#and just the level of like basic-ass

[nikariot]

I have essentially spent the entire pandemic looking at book-focused social media and just learning more and more deeply how fucking horrible most people’s taste in books is.

[corvidclub]

the parallel between Lestat marking all the tenor's flat notes and Armand writing all his aggressive director notes for Claudia on the 500th performance... the performing community of Paris better thank their lucky stars everyday that lesmand didn't become a real couple because there would be no survivors

[cometrose]

started wuthering waves the day it launched but i think my favorite detail is how resonators undergo physical changes like some get flowers blooming on their body or dragon scales all over their arms i love when “magic” abilities alter physiology

[moonkhao]

hi.

[fisheito]

Crimson Phantom: the one that gfkion got me

Flashback to my old yakutier list: in the top tier, you'll notice that one of these is not like the others:

SO WHAT IS IT DOING THERE????????

Perhaps the reason Crimson Phantom R5 ranks so high is cuz of the PERSONAL HISTORY i got with it. The straw that broke the fish's back? the last drop of water that makes the cup run over and spill onto my socks MOST iRRITATINGLY?Hm. Maybe. Prepare yourself for the longest post yet:

Let me give you a timeline...

May 2022: start playing nuca during Mystical Banquet. First SSR is Endless Banquet Garu. I am intrigued by his musculature and adorable puppy eyes. July 2022: Idol Fest. I only care about Olivine. Captain Oli is the one SSR i get, and i am exceedingly happy. October 2022: Eerie Escapade. I pull for Garu, but get 3 Yakumos. I am bitter and ignore him entirely. November 2022: I don't have many SSRs, so I consider building my 2-star vampire yaku. This would involve unlocking his rooms for the stat boost. I ask Friend A, who also plays nuca, what his rooms are like. Friend A says "it was roleplay cringe but free' I respond, "i expected as much" and do not build up vampire yaku. December 2022: I get Friend B to start playing nuca. Since we live together, it is very easy to spark impromptu , impassioned nuca discussions in the middle of the kitchen. February 2023: Friend B discovers the main menu- Past Events and Galleria, most notably. Their eyes sparkle as they look thru the events they missed. "When did you start playing?" they ask. "Since THIS event." i say, pointing to the Mystical Banquet banner. "Can I see who you have?" I give them my phone. They express mild awe as they scroll. We continue life as usual. March 2023: Friend B gets Spring Chaos Edmond and i am JEALOUS. I say so- regularly and loudly. During one such griping session, this occurs:

Me: you JUST started playing . you cannoT be destroying me in the rolls like this!!! i'm getting NOTHING!! Friend: but you have so many units that I don't! That I didn't even have a chance to get!!! Me: none of them are Beautiful Bride Edmond??!!! Friend: BUT YOU HAVE VAMPIRE YAKUMO Me: ?????????? so??? Friend: GOD HE'S SO BEAUTIFUL AND I'M SO SAD I MISSED HIM Me: you can have him. he's not doing anything over here. i wanted garu!! Friend: YOU HAVEN'T EVEN UNLOCKED HIS ROOMS? THAT'S NOT FAIR. GIVE HIM TO ME. I'LL TREAT HIM RIGHT Me: i wish i could dude i wish i could

Please imagine the utmost confusion on my face the moment my friend equated Bride Edmond's beauty to Vampire Yakumo's.

Because,, from the moment I started nuca, I had zero interest in yakumo's general aesthetic. I was long soured off the vibes due to an extensive history of dating sims shoving a Certain Guy into my face:

"Certain Guy AKA 1st potential love interest is imperious red/black guy who's also kinda the True Ending so we're only giving you the illusion of free will and you will be disappointed by the lack of care we give to other routes compared to this guy. You wanted a character that wasn't him? HAHAHA nah that nobody dies in a ditch offscreen. You were SUPPOSED to fall in love with the 1st guy we showed you and find his attitude problems attractive for the rest of your blissfully coupled life." (The freshest wound at the time was Nobunaga from that Specific branch of the ike series)

Butbutbut!! Yakumo is not imperious??? He's nothing like what you're describing??

Yes, dear reader, your assessment is fair. UNfORtUNATeLY, I'm a shallow ho and just the LOOK of his redblack skeleton embroidery was enough to repel me. The only thing that kept Yakumo in the Neutral zone was that his story self was Wibbly.

Looking at VAMPIRE yakumo, however... This was not wibbly. Here, with his hair slicked back and his torso seemingly widened and his generic bishonen-vampire-halloween-cosplay ...... it irked me. I did not like it. This look was everything I hated about those redblack domineering types haunting my past. The one interesting thing about yakumo (his wibble. his personality subversion of the aggro trope) and they GOT RID OF IT? Nah. I'm not into it. I refuse it out of principle.

I was steadfast in my dismissal of vampyaku for months.. But that was because I played alone- without outside influence.

Then that March conversation with Friend B happened.

SUDDENLY, SOMEONE introduces the POSSIBILITY that YAKUMO in THIS form can be attractive? Huh? Seriously? People think that?Legitimately never occurred to me. Unfortunately, my friend's words are in my head now.

During that convo (a convo which, unbeknownst to me, caused the first cracks in the healthy moderation i held for this game), i jokingly offered to unlock vampire yaku's rooms so my friend could watch them. A peace offering. "PLEASE!!!!!", they yelled,, with effusive sincerity.

Ah... well now I had to commit...

Determined to give my friend a Nice Thing, I threw excess knives at yakumo in my spare time. "I might as well unlock these rooms, and see how bland they are, and maybe sorta achieve vindication when I show them to my friend and they find out how Not Worth It vampire yakumo is compared to bride edmond" (I am fueled by spite and pettiness.)

thus, with time... ROOM 1 UNLOCKED!

Yakumo is wallowing again. Nothing new. He's handling the new cooking duties well, though. Good for him! Eiden is perceptive and wonderful, as usual... ah, eiden, beloved eiden.....i adore him and all the Sense he brings to these traumatised clan members ☺ Oop, there they go! initiating the cliche roleplay! Biting. Blood. Yep. Guess we're doing this.

AND NOW WE'RE GONNA TALK ABOUT ROOM 2

I was so self-satisfied when i unlocked R2. I mean, i wasn't going to show my friend until i unlocked EVERYTHING, but so far? From what I saw? this ain't it. this is SAD. this is... so very unsexy.

the only thing anchoring me to the present while watching this room was eiden's cheeky self. As Friend A remarked long ago, this was indeed cringe roleplay (but eiden is free).

I'm not very adept at voice reading/recognition, but i still felt something was up with yaku's voice. Meaning, it was different. he was REALLY laying it on heavy... It being the Role? Where was his tremulous soft voice? Naaaaaah, here in R2 we got yaku DROPPING octaves like they're on fire and affecting a drawl that...i think... is supposed to add to the seductive dangerous mood? i think? i'm really not good at parsing the horny from the Not fjkdrhgdu

with every extended vowel leaking thru yaku's fangs MY ANTI-NOBUNGA DEFENSES ARE BRISTLING yaku is REALLY playing it [Count Drakumo] up and he is NOT himself and, wait, he's spiralling? ooohhhhhh ok this is not good this is not fun he is not having fun

yes ok we've been over this my boner is dead killed by sadness that's just me not everybody is like me and i should let ppl like what they like MOVING ON

ROOM 3: OOOh Girl How they gonna react after THAT disastrous scene Woah!

Yakumo, angry???? Standoffish???? REfusing to be near Eiden? Interesting.... I mean. No! Not interesting! There's nothing interesting about vampire yakumo! Cliche as hell!!! Conventionally decent-lookin whatever-man is growling and hiding his face in a shadowy corner while saying things like "oh i'm a horrible monster .who could truly love me?!" and "stay away!! i'll only hurt you!!!"

Eiden: starts spouting truths about how the perception of "bad" and "undesirable" traits don't negate an entire person's positive traits and that someone's value can't be determined by such rigid thinking

Me: dammit eiden. stop making sense. i'm trying to hold a grudge here .............i'm starting to get hungry...

ROOM 4: OOPS I LOVE EIDEN AGAIN

I LOVE YOU EIDEN AND READING THIS ROOM MADE ME LOVE YOU EVEN MORE yakumo is, once again, spiralling in his self-hatred. i, on the other side of the screen, am getting weary. tbh, if you asked me to react to yakumo in real time, i would not know how to behave appropriately. i probably would have dismissed his concerns in some way (empty reassurances or bored ignoring).

but eiden??? ebeatutiiful emotionally UNconstipated FULL OF EMPATHY FIBRE eiden? candid... communicative... accepting yet not encouraging the dark thought patterns. . a self-aware king...

so when eiden gets in front of that mirror to demonstrate the self-talk "training":

I AM SO ENDEARED AND IM LO IBVE UHJIJM....

When Eiden gives yaku a chance to try, poor snakey doesn't know what to say. So Eiden whispers all these nice words and affirmations while standing behind yaku, expecting him to repeat them outloud THEN OF COURSE THE SILLY GUY ESCALATES TO HORNY AND I HAVE TO 🤣🤣🤣

ok, i'll begrudgingly admit... pretty cute interaction... and funny... if there's one way to win me over it's The Funny... how dare. how dare this room make me smile. I'm having a little giggle. Over a Yakumo room. THANKS eiden. For injecting humour into anything and making everything seem more tolerable...

After the practice run, Yaku ends up spilling his actual fears about his dual natures... but eiden insists that he can handle both.

yaku: if i think these dark thoughts does that make me a bad person eiden: well we all have layers n stuff so go wild yaku: if. if i. wanna lock u away all for myself and gnaw on your bones forever and keep u attached to my skin like an anglerfish absorbs mates into their flesh. will u hate me??? eiden: girl let your freak flag fly. i can take u ;););)

OKAY. SO MAYBE I CAN SORT OF SEE THE POTENTIAL FOR *NOT-AS-SAD* HORNY. THIS IS QUITE NICE (i comment mildly, gesturing to the emotional catharsis and deepening your understanding of another person). Now that yaku is emboldened in uh, being himself? all versions of himself? let's see how boinking is gonna go. hopefully it will be quite the departure from R2's struggle hours...

FUFIOKIN. ROOM 5: BANE OF MY EXISTENCE

The FIRST thing that strikes me when the room starts is

EIDEN YOU ARE SO HOT WHAT TH BRWOIJAOIEWFSKAESFKJLFEA?

INIPPL?

EIDEN'S HANDS? I'M BITING THEM? LET ME BITE THEM??? Yeah so i'm just staring at eiden displayed proudly in the mirror and a bird could probably land in my mouth with how it was hanging open, thinking, "yall know how to lewd your protagonist, nuca.... respect....." i'm distracted, but i need to move the room along so

.? ⚠! (ALERT NOISE) (ping!) the only yakumo room i've unlocked at this point is the OG SSR/Story H. i may have seen idol r2, too. so my current image of yakumo at this point is: -wet -crying -subby little baby

therefore, him saying he's GOING TO TEASE EIDEN causes my brow to upturn. 🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨 really? really, yakumo? YOU? are you even capable of doing that? can you do more than one thing [be wet baby]? i doubt it. these games always choose one niche for a character and stick to it... you caNNOT drift into switchery. try it i dare u (<- famously lesser-known last words)

eiden, in line with "i can take all of you", responds that he likes both. and btw, this ain't one-sided. he warns that he's about to weaponise bottoming again. if yakumo thinks he can just lead eiden around, lolollololo l good luck. my boy's gonna squeeze him dry (seriously. i have zero faith in yakumo's ability to stay in control of any situation)

OK! so! they're fukin *mundane hand gesture. rollin it along*

yakumo slows his roll and is all, actually, part of the fun is looking at you confused and needy :3 so he's going at a super lax pace and adjusting his dick angle and some other tactical penis feint that's edging eiden into horny frustration

as if i'm cheering on my fave racehorse, i start YELLING when eiden ~~snatches back the reins~~~~

WEAPONISE! 👏THAT!! 👏BOTTOM!!!!!!!👏🏭🎬ATTABOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!📣📣📣🔊📢🔊🎖🥳📣🔊📢

wait what ........HOW HAS HE NOT LOST IT? if eiden went off on me like that, uhhhhhhhhhhh hahahaha rest in pesis i'm losing immediately but... crybaby.... is holding it together? in fact, he somehow TAKES CONTROL AGAIN??????? THET F ????

idk guess i'm shocked with processing another side of yakumo that i didn't expect,, i avoided yakumo because his look served potential for "2000s toxic seme" energy. but i tolerated him because his ACTUAL personality was NOT That. yet... now he's showing that exact domineery junk and i'm ..ok with it? Is it specifically because i've only seen him be pathetic in every other room?!

i'm just gonna...a. take a moment here to... maybe sort of understand the predicament i'm in along with my growing . something. admiration? for yakumo. uhhh.... hmmmm..........

yeah ok whatever people can be freaks about nipples i guess

SHIT I FORGOT HE HAS COLD HANDS . SHIT. I FORGOT I LIKE COLD HANDS SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'M INTO THAT?

NOT THE NECK BITING AGAIN AHAHAHAHAAHHAHHA FOR REAL?????? VAMPIRE COSPLAY SERIOUS????? (<- my voice has gone an octave higher as i start panic laughing)

i don't know why i didn't expect that here. do i just not think ahead? it's stupid count drakumo. of course he's gonna suck blood. at least twice. maybe the rest of you saw it coming, and rolle dyour eyes. ahahaha, how very trite. how very standard.

did the active shattering of my preconceived yakumo.png weaken me THAT much? was i sudddenly swept up into the revelation thata game was Finally going beyond the yaoi dichotomy? to make someone subby AND dommy? Was i SO swept up that the "cringe vampire roleplay" bypassed my eyerolling sensor?!?!?!

i've got a single nervous bead of sweat making its way down my back and it's cuz of the very simple combo of hole/temperature/neck

so while i'm taking another impromptu wary pause , stewing at how DEVASTATED i may or may not be idk whatever it's not a big deal that the neck bite isn't shown on screen

LOGIC: that makes sense. animating and drawing that separate pose in this setup would be way too much work for 2 sentences. HORNY: TEAR INTO HIM. SUCK HIM DRY. LET ME

SEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

yeah for real. I'M feeling attacked right now. eiden trying his best not to splort from the three-pronged feel-up (struggling like an amorous salmon up a waterfall) when suDNDEnly

......?

*RECORD SCRATCH* ?!?!?!?!?!??!?????!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!???!!!!!??????????????????????? ?????!?!?!?!?????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?????E?!?FKFOO>>>>?VFF??A""????":??"??????!?!!??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

👆

WHAT WAS THAT?

*runs into the adjacent room like it's a reality tv privacy booth* *slams the door and stares incredulously at the camcorder* *points toward the room i just left*

IS THAT ALLOWED?

Is Yakumo legally allowed to say "fuck"?????

*falls into a hushed and baffled whisper* i don't have enough Japanese comprehension to parse exactly what yakumo said oh god i wish i had the comprehension is this a translator liberty? is it real? because if the original speech was actually more reserved but the translators were like "bro that ain't sexy. just write FUCK"?? i guess that wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility? but if yakumo legitimately said "fuck" ...... AND dropped the honorific from eiden's name?! .......... huh! ohhhhhhhh *ruffles my hair out of confusion* did he really say that? i mean ok he's a grown ass snan i shouldnt ' be scandalised like i hear d an infant say FUCK as its first word , 11 months out of the womb ....... *deep breath* ok. don't dwell on it. gotta return to the task at hand. *steadfastly turns the doorknob and returns to my previous location*

so eiden looks like what i feel right now (in the key of: !?!?!?) thankfully the surprise doesn't last long in the face of his shamelessness (blessed be eito), so he tries to repeat after yakumo but yakumo's drilling him so hard that brain mysgh muysh can't really... speak..prororperly

SUHUT THE FUCCK UP YAKUMO I'VE NEVER BEEN SO OFFENDED BY SUCH A SHORT SENTENCE GO AWAY WITH YOUR THIRTY SHADES OF COUNT DOMKUMO PARADING IN HERE THINKIN YOU CAN DISH OUT ORDERS LIKE THSI WHEN YOU'R E NORMALLY A SOBBING MESS BY NOW=====----

*pinches in between my brows* uueugh...... eiden doesn't get to finish his task but they go at it until the screen goes white with that powerful SPLOOSH we all know and love

and yakumo FINALLY breaks character getting juiced released a bit of his control i guess we hear an "uhu" at last. he uses his pathetic wibble to ask eiden for more because he's still hard. of course he is...... mans is never done.......dick ouroboros with the way he never ends.......

BUT THEN EIDEN PULLS A FACE THAT GRABS MY ENTIRE BRAIN AND FLOODS ME WITH SO MUCH AFFECTION

I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHY JUST LOOK AT HIM SLUTTY BLEP i was having an out-of-body experience i was suddenly going over every BL i've ever played and how none of the protags were ever this unabashedly INTO IT (of course we are only here because we build upon the foundations of our gay ancestors THANK YOU GAYASS SPIRITS OF YORE , ) BUT! i'm experiencing a grand realisation of how far we've come and how eiden being a slutty versatile dweeb enriches my life to untold measures and his stupid cute little ;P thirsty look is going to sustain me for years and also i love it so much i'm going to screenshot it and keep it in my gallery just so i can look at it whenever i think about homophobia existing ever . i love u eiden get that dick and hole forever💖

now that yakumo is all vulnerable and Himself and freed from his edgy persona , he's just pounding into eiden liek 🥺 i'm just a normal snokai right? 🥺😥 so it's ok to act the way i truly want to❓ you'll accept all of me? 😖 i'm not a horrible irredeemable monster ?? 😧💦 you still want me? here?? with you???🥺🥺🥺 i'm allowed to make you feel good??😢?😭?😥 of course eiden affirms all this with a big moany yes (in surprisingly eloquent words despite the state of his anus)

and to top it all off, the room provides a full circle of plot by letting eiden complete his failed "repeat after me" task from before..- with a horny addendum about how he can't get enough of yakumo's dirty expressions, because of course our boy has to get the last word.

ahhh,,, like an epic movie,, it all comes together. loose ends tied and fucklines affirmed. tasks fulfilled; pervert's journey complete;; we, the audience, can go home with satisfied closure.

after-credits sceNe: when the post-nut clarity hits yakuei, i am brick'd with overwhelming concern about eiden's leg. how has it NOT cramped this entire time, being held up like that.? what was that? at least 15 minutes?! of lifting up one leg and spreading it so wide? damn, boy, is ya potassium that powerful? no calf cramps? nothing? eiden your sexual athleticism is unrivalled. i am in awe.

Note!

When i first watched these rooms, I didn't have headphones. Months later, i finally got to watch the scenes WITH SOUND. and i was so very pleased to hear that yakumo's voice in R5 was a nice middle ground between his suuuuper drawly heavy cosplay mode R2 angstvoice,, and his regular uhuu soft voice. it's definitely more himself, but with the added confidence of roleplaying ehuehue so it's just nice!! to hear him being more secure in himself!! and enjoying the situation!! but also teasing eiden and enjoying the power plays?? yay! near the end he returns almost fully to his regular voice due to , you know, whiny pleady 🥺 feels-too-good things afoot and that just .... upped the affection for me.... ugh... so he CAN do both......

in future watches, i eventually take the time to look at yakumo's face instead of eiden's. . .

and i do NOT like where my subsequent thoughts go

oh no he's hot.......................

WE RETURN TO REALITY. IT IS SOME TIME BETWEEN MARCH AND MAY (2023). I HAVE AT LAST UNLOCKED ALL OF CP YAKUMO'S ROOMS. I AM IN MY ROOM AND I AM SHOOKETHED. Shortly, I seek out Friend B, the catalyst for this train of horror and realisation. I tell them the task is done. Eventually, i give them my phone so they can watch their beloved vampire yakumo rooms. I couldn't even hand it over with the derisive scoff I THOUGHT I would show. the look of absolute dismissal that used to appear whenever someone mentioned crimson phantom yakumo. No, i handed it over with thinly concealed amusement . perhaps even excitement, that someone would soon share in something that so pleasantly surprised me. A part of me wished for them to return my phone with a disappointed "tch". to tell me that, oh, that wasn't very good after all. you were right. i could have missed out on vampire yakumo and lost nothing. Unfortunately, they returned my phone later that evening . their eyes glittered with the glee of someone whose hopes were beautifully fulfilled. "OH MY FUCKING GOD I KNEW it was gonna be amazing!", they bubbled. "Yeah." is all i could say... . I spend the following weeks slowly falling victim to yakumo's charms. By June, I am putting up posters of him all over my room while talking about how much i hate him.

SUMMARY: like nuca itself, it started as a joke and now the quences have conned. i'm suffering the cussions, reperfully. eiden did NOT help. he was beautiful and amazing from every angle and that added to the positive associations with these rooms,, and by extension, yakumo. and now? now i hate this snakeboy for what's he's done to me. i'm p sure he's actively moving the goalposts on my preferences as i type. i'm scared. he has too much power . that this mushy noodle would subvert tropes by following the old kabedon-seme script then DO IT AGAIN by hitting me with the SUBVERT REVERSE BEAM #2 and now i dream about railing him under the moonlight.

it was all downhill from that accursed roleplay. eiden's a gayteway drug. he fkoin got me. and now yakumo's got me too

[iguessitsjustme]

Now this could just be the stress talking but someone needs to teach that boy how to play volleyball. At least the basics my god

[gece-misin-nesin]

Bruce Wayne stop slandering your dead son whose murder you were high-key responsible for challenge

[thatneoncrisis]

oh captain my captain i didn't know what league of legends game was when i watched arcane. so i thought the plot was alright since i didn't (still don't) know the game lore. if it wasn't basically a prequel story, trying to aim the characters at the way they are in canon, do u think the plot and character arcs would have held up alright? or does that actually make the arcane canon story worse since it wouldn't at least have the existing canon as something it needed to land at eventually as an excuse for any "out of character" decisions? thank u

i wouldnt even call it a prequel story? its like a very elaborate au in a sense, one that feels comfortable changing things to a certain extent- clothes, personality adjustments, motivations, but they still have to hit certain beats. vi has to be an enforcer, jinx has to be a wild card harley quinn type, ekkos time powers ect ect. idk WHAT it is maybe the show needed more time or tighter focus or less characters but i just felt that like, some of the story decisions directly relating to LoL lore werent outright bad but didnt have a lot of time to breathe. the standout example being ekkos time thing, where when i watched that scene i assumed it was both a stylistic representation of a fight and establishing his and jinx's prior relationship (which is kind of too little too late considering they did not fucking speak once as kids pre time skip), and then i had to get a friend to explain to me for SEVERAL MINUTES that he literally died during that fight and it was supposed to be showing his rewind thing. it just wasnt clear at all and his character would not change in the slightest if he didnt have it. but you cant NOT include it so. *

really i have no clue the full extent of the story the writers wanted to tell and how much LoL is binding their hands on story beats. and i REALLY dont want to be inflexible considering i still have a full season coming up that might make me more receptive to certain decisions. but considering how much of the cast i REALLY like just straight up are not in the game, i think they are fully capable of making a solid story completely divorced from league

*someone in the comments told me apparently that Wasnt his time thing and my original read of the scene was correct so im not gonna hold it against the show.

[bunnihearted]

🍷

[aquilamage]

I haven’t been insane about Vi enough lately so time to pour out some random thoughts. free association thinking time:

been thinking about her “It's my savings. I wanna be rich, okay? So I can travel, eat well, buy cool stuff… So no one can say I can't do something!” And none of the following will really be insightful or revelatory because it’s just what she says here but. yeah! that’s vi! the main reason she’s so big on money is because she has to be to get what she wants out of life! it’s what lets her say no to people telling her what to do, and that’s important to her because she has no choice but to be independent and support herself. because no one else will. No one at the Hive had anything positive or supportive to say about her being an explorer until she went out and did it (to a ridiculously successful degree, too. I have to wonder if/how it might’ve differed if she was on a regular accomplishment level team. not the one leading them all to the mission to the Hive). she never had a choice not to be. I could also see that being a little part of why she starts out not really being a teamwork person. past experiences have taught her she can’t rely on anyone else for support. (does make me wonder about what if she’d met Chubee before leaving the Hive. obviously she still would’ve left, but how might even a bit of support have changed other things?)

I feel like we don’t talk about the fact that The Beemerang Is Also Knives enough

ok so at one point there was this post talking about people with money and how it affects their life like. if you can afford to get a nanny then you can only do the fun parts of childcare and when you stop feeling like taking care of the kid you can just hand them to someone else to take them away. and again likely not especially revelatory but I would guess that’s the kind of way queen bianca handled the bees as her daughters (she does care about them. absolutely. but not in the same hands-on attached way as we usually associate with parents) and thinking about how that kind of treatment would then apply to vi....hm

in universes where discussions of Gender and Pronouns etc happen I think she has moments where she gets frustrated with the everything of Being Referred To and Having Complicated Identity She Hasn’t Quite Figured Yet and is like. gender is cancelled how dare you refer to me. but especially anyone else calls me a girl ever i will be stabbing them

also I think a lot about what circumstances she finds out about gayness/Gender being things. and whether she’s thought about it in herself before and whether she’d been dismissed on it/told it wasn’t a thing etc. most circumstances she ends up angry about the finding out times because of (un)consicious internal conflict stuff

underground tavern stuff implies she was definitely doing quests and stuff for money with them precanon. would kill to know what specifically it was. but also the first talk with utter implies that she was doing stuff off that questboard as well which is even more intriguing. utter’s spy also implies you don’t have to be an explorer to do them but otherwise you would think you did I feel. so again very curious what was up there

[duckapus]

Thought up a few interesting things for the Squid Memes AU

1- Desti was an Elite Octoling back during Splatoon 1, and she and her squad (the three other Octolings that would go on to become the Octoposse) were among those who defected after the battle. Though interestingly, she didn't actually hear Calamari Inkantation like the other defectors, seeing as she was recovering from injuries she sustained fighting Agent 3 and thus wasn't present for the battle/concert. She just found out that her teammates were running away and was like "not without me you're not."

She's fully aware that Paige is Agent 3 (once she finally runs into them on the surface at least) and thinks it's honestly kind of funny that the so-called "Scourge of the Domes" was a freaking kid when they tore through the place, and that of all the people she could've gotten into a rivalry with it of course just had to be 3's big sister. She doesn't tell Meggy both because she's not about to out the kid like that and because it amuses her a little that Meggy doesn't know.

2- Axol and Pearl have been friends since they were kids, partly because I figure it would make sense if the tiny angry rich girl who sings too loud and the otaku who figured out fucking magitech and built a pen that could bring his drawings to life because he was lonely got lumped in together as the Weird kids nobody likes. Plus Marina canonically reads manga so even if Pearl doesn't like anime stuff herself we know someone else liking it isn't a turnoff for her.

3- So for this one I'm also pulling from Spongebob Squarepants canon because I needed an explanation for Heavy Squid and all the other Squidwards we see.

Okay, so we've seen in a few episodes of Spongebob that there are a bunch of squids/octopi/whatever Squidward's meant to be that look almost exactly like him. Obviously there's Squilliam but there was also that town of Squidward lookalikes he moved to once. Well, in this that's because they're not Squids or Octopi, they're instead a fourth (yes, fourth. we count Salmonids in this house) type of Inkfish that I'm tentatively calling "Schnozlings." In terms of abilities they're sort of a halfway point between the playable Inkfish and Salmonids, where they can live underwater thanks to having the right kind of respiratory system and thick enough skin to not get splatted by the ink-eating microbes, while also having Swim forms (which unfortunately aren't microbe-resistant like their humanoid forms).

Their swim forms are round, with six tentacles that all look similar to the long tentacles of an Inkling's swim form, while their humanoid forms are...well...Squidward lookalikes. Complete with four "legs," no fingers, a long droopy nose (hence the name Schnozling) and in a few cases the ability to grow hair on their heads like a human. As a side-effect of their microbe-resistant thick skin, most of them don't have any way to display their ink color in humanoid form, while their Swim forms are color coded just like Inklings and Octolings.

(And yes this means I'll have to redesign Heavy Squid to look less like Heavy and more like Squidward. But still big and muscular because that's his Whole Thing.)

[childofaura]

Ok... I swore to myself I wasn't gonna make another negative MAWS post, that I was just gonna leave it at the Twink Slade disappointment post.

But apparently there's this trend that's been happening on Twitter, where people are trying to bring up the 2004 "The Batman" designs to try and defend the designs of the MAWS rogue gallery. And that was the territory I CANNOT let go, as someone who is a fan of Jeff Matsuda and his character designs.

SO FIRST, LET ME CLARIFY: I'm simply making ONE post about ONE factor of MAWS that irritates me. I'm not here to just sit and constantly bash on the show. I wouldn't do that, I have a personal close friend of mine who enjoys the show and I'm happy for her and I want her to enjoy the show. I have SO many gripes and reservations but I recognize those are personal.

I'll be putting this under a Read More and tagging it as Anti-MAWS so MAWS fans don't have to read/deal with this post. Probably just don't read my tags as well.

So if there's one thing that has irked me the most about MAWS, it's the redesigns and rewrites of Supes' rogue galleries. Mostly the redesigns though. MAWS took a bunch of colorful, diverse, and fantastical designs and made them monotonous, bland, and simply not fun at all. And yes, while the in-universe explanation (Being that they're all mechanically enhanced rather than freak accidents or born that way) makes sense, it still makes the villains incredibly un-appealing. EVERYONE is in boring black, white, and gray armor (aside from Parasite and while I think his physical design is neat I have issues with his character rewrite too, I'm just not here to discuss that). Everyone who had incredibly fun or creative designs was horribly washed out. Silver Banshee went from being a literal ghostly wraith to a boring motorcycle-looking chick. Livewire went from a vibrant blue lightning motif (that SHE herself created) to boring merc armor. And yes, I have issues with Slade's armor, the head was promising but the overall design has color-balancing issues.

Now let's look at the redesigns of the rogue gallery for the 2004 "The Batman" show. These are mostly drastically different from their original design counterparts, just like MAWS. But the massive difference is that most of these designs are still colorful (where it applies, obviously not to Penguin), recognizable, and push the borders of imagination; They're so ludicrous and exaggerated in their design and their physical features. Even if I was disappointed in some of the character rewrites (Like Mr. Freeze having only a small cameo to Nora in the flashback, but mainly being another selfish thug), the designs are still great. You can look at The Batman villain designs and easily recognize them because they follow the basic structure of their original designs.

Joker:

Is still in his green, purple, and orange color palette, with his trademark freakish grin. The design takes creative liberties with the spiked hair, the more athletic physique, and the actual clothing style of his outfit, but this is clearly meant to be Joker.

Mr. Freeze:

Is now essentially a cryomancer thanks to his mutation, but this is still obviously Mr. Freeze. Some kind of helmet (in this case encased in his own ice) wearing a thermal freeze suit, and his red eyes invoking the red goggles he wore in his original iteration.

Catwoman:

The design exaggerates a lot of features of the OG outfit, like the ears and the goggles (though the OG design really just has eye spaces), and uses shades of crimson and purple, but you look at the black bodysuit and the whip around her waist and she can clearly be identified.

The main argument I'm making with the 2004 Batman designs is that they're A) recognizable to their original counterparts by invoking the same color scheme and basic design points, B) Colorful and pushing the lunacy of a world full of supervillains, and C) Completely stand out from each other, no two villains look as though they're of similar origins (besides obvious pairs like Joker/Harley Quinn and the two Clayfaces, the latter which was a guy who took concentrated serum made from Ethan Bennett's Clayface DNA). The Batman designs are good because while they ARE drastically different from their original counterparts, they honor the original designs.

Whereas in the MAWS redesigns, none of the redesigns are reminiscent of their original counterparts (besides the obvious Brain and Monsieur Mallah, kind of hard to fuck that up), and lack the fantastical element that The Batman redesigns (And the original Superman show, where it applies) had.

Livewire:

Looks nothing like her original counterpart. The armored clothes, the lack of lightning motif, lack of color to her outfit (I'm not here to talk about the race-swapping), none of it is supposed to tip you off to being Livewire, especially when her character is written so drastically different. You should be able to tell who Livewire is BEFORE you see her powers.

When OG Livewire looks like this:

Silver Banshee:

Is just a regular human in drab clothing. There's some kind of attempt to give her the hint of a ghost motif with the bone legs, but then that disappears in her later costume design. Same later costume that tries to half-ass a skull motif on the helmet but it doesn't work with the helmet's angles.

When this is Silver Banshee's original design (going with a still from Batman Unlimited)

And if they wanted to stray from the whole "supernatural" aspect, they could have compromised like they did in Suicide Squad: Hell to Pay:

Which I mean I still don't like that redesign as much as Silver Banshee's OG design, but it's still recognizable and it's still cool.

The bottom line is basically this: You don't have to justify liking this new Superman show and its take on new characters. But to try and say the character designs on MAWS are like the 2004 "The Batman" cartoon redesigns is such an unequal and imbalanced comparison. The thought process for the character designs in these shows are so drastically different from each other, and the execution of said character designs aren't comparable.

[formal-frog-shoes]

we got listing, cause i was bored at work

Now imma be real, i couldnt figure out who would be a troll and who would be a human?

so i used a randomizer (though some i freaking shifted some around. for fun)

humans:

Cater Diamond (cause i already drew that, i cant back out now)

Trey Clover (for that one post i saw you also cause some stuff im workin on)

Ruggie Buchi

Deuce Spade

Silver (Very used to Troll things, cause Lilia trol-lore reasons)

Jamil Viper

Vil Schonenheit (Bro's name is so hard to spell. Not why he's a human. just have trouble spelling)

Kalim Al Asim

Trolls

Idia Shroud (THIS MAN WILL BE INDIGO BLOOD I BET MY SOUL ON IT)

Leona Kingscholar

Ortho Shroud (Aradiabot style, died early one brother of Idia, Burgundy Blood got he ghost and put him in da robody that Idia made.)

Floyd Leech

Jade Leech (I will not separate the twins, but as all the fanart ive seen they will be Violet. It just makes sense)

Lilia Vanrouge (Troller of Silver early on, became very attached to this human child, and has given him many troll lessons. Silver thought it was like a game world building thing at first. Until he meets the trolls of course)

Sebek Zigvolt (Bro calls everyone humans, makes sense. The wheel picked this one)

Azul Ashengrotto (Everyone makes him Fuschia? not me. He is Cerulean, cause his name literally means Blue, and also 8 theme, and also pirate mini theme and also cause capitalism seems to be secondary in Vriska bloodtype)

Riddle Rosehearts

Malleus Draconia

Jack Howl

Ace Trappola

NOW THAT WE HAVE ALL 8 HUMANS AND 12 TROLLS (Excluding the alpha trolls cause there's not enough characters and only 2 out of the twelve were important and i dislike both of them), the remaining characters were left out! So i did some thinking, (for fun) and now we have two

very

important spots left.

Cherubs

Epel Felmier

Rook Hunt

Of course, we're not following homestuck lore or anything, cause lets be honest, i dont want either of them to follow the lord english route (although, this might make people perturbed, but like Epel would make a pretty interesting Lord English.)

plus i dont wanna do the whole. Sharing a body thing? Rather, they exist on opposite like walls in the little room thing and they have to share a computer that has like two monitors

like this. and they can like hear each other though the wall. (to match with Rooks hunting thing, i'll give him like Callie's book of lore thing? but also he like internet stalks his friends. cause that's normal and very in line for him, i'd think)

ALSO it's been like several years since i've read. homestuck and i literally just finished chapter 2 of Twisted Wonderland like maybe 2 weeks ago and haven't continued the story. i do frequently fact check homestuck stuff when making aus and ideas and stuff, and i've read like so many scattered memes and spoilers for TWST so like that's all my knowledge.

so if something seems weird or whatever, like let me know? and i'll read it, love information. but also this is a joke au, so things being serious will probably not happen. unless i get too attached to this dumb au then maybe.

[ruvviks]

made the realization my vampire story would work best as a video game and now i can't stop thinking about it

[a-so-called-person]

Jayvik is my barbenheimer

[antirepurp]

it's weird that while digimon world next order is like mechanically a better dw game and lets you have more control over how you raise your digimon, digimon world redigitize decode has a better gameplay loop to me anyway. like in next order after a few generations and lifespan upgrades the digimon just Don't Fucking Die which is a real ordeal when it comes to actually completing the beastiary, and it makes it really difficult to estimate when to do important story fights and when to fuck around bc your fellas are about to die anyway. redigitize seems to have a set lifespan for your digimon that doesn't increase with generations, it's just base stats that do, and it gives you this neat about 15 in-game day cycle of raising your dude up (which can be done entirely in the gym) and exploring in-between if you need to adjust your stats carefully for specific evolutions. if redigitize had the evolution control of next order i think i'd say it's the ultimately better experience just for that tbh