonight, and he’s more than ready to take it all the way!  

TW: Again, 100% pure smut! PiV (wrap it before you tap it irl kids), pull out method (not advised irl), orals (f receiving), reader is a bit self-conscious of her own body (Echo does his best to reassure her), Echo being flirty and confident because he knows the reality of yolo

A/N: who needs plot when you’ve got a man like Echo! No minors allowed! 18+ only! Purely self-indulgent. Echo can have the exact same kinds of love that the other boys can! And with a man as confident and dedicated as Echo, why would you want anyone else! This is also the first time I've written and posted actual smut... I hope you like it!

Echo dividers by @/djarrex, hyperspace banners are my own 

Now at the hotel for the night, the pair continue to let their hearts dance closer and closer.  

“I never did get a chance to ask you to dance, my Starlight.” Echo offers, tugging her heels from her hand, dropping them in a chair, and returning his hands to her waist. 

“I’m no good at dancing,” she mutters, slightly nervous and put out. 

“Nonsense, it’s just a chance to hold you close, skill doesn’t matter to me. Here,” he scoops up her hand and twirls her on the spot. 

“See? Easy, I’ll lead, just hold on to me. Besides,” he leans closer, to whisper mischeviously in her ear, “there’s no one here to watch, and I don’t have any skill at it either. I just want an excuse to hold you close and see your radiant joy again.” 

She giggles and hides in his shoulder. 

His arms settle loosely around her waist, and he ever so gently coaxes her to sway and move around the room in small circles. 

She relaxes a bit, nuzzling into his shoulder instead of hiding in it. 

Echo steals a moment to place a soft kiss on her hair as they sway and swirl around the room. 

She raises her head, a dreamy look in her eyes as they dart between meeting his and stealing glances at his lips. 

Their steps slow as their focus shifts, neither is sure when exactly their feet stop moving and they stand still, only that it means their lips meet in a dance of their own. 

After a moment, they break apart to stare deep into each other’s eyes. 

“My Starlight,” Echo whispers. Her attention is drawn to his lips, and the nervousness reappears. 

“Oops, maybe I should take the makeup off before it makes a mess of us both.” 

Echo smirks, “if that’s what you want.” He’s eager to see her face without all the getup again. Just her, the way he’s most familiar with her everyday in her armor. The way he’s dreamed of her late at night when everyone is asleep. 

She tugs him into the bathroom to clean the lipstick that transferred onto him, then reluctantly ushers him out so they can both change into something a little more comfortable. 

She takes off the makeup, and lets her hair loose, then needs help with the dress. 

And he’s sitting on the bed with his bow tie undone and shirt unbuttoned and untucked. Belt draped over a nearby chair atop his jacket. 

As she reappears in the fresher doorway, he can tell she’s a little self conscious after taking the makeup off. 

But Echo looks up with a relieved smile and instantly compliments how nice it is to see the real her without the makeup. 

“It was nice to be considered pretty for once”, she says. 

But Echo prefers her without makeup, and made it his business to tell her as much. “You don’t need it, I finds her natural beauty even more stunning without it.” His tone and eyes reflecting his genuine nature. 

Though, for now he keeps to himself how the dark color of her lipstick had made him aware of the finer details of how her lips moved that he hadn’t noticed before. But he was even more entranced watching those movements without the lipstick now. Knowing that he, and he alone could see those subtleties in the way she moved and the expressions she made. 

She doesn’t know how to respond, so instead she turns her attention back to getting the dress off. Besides, he’s made her a little hot and bothered now, perhaps he’s earned a chance to see her with a little less on? 

Then she turns, shifts her hair so she can still see him, and directs him to the fasteners on the dress. 

His scomp sits on her waist, anchoring them to each other. 

That’s when he notices she’s still wearing the belt. 

He tenderly traces the belt around her waist, peering over her shoulder, careful not to look down her top, just to find the clip with his handprint on it. One finger slips beneath the belt so he can grip the clip with one hand, and he unfastens it. 

As the belt slips away from her hips, he lifts the clip higher so he can look at it. He rests his chin on her shoulder, and rubs his thumb over the handprint shape. He’s dying to know how she found out about his symbol from his old unit. Or if it’s merely a coincidence? It can’t be, it’s too well coordinated with his old color. But that’s a question for later. Right now, he just wants her. 

Instead he simply raises an eyebrow and shifts his eyes to her, to ask if she knew what the symbol meant to him. Her cheek brushes against his and she shyly looks away, smiling at the floor. So she did know. Well, it worked like a charm. His heart was already hers, but everything that happened tonight simply solidified that. 

So he presses a kiss into her cheek, and squeezes her tight before reluctantly leaning back to look for the fastener of the dress. 

He finds the fastener on the back of one hip, and places his hand over it. He leans forward again, his lips near her ear to ask a quiet, “May I?” While pressing another kiss into her cheek. 

Her cheeks warm, and she smiles, nodding. 

This time he simply rotates one shoulder back to examine the clasp, keeping as much of their bodies in contact as he can. What do ya know, the clasp is easy to undo with one hand, and the dress begins to unravel, exposing her back to him. 

He can’t help but brush his knuckles against the soft skin of her back on it’s way back up to her shoulder, but his hand never quite reaches her shoulder… 

“Don’t stop” she whispers, eyes drifting closed. 

She can feel his breath on her neck as he takes a moment to prepare himself, then allows the tips of his fingers to ghost over her skin. He adds one finger at a time, each one feather light and smooth. His fingers find the edges of the exposed skin, but respectfully avoid dancing beyond the limit of what he can see. 

Her brow furrows, but her eyes remain closed. She hums, searching for a way to tell him what she is hoping for. “Like you did in the gardens,” she manages as the back of his fingers continue to glide across her skin. 

“Like this?” He checks, allowing his ring finger and pinky to slip beneath the fabric hanging loosely from her shoulders. 

“Yes!” she breathes. He’s happy to see her brow is no longer creased. 

“If that’s what you wish, My Starlight, then you shall have it.” The press of his hand becomes a little more firm, as his palm flattens against her and explores around her back. Slipping to her shoulders, he massages a bit, then finds his fingers already under the straps there. Using his thumb, he hesitantly pushes the strap off of his fingers a bit. 

“What if we—?“ he begins, starting to push the strap off of her shoulder just a bit. 

She can only nod and relax her shoulder, allowing him to slip it off a little easier. 

Echo is sure he’s fallen asleep and is in the middle of the best kind of dream. She’s letting him remove her clothes! 

He ever so gently slips his scomp link around her beneath the now loose material and runs the cold metal up her side to her shoulder. She gasps in pleasure and shivers again! Echo is in heaven. 

“Would you allow me to remove this one too?” He queries, scomp holding steady near her shoulder, but ready to retract it should she say no. “I won’t take it personally if you say no, Sweetheart. I promise,” He whispers. Consent means everything to this man. He knows first hand what it is like to not get a say in something to be done to his own body and would never inflict that upon anyone. 

“Don’t stop now,” her breathy voice does things to him, he discovers. 

Slow enough that she could easily stop him if she changed her mind, he eases the strap off her shoulder and lets the fabric fall to the floor, pooling like stars reflected in a lake at her feet. 

He holds his breath, realizing there’s no binder strap at her back nor shoulders. 

She shifts a bit, arms covering her chest, and he can tell it’s from nerves. So he immediately jumps into action, doing everything he can think of to soothe her mind. 

He leans forward and presses his lips to the back of her neck, and she gasps. It’s music to his ears. 

His scomp arm returns to her waist, wrapping delicately around her front, and pulling her back to his chest. His other arm doing the same, but angled upwards at the elbow, across her chest, wrist happily settling between her breasts, hand sliding into place along her collarbone, just below the spot where her shoulder meets her neck. 

Meanwhile, his lips leave more and more open-mouthed kisses down her neck and trailing across her shoulders. 

She tilts her head to one side, exposing her neck to him, and he rewards her communicative nature with more passionate kisses, pressing her firmly into his chest, hand beginning to wander towards her breasts. 

Finally he breaks away from kissing and sucking on her neck to look down at her body, exposed for his eyes only! 

“Oh, Mesh’la!” He croons in her ear, she can feel him shiver as his eyes light up, hand finding her breast and squeezing a bit. “You are a sight for sore eyes!” 

She clings to his arm at her waist, her other arm snaking behind her to the back of his neck 

“Echo!” She breathes. 

Echo’s restraint finally snaps. Stars, does he want her! Desperately! 

His lips immediately return to her neck, this time finding that spot just beneath her ear. Renewed vigor driving every move as he groans into her, squeezing her to him, and sucking harder as she moans at his ministrations. 

She whimpers, knees getting shaky. 

He feels her trembling in his arms, and stops, but only to scoop her off her feet and carry her bridal style to the bed, sitting her upright in the middle of it. “I’ve got you, Sweetheart.” And he kisses her with everything he has, hand on her cheek, as he begins to crawl over her onto the bed, supporting her weight as he gently lowers her back, maneuvering himself between her legs. 

Her hands cup his face, and she presses the kisses back, matching his passion and then some. Grasping at the untied bow tie again, she uses it as extra leverage to keep his lips in contact with hers as he hovers over her, one knee between hers. 

He can feel the tingle of excitement racing through his body as the kisses become more and more desperate. His tongue exploring her mouth like nothing else exists. And his thigh, his real, flesh and blood thigh pressing into her core. He can feel her warmth, and her wetness through her panties as she presses back. 

He begins to lower his body weight onto her, but is almost too careful not to let the weight of his metal limbs rest on her. 

She breaks the kiss to smile and giggle a little. Echo can’t help but watch as she radiates joy. 

“Love,” her half-lidded eyes, framed with her laughter find his own, “you can put your whole weight on me. All of you. You know damn well I am not delicate.” 

“You shouldn't have to bear the weight of my alterations, pun intended.” He smirks. 

She giggles. “As much as I love that you’re getting your sense of humor back, Hun, I’m not afraid of your alterations. I love them too. After all, they allowed us to meet. I am grateful, change doesn’t have to be a bad thing. We can decide if we want to make it into a good thing. It isn’t easy, and it takes a lot of hard work, but you won’t be alone for it. I’ll be right here. I rather like laying under you, Love.” 

Echo chuckles nervously, tucking his head into her shoulder. Doing his best to make sure his headgear doesn’t end up in her face when he does so. The last thing he wants is to let any of his metal parts become the reason she gets a black eye. 

He’s still partially hovering over her. His weight on his elbows on either side of her. Hips against hers, his thigh still pressed to her core. But his eyes are drawn down towards their hips when he feels her shifting beneath him. Ready to lift the awkward weight of his prosthesis off of her as soon as he can figure out which one is bothering her. But what he sees is not what he expected to see. 

Slowly, sensually, her foot arches as she uses it to stroke up his thigh, over the seam between metal and man, over his ass, and around to rest her calf on the small of his back, using her calf to press his ass down. Encouraging him to put his full weight on her. 

Echo groans, still next to her ear, allowing his eyes to fall shut, too aroused to do anything else. And the vision he’s met with is one he hopes he never forgets. The arch of her foot, pressed into the muscle of his leg. Her ankles at the same angle he’d noticed when he first saw her in heels when the night was only just beginning. 

He’s drawn from his reverie, eyes popping open, when he feels her other foot beginning the same journey up his other leg. 

Echo can only watch, wide eyed, and feel. Man oh man can he feel it! As she latches her ankles behind his hips, and tugs his full weight onto her, he starts to melt for her. He allows his legs to flatten so he can feel every inch of her, by her own volition, pressed tightly against every inch of skin he had left. 

Her hands sneak up his back, under his unbuttoned shirt. Slowly, giving him a chance to say no if he wanted. But he has no reason to protest any of it. With one hand at his lower back, and one hand between his shoulder blades, she urges the rest of him down onto her body. 

He lets his elbows slide out, until he can no longer feel the cool air between them, only the warmth of her. Only the softness of her skin as he nuzzles into her neck. He shifts his real arm so he can pet her hair, but finds himself momentarily stalled when he realizes he can feel her nipples against his chest. He wants to look down, to see her finally exposed to him. But first he needs to see the look in her eyes, make sure she’s still happy with this choice now that his full weight is on her. 

So his eyes flick up, to find her eyes so much more full of love than he ever expected anyone could ever feel towards him. 

His hand finally makes it to her hair, stroking it. And then moving to brush the back of his knuckles against her cheek. 

A flash of mischief crosses her eyes briefly, and she manages to catch his knuckles with a kiss. 

Echo’s own smile brightens. And he finds his eyes already tracing her lips, before he gives in and presses her into the bed with a kiss. Pushing harder into her with every second that passes. 

She licks at his lips this time, opening his mouth, and searching for his tongue. 

Echo obliges with a moan, his tongue surging forward to meet hers. 

Teeth clash as both tongues search deeper, wanting to know every inch of each other. 

With a final suck on her tongue, Echo pulls back to gaze into her eyes. His need to confirm that he’s still got it. The hunger in her eyes, all he needs to keep going.  

Then his kisses trail down her neck 

All the way to her breasts 

The way she tends to subtly cover her chest tells him she’s not very confident about her breasts, so he decides to spend a little extra time pouring his love into them. 

She begins to mewl beneath him, her arms and legs clinging tightly to him. He’s impressed by the strong grip of her legs, giving away how much she loves him. 

So he sucks harder, and licks slower, and plays longer. 

Her hand moves to the back of his neck, holding him to her breast, telling him without words how much she enjoys the way he’s loving on her. 

He begins to squeeze and knead her other breast, and lets a few fingers just barely brush over her nipple. 

Her legs get impossibly tighter around him. 

He pulls back, all but gasping for air, and cursing the fact that he needs air at all. His face turns to the breast that only received the attention of his hand, and she can feel his breath against her skin as he suddenly lowers back down to even out his love-making, now pouring his devotion into this side. 

His hand slides down her hip, until he finds the waistband of her underwear, and begins to play with the hemline that rests on her hip while he continues to lavish her breasts. 

She rests her hand over his to encourage him to keep it there. 

He can feel the growing wetness in her underwear as it rubs on his abdomen. 

Echo chuckles, the vibrations from his laugh doing a number on her breast. They’re both groaning now. 

His hand traces the hemline of her panties around the curve of her leg and towards the spot that’s aching for him. 

She huffs in protest when the soft touch on her hip slips away for a second. That is, until she bucks her hips upwards again, and finds his palm waiting to cup her core through her panties. 

His fingers rest near the waistband, his palm sits where she wants it most. 

One of her hands still cups the back of Echo’s head, the other now holds his hand against her sex, so she can buck against it repeatedly. 

Echo begins to break away from her breasts so he can look down and begin to allow his fingers to dance along the skin on either side of the panties. 

He still can’t believe this is real. She’s nearly naked in front of him, using his own hand to massage parts of her so private he thought he’d only see them in his dreams. 

He’s breathing heavy, moaning with each thrust of her pelvic bone against his hand. His tallest finger begins to ever so slightly tug the waistband of her panties down. He almost doesn't even notice his thumb beginning to slide under the fabric too. 

“Yes, Echo!” She breaths, head thrown back. 

“May I… remove them?” He asks, hesitantly, as though any words will shatter the moment. 

“Please!” She’s doing her best to refocus her eyes on his face, but he’s rather proud she’s already so infatuated with what he’s doing. She’s breathing heavily as she gasps out, “just rip them off, Love, I have no intention to unwrap my legs, if you’re alright with that.” 

He looks up at her, pressing his palm against her core, meeting her thrust for thrust. “Are, uhh… are you sure?” He whispers, “This lace is really pretty on you. I’d hate to ruin something I’d love to see on you again.” 

She laughs. “I’ll get more, I promise. Maybe even a complete set next time,” she winks, “but I need to feel you inside me!” She takes a breath before continuing, “use your scomp to rip through them, please!” No longer caring how desperate she sounded. 

“Yes, Ma’am!” He breathes. How can he deny her when she begs so pretty! And, she’d so willingly accepted his metal parts without even thinking about it. Echo felt himself falling harder for her with every passing second together. 

She props herself up on her elbows to watch, as Echo finally wraps his fingers under the gentle lace, to lift it from her skin. He takes a second to admire the soft patterns before bringing his scomp to the lace and brrrrrrrrrrrrr-ing right through the fabric just above each leg. 

He looks up at her, still in disbelief that he just ripped the panties off his partner on their first night together. Only to find her biting her lip as she watches him. 

She leans forward, cupping his cheek in her hand and kissing him so deeply, he forgets he’s still holding the shreds of her underwear. Right up until he feels them getting tugged from his hand. 

He looks down to see her stuff it into the back pocket of his pants. His wide-eyes return to hers, a hopeful question in them. 

“Keep them, Love. And maybe you can help me pick out the next pair,” she says with a kiss to his cheek. 

He feels a shiver race down his spine as he surges forward to press another passionate kiss to her lips. But when her wetness touches his abdomen, with no barrier this time, he breaks the kiss in a gasp. 

“Oooooh, that feels good!” He moans, reaching between them to once again cup her core with his palm, but this time without the hindrance of that last layer of fabric. 

“Echo! It does, I agree, but I need you inside me!!” 

Infatuated with her, and how much he loves her, he swallows hard, then licks his lips, focusing all his attention on her lower lips and starts to finger her, tracing her lower lips torturously slowly, dragging it out. 

One finger slides down either side of the labia, opening the labia and running a finger up the inside, one on each side and then together back down the middle, pressing into her ever so slightly. Dipping inside a teasing amount, and letting his fingers explore her inner folds. Teasing her entrance, Before a finger slips slowly inside. 

Her back arches for a moment as she groans with wild abandon, and he catches a nipple in his mouth. 

Slowly, sensually, he pulls his fingers out, and ever more slowly pushes them back in, once, twice. 

And then he feels it. That spongy spot, deep within her. He adds pressure to that spot, wiggling his fingers in tiny swirling movements as he does so. 

Her back arches almost immediately, tugging her nipple from his mouth with a pop, and her noises become even more desperate and needy. 

“There it is,” he whispers, watching her face as he pulls out and inserts a second finger with the first this time, before continuing to massage her g spot. 

The room explodes into white ribbons of hyperspace behind her eyelids as she clings to Echo as tightly as her fingers will allow. 

Echo’s hand is coated in her wetness, and he can feel her walls tugging him deeper in before losing their rhythm and fluttering around his fingers. 

When she cries out, he starts to slow his pace, massaging her through it, and coaxing her back to the here and now. 

When she opens her eyes, she finds his forehead against her own, eyes watching for hers with rapt attention. 

“That’s it, I’m here, my Starlight. Dank ferrik that was hot!” 

When she blushes and giggles he knows she’s returned from hyperspace and slowly extracts his fingers. 

She gasps at the empty feeling, but watches with rapt attention as he brings his fingers directly to his mouth. His eyes practically rolling back and closing as he indulges in the taste of her, sucking every last drop from his own digits.  

She begs him to put something back inside her. Fingers, tongue, cock, even his scomp (though she doubts he’s ready for that); any of them, as long as he’s iniside her. 

“I don’t think my manhood works anymore, Love.” Echo finally voices his concern, rather ashamed he didn’t say it before they started. What if she rejects him now? He’s not sure he can take that. 

Instead she giggles. “Maybe only a partner has the right tools for the job now,” she whispers against his headgear. “And you’re still wearing too much.” She’s already begun to peel the shirt from his shoulders. Once it’s on its way to the floor, she moves to unbutton and unzip his pants. 

It’s all Echo can do to steady his breathing and watch, wide-eyed, as she pulls the clothes from his body faster than he expected. 

Once they’re both nude, she flips him onto his back, and grinds down on him. 

He grips her hips as tightly as he dares, not hesitating to groan loudly with every swirl of her hips. 

Happily watching from below as she massages his length with her wetness. Surprised as he begins to feel himself growing and getting hard beneath her. 

Maybe she was right! 

She smiles as she begins to feel it too. 

Echo revels in the feeling of finally having her most intimate parts in contact with his own, still amazed that this is real. As her hips swivel over his own he lets his gaze wander lovingly over her body. 

He finds his attention drawn to her breasts again. His boldness growing, he asks if he can suck on her nipple. 

She complies without hesitation, leaning down to deposit one into his open mouth. Relishing the feeling of him licking and sucking every inch of it. 

“Echo!” She whispers. 

He detaches, wide eyes finding hers immediately, mind very hazy from everything she’s doing to him. 

“I need you,” she gasps, hips still swivelling on his. “I need you.” 

Echo’s restraint snaps with a thrust of his hips, and he flips her onto her back with gusto. She squeaks in surprise, but her eyes tell him she’s excited. He looks down, and finds himself surprised at how much of himself she’s managed to coax out of hiding. 

He looks back up at her with excitement as he lines himself up, searching her expression for any hesitation. 

Instead she smirks at him and bites her lip, and he feels her leg around his hips, adding just enough pressure to start slipping inside. 

Their breaths pick up, but their gaze holds steady, caught in the trance of each other as he slowly slides into place. 

He’s certain that her determination to hold his gaze and the way she gasps while staring deep into his eyes is the hottest thing he’s ever seen! 

Once in, they both hold still for a moment. Eyes and mouths conveying a thousand feelings their words cannot express while they gasp for breath and sneak kisses and nibbles. 

He shivers, and she clenches around him, making him moan and involuntarily thrust. 

“I’m not gonna last long, my Starlight,” he gasps out, “can I move?” 

“Not yet… need a minute… been awhile,” she mumbles between breaths, clutching him tighter. 

After a few deep breaths, her chest heaves a little less, and he raises his eyebrows, touching his forehead to hers. A silent question. 

A mischievous spark lights her eyes, and she locks her ankles together behind him, biting her lip, and shaking her head, no. “Let’s enjoy this for a bit,” she teases. 

They lay there, eyes also locked together, beginning to pant again. This time with the effort of not moving. 

There was only one thing she knew for certain, only one thought reverberating around the inside of her head: he felt so good inside her! 

When she clenched again, Echo’s eyes squeezed shut, and his head moved to the crook of her neck as he groaned in her ear. 

“Dank ferrik, Love,” he was shaking with the effort of holding still now, “not sure… I can… take much more…” 

As a means of agreement, she began to move her hips in small circles. 

With a loud moan of ecstasy, Echos arms tightened around her, securing her to him with all his strength, “C-Can I? Please?” He didn’t even try to hide the desperation in his voice. 

“YES!” 

And with that he began thrusting to meet her hips with a feral energy. 

His open mouth finding hers, tongues almost instantly seeking companionship to cling to and massage. 

Within moments both were struggling to keep their rhythm. 

Echo’s lips break from hers with a gasp. 

“Where?” She could hear him holding back, but barely. 

“Outside of me,” was all she could manage. 

Barely two thrusts later, and Echo hastily pulled out, careful to only paint her abdomen from the outside. 

She gasped when he removed himself, instantly missing the feeling of him. 

Even at the pinnacle of his climax, he knew she hadn’t finished yet. So he replaced his cock with two fingers. 

Barely in control of his own limbs, his fingers thrust in rather quickly. 

But the way she arched and let out a high pitched squeak next to the ear wells in his headset was almost enough to make him cum again as his length dances across his own mess on her stomach. His fingers search for the elusive spot inside her, as her moans serenade him with each shift of a finger inside her. 

He curls his fingers inside her, and her moans go up an octave. 

Echo smirks, an idea on the tip of his tongue, and he shifts his weight. 

The world around her is a blur, but she’s aware of Echo’s movement beside her and inside of her, until he suddenly pulls out. 

She sits up with a gasp. She wasn’t done yet. But the scene she’s met with is better than she expected. 

Echo, still smirking and watching her no doubt disheveled expressions with rapture, is arranging her legs on his shoulders, his hot breath dancing over the spot where she needs him the most. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll get you there. Just lie back, my Starlight.” He whispers, inching closer to her wetness with each word. He holds her gaze for a moment and then dives in, eyes still fixed on her face. He licks a long stripe up the expanse of her slit and watches as she throws her head back in ecstasy with a loud moan. 

He pulls back slightly to give her a moment to breathe, only to blow gently across her wetness. She squirms, hands searching for his in the sheets. 

Ever the perceptive ARC, he spots the way her hands feel for his, and he captures her fingers between his before diving in for more. 

He licks up and down, and lets his tongue dip in and out. Her whimpers serenade his every move and her legs tremble on his shoulders. She’s close now. He can feel it. 

So he exchanges his tongue for two fingers and latches onto her clit, sucking hard. 

White hot stars explode in her mind's eye, as she loses all control of her rhythm, fluttering around his fingers for a second time. Her hips tighten around his hand and shoulders, and her nails rake his back. 

He slowly pumps his fingers in and out, grounding her, and working her through her climax as her body begins to relax, still wrapped tightly around him. He glances down to remove his fingers, enjoying the sight of them both coated in each other’s release. But his eyes quickly return to hers, and he moves back up to cuddle her, keeping close watch until her eyes focus on his again and her breathing returns to a normal level. 

“How was that, my Starlight?” He asks with a giddy laugh. 

Her eyes narrow playfully, she’s still panting just a touch. “Was that your first time since… uh…?” 

“Yeah,” he laughs nervously, tucking his nose into her neck, careful as his headgear nears her face. 

“STARS, Echo! You must have a lot more experience than I do!” She starts to get a bit nervous. 

He scoops her into his arms, holding her close. 

“Not experience, dreams. Dreams of all the things I’d heard my brothers say worked well that I wanted to try, a few ideas of my own, and a handful of things that that outfit you wore tonight made me want to do. Dank Ferrik, I might need you to wear it again sometime, you looked amazing!” 

“Need, huh?” She asks, somewhere between eager and curious. 

He laughs, slightly embarrassed, and then takes a breath and just embraces it, “Yeah, need.” He declares, eyes bright with a fire she’d only dreamed she could ever find. 

She giggles, and he decides that all the noises she’s made tonight just made the top of the list of all his favorite sounds in the galaxy. 

They hold each other close for a few moments, until she shives slightly. 

“Let me clean us up, my Starlight. No, you stay right there. I want to do this for you.” 

She relaxes back into the bed and just watches as he disappears into the fresher and reemerges with a soft, wet towel which he proceeds to use to gently wipe between her legs and then absorb his own mess from her abs. 

They chit chat as he drops the towel off the side of the bed in his rush to feel her skin against his own again, wrapping them both in the sheets. His hand runs slowly up and down her back, coaxing her to sleep on him, more content than he, a trooper designed and raised for combat, has ever known before. 

Echo shifts, becoming aware of the world around him again, and snuggling into the soft warmth in his arms. He opens his eyes to find the gorgeous woman he’s been pining over for the longest time still wrapped in his arms, legs tangled with his, contentment on her sleeping face. 

He watches her for a moment, the soft light in the room making her look like the ethereal Angels from the Moons of Iago. 

She seems to sense his alertness and tries to find her way back to the land of the waking, brow furrowing. 

Hmm, Echo finds himself needing to fix the discontent of her expression, so he covers her in a barrage of kisses. She wakes with a giggle. 

They lay there chatting for a few minutes, enjoying the lack of needing to be anywhere for a while. 

A few more unhurried kisses later, they decide to get up to make the most of the morning before their ride gets there. 

So they start their morning routines, but this time with a lot more sweet touches and long gazes than usual. 

He exits the bathroom to find her wearing his shirt from the night before, with her lack of any undergarments peeking out beneath it, totally unbuttoned in the front, barely hiding anything, and is instantly aroused again. 

Offers her a hand with a smirk, and pulls her to him when she takes it, beaming at her. 

Both his hand and scomp slip underneath the shirt to wrap around her waist, and she smiles radiantly back. So he kisses her, and pins her to the wall, hard but gentle, like there’s no tomorrow. Slipping a leg between hers, he aches to feel her wetness on his own skin again. Her knee sensually slides up his leg to wrap around his waist. Still barely believing last night was real, Echo’s hand moves to her thigh, gripping it tightly. They still have a little while until Crosshair arrives to pick them up, plenty of time… for round two. After all, they are both still in need of a long, hot shower… 

Please don’t steal my work! I pour my heart into these so if you like it please reblog to share instead of reposting it! 

Taglist: (I gathered some of these from the reblogs and comments, I hope that's ok! If you want me to take you off the list just dm me!)  @amorfista (I promised it would be up soon! Hehe!) @the-hexfiles @starrylothcat @daimyosprincess @miss-mouse99

[lifeonmvrs]

SPIDER-SONA TIME!!

[Image Description: two digital drawings of void-crawler (my spider-sona). the character is drawn five different times throughout the whole canvas. on the top left corner, void-crawler is unmasked, smiling and doing a peace sign. there are two white text boxes representing void’s internal thoughts that read “gotta love hammerspace. how else would my hair fit otherwise?*”. underneath there’s a turquoise text box that reads “*editor’s note: it would not.” in the middle left side of the canvas, void-crawler is shown with a surprised expression and the spidey sense lines. there’s a white bubble text that reads “omg i have squiggly lines!!”. near that drawing, there’s a smaller one with a chibi head of void doing a salute with a turquoise bubble text with a white center reading “of course, officer!”. an arrow points to text saying “talking with hero voice (a.k.a. deeper)”. on the bottom left corner, there’s an unfinished but colored drawing of void-crawler drinking a milkshake with half their mask off and with little hearts on the side. there’s an arrow pointing at the drawing accompanied by text that reads “pretend this is okay [heart emoticon] and finished…” on the right side of the canvas, there’s a full-body drawing of void-crawler. void has a hand near the face in a thinking manner and the other near the hip. to the right, there’s a written text that says “void-crawler!” in all caps. the background is a yellow note-taking paper texture. the second image shows the front and back design with some mannequin models as template. background is white. /end ID]

more info below:

alright guys, let’s do this one last time. my name is mars walker. i was bitten by a radioactive spider. and for the last 2 years, i’ve been the one and only void-crawler. i’m pretty sure y’all know the rest. i saved a bunch of people. got spider-man to be my mentor. did a couple of team-ups with him and deadpool. i saved the city but i… couldn’t save peter. i stopped fighting for a while. changed my suit and hero name. and now i’m back, stronger than ever, wahoo! because no matter how hard life gets, i always find a way to come back and save the city. cuz who else will if not me?

amazing intro proving i’m a hero… check!

whole backstory explained… on hold

hi! finally posted this, i made it like a week ago. anyway, i think i would have some extra powers, as a treat.

first of all, enhanced spidey sense. i don’t only perceive near danger but FUTURE danger as well. basically i get visions, premonitions, prophecies, whatever you wanna call them. they are always about danger and there IS a way to change them. i dont know how that would work with time and space continuum and all those complicated things, but who wants logic, boring!! (i’ll solve the plot hole soon, dw 😭🛐) (if any of y’all have any idea how to solve it, pls tell me)

i would be able to break the 4th wall cuz i constantly do irl anyway,, sometimes life follows a specific storytelling pattern and has very notorious plot armor and that makes me think “huh… weird”

i would also have sensitive senses, and that includes night vision! (i already have sensitive hearing irl and it’s a nightmare! good luck void-crawler). i could also “change” my appearance? i would not physically change it, but i would release some kind of chemicals or stuff that would make people see other thing. this is inspired by the ant mimicry spiders do. spiders DO change physically, but i think mine would be just psychologically. idk, i thought that would be cool :P

the design of my spidey suit is inspired by, spidey of course, but also by deadpool’s suit. cuz i’m obsessed with both of them atm, so had to add that to my story 👍 AND IT WILL MAKE SENSE STORY WISE MUAHAHAHA! cant wait to tell y’all the backstory.

yk that thing miles and gwen do when talking to their dad while in the spidey suit (deeper voice)? well i would do that all the time i’m talking with people that are not aware void-crawler is mars walker. and my bubble text would show that by being mostly turquoise with a bit of white in the center :3

[edelgarfield]

there's a weird case of like. plot armor + narrative bias that I think most people don't realize when it comes to the way people talk about Essek vs. M9

the cast & fandom throw around the phrase "war criminal," which he IS, but not for the reasons they call him out for. Like it's the state-sponsored torture dungeon that makes him a war criminal, not the treason.

Essek is held responsible for the war for giving away the beacons, but M9 *also* stole a beacon and ran away with it for no real reason. Obviously, Essek understood the ramifications better than M9, but M9 knew this was an important item to the group of people that attacked Zadash, and they knew the Empire intended to keep it.

Sure, the drow soldier asked them to take it, but IMO, that's ultimately not why they did, and they never had any intention of returning it to the Dynasty. They took it because it looked cool and they wanted it, without considering the ramifications of an important item going missing after an attack like that. I don't think it would've ultimately stopped the war if they hadn't taken the beacon, but I'm fairly certain there were unnecessary skirmishes & loss of life as a result of the fact that it went missing. M9 is smart enough to understand that even if they don't fully see the big picture.

Essek gets a lot of criticism for having selfish motivations, but M9’s motivations were also primarily selfish. They never intended to give the beacon back, they only ended up doing it to save their own skin.

Obviously, their positions are different & there's a difference between the power both parties held & their understanding of the situation. To some extent, I think it's a bit of D&D plot armor; D&D parties often get a ton of leeway for doing ridiculous, nonsensical stuff simply because everyone understands the lack of IRL consequences is part of the appeal, and you never want to punish your players for interacting with the plot you placed in front of them. But at the same time, I do think there's a bit of narrative bias, because from the perspective of M9 we can handwave their actions with the beacon as "their intentions were neutral/good, they were in over their heads, they didn't understand what was going on" which all have a grain of truth.

I feel like M9 often gets a pass because they're seen as goofy, lovable, bumbling weirdos who stumbled into the middle of a political conflict. But they didn't stumble into the middle of the conflict, they put themselves in the middle of it by stealing the beacon, then actively chose to ignore any consequences of that decision. Like they could have put effort into understanding the political ramifications of what they'd done and then decided where to go from there, but instead just ignored it because that was easier/they didn't care about the larger political conflict. And as much as I love M9, imo, apathy isn't any more of an excuse for them than it is for Essek. Like M9 actively avoided the war & really didn't seem to care about it all that much until Matt literally forced them to care about it by attacking Veth's hometown.

like i said I don't think it's exactly equivalent or that Essek & M9 were in the same position. I think it's just interesting how M9's selfishness & unsavory actions get implicitly justified or ignored by the narrative/fandom, but other characters aren't given the same leeway.

[callmearcturus]

No it does not but wow you're pretty. I'm really sorry for macking on your sister, please don't kill me.

Each door has one of the bosses of the game behind it, which is pretty fun. I did the original Priestess--

wait I did the Priestess before I started recapping. Y'ALL NEED TO SEE THE PRIESTESS, IT IS PEAK MEGATEN SHIT.

why yes her tiddies are the columns of solomon's temple. well i think it's strongly implied her vajaja is the temple itself but yanno, whatever, it's MegaTen

(if I was a navel-gazing nerd, I would point out its interesting in theory to see the Priestess, who is the protector of the wisdom beyond the Veil, who works to reveal what should be revealed and the hide what should remain unsee, for her to become the veil itself and to lose her power in that way, unable to ward off transgressors and only to be seen, it IS interesting, but also they made her tiddies the columns, so we're just buying into the Sacred Feminine i guess lmao)

ANYWAY it was fun to go waaaaay back to when FemPC, Yukari, and Junpei were so young and stupid and trying to stop a runaway train.

Otherwise, I am working my way to the top of Tartarus.

I REALLY LOVE THIS ENEMY TYPE, THE FLOATING EYEBALLS, bc when you hit them they do this

and the first time I saw that I was like "GAH!" IRL which is very fun

also also i keep talking about how fucking brokenly OP Akihiko was. like, many levels ago, his Fist Master skill replaced his ONLY special physical attack, Sonic Punch or whatever, and i was like "did this game just make Akihiko useless?"

but no

This is the kind of bonkers fucking damage Akihiko does. On a Crit, he's nearly at 500 dmg. On normal hits, he's usually around 325 dmg. Even Yukari, who has extremely high magic stat, hitting an enemy's weakness with Garudyne does, like.... flat 270?

HE'S JUST THAT POWERFUL. Also just for the comedy of it, I put the Omega Drive accessory on him, so his crit rate is through the roof. The CLOSEST I can get to matching him is the FemPC using Deathbound.

Akihiko + Omega Drive + start every battle with Revolution = comedy gold.

Sanada Akihiko cannot be contained, I don't know what to tell you. When he says "Yeah, we're going to defeat Nyx" I'm kinda like.... aki honey the ONLY reason you cannot beat Nyx is I bet they have some stupid Plot Armor shit. in a fair fight, yes. I have full confidence you could punch Nyx to death.

[solwithart]

What armor sets does Sol wear throughout the game? I love his style!!

sorry for the late reply, I had to really dig through my screenshots to find examples, but this was something I myself wanted to do, so behold: (beware of some very bad screenshots)

The ARR outfit was not very outlandish, but I think it was what started his constant theme of coats, or at least longer chest pieces.

I really wish I was taking more screenshots during my playthrough, but it is what it is haha

Once I hit HW and discovered the Asuran aiming set in hunt marks shop 5 minutes into Ishgard, I instantly switched to it and went through entirety of HW and its patches (and even into SB) with it

the SB itself gets very foggy, as I wasn't a fan of this expantion, so I can count the amount of screenshots I took on 10 fingers or so, but what stayed through them was this outfit, which I only dyed black later on it seems

(I also have too many bows that I love, so I don't count them much as a part of outfit, because I keep constantly changing them)

ShB was the expansion that I started playing ffxiv, so once I finished it, I started diversifying the glams at long last, but for the msq I had this one, with mask being toggled on and off:

and in the later story I changed his style to this (for plot reasons, but then it kinda stuck):

Once I discovered the existence of Edenmorn coat, I discovered my religion as for it is still in my top 5 favourite pieces, so I went through Shb patches with it, and it was also the time I changed Sol's hairstyle to something more familiar to people who have seen my art through years xD

I had a different outfit for Bozja, as I spent 3 irl months in that place and it felt fitting the area and plot theme of living in the trenches lol

Going into EW, I started of with some experimental glam, but quickly switched back to edenmorn coat, especially once we hit snowy areas

(EW is also where I have finally started taking many screenshots too)

but my true love was discovered in bard artifact gear, that we got at the 89 level or so. It is undoubtedly my number one glam and will stay so for a long time. It just fits Sol well in my head, I can hardly put it in words,,,

EW was also the expansion I started raiding for the first time ever, and gaining a static somehow led me to switching glams so often i don't even have screenshots of most of them (some were simply just to tease some static members). But I will share those that have stayed with me, or those that I seem to come back to most often!

and that pretty much sums up his glam journey for Bard! I play all classes, so I have much and many more glams, but that is a separate topic xD

I am still unsure what to choose for him for DT, so for now he is relaxing in comfy clothes :D

[aprillikesthings]

ugh my wired headphones are still hurting my head >:(

anyway

s3 ep2 huntara

ahahah I love this one

(if you're new here: i'm rewatching She-Ra for fic-writing purposes, and live-blogging my way through them making commentary and jokes and side notes about random shit. bc this is a REwatch there are many references to later plot points)

is that the Beta Kindergarten

(man I've been making a lot of Steven Universe references in these lately, but yeah I can't look at sandstone slot canyons without thinking "hrr hrr where's Jasper")

(wait has a Jasper cosplayer actually taken photos in one of these in like Utah? a quick image search says no. damn.)

how many times did I look at this establishing shot before I realized this part of the Fright Zone is the ruins of a ginormous spaceship

ALSO "day 135"? I noted yesterday that someone working on the show said sOMEWHERE that each season is about a year and I was like "ehhhh" but I guess that's not far off.

That makes the whole catradora arc even more angsty tbh. For some reason I thought the whole show took place over like a single year or so. But FOUR OR FIVE YEARS?? they pined for each other while trying to murder each other for MULTIPLE YEARS????

awwwwww

Listen. I love this ship. I'm always weak for "complete asshole with tough act is soft for one (1) person"

(tho lemme tell you. do not actually date those dudes irl. *sigh*)

why did so many 80's cartoons have extremely unrealistic quicksand scenes tho

gdi adora

The Crimson Waste is actually just a western bar full of furries. But seriously designing the characters in the bar must've been hella fun

AAHAHAAHH Adora being so, so blatantly gay for Huntara is one of my fave things

Did they need to establish that Adora is into women? Pfft, no. Did they still decide to show us Adora being absolutely smitten on sight for an older, big, buff, badass, butchy lady? YES.

Doesn't hurt that she looks likes this lol

like it's the least subtle thing on EARTH i love it so much

oh no now I want to look up fics

18 of them are explicit. well. I'm just gonna. leave that tab open.

ADORA. YOU COCKBLOCKED HER. RUDE.

lol there's a moment where Glimmer and Bow are like "ha ha we need to talk amongst ourselves" and turns around and Adora is still just staring at Huntara with googly eyes without noticing what Bow even said and lemme tell you, I've been that fucking obvious and oblivious

Huntara literally is like "oh my god you kids are gonna end up DEAD without me. FINE." Meanwhile, Adora:

Plot plot Huntara leads them to a trap and they get hit with tranquilizer darts and dropped into a pit.

that's just a nice shot tbh

EAT SOME DAMN SOUP your girlfriend spent TIME on that

she just refuses to be afraid of him

Anyway yeah this is when we find out he's just a clone of Horde Prime the Big Baddy of the series, Hordak is a "defective" clone, he was sent to "the front lines" to die and fell through a portal into Etheria. "with nothing but a broken ship, I built an empire..." the whole point of the portal is to bring Horde Prime through, which means that's what he was doing when he tried before and ended up with A Magic Baby (Adora) instead.

The animation in the flashback is clearly inspired by Lotte Reiniger which is super cool??

Back to the Crimson Waste, they've gotten themselves out of the hole, and Adora's upset because the whole point of this mission is her getting more info about Mara with the hopes of understanding her own past better

she's RIGHT

"...at least to me..."

LISTEN TO YOUR CUTE NERDY GIRLFRIEND YOU EMO BASTARD

She makes him a nice techy exoskeleton armor thingie

that's a start but c'mon I know you can do better than that

lolol the recorder baby critter KICKS HIM in an obvious "dude really????"

look at him!!! AAHAHAH

i'm gonna go over the image limit and tumblr's gonna cut me off and make me reblog this any minute now but this episode is jUST TOO GOOD

"I like being friends with you, too" ;_;

Huntara's "friends" make fun of her for being a softie while she swings the She-Ra sword around and then Glimmer drops in wooo

yeah I know this is a fight scene but eheheheh

and then they banged

okay they kept fighting but like, c'mon

the "sword point under the chin" thing is just so good and I loved the way they did the angles here

OH SHIT I forgot Huntara had heard of She-Ra

OH HO HO HOW THE TURN TABLES

Anyway Huntara does her little speech about how she also used to be a Horde soldier but left because Hordak was such a dick to his soldiers. "you would know, you were one of us."

called THE FUCK OUT

Huntara does her little "you can't defeat the Horde alone even if you're She-Ra" and she responds with "yah I'm not alone tho"

but also that shot is unnecessarily hot

....i've hit the image limit with two minutes to spare so I went back and deleted one because

hggghh

(not gonna get into how Shadow Weaver's face-touching thing is what made Adora do it here but yeah)

Huntara tells her minions to get lost, admits that the war scared the shit out of her and that's why she ran, but she knows that's bullshit and she promises to help Adora stop the war :D and then leads them to the place they were originally looking for: the ruins of Mara's ship!

AND EPISODE OVER

(gonna...see if any of those fics are any good 👀)