#and yes I have an image in my head of that specific game along with the travelers edition which sif keeps on hand at all times

[arolesbianism]

I <3 making up overly complicated fictional games for characters to play so I can use the imagery of said game to symbolize their torment within the story

[milliesfishes]

i know it’s been forever (a day) bc i’ve been busy being my own sugar mommy (working my summer job) but i have all the thoughts

like ttpd (the song) is giving best-friends-but-maybe-something-more reader + coryo until the games and then he’s being all cozy with lucy gray

and readers over here like i know everything about you and who you want to be, i’ve been here for you all along, if u really think that any other girl will be even half the partner i’d be then good luck babe

(who else decodes you? / who’s gonna hold you? / sometimes i wonder if you’re gonna screw this up with me? / i laughed in your face and said)

im sorry in advance for all the world vomit lmao

𝜗𝜚 ࣪˖ ִ𐙚𝓦𝓱𝓸 𝓔𝓵𝓼𝓮 𝓓𝓮𝓬𝓸𝓭𝓮𝓼 𝓨𝓸𝓾?𝜗𝜚 ࣪˖ ִ𐙚

[fem reader] contains: injury, jealousy pairing: coriolanus snow x fem reader summary: you know coriolanus like the back of your hand, and yet he runs to another girl the first chance he gets author’s note: so sorry this took forever! I needed very specific vibes for this and I hope it's good! Pinterest Board Spotify Playlist

Your sheets were silken, soft to the touch, but they felt better when he was lying next to you.

Opening your eyes just a hint, you reveled in the glow of the morning sun filtering through the curtains. Coriolanus was sprawled out next to you, remaining deep in the throes of sleep. His curls were a messy halo across his forehead just as they were every morning, and you delighted in the sight of him, knowing he'd smooth his hair as soon as he awoke.

The broad plane of his bare chest was vastly uncovered by the comforter, and you traced your finger down the bump of his ribs. The heat of his skin exuded from his body like a fire in the hearth, warming you right up just by being next to him.

Resting your chin on his shoulder, you let your hair fall to the side as you studied him like a book. If your Coryo was a genre he'd be a classic- renowned and readable if one took the time. Not many people did.

His lashes fluttered like butterfly's wings, and you shut your eyes. No need for him to know you'd been staring at him.

Shifting under you, Coriolanus made a quiet noise as he emerged from his dreams, one of his big palms rising to rest at the crown of your head. The intimate gesture was a spark in your quiet heart.

Thumb raking through your strands, his other hand settled by yours on his stomach, clasping your limp fingers in a delightful knot. At that, you allowed yourself to unfold your eyes, looking up at him in an innocent way.

Coriolanus had never been one to smile easily. His face was hardened all too often, by the survivalist ways of his life in the cutthroat world of the Capitol. But now the corners of his lips were lifting just barely upwards as his cerulean eyes drowned yours in the best possible way.

"Morning," he whispered, voice slightly raspy with the cobwebs of sleep. Coriolanus rubbed your arm and dug his nose into your hair, inhaling softly.

The mornings with him were sacred, locked away in a vault for your darkest hours. At your insistence, he stayed the night often. His trust was not an easy thing to come by, and yet you were in possession of it. You knew of his living conditions, of the Snow's maintenance of their surname's image. It was a gift how at ease he was with you. So much so that he was able to slip smoothly into unconsciousness with you right there in his arms.

Friends. Best friends. That was your title and yet you were tangled in the sheets of your bed like lovers. And you couldn't ignore the familiar flutter in your heart when he peered down at you, usually icy eyes softened.

"Can we stay here all day?" you questioned in dulcet tones, tracing a patch of his skin. "It's so cozy."

"We've got to get to the school," Coriolanus shifted, sitting up in the bed and bringing his hand to his forehead. "The Reaping-"

"Yes," you murmured, rubbing his side. Your satin-like hair was a waterfall over your shoulder as you propped yourself up on an elbow. All Coriolanus had been able to talk about was the Reaping in the past few weeks. Ever since he'd been selected as a Mentor.

It was a high honor, although it came with a heavy price. To groom a child for death as a spectacle was no easy thing. You had opted out of the selection of students poised to be mentors, personal fear and heartache for the soon-to-be victims eating at your psyche.

You were privileged in that way, you knew. Coriolanus didn't have a choice if he wanted any hope of attending the University. He was proud, your boy, refusing to accept even a penny from your family's expansive funds. Through your late father's investments, you could have paid to keep the both of you comfortable in a penthouse in the city, tuition and food the furthest of worries.

Watching him now, donning his dress pants and shirt, lacing up his too-small shoes, you wished he would let you help. The white shirt was exquisite, clandestine work by Tigris- his fashion-centric cousin. Coriolanus had a talent for making anything he wore appear regal- a byproduct of his last name no doubt.

Rising, you disappeared into the closet to find a dress appropriate for the event. Though you were not a mentor, all students at the Academy were invited to the celebration. You would have begged your way in anyways, eager to watch your best friend receive his tribute.

Rifling through the selection, you decided on a black number with thin straps, hugging your figure and flaring out subtly toward the bottom. Removing your nightdress, you tossed it over a chair and stepped into the other garment, zipping it up as high as you could.

When your fingers were unable to stretch any further, you poked your head out, calling, "Coryo? Would you help me?"

His shoes clicked on the wooden floor as he approached, one hand steadying you on your waist while you drew your sheet of hair over your shoulder. The zipper crawled up your spine as he closed the gap between fabric, reaching over to brush your hair back behind you when he finished.

The mirror positioned in the corner of the room painted a picture that passerby couldn't possibly guess the context on. Coriolanus and you cut a striking pair, making your foolish heart leap at the idea.

Squeezing your shoulder, Coriolanus left you to ponder at your reflection, digging through his school bag for something. It had been a miracle you'd been able to convince him to spend the night at all with how meticulous he was. But your honeyed musings about how he needed a good dinner and night's rest before the ceremony had won him over. Before you'd known it he'd been passed out under your blankets with a belly full of roast, lulled by the motions of your nails scratching his head.

Inside and out, you knew him, had memorized him better than any textbook passage, could unravel his tangled secrets quicker than any detective. He took your heart by storm.

Slipping your feet into your shoes, you picked up your purse and checked your recently finished makeup one last time, casting a glance at Coriolanus, who was fiddling with his curls again. You capped your lipstick with a snap, dropping the tube into your bag and turning to him. "Ready?"

When he looked at you, his oceanic eyes held a promise of storms. You reached your hand out and took his, offering the tiniest smile. "It's going to be okay."

Closing his eyes briefly, he inhaled once and gave a single nod. If you'd put your hand to his chest, the stampede of his heart under it likely would have worried you. The tendrils of hope crept between you as you tried to will your words into him.

Sticking his hand into his bag, Coriolanus withdrew twin flowers you recognized as his grandmother's precious roses- the special rooftop ones reserved for special occasions. Snapping the stems, he fixed one behind your ear, thumb featherlike. The gesture swelled your chest and warmed you from the inside out. "For me?"

"The Grandma'am insisted." There it was- that almost smile that told you the flower was coming from him too. Coriolanus steadied it in your hair, the petals brushing you like a kiss.

"Thank you," you whispered, touching your lips to his cheek. A slight flush brightened his face, and he looked away as your hands came to the one of his holding his own rose. Gently easing it out of his grip, you fastened it to his vest, taking care not to scratch his white shirt with the pin. Ironing out invisible creases with your hands, your eyes found his once again.

Friends. And yet it didn't feel like it. Not one bit. Electricity seemed to crackle in the line connecting your gazes, and you swore something flashed across his irises. The rose didn't mean nothing.

Half-dazed, you tentatively unearthed the feeling stored in a drawer stuffed to the brim with secrets. One more passionate and powerful than you were used to stood tall above the rest.

Though it was strong, it revealed itself in memories; quiet, simple things so delicate they could be gone in a blink. This feeling was rain pattering against the roof, it was flowers blooming between the cracks in the sidewalk. It was blue eyes and golden curls and a try-not-to-smile that arranged itself in a way that bloomed through the walls of your heart.

Somehow you had known what it was all along. And yet now its foretelling had come to pass.

What if he loved you too?

The Reaping was a lilted event highlighted by the revelation of Coriolanus' tribute.

District Twelve. You could have strangled the Dean lost in the throes of his beloved drug for what he'd so obviously done: set Coriolanus up for failure. From where you were sitting you could see the resignation on his face as he watched the Lucy Gray Baird in her rainbow dress part the raggedy crowd like the Red Sea.

Then she slipped a wriggling snake hidden by her hand down a girl's dress, and your attention was piqued. Bold. Maybe there was optimism yet. Coriolanus stood sharply; eyes glued to the screen as he watched his tribute dragged up the stage by stone-faced Peacekeepers. The mayor's hand struck her face, and she fell to the ground graceful as a ballerina, hair hanging over her cheeks.

And then she began to sing. Lilted as a bird's song, clear as a bell, her voice rang over the crowd, rich enough without background music. Lucy Gray's chorus needed no accompaniment.

The entire hall was entranced. Your eyes tore from the sight, instead watching Coriolanus. Even from where you were sitting you could see what you'd tried to instill in him only hours ago.

Hope.

The time following was a film reel of interconnected pictures. In later days you would recall them and only be able to see brief flashes of memory.

Coriolanus behind the bars of the Capitol Zoo's cage. Lucy Gray Baird standing tall and proud despite her forced surroundings, her rainbow dress a bright contrast to the rest of the setting. He had told you his plan to greet his tribute, but you'd had no idea of his exertions until you saw him on the evening news. Even if his Academy uniform hadn't been such a bright red, you would have known those curls anywhere.

She was stunningly lovely standing beside him- a flower of adversity if there ever was one. A flower with a song. Speaking of flowers, one of his was tucked behind her ear just as it had been with yours the morning of the Reaping.

A pang echoed in your chest at the sight of him, holding hands with her and greeting the citizens of the Capitol who'd come to gawk at the forced participants of a cruel game.

You had turned off the television at that, bringing your knees to your chest. He was just helping her. That was his job. He only wanted her to trust him in order to reach his end goal. Was it manipulative? Maybe. But it wouldn't matter if she won. It would be good for the both of them.

Coriolanus kneeling beside Lucy Gray, sharing a sandwich with her. You hung back behind the crowd, having accompanied him but not wanting to scare her away. He spoke in hushed tones to her, and you watched with a sinking heart as a smile split his face like a sunrise at something she said. A full smile.

After that, you saw him rarely. He was either at the zoo with her or at home writing things up both for the games and for school. Coriolanus used to do all his work with you by his side.

The media outlets were fond of showing him and Lucy Gray, reporting on the Snow boy and the songbird. You had tried to ask him about his affiliation with Lucy Gray, but he assured you it was pure strategy. He didn't know you loved him, though.

Coriolanus hadn't spent the night since the Reaping. The side he usually slept on grew cold. It still smelled like him, and that was a haunting thing. Whenever you asked him over he cast a net of excuses, claiming he needed to go see Lucy Gray in the morning or that the mentors had a strategy meeting.

As you stared up at him, with his eyebrows drawn taut, mouth no longer offering even a half-smile, a feeling of dread awoke in your heart.

Avoidance was your friend in the next week. The buzz of the games was impossible to ignore, and your feelings became matted in a bloody tangle. Tidying your room, you found little things he'd left behind. A pen, a spare shirt, a notebook. Opening the cover of the latter, you saw his neatly scribbled notes. For a moment you pretended it was a love letter.

It all came to a heading after the attack in the arena.

Everything was a blur after you received the news. Your feet were moving before you knew it, stumbling down the stairs. The driver on the way had to have been breaking every speeding law, but it still wasn't fast enough for you.

You didn't have any idea how you made it up to him. There was no recollection of asking someone where he was, or even a room number. But somehow you were at his side, taking his clammy hand in yours and collapsing to your knees beside his bed.

Tigris told you in a hushed way of how rebels had somehow bombed the arena, how there was a fire and rubble, and Lucy Gray had pulled him out of it. His leg had been in worse shape earlier, but it would heal soon.

A surge of gratitude shot through you. Thank heavens for Lucy Gray. Coriolanus was stirring now, his hand gripping yours as his lids revealed those oceans you'd missed so badly. And now his half-smile was back. He murmured your name and you could have burst into tears.

"You're okay," you murmured, other hand coming up to smooth curls back from his face. The way you knew he liked it.

"What happened...Lucy Gray..." he muttered, sitting up. A cold feeling of disheartenment washed over your heart. You opened your mouth to respond when the sound of music echoed from the hospital television on the wall.

There she was. The answer to his question. Lucy Gray's voice poured from the scratchy speaker, singing about a tale of lost love, paired with her guitar.

Coriolanus swung his legs over the side of the bed, getting to his feet nearly in a trance. His lips were parted, eyes fixed on her. Donations were pouring in, likely the most of any other tribute. The look on his face was of pure awe. It was as if he'd watched an angel descending.

Your heart sunk below your feet. Tears pricked your eyes as the chilling fingers of want gripped your arms, pulling you back into the shadows. He was falling for her.

It hit you like a punch to the gut, and you wanted to curl up on the floor beneath you until the ground opened and swallowed you up. Your love was a disease now that you didn't want to cure anyways. Even if you did, there wasn't one in sight.

The program ended, and Tigris excused herself, telling you both she was going to find something to eat. You sat at the chair beside Coriolanus' bed where he'd resumed his spot, despondent in the chasm of your thoughts.

She didn't know him like you did. Every hidden desire and pain of his fit into the palm of your hand, and you protected them just as he did. Time had slipped through the cracks and buried you, every shred of history with him flashing through your mind.

Walking to school together. Him coming from a particularly hard class to where you were sitting and resting his head in your lap. At your family's dinner table, trying not to overindulge. Asleep beside you, whispering that he felt safe.

You had been in front of him this entire time, holding him and loving him beyond everything. And yet here he was, running to a girl he knew so little of. Sabotaging everything you wanted to give him.

Even through all this, you couldn't find it in yourself to hate her. Lucy Gray was in the business of making it out alive. Whatever means she used to attempt a win were out of survival.

It was as if you'd pricked your finger on one of his rose's thorns. As you looked at him, you had the thought that he was drawing out of reach. Your Coryo was nearly lost to you and there was hardly anything to do.

He looked up at you, reaching for your hand. Letting him take it, you kept your eyes on his face, thoughts distant as he spoke.

"I think she has a chance," he said, voice bordering on excitement. "I think she can win. It'll all work out."

Bittersweet, you nodded, eyes falling to the floor. "You make a good pair." Every word was soft, and you avoided his eyes.

"Hey..." Coriolanus squeezed your hand, and you raised your gaze back to him. His features were drawn in a sincere way, and your demeanor lightened just slightly at the sight. "I want to get the prize. Go to the university with you. That's what this is all for."

"You look at her differently than that." Pursing your lips, you stood and let go of his hand.

Coriolanus frowned, throwing aside the covers and standing. "She might be the answer to all of this."

"That's fine," you said, turning away. "If you want her-"

"What are you talking about?" he asked, taking your elbow and forcing you to turn and face him. "I leave my things in your room. I gave you one of the roses...you're special to me, you have to know..."

"Then why have you abandoned me?" you questioned quietly, the tension between you thicker than a rope. "You're letting go."

"I'm doing all this for you," he emphasized, and your eyes widened slightly. "You..." he swallowed; mouth pulled tight. "I need you. If you ever left...I don't know what would happen."

Usually you had to comb through the depths of him eyes to find what he was feeling, but now it was right at the surface. Brimming and calling you. What he felt wasn't nothing.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Coriolanus demanded, holding you by both arms now. His words were not aggressive, but worried.

A thousand things stemmed from your core and climbed your being like vines on a stone wall in a secret garden. Fabled to act, more likely to yearn, your feelings bubbled and churned in your ocean of secret lives. Maybe once you would have poured your soul out to him, but the words were withered from lack of use.

"You weren't mine," you said weakly, leaving it at that. "Not mine to have or to lose."

Something changed in his face. He loosened the bands of his hands on your elbows, instead taking one of your hands and putting it to his heart. It beat a steady rhythm against your palm, that quiet assurance that he lived. Searching your eyes, Coriolanus breathed, "I think I've always been yours."

A myriad of scars and knotted emotions emerged in you. All these hours, all of what had seemed like tricks. And there had been something there the entire time.

You felt it right then- the connection. He was a tongue you spoke fluently, and now you were grateful for it. It sparked a fire in your soul that encased a promise echoed in his eyes.

He loved you too.

[extralively]

Satoru's apartment (Part 1)

Continuing with my whole thing of trying to make the characters' apartments from my fic in The Sims, let's finally get into Satoru's apartment! ....Or part of it, because his apartment is fairly big lol. Here's the layout:

*The office and washroom are blurred because I haven't actually gotten around to them yet lol

Satoru's place is pretty big, but not the biggest he could have afforded because he is just one guy... so a fairly "modest" apartment will do.

("modest" my ass lmao)

His apartment is pretty neat, which tends to surprise people that expect someone like him to make a mess of things, lol. But Satoru had a pretty strict childhood so some things just stuck with him, and along with the way his family never allowed him to decorate his room in the Gojo Estate with trinkets and stuff, most of his apartment ended up the same--almost void of personality. The things he actually cherishes are kept away from prying eyes, even if this is his own apartment.

Honestly, I had a few very vivid images of what I thought his apartment looked like in my head (or parts of it), and it was kinda tough trying to put them all together into a definite layout lmao. If I made some weird architectural choices, well.... good thing I'm not an actual architect! I just really wanted to make it look like how I pictured it in my head.

In this post we'll take a look at the living room/fireplace/dining area and the kitchen after the cut!

The entrance is pretty spacious, and right behind the camera here there's a door leading to a whole ass closet for shoes and coats and stuff.

This here is the living room, where Satoru spends a lot of his free time watching movies (especially when he has people over. And by people I mean Yura and Shoko, mostly). He has a bunch of DVDs and Blu rays there on the shelf behind the TV, and he also has a couple of video game consoles that he doesn't use a lot.

Yes, this is where the Movie Night oneshot took place (͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)... among other scenes.

(That corridor in the second pic with the white door leads to the guest bedroom, the office, and the washroom. That white door is the guest room, specifically.)

This is the fireplace area! Satoru doesn't actually use the fireplace a lot since he has central heating in the entire apartment, but in the opening chapter of Deeper in the Dark, this is where Satoru made a little pillow nest on the floor for him and Yura to snuggle... and yes, other things.

It's got a pretty good view! (...just pretend it's Tokyo back there)

(That corridor in the first pic leads to his bedroom.)

Here is the dining room that Satoru only uses when he has people over, otherwise it's just easier to eat in the kitchen or outside in the balcony (more on the balcony in another post... cause I still need to make it prettier lmao)

Also I might make some changes to this dining area at some point because I'm not 100% sure on the decor yet....

And here's the kitchen! This is the one place that has the most trinkets on display, a lot of novelty items that were mostly gifted to him by Yura over the years (and that he actually makes a point to use). Funny mugs, cookie jars, silly sugar bowls--since Satoru is filthy rich, it's very hard to give him gifts, so Yura eventually found out that he actually likes being given 'stupid stuff', in her words.

I had a very vivid image of the kitchen entrance in my head from that chapter where Yura was sleeping in the guest bedroom after coming back from NYC, and she sleepily stumbles into a shirtless Satoru with his back to her by the counter... cue her brain short circuiting for a moment lmao.

Anyway, next up should be the bedrooms! It's been a struggle making this apartment because I had to download so much CC and mods to be able to make things look the way I wanted to, and I'm still constantly changing things lol. If I do decide to change something, we'll just call it Satoru renovating his apartment at some point throughout the years lmao

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 30/04/2024

guess what​?​?​?​?​?​?​?​?

Season 2 Featured on: Haltmann's Highest Quality Video Game Rips

Ripped by alden wolf

Requested by eg_9371! (Request Form)

It's Gonna Be May!

Saying that SiIvaGunner has in-jokes is perhaps the most obvious statement of all time - it is an in-joke upon which the entire channel is built upon. Yet there's obviously always different LAYERS to each joke, how obvious each of them are - and even today, there are many running gags on the channel that fly over people's heads despite having followed along for so long. Indeed, such is the case today with guess what​?​?​?​?​?​?​?​?, as requestee eg_9371 made me aware of a channel in-joke that's been running quietly in the background for the better part of seven years as of today. All of it built on one simple truth - tomorrow, it's gonna be may.

To reiterate - beyond the funny ha-ha memes we all know like Mr. Grand Dad and more, the SiIvaGunner channel is filled with little nods and gags that oft go overlooked. I of course covered 5 Nights of Snop Dog recently which is a great example of one, there's how rips like Kill & Learn (Recut Ver​.​) reference a running joke by long-time mashup artist Triple-Q about how Sonic Adventure 2 and Kill la Kill have an immeasurable amount of similarities, rips like Kermit in the Ocean being spiritual successors to very specific years-old rips on the channel - you get the jist. Some of these gags eventually get special attention on the channel through specific channel events, but such has not yet been the case with guess what​?​?​?​?​?​?​?​?'s joke - it's a gag that's stayed in the background since its very beginnings, and is only being kept running by a select few rippers. If you're listening to the rip now and it still hasn't landed yet, you may need to be enlightened to the ways of hit boy band *NSYNC. Or, well, really the band itself matters very little compared to the song of choice - It's Gonna Be Me.

Boy band music has a pretty interesting track record on SiIva in general, honestly. One Direction, Backstreet Boys, Boyzone, *NSYNC - to me the typical audience that obsesses over these kinds of bands feels at odds with my image of the average SiIvaGunner fan, and yet whenever they're prominently pushed I get reminded of just how good their music can be when wielded by good rippers. We've had two explosively quality events focusing on two bands in particular, the Big Time Rush takeover of Season 5 with Famous Surprise and the One Direction day of Season 7 with Beautiful Dreamer. *NSYNC hasn't had the same explosion of notoriety, but It's Gonna Be Me in particular has stealthily appeared on the channel every year since 2017 on April 30th. The joke is originally an ancient Tumblr meme from 2012, based on the way singer Justin Timberlake (yes!) pronounces the titular line in the song as "It's gonna be May" - the joke writes itself, and so Tumblr users have annually celebrated the day-before-May in Timberlake's honor.

eg_9371 writes in his request for this post that he's actually one of the most active rippers in keeping this joke going on SiIva for all these years, which I find extremely commendable, and it all started in Season 2, with guess what​?​?​?​?​?​?​?​?. It's a rearrangement of the song in the style of Donkey Kong Country 2's Mining Melancholy, a track most notable for its rhythmic percussion of steel drums sounding like steadily-working pickaxes deep in the mines. Its a fantastic track on its own, yet that percussion especially is a shockingly natural fit for the harpsichord(?) backing prominent throughout It's Gonna Be Me. Mining Melancholy's usual percussion and other parts of its melody stick around for large parts of the rip, making it more of a melody swap/mashup of the two than a full rearrangement a la Sog-Gee Ambiance - but it only serves to enhance the two tracks used, giving It's Gonna Be Me a more melancholic sound and Mining Melancholy a more self-assured feel in return, a super interesting blend of moods. I don't think the It's gonna be May bit would have worked nearly as well if the rip it was paired with wasn't of high quality, and guess what​?​?​?​?​?​?​?​? clears that threshold effortlessly - its a great rip that's made me appreciate the quality in both songs used.

*NSYNC rips have, again, continued to show up in all the years since, always on the dot, often even deliberately placed as the LAST rip of April 30th to drive the joke home. I think it's really sweet that the joke has stuck with eg_9371 in particular, likely in part due to alden wolf's initial contribution to the bit - he's even made It's Gonna Be Me rips on dates completely unrelated to the beginning of May, just because its a genuinely fun song to listen to. There's tons of these "secret" gags left to find on the channel, reoccurring dates or rips that reference jokes from other rips that are years-old by now - and really, a huge part of the fun in running this blog is getting to discover so many turning gears of the channel that I'd never been made aware of. Keep an eye out for these gags yourself - and keep an eye out on SiIvaGunner channel itself later today, to see if It's Gonna Be May for yet one more year.

[eegasleega-will-change-this-l8r]

March of Minch, day 6: Crossover

STARTING 6 DAYS IN and no way i'll be able to keep this up, but I had an idea for this one so I decided to go for it!!

I assume the prompts are really supposed to be Porky-specific but I couldn't get this image out of my head so I just decided to go for it (Also it's a little cheatsy to "crossover" two games from the same series BUT THIS IS WHAT YOU GET)

Anyway, Flint and Aloysius getting along while the rest of their families meet (wonder if things are going any better elsewhere)

My tiny, stupid handwriting is probably a huge pain to read and it's mostly obscured, so here's the entirety of Aloysius's monologue (went kinda overboard)

So you're a real cowboy, huh? That's cool. I always loved cowboys growing up. John Wayne! You ever seen him? Probably not, I guess. Well he was a very strong and masculine man's man, just like you. Always playing rough cowboys in the old west. Those were the days, don't you think? When men could really be men. Well, there was bad stuff too I guess. Still, I wish I was as manly as you. I bet I could really impress my wife like that. Maybe then she wouldn't have divorced me… You're married too, aren't you? Hoho, I bet a guy like you could get as many girls as he wants! Wives can be such bothers, though. Whenever Lardna used to yell at me, I'd sometimes wish she'd just drop dead! I do miss her a lot, though. Do you have a gun? Don't worry, that's not related. You know, Lardna always wanted me to get one in case the neighbors tried to steal from us, but when we went down to the shooting range my hands were so sweaty I couldn't hold the gun right. I guess I'll have to rely on my bare hands to protect my family! Yes sir, these hands have gotten us through some tough times in our marriage. Well, not that we're married anymore, of course. But I wish we were.

[the-galactic-catt]

off anon this time!!! but,,, more specifics,,,,,, what do you think their relationship was like during the roman empire? did greece live in the same house or did he stay on the east? i have like a billion ideas about this, but i would like to hear yours first

HOLY FUCK HERE WE GO

OKAY OKAY SO- first of all, i don't like a lot of things about canon, especially greece's depiction, so many of these will contradict canon material. don't like that ? that's cool, but i can't do anything about it, just scroll

okay, on we go:

i actually headcanon that they've had already established a relationship before the roman empire, aka when ancient greece colonised south italy, aka magna graecia.

ages in hetalia work really weird so i decided to throw it all out the window for this: before the roman empire decided to take veneziano and romano in, romano lived with greece and his mother and they were both young. not as young as they are depicted when they are chibis, but not teenagers either. think: 10-12 years old.

the relationship was somewhat friendship, somewhat acquaintances. not bad, but not close either. they just kinda co-existed and hang out sometimes (i have art ideas for those, just you wait).

ancient greece took care of the both of them as well as her other colonies but she definitely favoured her son the most. it was clear that she didn't view the others as her children but rather just much younger roommates. she wasn't distant, she cared for them, she just didn't care on the same level as her son. that definitely didn't fuck with romano's head yep nuh-uh, completely free from any mental instabilities that would come later in life (cough).

now, roman empire ? yeah, they didn't get to see each other much, which made them feel very odd. they weren't that close but they did have an understanding of each other and a bond that they didn't have with anyone else.

when romano tried connecting with veneziano and the roman empire not only was he met with yet another adult having favourites but it also just didn't feel the same. unfamiliar. lonely ?

greece took it about the same, except instead of feeling a disconnect with his family, he felt a disconnect with the activities that used to bring him joy. almost as if something was missing that used to make them fun. or mayhaps someone ?

when the roman empire colonised greece, it was basically ancient greece taking her on-and-off flirting with the roman empire to the next level and moving in with him. not really a romantic or sexual relationship, just constant yearning and basically a game to see who will eventually yield/give up. both greece and romano found it incredibly gross and they liked to complain about it when they weren't around.

romano and greece reconnected for the amount of time they had left, before the spanish, french and ottomans came along. i'm not sure how to put it into words, but imagine finally meeting up with an old friend. it's awkward at first because you haven't talked in centuries, but it slowly mends and by the end it's as if you were never separeted in the first place. and yes, the friendship grew stronger too, much to romano's persistent denial (again, more art ideas~).

(one way they would bond even before the roman empire was by teaching each other their cultures. one image i have in my head that i would love to draw soon is of greece showing romano how to make and decorate clay pottery. it will probably be a mini comic, cause i need to feed myself somehow)

when they separated again, it was more sad for the both of them and they took it worse than before, because this time they had an actual friendship and not just a weird "i think he's cool but idk what we are so i'll just wait and see if he considers us friends or not" from the both of them.

the rest of the headcanons i can either communicate only through art, which will take a while, or they take place in the more modern times.

if you see any typos, no you didn't (it's 3 am, give me a break). thank you so much for the ask, i hope you are satisfied with these ! i can't wait to hear about yours !!

[dipolardruid]

ok can i refer to myself as 🌧 anon? Well, I'm very curious about the yandere stepmother and the yandere biomother, what would happen if the reader wanted to reconnect with the biomother? Would it be a battle of mothers? ...man my character would only be like:

yandere biomom/yandere stepmom: which side are you on?!

reader: the side that talks to me and treats me nicer

Yes of course you can! Welcome aboard 🌧!

I just answered a similar ask to this right here

But I will entertain a little.

TW: Arguing, Mild cursing

"I'm only on the side of the one who talks and treats me better." You says quickly in an attempt to stop their fighting.

Almost in sync they both look at you with exasperation " (Y/N)...seriously." your mother says in a huff "Sweetheart yo-" Betra stops as your mother interrupts her "Don't call them Sweetheart!" She says her eyebrows furrowing in anger.

"(Y/N) let's go." Your mother grabs your wrist in which Betra grabs your other arm "what do you think you're doing you can't just take them as you please!" Betra says loudly "Yes I can their MY child not yours! Your just the whore who warms their fathers bed at night!" You stumble to the left as your mother pulls you towards her.

Your jaw drops with your eyebrows furrowing eyes widening in shock upon hearing your mother say that to Betra, only to feel a tug at your right as Betra holds you in place.

At this point you realize everyone in the store watching the commotion more specifically watching as you are stuck in a game of tug of war "(Y/N) push her off and let's go NOW." She says her teeth gritted in an attempt to prevent herself from raising her voice at you.

"Is everything alright here?" Hearing a mans voice you turn your head to face him along with Betra and your mother from here things would start to slowly become more heated.

This is would lead to everyone being told to leave the premises, once you all would step out you still being held by both arms would finally be asked to choose who you want to go with, depending on your choice it will end much differently.

As for wanting to reconnect, your father would be hesitant but would let you since it'd be your decision in the end.

Betra as stated absolutely loathes your mother she doesn't even see her as human, she understands why you want to see your mother, you don't know the full picture just wants been shown, she's tried to encourage your father to explain to you what happened but he always says the same thing "He doesn't want to destroy the image you have of your mother." Which drives her nuts but will bite her tongue.

Even if she despises her even she can't deny that your mother does everything necessary for you but in her eyes that doesn't make up for just leaving you and your father behind at least she had the decency to not take any of your belongings when she had left.

As much as she disagrees with you wanting to reconnect she can't do much other than to try to talk you out of it but she knows doing so will affect the relationship she has with you and your father, so she just watches and stays quiet until something happens that will require her to jump in.

Request are open!

[h0n3yk1tt3n]

Hello fellow bmc blog. I would like to request for you to rant about your fav song!! >:)

Oh gods there are a FEW that rotate in my brain at any given time,, like the ones that always have an animatic that I'll never make playing in my head when I listen to them. See the thing is I think less of the song itself and more of like, the cinematography song brings up in my head

ACK I might have to do a few!!! (In no preference order) ((fuck it i might have to do most of them))

More Than Survive

So when we've got a big song focusing on a lot of different characters and ideas I am chasing EVERYTHING around in my enclosure trying to chew on something. Jeremy's monologuing on his way to and on the bus, learning everyone's personality in the hallway, Michael bopping along to music, all of it!! I had food for WEEKS when Claudia's MTS animation dropped like MMMM THATS THE SHIT

Two-Player Game

Shipping fuel aside I love how we get to see Michael and Jeremy's (and Jeremy and Mr. Heere's) dynamic!! Specifically how we get to watch them bounce off each other when Jeremy sings his own verse and their lil back n forth in the second chorus. Plus imagining these two trying to have a conversation while getting swarmed by zombies in-game is just SO FUCKING fun for me!!!

Be More Chill Pt. 1 and 2

SQUIP being a manipulative bastard my beloved,,, the (presumably squip-produced) image of everyone in the mall first berating Jeremy and then later praising him, or rather what he could be if he continues listening to the squip OUGH mans just wants to be liked </3

Upgrade

SQUIP being a manipulative bastard my beloved!!! Like I imagine it also put Jeremy in the right time and place to see Jake and Christine being all cute together to try n fuel Jer's jealousy into listening to it. Like!!! And ok, I get that Loser Geek Whatever was added to give more context into Jer's life to kinda,, Justify why he would want to listen to the squip and that's all well and good! It's not a bad song by any stretch! But to me personally when we get to "should I take the upgrade" and we hear the ensemble just repeating "upgrade upgrade upgrade now now now now now" like,, that in my head is the squip FURTHER pressuring Jeremy and OVERWHELMING him into taking the upgrade to get the voices in his head to stop. (See also Claudia's Upgrade animation ough,,) Is there a part of him that kinda wants to take it anyway? Sure! But the idea of squip doing EVERYTHING it can to ENSURE Jeremy says yes is just!!! Raaagh!!! Evil scheming!!!

Halloween

Similar to MTS I love the chaos!! Of switching between several characters and seeing how everyone else is partying it up!! And this is just me and my Brain Animatic talking but I just love the idea of Jeremy and Jake's dance battle in the og script?? Like ok we all know that the squip would be manipulating Jeremy's body to get him to win but like?? I really would've wanted to see that friendly competition between Jeremy and Jake?? I wanna see them be friends!!! Even if the shit hits the fan literally a few minutes later. SPEAKING OF WHICH

Do You Wanna Hang?

Look I've already done deep analysis on this song in two other posts. And this is more on the scene As A Whole and not just the song itself (it's DYWR in another font, musically there's not a ton else happening) but it's the character interactions, it's squip being a rotten little shit and being MUCH more overt in forcing Jeremy into something he doesn't want. Like the manipulation was always there but this is like, our first look into EVIL evil, like no the squip is NOT a good thing for you. And then the frenzy of Jake showing up and OH SHIT BROOKE'S HERE TOO and jer can only get the briefest apology out before he just DIPS completely and everything is FALLING APART and!!!! Like!!! Yes it's an uncomfy song and an uncomfy scene but that's the POINT and it's SO VITAL to emphasizing that the squip only cares about RESULTS and not the healthiest way for Jeremy to GET them.

Michael in the Bathroom

I feel like a lot of animatics (and the bway version) just water this song down to "Michael sad" instead of really showing his like, Progression of Emotions. Like he's gotta be in sort of despondent shock at first!! He really went through all his research just for Jeremy to walk out on him?? The fuck?? Like yeah he's alone at this party and he doesn't know what to do without a friend there, (i could stay right here or disappear,) but he's petty and resentful about it (and nobody'd even notice at all [...] cuz my buddy kind of left me alone, but I'd rather fake pee than stand awkwardly) and THEN he starts getting sad (everything felt fine when I was half of a pair, but through no fault of mine there's no other half there)

I should probably make this song its own entire post with all the switching between emotions Michael does between lines (he does it A Lot if you ask me) but he's so much more than just sad and mopey!! He's pissed off!! He's frantic!! He's ten thousand different things!! HES MORE THAN JUST SAD!!!! And I feel like that entire SHITSTORM of emotions isn't shown enough!!!

Smartphone Hour

CHAOS CHAOS CHAOS!!! YOU KNOW THE DRILL BY NOW!!! I don't have much else other than like, the latter half of the song where the rumor mill REALLY blows up and everyone's just saying Whatever the fuck about Rich and it's like!!!! OUGH there really aren't enough Smartphone Hour animatics out there!! And even then idk how many of them really capture the true CHAOS of "Hey, one of our classmates burned Jake's fucking house down," and then social media just has a goddamn RIOT!! I was going to put lyric examples here but, it REALLY is just everything after "always be aware of autocorrect" all the way to the end of the song

The Pitiful Children

SQUIP BEING A MANIPULATIVE BASTARD MY BELOVED!!!!!! VILLAIN SONG VILLAIN SONG VILLAIN SONG AAAAAA!!!!!! BARKBARK BARK BARK GRRR GRR RAAGHRR FOAMS AT THE MOUTH RIPS THIS SONG APART WITH MY TEETH RAAAAARRREGG /pos

I don't have the brain to give it more than that it just makes me Insane

The Pants Song

Listen maybe I'm just a filthy Jeremy kinnie (I am) but to see his dad kickstart his life back up because he's worried about his son who just Called Him The Fuck Out is just!! 🤌🤌🤌 and the way he gets Michael in on it because he KNOWS that if anyone's gonna get through to Jeremy, it's gonna be the one that knows him better than anyone else!!! And like, we actually see a pretty good chunk of Michael's character here too??? Arguably more than mitb??? They both care about Jeremy so much!!!

The Play

It's a big ensemble piece again you know I'm totally feral for it!!! This one might just also need its own post too bc goddamn it's like a 12 minute scene with all the dialogue!!! Like with the squip finally showing its cards and revealing its true intentions!!! Seeing the squipped versions of all the other kids while Jeremy and Michael finally team up again!!! Oh god and the fight,, the squip blocking Jeremy from saying sorry,, making him fight Michael, GODS there's so much to unpack in that twenty second conversation alone!!!! And like can we talk about the terror of the "I just feel so connected to you guys right now" when they swarm Michael!!! And him having to WATCH Jeremy be tempted by squipped Christine?? Facing that he might have to go through the grief of losing his best friend AGAIN???? FUCK I LOVE THIS SHOW

Voices in my Head

Ensemble joins again babeyyyyy!! Like seriously I just love seeing everyone's distinct ways of hyping Jeremy up!!! Mr. Heere's cheesy old school approach! Michael pointing out something that's not superficial! Rich's innuendo! Jenna and Brooke being total sweethearts!! Chloe's backhanded advice (she's so fucking funny holy shit)!! AN ACTUAL LOOK INTO JAKE BEING A TOTAL BRO!!!

Not only all that, but the way that Jeremy kinda,, foregoes everyone's advice and does his own thing!! He ignores the voices telling him what to do and says "what's on his mind," AND THE ELUDING TO THE SQUIP STILL BEING THERE BUT!! The conscious decision to shut that voice down!! And this spawns like, my favorite line from the entire show

"So many voices in my head, and they can yell and hurt like hell but I know I'll be fine [...] of the voices in my head the loudest one is mine"

MY EXCLUSION OF ILPR, SQUIP SONG, DYWR, MTS REPRISE (both of them), AND AGTIKBI DOESN'T MEAN I DONT LIKE ANY OF THESE SONGS!!! I'm sure I could find a lot to chew on if I went after dywr, even though it's more or less The Joke Song of the entire show but YEAH THOSE ONES DEFINITELY HAVE MERIT and I might even rb this later with additions but THIS POST IS ALREADY SUPER LONG AND I KINDA BLEW THIS ASK OUT OF THE WATER BUT XNDJSKSNDH

[haldenlith]

The Road to Giving Ardwynn [a] Head (Pt 1)

So I've been learning Blender, and while the Donut Tutorial was a nice introduction, I learn better with something to hyperfixate on, and I do love my dumb boy, Ardwynn.

Which led to me to make the decision to jump into the deep end and model his head/bust, and learning how to do it all along the way. And not just in a stylized style, but aiming more for realism. My guiding star is the level we see in the Destiny 2 cutscenes. In fact, Forsaken Uldren is my reference for how to approach a lot of Ardwynn's Awoken features, since they (by accident) have similar features.

I figured I'd share this with you guys in segments. (The Discord I'm in gets the annoyance joy of realtime complaining.) A Tumblr Exclusive, if you will.

For the record, I have almost no idea what the fuck I'm doing. I know what UV Maps and Texture Maps are, and what Alpha Maps are, and that's.... about it.

I'm sure it'll be fine. This can't be too complicated, right? Right?

Narrator voice: It's extremely complicated. I highly recommend working your way up to this, not jumping to it like I have.

For the record, this is a lot of cobbling information from Youtube tutorials together. These ones are the ones I can remember that I've had some success with so far. I'll probably mention more as I go/as I remember.

"Sculpt a Realistic Head in Blender" "Ultimate Guide to Realistic Eyes in Blender" "Handpainting Stylized Textures in Blender" "Using a Cage for Perfect Baking" "Face Retopology" (This is in Maya, not Blender, but the concept still applies)

Anyway, long post is long.

Thank goodness Blender lets you make new little windows inside the application, and open up images and stuff. I made a new boring reference sketch of Ardwynn's head just for this. Working from big shapes to fine details is... tough, because I have a tendency to go ZOOM into fine details. I tunnel vision real bad, so this is at least a good practice into NOT doing that.

Progress, but something feels off. Giving more Patrick Stewart, less Ardwynn. The sculpting tools are surprisingly easy to use, by the way. The real trick is knowing when to hit "Remesh".

Spoiler Alert: I don't. This is a problem that bites me in the ass later....

Mmmm, yes, it's all coming together. That looks more like my boy. The scar was easier to do than I expected, though I'm not sure how to approach his split lips, as the way his scar is, it stretches his mouth up, leaving a bit of it perpetually open. I'll just treat it like the eyes and just model a tiny cavity. It's not like anyone's going to see that. I can fix it later if it's an issue. A future me problem, if you will.

Are you seeing a trend here? Because if you're thinking "oh, they've already said they had problems down the line, and now this is another bit of foreshadowing", you're correct. Again, another spoiler alert: it was a future me problem.

I've learned from doing art for forever that focusing too long on one thing gives my brain some sort of creative fatigue. "When you start to hate or feel bored with something, work on something else in the picture" is probably the best advice I've ever gotten, and I'm applying it here, too. I decided to tackle how to model glowing eyes. At this point, I've grabbed Uldren/Crow's low-poly in-game mesh and picked it apart specifically to look at his eyes. I'd kill to get the high-poly cinematic one, but that's not available to the general public, so it'll have to do. I apply a little of what I learned and tada! Budget glowing eyes. They work for the purpose of learning Emission nodes and all that shit in the Shaders section of Blender. They're placeholders for now. I'll make better eyes later. And look! They fit! Mostly.

Do you smell that? More foreshadowing.

I mess around with more than basic flat color shaders for skin, and turn on Subsurface Scattering (SSS). Mm, yes, nice. I also made some teeth for the moment to see if the scar needs tweaking. It did, but overall things are shaping up nicely!

But Blender is starting to crash and run real slow. Weird.

I try out Texture Painting and it just isn't working, so as I start to get really frustrated, I decide to bounce back to the Compositing tab, remembering what I learned about it when doing The Donut Tutorial. Ah, yes, this will make his eyes glow very nicely. Though I'm not super satisfied with it. I move on to seeing if I can't start to decipher the mystery that is hair.

Blender still isn't doing too hot, and though the hair is a fun side-tangent, I'd like to have the skin done and dusted before I move on. With some googling, I find the most common suggestion is make a UV map. Okay. I try that and it's a mess. More googling and I find the common suggestion if you're using a high-poly sculpt is to "retopologize" it. Okay, so I look that up. Fun fact, the first video I follow along with is not what's linked. It's super basic and I found didn't really explain much when I had to redo the mesh.

Redo the mesh you say? Well, you see, I spent 8-9 hours building a low poly version of this bastard's head (with the Mirror modifier, don't worry), and I had an addon suggested to me: RetopoFlow. Curious, I got it, and tried to use it to speed up finishing the mesh up, because I was beyond over it. It was, by far, the most boring fucking process of this whole journey so far.

I, in my infinite lack of wisdom, did not, in fact, make a copy of my work. I somehow end up fucking up the mesh and trying to push too far ahead with it, meaning fixing the fuck-up is too far back to undo to. I also hit save, because I chronically save every five seconds due to paranoia of the program crashing. I lament, delete the mesh, start from scratch, but this time inside of RetopoFlow from the start, and with a new video to guide me. However, I notice a warning pop up from RF that the "mesh was too large (> 1m)". Confused, I check it. I also notice in the video the guy mentions needing a "lower poly version" of the sculpt to work with. "Let's go with 75K."

My sculpt can't be that big right?

Aha. Ha ha. Hm. Ahem.

So I might've hit "Remesh" too many times. I learned why Blender was crashing and having issues, needless to say. I learned how to use the Decimate modifier to... not be at 5M faces/vertices. I have to literally just walk away for it to work, because it took Blender 30 minutes to do, but it did work. Eventually I get to retopo'ing it, this time with a much more organized and nice looking topology. Huzzah! But I lose out on details this way. Oh? I need something called a "normals" map? I learn what that is, but again so many of these videos seem to neglect to mention important information, like how it works and why you're not supposed to have the high-poly mesh showing through the low-poly. I... spent a while working on an issue thanks to lack of information. I eventually make a cage and try baking a new Normals map this time, with much better results exceeeeeeept.

The split in the lip is the new problem to bite Future Me. No pictures for this portion, because I didn't take any screenshots for this. I eventually had to go in and carefully redo the topography of the low-poly mesh around the lip scar area and make it open. I also had to cut it open on the high-poly sculpt. After that, the Normals FINALLY baked right and stopped giving me some very weirdly textured lips.

Finally, I was able to move on. I made a UV map, made a shiny new texture for Ardwynn's skin and face... It was going good.

But that wasn't the end of my problems. When I finally made new eyes, which looked very cool...

Something about the properly sized eyeball no longer worked in the eye sockets I made, and not in a little way, as little fixes never looked quite right. I did manage to fix it, but that meant I had to retopo the eye area, and update the UV and the Normals, and fix the texture because it no longer really looked good. (On the plus side, I painted more details into it, so that worked out.)

I'm really happy with the eyes, though. Bless whoever put close-ups of Uldren's eyes in Forsaken cutscenes. They helped immensely.

The skin wasn't fully sorted out, as I needed to do a few more detail items, but I decided to bounce to something else for a bit after fixing all of that. I needed a break. I took my knowledge from mucking around with hair earlier to start working on eyelashes and eyebrows, to make Ardwynn look a little less odd. I had some success, but hm, they still seemed way too thick. Time to consult Youtube.

(I stumbled upon a video on eye tracking and went ahead and set that up, just to make eye positioning easier later. It's not perfect, but it is easier than trying to position the eyes manually.)

Found a tutorial, by the same guy I went to for figuring out the proper shape of the eyes. Buuuut I also took the time to deal with the weird light leak and SSS issue I was having around the eyes. The pitfalls of glowing eyes on a model, I guess. And now I'm at the "fighting with the eyebrow" stage. I'll probably have to hit up a tutorial for that, too, since it looks less like an eyebrow and more like someone glued a piece of a shag rug to his face.

Also I see more issues that need fixing. This time with the ears. Ugh, this feels like it's neverending... 😩

I'll come back later with more progress in a separate post. Fall classes have started, so my free time to fight work with this is about to diminish considerably.

[rrrrinmaru]

liveblog of 02 - the first mission

in the entire linkon city, is there only one hunters headquarters? this twenty-storey building - it's convenient, but it also seems like incredibly poor security if it's just in the city exposed to the surroundings... one well-placed wanderer's ambush and all teams go down together... all that technological infrastructure...

the OTTO-CSE can even track my sleeping patterns... i know there are similar apps available these days that can do the same, but is this data being recorded and sent to mc's employer wwww

there are PILLS to combat tiredness????? say no to caffeine say yes to popping pills to fight off the tired effects... wonder what zayne will say about prolonged use of draumril

not the risk pay i'm dead...... yay for special insurance for higher risk of death! (sparkle)

alpha team is located right next to movere bridge so that mc can arrive anywhere in linkon city within a few seconds - teleportation??? < ah, normal transport, just super fast. is getting a driver's license included in a hunter training course? how comprehensive...

not mc thinking ah yes these old monitors must be used to block off eye contact and prevent small talk...

this braimago - brain image(o) i'm assuming? there's clearly some neuro linkage between the pen's "three green streaks of light" that enable it to connect with mc's mind and accurately replicate onto paper what mc can envision in her mind's eye. and evidently, braimagos are under tight security if one requires TSC security authentication code to be used. is it for images only or can the pen also write words? life would be easier if there was a pen that could just pull the words out my head and onto paper without me writing...

but i must say it's interesting - and this is very common among other futuristic settings, be it otome games or games / movies etc - that despite how advanced the technology looks in terms of translucent floating screens, holographs, watches that beam up images, touch screens, pens that can apparently link up to one's brain... there appears to still be a heavy reliance on hardcopy paper. mc described the room she entered as having a lot of "untouched paperwork". the braimago is used to draw on "paper" (although, i'm intrigued by how the braimago can be used to draw on paper if it operates via lights / energy (?) to penetrate the human body to have a neuro link with the brain. you're telling me there's also an ink cartridge or lead in the pen along with all this tech?). you would think that a society so advanced would have moved beyond needing physical paperwork - something that would make more sense in-universe would be multiple tablets stacked together, maybe. unless there's some concern that electronic devices can be misused and paperwork is still the best when it comes to certain official documents?

nero is 100% that guy from pacrim 2 who mindmelds with a kaiju and essentially is mindfucked by it for the entirety of pacrim 2. 100%.

ah he's from data analytics. yeah going back to my first point in 01, do these people ever have to go into the field? it doesn't exactly seem like nero will willingly go into the field wwww... maybe if he's dragged kicking and screaming with some tech held at gun point, he'll fulfil any required combat missions but otherwise...

advanced tech labs considers the missions and assigns them according to the specific HUNTER'S evol / capabilities / efficacy? not the team? so ATL assigns a mission DIRECTLY to mc and not, say, to alpha team who then reassigns it to whoever in the team based on their own analysis? this does not sound efficient at all... unless everything is just done by numbers and they rely on AI to do it for them, in which case, well i guess...

oh it's nice that you're still allowed to pick and choose missions, but i assume there is a minimum number of missions one has to complete per month / whatever timeframe they use when measuring work performance - else it would be too easy to just enter a team and only do urgent missions and completely reject all other missions, wouldn't it? or are urgent missions so common that undertaking the assigned urgent missions would be sufficient to hit whatever mission quota is assigned?

if brand new hunters are assigned solo b rank missions right out of graduation, who the hell are doing missions below b rank? maybe data analytics..... shit i crack myself up

MC DRIVES A MOTORBIKE? damn i didn't know the hunter academy made you get a motorbike license... pretty sick.

YOU PICK ZAYNE UP FROM THE ROADSIDE.... THIS IS THAT MEME WHERE THE GUY AT THE BACK IS LIKE "it's not manly being on the back..." SO YOU LET HIM SIT IN FRONT AND TRAP HIM WITH YOUR ARMS ON EITHER SIDE SO YOU CAN STILL REACH THE HANDLEBARS!!! SAY IT IS SO!!

buckle up? there are seatbelts for passengers in motorcycles? hold on let me google this < hm. maybe they've finally invented a way for seatbelts for both driver and passenger on motorcycles because right now there are no seatbelts available.

"keep arms and legs by your side" - legs i can kind of get, but arms? is he not holding your waist? girl what kind of motorcycle is this? where is he holding? is he just sitting upright and praying??

help he is so malewife the way he slams into your back when you brake because he jerked back from the force of you starting the bike TAT zayne is this your first time on a bike TAT you are so funny

it's truly giving childhood frenemies....

(with hindsight) it's quite clear the skeleton in the giant transparent tube belongs to a skeleton. problem is the skeleton looks massive, and i'm not just talking about the length inclusive of the tail. even the human torso itself looks huge, which would also make sense since it should be somewhat proportional to the size of the tail (for the most effective build for swimming and hunting). are lemurians all that big? did rafayel.... shrink when he turned human?? or is this like an ultra ancient lemurian skeleton like how the animals were all way more massive during the prehistoric era?

xander sciences - is zayne engaging in scientific / biomedical experimentation as well? on top of being a cardiovascular specialist? boy this man is busy

bruh what was the point of zayne coming here. just to check up on raymond because he asked, confirm the vital signs are all good, exchange some snarky words and then leave? i hope he was paid well for this home visit

... why are there faint scars on zayne's hands?

interesting, they've finally given a visual description for metaflux. "an almost imperceptible ripple appears in the air", creating a resonance trail that is coming from the collection room - instinctively i think this means the format is as follows: portal prepares to open, portal location has sharp increase in metaflux levels. metaflux levels spread in a radius (energy waves) and these are visible to the naked eye, kind of like how the sun makes the air shimmer in waves when it's too hot sometimes. i'm still not certain if a resonance trail is something mc has because of her resonance evol or if it comes from her hunter's watch - i'm assuming it's the former for now.

i understand gameplay wise that the boys need to fight with you to justify pulling for certain myth cards with new ways of fighting etc, but i do wonder in plot how it fits in. is everyone born with an evol? does one need a license to be able to use it in public / day-to-day? how is zayne so good at using his evol if he hasn't undergone hunter training? this is sounding a lot like the bnha quirk regulation system but they're serious questions. also not gonna lie if zayne can nail a wanderer with no training so easily then why did i bother going to hunter academy. and why do they issue guns to rookie hunters if an icicle (or other manifestation of an evol) will work just as well... ok i suppose at some point your internal mana runs out for evols

RAYMOND IS 35? WHY DOES HE SOUND 70

"had yet to form a protocore" - do they form them when they land on earth or do they form them before coming to earth? i assume a protocore is like the equivalent of the crystal nucleus in zombies in cn apocalypse literature / dantian in fantasy literature. if these are the inspirations, then yes protocores do take time to form in the wanderers, and they will be stronger the more advanced the wanderer is. still doesn't answer the question of when exactly the protocore forms though - i suppose if the wanderer that enters earth is weak (maybe b level), then the protocore hasn't been formed yet, and as the wanderer levels up, the protocore is slowly formed through the process. but if the wanderer comes in at s level immediately, is the protocore fully formed? interesting. maybe i should join data analytics.

bro if rafayel can paint paintings with above healthy levels of metaflux energy that can draw people INTO said paintings if they have the resonance evol (or a manufactured resonance evol, i'm sure society will evolve to innovate such things), he could be paid an obscene amount of money for this... being sucked into a painting is insane... the new and improved siren song (since no ocean to drown prey in) is to drown people in paintings.... serial killer rafayel here we come

zayne froze a WHOLE ass cup just to knock mc with it to rouse mc from their reverie... this is so funny zayne you are so insane

help this is so funny

tara: the painting's artist is rafayel mc: rafayel? tara: he's pretty famous, always on the news. probably why you've heard of him before.

i won't lie my first reaction when mc when said "rafayel?" is that mc did NOT know who tf rafayel is and was repeating the name to be like huh, who is that? and for tara to be like yeah he's pretty famous that's why you've heard of him is so funny to me. it's like saying oh hozier sang this song and i go hozier? (who?) and you go yeah he's pretty famous isn't he and i'm like who's hozier

the day of ebbing......... sounds a lot like all hallows eve but for sea creatures.... coming ashore for one night and disappearing with the morning tide, with every interaction dissipating like the thin spray of foam on the waves....

why can't the sea creatures see the sun though... just peek your head out from the ocean surface? the sun is right there? unless they want to see the sun like, on the horizon with land beneath their feet... i'd imagine it's quite impressive either way if you've never seen it. alternative theory is the deep sea creatures, when transformed into humans (?) can surface to the upper sea / land and tolerate the change in pressure, which allows them to see the sun. if they remain as deep sea creatures, they can only survive in the deep sea and cannot rise up to see the sun since they would suffer from the blobfish effect if they tried to surface and no longer had the pressure of the deep sea to keep them in form. or maybe, final answer, rafayel is being a drama queen.

not rafayel chasing the dream of finding the right shade of red to paint the color of the ocean because that's all he remembers from the time he surfaced. i see the angst potential i am taking down notes. a man entranced by the right shade of red to mimic the firelit ocean he saw one night is the perfect set up for a serial killer i won't lie.

NOT THOMAS SAYING THE GALLERY WAS FILLED WITH "BETTER" PAINTINGS THAN THE ONE RAYMOND BOUGHT - THOMAS CAN YOU REALLY SAY THIS AS THE GALLERY MANAGER!!!

well i hope rafayel has good security. what do you mean he doesn't lock his doors. jesus christ i know you're a superstar mermaid but still!!

it just occurred to me i haven't mentioned anything about my rafayel shrimp color vision headcanon. shrimps have 12 color cone photoreceptors, as opposed to humans' 3 - what i mean is, rafayel is painting on levels we cannot fully comprehend and appreciate as humans because he has the shrimp 12 color cone photoreceptors. in this essay i will-

it is truly such an embarrassing introduction for him to literally fall off his high stool and fall onto mc. like do you need a railing on that chair rafayel? is this a height risk? it looks pretty high up not gonna lie i think you could easily break a bone if you fell from that height and fell wrong. particularly with all your paint cans lying around... and the way mc can just dodge to the side and let him fall on his face is so hilarious. god he looks so pathetic just lying on his side on the floor and calling you heartless for dodging. sir you told me to dodge. he is so funny

NOT HIM BEING LIKE YOU'RE NOT HERE TO CHECK UP ON THE RED FISH RIGHT. WHAT IF I AM

rafayel uses mummy bandages to paint.... ok

gotta agree with rafayel on this one. why does him admitting he used the coral stone to refine paint for raymond's painting mean raymond's erratic behaviour is automatically linked to him? lowkey acab of mc to be jumping to conclusions like this www why is she so insistent that there's something wrong with him because he painted it? like yes he's suspicious but you're showing your cards a bit too early! goes to show she's still a green rookie who doesn't know how to play the field well enough to get an admission yet huh... to be fair this is like her second day on the job.

so he materialised a dagger out of his flames, cut his middle finger, dropped a drop of blood onto the coral stone and that triggered the illusions, which created the metaflux fluctuations and opened up the portal for the wanderer to arrive... i don't think this is the first time he's finding out about the properties of the coral stone and/or that it can create metaflux fluctuations...

when rafayel says thank god the paintings are still intact i feel it's more of a thank god thomas can still sell them and not a thank god the wanderers didn't destroy my art wwwwww maybe it's the latter but it would be so funny if it were the former...

what injury... the cut he self-inflicted?! my god you would be the king of the silver screen rafayel...

i'm surprised that mc can't go apply for clearance to seize the coral stone if it truly is producing metaflux fluctuations? like there is hard data that is being recorded into her hunter's watch about the fluctuations radiating off the coral stone, particularly after the addition of rafayel's blood - surely this is something the hunter's association will be interested in investigating?

rafayel truly has the most clown bgm... it's so funny

HELP PROPERTY VALUES WILL FALL DUE TO INCREASED WANDERER ATTACKS? FERB I KNOW WHAT WE'RE GOING TO DO TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!

i wonder what a stele is

ah how interesting, there is an energy fluctuation monitor within the station... but not within the train? what happens if there's a long stretch of road between one station and the next, and a wanderer appears in the train? interesting to think about...

i wonder if hunters are permitted to customise their hunter uniform after a while / reach a certain level of authority? captain jenna's outfit still looks a lot like tara's, and nero's outfit also bears strong resemblance to those two - so why is xavier rocking out in an all white fit? just because it's sexy? thank you lord

oh my god it's so clear to me now. mc is a shounen protagonist. good for her

[eponastory]

*clears throat* Ahem... Behold my premise for Sparda.

I have started on Character bios and first I want to start off with the whole summary with Sparda's Anthology.

It's all my headcanon.

None of what I'm going to write is Canon and is all subjective because it's my version of what happened within my own special Devil May Cry Universe/Headcanon. It is based on actual Canon, but I wanted to expand the lore a bit.

Let's start with Sparda himself.

Yes, I had to use AI to create this image and it's as close as I can get to what Sparda looks like in the family portrait. This is him sometime during the middle ages (though possibly could be right before his Rebellion) as he is still young (by Demon standards anyway).

I will be doing his story from the point of view of different Characters and as we get closer to modern times, it will become his own words up until he is never seen again in the Human World.

First off, he is kin to Mundus. All demons come from somewhere. They are either created by a powerful entity or they are born/hatched depending on demon types. We know Sparda was a Demon lord. He was under the command of Mundus, who was King of the Demon Realm at the time of the Rebellion.

I absolutely believe most of the hate Mundus has for Sparda and his sons comes from the fact that they are kin. Not only does Sparda betray Mundus as a subordinate, but as a brother. No, they are not twins.

Sparda was born to Lilith, the Empress and Mother of Demons. She created her armies with Mundus as a King beneath her. Sparda is her true born son along with his brother Arctarus (I'll be getting to him shortly). There are a few other Demons Lilith birthed herself, but these two were the first and strongest of her offspring.

Mundus, Argosax, and several other Demon kings were meant to rule specific areas of the Demon Realm until Lilith was sealed away, then there was a war between the kings for the entire rule of the Underworld.

Sparda supported Mundus' endeavor. Arctarus is basically a Mommas boy and fluffed off with Lilith when she was sealed away.

Arctarus - The Golden Boy and Lilith's most faithful child.

He is Sparda's younger twin brother. He is well... the complete opposite of Sparda. Where Sparda is independent, Arctarus clings to his mother. He is also a big complainer when it comes to not getting enough attention for his prowess. He and Sparda are about as equal in power as they can get, the only difference is the amount of Hubris between the two of them. He is easily provoked with jealousy and hates that Sparda has the ear of Mundus.

It all goes head to head when all of the Triple Goddesses see Lilith as a threat and Sparda is glad to see her go.

Arctarus can't stand that his brothers (this includes Mundus, who actually set this all up) traitorous Rebellion against Lilith and decides to be sealed away with her. Don't worry, this isn't the last we'll see of him.

Now we will get to Lilith herself...

Lilith - Empress and Mother of Demons

Who has many forms, including a human one.

At one point, Lilith ruled over Babylon. It was her seat in the Human world, and she also destroyed it, even taking part of it down into the Demon Realm with her.

Before Babylon, she ruled the Demon Realm entirely by herself with her consort, Erubus (Darkness himself). Her seat in the Underworld is the City of Dis (the same one in Dante's Inferno... not the game, the book) before she was sealed away in it with her armies and three of her trueborn sons.

The reason she was sealed away is because she wanted to rule both worlds with the intent of forcing Humans into slavery while her children had free reign. Lower class demons would also be considered slaves or soldiers. Her plans also kept the Kings under her rule as her servants. She wanted to dominate and no one could really stop her except for the Triple Goddesses (there are twelve of them) who were able to seal Lilith away with help from the Demon Kings themselves. It all backfired on the Kings in the end, but they were looking out for themselves. Then Mundus got the idea to try and practically do the same damn thing. 🙄

Lilith will be appearing in later stories, but not so much in Sparda's anthology.

But this is basically a synopsis of what happened before Sparda's story begins.

And it's all my headcanon. I've been working on this for a long time.

[untilteddocument]

So I've Been Thinking About: Guilty Gear, Johnny, and Masculinity

Welcome once again to So I've Been Thinking About, a journal series where I talk about things I find interesting or appealing about various pieces of media, often video games. This time, I'll be talking about-

Yes, indeed, trio of Japanese actresses, I'll be talking about Guilty Gear, the fighting game series/magnum opus of Daisuke Ishiwatari. Specifically, I wanted to talk about someone who just made their big debut to Guilty Gear Strive's playable roster.

The Words Of The Man Who Never Fails

First off, obvious part out of the way first, the song is excellent. It has that rollicking good time feel of a really good bar song, the kind where everyone is invited to sing along.

There's probably a lot in the song, musically speaking, that goes entirely over my head because I'm not educated in music theory or the technical aspects of music, and there's plenty of musicians on Youtube doing reactions and analyses of the soundtrack that would do a way better job of that than I would (please, 12tone, Charismatic Voice, I'm begging you both, check the soundtrack out, it's great). Rather, I'm here thinking about the writing and what it says about the character.

Folks in the comments have noted that, to my own great interest, Johnny's theme is unique among the current roster in that it's not being sung from his perspective, but rather it's an over-the-top brag being sung about him by someone else. Usually, the soundtrack's character themes are deeply personal statements from each character, an apotheosis of who they are and what they keep closest to their hearts. It's how we are given tidbits like Testament's exultant affirmation of their identity, Leo's well-hidden survivor's guilt, I-No's feelings of emptiness and depression, and so on.

So, what about Johnny?

The whole song is very cornball in that earnest way that makes it cool, very Devil May Cry in that respect. "The guy who was hated by the god of failure" as an epithet is so goofy, so comically badass that it circles back around to being kind of amazing, and crucially, it's not taken seriously enough to blunt that. It's not growling menace or grim power, but pomp and bombast with a wink and a grin. The song, and by extension the character, are having fun with this.

And that's why I think he's doing drag.

Truth Is Always Born In The Mind

First off, a disclaimer. I'm versed mostly in what I would consider the basics of drag, in that it is a hyper-gendered performance put on by people having fun with self-expression and exploration, typically men putting on hyper-feminine drag queen personas and women being drag kings doing the same in the other direction. My analysis was made from this platform, and I'm not sure how much it holds up to scrutiny from folks deeper into the community. Apologies, I'm doing my best with what I have. So yes, back to Johnny.

I noted that there's a lot that's over-the-top about Johnny's front-facing persona, like he's very "manly" to a comical extent. He's given to ultra-suave affectations; his longtime Japanese voice actor, Norio Wakamoto, used diction and tone that indicates that he is trying very very hard to be cool. Likewise, as his song states, he constantly tries to build up his own legend, but he never seems to be invested in people taking it seriously.

This is what led me to my realization that Johnny is essentially doing ultra-masculinity as drag. He's a man dressing up as a bigger, more powerful man (cowboys aren't exactly unpopular in this respect either), and crucially, it's not out of some hidden shame or trauma that he feels he has to compensate for. Certainly, nobody really buys it, and he has no problem with that. He just really likes putting on the image of this smooth invincible folk hero.

Note: there are other wrinkles in his portrayal that aren't covered by this, chief among them the typical Japanese portrayal of Americans as brash loudmouths (affectionate in his case) and a subject of comic relief in comparison to a more sober Japanese straight man (in the comedic sense). I'm not quite sure this applies to Johnny as much as it does to Chipp Zanuff, though, but that context does exist.

He Doesn't Talk About Fake Love

One could try to draw a connection between Johnny's posturing and the kind of toxic masculinity championed as manliness, but I believe it would be spurious at best. The biggest indicator of this is that Johnny has a terrible track record as far as sexual conquest. None of the women in the playable cast give him the time of day with the notable exception of May, whose affection for him is somewhere in the realm of a lingering childhood crush for her best bud.

Just as importantly, Johnny doesn't take that seriously. He doesn't stop flirting, but he never expresses that he feels entitled to reciprocation. He also doesn't get mad at people who don't buy his shtick, so there isn't a sense that he sees his legend as a vector for deference under the guise of "honor" and "respect".

Hell, historically, people who have a positive long-term relationship with Johnny don't have it because of his persona; they have it because under all the bluster, he's actually a decent man. More than a charming rogue and inveterate flirt, he's a man who dedicated his life to helping war orphans and the poor. He is a bit of a clown, certainly something of a troublemaker, but when the chips are down, he wants nothing more than to be a compassionate person who can inspire smiles just from people hearing about him.

And for folks who think that he ought to be bowed and scraped to, his song offers an alternative:

Just Lean.

[megashadowdragon]

Jaguar & Tezcatlipoca's Reunion Photo Tour!

Commentary: You can consider this a spiritual successor to Babylonia Omake: Jaguar Man's Último Adios.

"

Jaguar PELIGRO!!!

Commentary:

You thought I was out of Jaguar Memes? You're wrong! I just saved the best for last.

As a loyal minion of Tezcatlipoca, Jaguar Man joining up with Quetz is kind of like the pet (or No. 2) of the villain shacking up with the protagonists for an episode. It's a cute change to the dynamic, but you know it can't last because that mutt's only really doing that out of convenience until the status quo kicks back in.

So Quetz treating her with suspicion is pretty justified. They've been enemies for an entire mythos and she knows that Jaguar's only trying to kiss up to her because her usual boss isn't around.

Likewise, I'd like to think that Jaguar wouldn't mind getting a good hit in on Quetzalcoatl before scampering off back to the Throne and the Court of the Smoking Mirror. At least, that's how I like to regard their dynamic.

This comic and its punchline were partially inspired by this X-Play sketch. Anyone else remember X-Play? Good times.

The title of the comic is a reference to "Mi Ultimo Adios", the final poem of Filipino writer and national hero Dr. Jose Rizal.

While Cabron technically means "male goat" in Spanish, it is usually used as a catch-all expletive/insult. Please don't recklessly say it in public. I wash my hands of the mater.

Jaguar puts the (True) label after her boss' name to further distinguish him from how his four fellow creator gods Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochti and Xipe Totec are alternatively known as the White, Blue, and Red Tezcatlipoca respectively.

Tony the Tiger and Star Trek references. Couldn't resist. Sorry.

We'll be going back to the regular schedule after this strip. I hope you enjoyed these back-to-back marathon miniseries!

Do you guys prefer to call not!Taiga "Jaguar Man" or "Jaguar Warrior"?

"

orojuice commentary More Primeval Villain + Cat Archetrope Adventures! Had this idea since LB7 dropped, but I could never get Georgios to look right for the lead-up panel. That is until I remembered that CE of his. Finding that red waterfall background was also a huge boost since initially, I just placed a blood splatter on the final camera shutter background before the last panel would show the same background before that but without the duo. Much more fun this way. For Quetzalcoatl. According to the 8th Anniversary FGO interview with the creators, the giant robotic ghost that Tezcatlipoca summons for his NP sometimes? Apparently, his illustrator Shou Tajima was given complete freedom to do whatever he wanted for the Sun God's Third Ascension so long as he followed the specifications for the first two. The robotic ghost was his initial submission for that. And yes, this Third Ascension Tezcatlipoca was always that big. Nasu and the other creative heads liked it a lot, but they couldn't find a way to feasibly program it into the typical three Servant line-up. Mr. Tajima was asked to make a more typical Third Ascension in its place. However, while they couldn't have it in the game as a playable sprite, they did model it for use in Tezcatlipoca's First and Second Ascension NP sequences. So if he had, theoretically, transformed into that to fight Quetzalcoatl in this comic, he could've produced roughly this much blood.

spacebattles comments

Mash: Jaguar Man! Tezcatlipoca!

Fujimaru: D-D-Did you just take pictures of a m-murder?

Georgios: That's the scary part, Master. I didn't.

Fujimaru and Mash: Huh?

Georgios: Those pictures you're looking at? All of them were taken at the same spot at roughly the same time. It was supposed to be a photo of them enjoying their day in the city. Then, when I took more shots, I got those images. (shudder) The whole thing just creeps me out. I'm thinking of brining my camera to a temple to have it cleansed or something along the line.

Mash: What could this mean, Senpai?

Fujimaru: I'm not s-

Jaguar Man (passing by): Oh boy, nya! I can't wait to go on that hiking trip! Just you and me, Tez!

Tezcatlipoca: Yup! Just the two of us in the woods! No one to bother us as we enjoy ourselves! Wait, what about Coatl?

Jaguar Man: Nyot to worry! I sent her on a wild goose chase across the Sahara Desert!

Tezcatlipoca: Ha ha! What an idiot!

Fujimaru, Mash and Georgios: …

Georgios: Umm … guys? Do you think that my camera could have been taking photos of the future?

Fujimaru: Georgios? For our remaining sanity, please just drop the subject.

Georgios: But-

Mash: Senpai said to drop it.

[cloudcountry]

JDFGDGF YES IT’S BEEN A WHILE!! It’s just that I’ve been really busy lately 🤧 

But!! I’ve had these weirdly specific TWST images in my head for a while now and I need to share them with someone- And yes, it’s a whole list-

-Proposing to Azul in the middle of a TWST McDonald’s (A TwstDonald’s, if you will)

-Playing Just Dance with Floyd at midnight

-PowerPoint presentations about mushrooms with Jade

-Reader doing a PowerPoint presentation on why Kirby is actually the strongest character in the Nintendo franchise and telling the Kirby lore to Ace, Deuce and Grim. The presentation’s shockingly informative. Deuce is disturbed at the Zero and Zero Two boss battles (in case you don’t know, Zero is literally a giant bleeding eyeball. Zero Two is the same giant bleeding eyeball but now it’s Biblically Accurate™. And yes, this was rated E for Everyone.)

-Teaching Kalim how to do the laundry

-Reader carrying Leona like a sack of potatoes

-Ring toss, but with Malleus’ horns being the pegs (🚶I know how super disrespectful this sounds, really, I do-)

-Jade/Lilia cooking with Gordon Ramsay. Enough said.

-I have this weird headcanon that Jade can’t handle spicy foods for the life of him,,

-Reader dancing and singing along to ABBA songs in an empty Mostro Lounge while cleaning up after a shift, not knowing one of the Octatrio members is watching them sing wholeheartedly- (Bonus points if ABBA songs don’t exist in Twisted Wonderland, so they have no clue what song it is they’re singing,, More bonus points if Reader drags them in to dance with them-)

——(*cough* Speaking of ABBA, I’ve also been thinking of the choreography/final scene of Waterloo in the first Mamma Mia movie,, and I’ve been thinking of TWST characters + Yuu iterations doing the dance-)

-Jamil finally getting that vacation he deserves✨ 💅 

-Screaming and gushing about fictional characters to Grim who’s just like “🧍 Henchman, pull yourself together” “JOKES ON YOU GRIM, I LITERALLY CAN’T”

-Playing Uno with the Board Game Club

-Throwing slices of ham and cheese out the window with Floyd. That’s it. That’s the thought.

-Sorting the dishes in alphabetical order with Riddle

-Imagine there being a Polyglot!Reader in Twisted Wonderland. And like,, half or more than half of the languages you speak straight up don’t exist-

And yes, the Octavinelle brain rot is still going very strong, and you can tell 😩 I am developing a soft spot for Jade- Maybe it’s from the animatics I watch,,

Jackdaw Anon 🐦

WAIT ALL OF THSO EIDEAS SOUND SO COOL.,.,.,.,., i really like the abba one in particular because i think about the differences in music a lot C: LIEK SINGING THEM A SONG THEYVE BEVER HEARD BEFORE FR

[lliwless]

tell me more about the sbi pokemon au? im interested if you planned out any teams or gave backstories for any of the people/their main partner pokemon

HELLO YES I'D LOVE TO!!! i'll put it under the cut because it's a LOT of rambling and i don't know how to make my thoughts concise LOL (seriously this is very long)

i originally made the AU when the DSMP was still at its height of popularity, i think right after hannah joined? the story was going to follow benchtrio going all around sinnoh, meeting EVERYONE from the dsmp who were living their silly little AU lives, and getting tangled in a bunch of Lore with the lake trio and creation trio, but a combination of burnout & lack of interest in a lot of the CCs after a while made me eventually downscale it to just being SBI-centric instead and cutting out a lot of characters. I still really like some of the ideas I came up with before dropping them though, regardless of how half-baked they are LOL.

in the original version, benchtrio were going to have the three starters - tommy with chimchar, ranboo with piplup and tubbo with turtwig. they'd eventually get other pokemon as the story progresses but I didn't really plan much before dropping the idea oTL

tommy was gonna catch a shinx who'd match his energy and eventually a buneary like in the comic (itd be a really cute story of enemies to "i would kill and die for you" bc i love buneary starting with 0 friendship in the game LOL), ranboo was gonna catch an abra bc "hes anxious just like me fr" and tubbo was gonna catch an onix. bc he would and i think the image of him looking innocent in front of a giant fuck-off snake creature of Rocks is funny as hell LOL

the story would follow all of them getting badges and working together to be the regional champion but along the way they'd realise they wanna do other stuff instead - mostly ranboo with pokemon contests and tubbo with breeding, aiding phil in research (he'd create a little garden/pokemon nature reserve around lake verity IT WAS GONNA BE CUTE!!!). i don't remember tommy LOL

here's art for ranboo doing pokemon contests (this is 2 years old im better at designing characters now i promise. i promise)

off the top of my head i also know that niki was gonna own a chain of bakeries with the main one she's usually at in eterna city, with food-themed pokemon from all types of regions gifted to her by wilbur (MORE ON HIM SOON). eterna city specifically because the bike mechanic guy would be jack fucking manifold the absolute legend AND THEYRE BEST FRIENDS IN THIS AU TOO!!!! jack would have electric & steel-type pokemon but his partner would be pachirisu who's basically co-owned by niki as well :3

SBI TIME philza was gonna be the professor and his partner is a specific murkrow called "chatterbox", shortened to "chat". no i don't care if it's too easy. he's seen as kinda quirky, kinda scary, because he's constantly followed by (and arguing with) flocks of murkrow wherever he goes - SPEAKING OF I DIDNT SHOW ART OF THEM. RAAAA

wilbur was phil's son and he honestly just wanted to fuck around and find out. his curiosity landed him a solid position at his father's side as a sort of apprentice as well as son, and while he contributed a lot of helpful work he also mostly just liked travelling around with his partner drifblim, almost becoming the charismatic face for sinnoh's research team instead of his more blunt, off-putting father. that's how he introduced niki to food-related pokemon :33 also he's evil and fucked up but i'll get back to that

TECHNOBLADE MY BELOVED!!!!! the regional champion, moved to sinnoh from unova when he was 18 after dropping out of college due to mental health reasons and wanted a complete fresh restart in a new region, trying to figure out what he wanted to do with his life. he started physically training in the wild with pokemon, living essentially as a hermit and travelling all around sinnoh, learning to live peacefully and control his anxiety while befriending pokemon on the way. he met phil by chance when camping in a forest and phil was like wow ur strong why dont u try becoming champion and techno was like ??????? and phil challenged him to a battle and techno understandably sweeped him and his team off their feet. and phil was like Yeah Holy Fuck You're Strong. go do the thing. go challenge ppl. and techno was like yea sure why not. he has not lost a single battle :) also he kept meeting up with phil after gaining his first couple of badges, gaining a reputation for being unbeatable, and got gifted a cleffa by phil when venting about his stress and anxiety and stuff. cleffa became techno's emotional support partner and it makes me so so happy :33

this post is already so long i havent even properly scratched the surface of the story and this is only the original version... i'm sorry i'm not a very good storyteller especially when it's so hard for me to keep track of my thoughts :') lmk if anyone's interested in any more ajhaghja

[echobx]

Timeloop - JJ Maybank × fem!reader

summary: JJ is stuck in a timeloop and has been falling in love with y/n but he doesn't know how to escape the loop

warnings: mention of death, smut, oral (fem receiving), face sitting, handjob, p in v (protected), no happy ending, light angst, JJ PoV

word count: 3.5k

author's note: I've been working on this for a few months bc I couldn't finish it and now I did, but I also don't like it as much as I wish I did. I hope you guys like the idea I had here. it's also not edited or formatted.

masterlist

“You love me? Real or not real?” Y/n asks, and I nod, the smile painfully quivering on my lips.

“Real.”

It's been 528 days in this time loop. She has asked me this for the last 145 days. I feel like something is changing, but maybe I've just been here for too long and know it too well. That's probably it. There are no surprises in this. It's become eerily comfortable over time, and I can't even remember why I was so scared at the start.

“And you're stuck?” she furrows her brows and her nose scrunches up a bit. She looks so damn cute like that, when she thinks too hard about something. Her hair is down in perfect beach waves, framing her gorgeous face.

“Yes, I am,” I reply softly. I know not to freak her out by speaking her words out before she can utter them. I had done it a few times before, and it never ended well. She had pushed me away and the ending had come quicker.

“I'm the key?” she questioned.

“Pretty sure yeah. It's the one thing I haven't managed to change yet to try to get out,” I explain as vaguely as I can. Yesterday I had told her, she had run off and tried to prevent it, but inadvertently it just came along faster.

“Is it a you go to bed and wake up the same day kinda thing, or are you ripped out with an event?”

“Event,” I gulp. Images flood my brain. Images of her dead body lying on the street, so many of them.

“How do we prevent this from happening?” y/n asks and rips me out of my mind.

“Haven't figured that out yet,” I shake my head and she nods.

“What does happen?”

“Someone dies.” My eyes are fixed on her, begging to stay. I have to be careful, yesterday can't happen again.

“What if we save the person's life?”

“That's the plan.”

“We just have to figure out who it is,” she mumbles, rummaging through her bag and pulling out a small green notebook. This is my favorite part, getting to see her mind work. How she taps the pen against her full lips and runs her hand through her hair.

She takes a few notes, xes them out again, scribbles something else, muttering inconsistent words to herself before looking up just slightly. She's staring at my hands, specifically the fact that I can't stop fidgeting with my rings while she tries to figure out how to not die on me. I know it's distracting, but I can't help it, I hate it all. The whole game of it.

It's been 528 days. I found her on day 279, saw the car crash into her bicycle. And then I woke up again. I realized I was falling in love with her on day 326.

I wish I knew how to make it go away, if not the time loop. Then the fact that I love her because the pain of knowing and then having to see it again, is overwhelming me from the moment I wake up again.

“JJ?” y/n reaches her hand over the table and holds onto my hand. Her touch is as soft as it had been two weeks ago when she had first done it.

“Hm?” I lift my head to look at her better, but my mind is stuck and projects the image of her split skull onto the reality.

“You can tell me. I know you know,” her soothing voice almost makes me cave.

“If I tell you, you have to promise to not leave.”

“Why?”

“Because you did yesterday,” I whisper, and she nods her head slowly.

“I promise.”

“There will be a car crash,” I start, and her eyes go wide. “And I can't do anything about it. I don't know how to prevent it. I stopped the driver who does it once, and it still happened, was just a different driver then. I tried to sabotage it, but then-” I can't even look at her, I can't continue explaining, but my eyes get stuck on her bicycle that stands just two feet from us leaning against a fence.

“I'm the key…” she stammered, her eyes racing over the page she had scribbled on, her hand squeezing mine.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered, feeling a single tear run down my cheek.

“How- I mean, how did you find out? We don't even know each other.” I can see her mind going 60 mph with thoughts too big to be spelled out to me.

“The first day I didn't notice I was stuck until people kept saying the same shit to me as the day before, then it kept happening. I showed up to work thinking it was Friday, but it was still Wednesday, and they told me to go home. I spent most of my days surfing and shit, then doing some more illegal things. I can't die here either, tried that one already.”

She looks at me in complete shock, and I decide that I'm not gonna mention it next time.

“Wasn't on my account, I just did something stupid and was taken out by some guy. Then I started wandering around, and I saw it happen, and then I woke up again. Back in my own bed.”

“Okay, that's- okay,” y/n nods and shakes her head at the same time. “The closest time you come to it, to fixing it?”

“Ran us both over, hurts like hell,” I say, but I shake my head to try to remove the memory from my inner eye.

“What if we just never go to where it happens? What if we wait until the next morning and the clocks have changed and no one is dead?” she sounds hopeful, I don't want to tell her that it doesn't work. We had tried it a month ago, but she hadn't even known about it.

“We can try,” I smile. Even if I have to do it all again tomorrow, I'll still take every single moment she gives me.

“Have you ever tried to find out what could've happened to make this happen?”

“I don't know.”

“I mean, what happened yesterday? My yesterday, not yours,” she giggles, and I feel the butterflies in my stomach.

“It was a normal day. Work and going home to smoke, that's all,” I shrug, there was really nothing out of the ordinary with how that day had gone by.

“What about the first time you experienced today?”

“I slept in, went to get some food, went surfing, smoked and fell asleep.”

“You smoke a lot,” she nods repeatedly while my thumb draws gentle circles on the back of her hand.

“Normal amount,” I smile and she laughs.

“My normal amount is zero.”

“I know, princess.” She blushes at the nickname, she does so every time, and it completely enamors me every time I see it.

“Show me where you live, maybe there's a clue there,” she lets go of my hand and jumps up. “What?”

“You've just never done that before, is all,” I admit, and she smiles wider.

“I'm learning,” she jokes and takes my hand back in hers as soon as I get up.

“I've lived my whole life on this island, how come I've never seen you before?” I ask what I had been wondering for months, but had never gotten around to asking.

“Just moved here. My mom's from here, my dad's from Cleveland, that's where I grew up,” she explains quickly.

“When did you move?”

“Two days ago.”

“Fuck,” I sigh and she nods.

“Yeah, probably.”

We let the silence settle as I walk her towards the Cut. My heart is racing because I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know if she's gonna run, and I'll lose her again, or worse if she stays and- I don't know what I should want to happen.

“Do you think the other people's lives just keep on going while you're stuck? Like, is there a version of you out there that got out and is living his best life?” y/n rips me out of my head and I for once don't know how to answer.

“I don't know, I never thought of it.”

“You should think about it. And if it doesn't work out today, you can just tell me tomorrow,” she smiles up at me, so pretty and innocent and not broken, yet.

“You don't think it's weird that some random guy just came up to you and told you he loved you and all of that bullshit?” I ask.

“It's weird, yes, but I think I wouldn't do it differently if roles were reversed. I mean, you've known me for way longer than I have, and you're not as bad as you might think,” she nudges my side and chuckles.

“If I get out, you won't know if I was telling the truth or not,” I reply, and she shrugs.

“When you get out, I'm gonna have to expect an actual date, though,” she flashes her eyebrows at me and I laugh.

“Deal.”

She's walking around the house and yard, inspecting it carefully. I don't know what she is trying to find, so I just stand there watching her in silence.

“Nothing out of the ordinary,” she mumbles and moves on, down the hallway and towards my old bedroom.

“It's not very clean, you don't wanna go in there,” I note, but she just looks at me with a cocked eyebrow and opens the door anyway.

“Dusty,” she waves her hand in front of her face and moves on. “Typical teenage boy room.”

“Is that something bad?” I ask and instead guide her to my new bedroom, technically my dad's, but he left.

“Not at all. Just expected it in a way,” she grins.

“This is my actual bedroom,” I say as I open the door to reveal the somewhat clean room with the king-sized bed in it.

“What happened to your parents?”

“My mom left when I was a kid, and my dad about a year ago in your time,” I sigh and watch her sit down on my bed.

“Cozy,” y/n smiles.

“I wouldn't call it-” I stop my rambles when I see the look she's giving me, she's nervous and it's making my heart race. “Maybe it's a little cozy.”

“JJ, be honest with me, have we ever, you know?” she gestures with her hands and I walk over and sit down by her side.

“No.”

“Okay,” she nods, and I place my hand on top of hers that is resting on her thigh. Her breathing is going heavier and her eyes are closed, bottom lip tucked between her teeth.

“Why'd you ask?” I rasp, brushing a few hairs behind her ear to expose her delicate neck.

“I don't know,” she hushes, and I let my fingertips trail down her spine. “Just curious.”

“Haven't even gotten to kiss you yet, princess,” I whisper in her ear, and she lets out a choked gasp.

“If you haven't tried that before, how do you know it's not the solution?” Y/n slowly turns her head to look at me. Her eyes are nearly black, and her lips look softer than anything I've ever seen.

“It's your life,” I whisper, and she nods.

“If I die, we can try again tomorrow.”

She tastes like lemons and honey, and it fills me up. There's nothing else I wanna taste until I die, nothing more I wish to hear but her soft moans when she kisses me back. There's an urgency in the way she clasps my shirt, pulling and pushing at the same time. My fingers are entangled in her hair, softly pulling, and she lets me in; lets me devour her in the same way I had dreamed of, for months.

I move back on the bed, pulling her on top of me, not breaking the kiss because I'm too scared she'll vanish if I do. It feels surreal, and I'm sure she's just as nervous as me.

She pulls away, but I keep chasing her lips with small kisses until she turns her head and my mouth finds her neck. She smells even better there, like lime and ginger, and I'm so focused on how much I love her that I don't hear her words the first time she calls out to me.

“JJ, can you please,” she asks again, and I look up at her. Y/n is like an angel, glowing and radiant and the prettiest girl I had ever gotten to lay my eyes on.

“Yes?”

“Can we take this off?” She pulls on my shirt, and I don't take another second before pulling it over my head. Her eyes go wide, and she starts running her soft hands all over my chest. “Not bad.”

“I can take my pants off too,” I suggest with a smirk, and she blushes but nods. She's still in her dress, and I don't want to pressure her. It's a beautiful white summer dress, not too short but not too long either. It's perfect and she looks ethereal in it.

But the way she looks up at me as I stand in front of her with nothing but my boxer briefs on- No one has ever looked at me like she does, and I wish this to be the end of it, no more loop, no more pain. Just me and her forever. And if I had the choice between her death and making her be stuck in the loop with me, I know what I'd go for.

“You can still say no,” I remind her, but she shakes her head rapidly, pulling me back onto the bed.

“Sit, please,” she smiles shyly and gets up instead, placing herself between my legs and my hands automatically finding their way to her thighs. Soft and squishy and to die in between. Hesitantly she pushes one of the straps down, freeing her arm, then the other. The dress slips down to her hips, revealing the rose colored lace bra. My eyes jump from her tits back up to her face, she's gnawing at her lip but nods.

Her body is like a holy grail that I get to besmudge. Kissing and sucking on her tits while her moans send jolts to my dick. It's so much, but it's not enough, and the more I kiss and lick, the more I need her to be fully mine.

She lets out a gasp when I pull the dress down and kiss her stomach and farther down, letting my lips hover over her wet slip.

“Are you sure?” I ask, looking up at her, and she nods, pushing me to lie down and a moment later she's on top of me. Rolling her wet cunt over my dick and I nearly lose myself already.

“You're incredibly pretty, you know that?” she smirks and boops my nose while my hands are rubbing over her ass.

“You wanna sit on it?”

“Just might,” y/n smiles while sitting up and lets me pull her closer.

I don't care that she hovers, not yet. Not as long as I can kiss her through her slip, getting a faint taste of her until she begs me for more.

The flimsy material is pushed to the side as I plant the first kiss on her pussy. And she tastes like heaven, making me moan into her before I pull her down.

My eyes are fixed on her face, beautifully contorted with pleasure when my lips close around her clit, sucking harshly, even worse so when I plunge my tongue into her. She starts rolling her hips, pressing my nose against her clit with every stride she takes. My hands grope at her thighs, and I feel like life suddenly has a meaning again. Her eyes lock with mine and I moan into her.

“Gonna cum, JJ,” she screams, and I keep going, slurping every little bit of her cum out of her pussy before I let go of her, and she falls down by my side.

“Never had someone offer that,” she's panting, and I can only grin.

“They were all pretty fuckin’ stupid then.” I turn and start kissing her neck, leaving a mark won't matter either way.

“J, please,” she begs, and I can feel the tiny butterflies in my stomach flutter.

“Tell me what you need, baby,” I whisper, or nearly growl into her ear, and she mewls.

“Fuck me, JJ, please,” she says and pulls me into a kiss, her hand reaching for my dick and stroking it through the confinement of my boxers. It's a guttural groan I emit from my throat.

“If you don't stop, I'm gonna cum,” I warn her, but she just smirks and slips her hand up just enough to pull at the waistband of my underwear.

“You love me?” she asks and grabs hold of my cock, lightly squeezing as she pumps it and my head falls to her shoulder.

“Fuck, yes, I do. Love you so much, princess. Don't stop.” The words spill out of me, and she laughs softly until my lips find the sweet spot on her neck again, sucking harshly while her hand brings me closer to my release.

“You wanna fuck me so bad, don't you, pretty boy,” she whispers in my ear and I sigh, my teeth grazing over her soft skin.

“Need you, my love. Need you so fucking much,” I moan, and she quickens her movements, jerking me off harsher, and I can't do anything but mutter some curses until I feel my balls go tense, and I cum all over her stomach.

Panting, I lie by her side and watch her clean herself off with my shirt. The proud smile on her lips is simply gorgeous, and it makes me forget all about the predicament we find ourselves in.

“You're so beautiful,” I breathe, and her cheeks turn a dark pink before she bets her lashes at me.

“Thank you. You wanna fuck me now?”

“You're so direct,” I laugh lightly, and she shrugs, watches me get up and pick a condom from the drawer in the nightstand.

“I don't have much time to not be, do I?” y/n says, and I can't argue.

Her kisses are needy, and her hands claw at my back as I fuck her slow and deliciously. I feel like I might be in heaven from the way her soft, warm walls are hugging me tightly, and from the way her lips stay parted in between kisses to let out a plethora of noises, just for me.

It's more intimate than any sex I ever had, but it's good like that. Our fingers intertwined as I press her into the mattress; her legs hooked around my waist, not letting me go; how deeply she's letting me fuck her, nearly rearranging her guts in the process.

“Faster, JJ,” she whimpers and I comply. Pacing myself while giving her what she needs. I could've cum the moment I had entered her, but I don't want this to end. I don't want to leave her ever again now that I know what she feels like, what she sounds like, what she tastes like.

“Being so good to me, princess,” I praised her, attaching my lips to her neck and sucking hickeys into her skin.

“Make me cum,” she mewled, and I pulled a hand down to her clit. Drawing harsh circles while the palm of my hand pushes into her stomach, making me feel how deep I'm fucking her.

“Be my good girl and cum for me,” I rasp in her ear before biting down on her earlobe. That's all it takes to tip her over the edge.

She squeezes me so hard I have issues fucking her through it, but she knows and whispers in my ear, “let go for me.”

It's an easy fix, to get hard and cum, but to lose yourself in someone else, is something entirely different from that. It's thrilling and addictive.

So, when I have to pull out, I can't stop thinking about just doing it all again. Fucking her senseless until we both forgot about reality.

But y/n is quicker than I. She's up and starts to put her clothes back on.

“What are you doing?” I ask quietly, and she runs a hand through her messy hair.

“Getting ready to go home,” she smiles.

“I thought we could do something else later. Hang out or something,” I mumble, and she sighs while putting her shoes back on.

I can only pull up my boxers and follow her as she makes her way outside.

“This was good and all, but I can't stay. My mom is waiting for me at home, I really can't stay. I want to, but I can't. Besides, if you weren't so good in bed, I might be mad at how stupidly good that tactic was,” she laughs and takes another step towards the street.

“It's not a tactic, y/n. Don't go, please,” I beg, but she's taking another step, and another.

“I guess we'll never know,” she shrugs and turns around, walking away from me for good. And when I close my eyes I hear the screeching tires and the thud and a moment later I'm back in bed.

Wednesday, 09:43am.

And it all starts anew.

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