#but the core of the story is very much intact and it's one of the best book series film adaptations like...possibly ever

[destinysbounty]

One thing I find unexpectedly fascinating about Monstrosity is that when you think about it, it'd really only work with Kai as the protagonist. And I don't just mean that because Rusty could only be awakened by a fire elemental, and without Rusty Kai would've died at the spooky death-siren lake - although that's definitely a part of the equation. What I mean is that Kai's specific personality was vital to not only his survival, but also to the retention of his humanity, and that likely wouldn't have been possible if almost any other character was swapped into his position.

Let me elaborate.

Although it's certainly true that not all timeskip scenarios were created equal, and that the Merge treated some people better than others (cough cough Cole), it's also worth noting that each character's experiences are heavily defined by their own unique personalities, strengths, and flaws. If you shuffled everyone around into different post-Merge outcomes, you'd have a vastly different story.

For example, Cole absolutely flourished in the Land of Lost Things, but not everyone would - Pixal in particular would really struggle there. She's normally someone who is always on her A-game so long as she has a goal to accomplish and a clear path towards doing so, and it's rare for her to face a lot of internal conflict over her motivations/ideals. But if you put her in a situation where she has to choose between leaving the Finders to reunite with her friends, or forsaking her friends to protect the Finders...I think that no matter which option she chose, she'd be deeply troubled by it, and would not cope with that conflict of interest nearly as well as Cole has.

Whereas Lloyd, if you placed him in the stasis pod instead of Pixal, would suffer just as greatly. As much as he struggled emotionally in his years of isolation in the monastery, I think it'd almost fuck him up even more to find out he slept through the Merge entirely - and has (in his eyes) failed to keep his team safe and intact. That they've had to fend for themselves without him around to do his job as the leader.

And so on and so forth. You get the general idea. (Honestly, it's kind of a fun thought exercise to explore how everyone would cope if they all got switched around into different scenarios. You should definitely try it!)

Of course, Monstrosity in particular is a fascinating case study of this. If you put any other ninja in this story, you'd get a drastically different one - and in a lot of fundamental ways, it just straight-up wouldn't work.

See, the core theme of the miniseries is about balancing ruthlessness and mercy, knowing when to fight and when to show compassion, and how to fight monsters without becoming a monster yourself. And honestly? Kai is arguably the only person on the team who could effectively navigate that balancing act.

On the one hand you have characters like Pixal, Nya, and Jay - characters who would most likely fall too far onto the ruthlessness side of things and lose themselves.

Pixal is a very determined person - as mentioned above, so long as she has a goal and an action plan, she isn't prone to giving up or losing hope. She will keep trudging along her chosen path until it is accomplished, never stopping to let anything slow her down. Sure, she'd definitely be haunted by her choices after the fact, but in the moment I don't think she'd ever let herself slow down long enough to introspect in that way. She's too busy getting back to her family to think deeply about the moral implications of her actions, or to reflect on who/what she's becoming. She'd definitely be haunted by her choices, sure, but that's not to imply she would ever meaningfully deconstruct or process those feelings at all. She is, of course, an alumni at the Zane Julien School of Processing Trauma.

Nya is similar to Pixal in a lot of ways, but she's also naturally a very ruthless person with a teensy bit of bloodlust to her (affectionate). She also has at least one canon instance of sacrificing her humanity to save her family. This isn't new to her. Daidan would tell her that she can't survive in a land of monsters without becoming a monster herself and she'd go "bet", then proceed to beat the shit out of anything that looks at her wrong. Not to mention that the weird death-siren lake would probably fuck her up in a lot of really complicated Seabound-related ways that I don't think she'll ever be ready or willing to unpack.

My placement of Jay on this side of the spectrum may face some scrutiny, but hear me out first. Although Jay acts very lighthearted and goofy in front of others, it's canon that this persona is a facade he wears to save face and hide how anxious he really feels. On some level, I would argue that Jay subconsciously self-sabotages whenever he's fighting in a group, deferring to the strength of others out of insecurity/codependency rather than trusting his own skill. But when he's on his own and has no audience left to perform for, we see Jay's full potential shine through - we see him be strong, and clever, and even a leader. And on rare occasions, usually when Nya or someone he loves is in danger, he can even be brutal. Jay would absolutely have an awful time in Monstrosity, don't get me wrong - but he'd also exhibit a level of competence and efficiency only ever seen during elimination seasons. And that same efficiency would be his downfall. Jay loves his family, he loves Nya, and he also really hates dying. I don't have a doubt in my mind that he would do whatever it takes to make it back to Nya, even if he's miserable the whole time.

Of course, that's not to say that the rest of the team has it any better. Just because Cole, Zane, and Lloyd tilt pretty far onto the "mercy" side of the spectrum, doesn't mean that's necessarily a good thing in this situation.

Cole is extremely community-oriented, and he is constantly making friends and forming meaningful connections everywhere he goes. With Chen's other prisoners, with Yang, with that not-so-random baby he found, with Krag, with the Upply, and now with the Finders. If Cole cannot find a community, he will create it. On the rare occasions that he is alone, it is usually a dire situation involving extremely poor mental health. When his isolation is self-inflicted, it's usually out of grief. And when circumstances forcibly isolate him....well, go rewatch DotD and MotO, and watch how Cole handles just a few hours of forced isolation from his family. I can't imagine he'd handle several weeks alone in the Land of Monsters without becoming completely unglued. Cole's biggest strength is his social sturdiness - not just as the rock his team relies on, but as the foundation upon which everyone he meets can cultivate a sense of community. But in isolation that strength becomes a double-edged sword, and I believe the brutal emptiness of the Land of Monsters would leave him in an even worse emotional state than Kai.

Zane is no stranger to being stranded in foreign realms, armed with nothing but the singular objective to return home. But I think he would be so paranoid about falling into old routines that he would overcompensate too far in the other direction, rendering him too soft to make it through the Land of Monsters in one piece. That's not to imply he was going to make it out in one piece to begin with, of course. This is Zane we're talking about. I'd be surprised if he goes three days without dying horribly in some way or another. Whether it's out of self-sacrifice or because he pulled punches where he shouldn't have and paid the price, that man is not lasting more than a week.

Lloyd...honestly, he's arguably the closest anyone gets to matching Kai's balance on this issue. The case could certainly be made that Lloyd would effectively replace Kai in Monstrosity...but idk, I personally don't buy it. If you ask me, I think he veers a bit too much into the "too afraid of being like his dad to let himself become a monster" spectrum. This would go one of two ways: 1) he goes the way of Zane and/or Cole, and over-softens himself out of paranoia; 2) he initially tries to over-soften himself, but everything gets to him until he eventually snaps and goes full Oni Mode. Personally, I've got my money on option 2.

The takeaway here isn't that any member of the team is inherently better or worse than the others, just that they all have particular strengths and weaknesses that serve them well in their given scenarios. But those scenarios would only work with them as the main character, and nowhere is that more apparent than with Monstrosity. Zane could never withstand Lloyd's years of isolation in the monastery, just like Jay would become an anxious mess if he had to be responsible for the Kragglings' civil war, just like Kai would absolutely have the worst time if he got stuck in the Administration, just like Nya would go stir-crazy in the Land of Lost Things.

Monstrosity is fundamentally a Kai storyline, down to its DNA. And I think that's part of why he comes across as so beautifully written in this miniseries. There is no aspect of it that you can separate from Kai without changing the fundamental core of the story itself. He's the only one on the team who could do something like this. The only one who could survive in the Land of Monsters without either dying horribly or losing himself along the way.

And idk, I just think that's neat.

[estcaligo]

Sebek and Romance

Some thoughts after this event update

I really liked this small detail in this part of the event - a "bittersweet" (or "sweet and sour" literally, from Japanese) moment between Sally and Jack. When she leaves her basket for Jack (which Trey refers to as a "bento"), we get to see the NRC guys reacting to that display of affection.

Surprisingly, Sebek's reaction was very calm and mature.

When Grim says "Bittersweet? I wanna try eating it!"

Sebek comments "Haha. Grim, that's something even you can't devour" in a calm manner.

In many fanworks, especially fics, Sebek is often depicted as inexperienced or nervous when it comes to matters of love. I enjoy this interpretation too because it can be funny sometimes. But understanding and reacting to romantic interactions is a learned skill (like any social skill), and we should remember a few points:

Sebek has loving parents who have three children. Considering the history of their relationship, I imagine they aren't shy about showing how much they love each other, including in front of their kids. I'm sure Mama Zigvolt has, at least once, explained to Sebek that this is because Mama and Papa love each other very much. So, Sebek is familiar with these kinds of feelings from his family.

Books, books, books.

Books are a big part of Sebek's life - for hobbies, studies, and bonding (for example, with his grandfather or the Prefect). He reads a lot on various topics, and naturally, throughout his life, he must have come across books with romantic themes. We can learn a lot from books, including social skills, even if it's only in a descriptive sense. So, Sebek has also learned about romance through literature.

Arts and culture.

Sebek is familiar with operas and musicals, as mentioned in the Endless Halloween event. We can assume he has some interest in them or, at least, participates in watching them with his family nowadays too (because he mentioned Zigvolts spend quite a lot of time together, like attending parks, so why not.)

We don't know what kind of plays he watches, but we can assume there are at least some romantic motifs, as is often the case in classic operas and theater. Watching actors - who often exaggerate emotions - could give him an understanding of how romantic situations unfold, and this exposure can likely have an impact on him. 

He also does thorough research into the arts when required, and some romantic themes might come up. For instance, if he knows Aurora, he must be familiar with her story, including her love interest and the kiss plot (though TWST may have twisted these stories, I presume core elements like the love story remain intact). So, Sebek can learn about romance thought art.

Lilia's supervision.

Sebek spends a lot of time with Lilia as his pupil, along with Silver, so naturally, he absorbs a lot of information about the world from his teacher - not just combat skills. And, well, Lilia's wisdom might be mischievous, if not dubious at times. In Ghost Bride event, it's noted that one of Sebek's visions of courting his future partner involves…well

which is kind of cute, if you ask me.

So, coming back to this event's reaction:

Seeing the display of affection between a loving couple is nothing new for Sebek, and he understands it surprisingly well.

At least when it comes to other people...

[writing-for-life]

First Impressions of Netflix Sandman Season 2

Okay, I need to get this off my chest. Some people might know I’m the resident comics geek in here, but I’m not a comics purist. I liked the changes they made to S1 because they all made narrative and emotional sense to me, and despite some softening around the edges, it all felt true to the story to me.

And that was one of the reasons why I went into Season 2 with such high hopes and so much excitement. And I did like S2 as a sort of standalone thing.

But I also have a lot of thoughts about it as an adaptation, and I don’t know what happened there. Well, I guess I do because I expected compressing it so much would lead to some fallout. And I would’ve been okay with that. But it’s the emotional core of the story that has changed, and in my mind not always in a good way (people are obviously free to disagree). But one thing after another. Slight spoilers under the cut…

The Disjointed Feeling

The pacing feels completely off. We’re jumping a lot between storylines without giving any of them space to breathe, especially in Season of Mists. And it felt a bit like checking boxes? As an example, Lucifer’s abdication was rushed through like it was just another plot point. The new Nada arc (I call it new because it has so little resemblance to the original one that I can’t call it anything else) also felt rushed. For me, it was really hard to feel invested in their story, but that’s not just because of the overall disjointed feel, and I’ll get to it later.

Brief Lives fared marginally better in terms of letting the story breathe, but I think that’s also down to its overall narrative structure in the comics, which obviously supports that. And while I loved that we got Wanda, it felt like fan-service but otherwise just… stale? Because we completely scrapped AGoY, and it honestly felt a bit like, “But we need to make sure we still shoehorn in the fan-favourite trans-character somehow.” Honestly, Wanda deserved so much better than being this type of checkbox, and at this rate, it felt like doing her a disservice. But again, people are free to disagree.

I guess what I’m trying to say is: I get they had to condense it and that their hands were tied in a way. But it felt like condensing while still trying to cram in too much? I think volume 1 would have benefitted from cutting certain stuff to give other, more important beats more breathing space so it doesn’t feel like getting whiplash half of the time.

They’re Making Dream… Sorta Nice?

This is the big one for me. They’re softening Morpheus into oblivion (no pun intended), and it’s killing what makes him such a compelling character. In the comics, Dream is actually terrifying and horrible very often and not one bit in touch with his feelings (and for a good reason). I know that everyone loves the sad wet cat meme of Morpheus in the rain, but that’s his theatrics and drama, which are only part of his emotional core. Morpheus hides/supresses his true emotions 95% of the time until he can’t anymore and they burst to the surface in the most maladjusted ways. He also doesn’t talk about them like he’s in friggin’ therapy. That’s all good and well for fanfic, I do it as well because it’s fun, but that’s not his emotional core. That’s us trying to fix him.

And Netflix!Dream in S2 felt like a massive fix-it fanfic to me. Maybe that’s why so many people don’t seem to care because Tumblr obviously laps up these tropes, don’t know. It’s also understandable that people who haven’t read the comics won’t even notice, and that’s also okay. Netflix!Morpheus is a very different character from comics!Morpheus, and that wouldn’t be a problem, but the narrative tension stops working if you still try to cram him into largely intact comics plot. In the show, he gets a million beats where he’s clearly meant to be sympathetic, where the camera lingers on his face so we can see how much he’s hurting™️, where he has conversations with Lucienne that feel like the clumsiest exposition ever to mAkE us UNderStaNd because we’re apparently stupid and can’t figure out stuff or emotional subtext for ourselves (that already annoyed me in S1 btw). But the whole point of Morpheus is that he doesn’t SHOW that hurt. He buries it under duty and pride and quiet rage until it all comes exploding out in the worst possible ways. Netflix!Dream has been cracked open right from the start, and I honestly hated a little how far they took that in S2, despite already getting hints at it in S1. None of this should have been truly visible before the end of act 2 (the end of Brief Lives—that’s where he cracks open), bar a few subtle hints (there are obviously a few bits in SoM that are largely inner monologue).

And even then: Can we talk about the wash bowl scene? Just no, sorry. I had expected that scene to rip me to shreds and turn me into a blubbering wreck because it still does in the comics. But I didn’t shed a single tear, and it left me strangely underwhelmed because I honestly felt… that’s not Morpheus? Apologies to everyone who loved Tom’s performance there, but I just really didn’t. And I wanted to 🥺 That’s no reflection on anyone’s acting, because the acting as such was great. It’s just a character that’s barely Morpheus anymore. He’s this:

I totally get how it could be argued that the emotional outburst is in tune with releasing grief, so if people prefer that, I can see and understand why. To me, the quiet grief away from everyone was always more powerful though. Because it’s enough. It’s someone who hasn’t allowed himself to connect to that truthful, deep part of himself while theatrics and drama are much more of a an openly acknowledged part of him. That’s why I find the chair scene so powerful (and I’m PISSED we didn’t really get it)—because it’s quiet and truthful. The wild scrubbing and howling is much more Morpheus the drama queen for me, but I get that I’ll be alone with that, and I’m okay with it 🤣

Which brings me to: The way they handled his relationship with Orpheus was particularly off for me. Comics!Dream’s guilt over his son is like an infected wound that he never lets anyone see. Netflix!Dream practically wears it on his sleeve after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing. Netflix!Dream is also painted as far more noble than comics!Dream. It feels like they’re setting him up for the heroic sacrifice only, and to me, that honestly stinks a little because I’ll call it what it is: mischaracterisation. But since I also know that screenwriters aren’t that dense, I’ll call it what it really is: making him more palatable for the mainstream audience.

The Emotional Core

The thing that makes Sandman special is that it is about stories and grief and the volatility and instability of dreams and the terrible weight of existing for too long. It is about change and the fear of change and how sometimes the only way is to break everything you used to be. But Netflix!Dream in S2 already is all of what he’s supposed to become, at least in a roundabout way. That’s why the conflict feels forced, because everyone around him still treats him like comics!Dream. It lacks deeper emotional resonance. It’s all surface emotional manipulation and layers it on so thick that for me, it was bordering on corny in parts (I wasn’t too keen on the additions to the dialogue with Orpheus at the end).

Or Nada. Don’t get me started. The whole sending her to Hell for 10,000 years barely makes sense anymore, because it was presented as a genuine choice. He was just “a bit pissy” she didn’t choose him and then didn’t rescue her, but she made the choice herself and basically suggested it first. Of course Hell in the Sandman is a place we send ourselves, and it was also implied in the comics that she could have walked away at any point had she just forgiven herself for the fate of her people. But it was Morpheus who planted the seed for that in the first place. In the show, they basically made it Nada’s choice from the outset.

Also: That he basically proposed and said he won’t bother her any further if she said no? Yeah, about that one. He’s so nice, isn’t he? Not at all the guy who could never take no for an answer, and hunted her down like a crazed stalker when she was both alive and dead.

It was just really weird revisionism of a story that originally had misogynistic and coercive undertones. I get why they removed them, but the problem is that they now fail to connect coherently with the story beats they kept intact.

In SoM, Lucifer’s character work was stunning (Gwen was great with what she was given), but it existed in isolation—it didn’t really connect to the broader themes about power and responsibility and the cost of ruling. It was all a hand wave.

I know that all sounds like I absolutely hated it, which I really didn’t. On its own, it’s okay. But I feel it’s just okay so far, while I thought S1 was great. S2 had many moments that absolutely did connect (I’ll just say Calliope and Johanna—they both made me sniffle), but moments don’t make a season. I’m a tad worried that the show has lost sight of what made the source material so special, in favour of making it more accessible to mainstream audiences (well, it’s Netflix, of course they would, but S1 was so much better). Sandman isn’t supposed to be “accessible”. It’s supposed to be challenging and weird and uncomfortable, and that’s what ultimately makes it beautiful.

I’ll keep watching, of course. I’m too invested not to, and maybe things will grow on me when I rewatch. But right now it feels like they’re adapting the plot of Sandman without understanding why that plot matters.

Maybe I’m being too harsh. Maybe I need to let the season breathe and see how it all comes together. But right now, it feels like they’re giving us a beautiful, well-acted shadow of something that is so much more.

Did anyone else feel like something was missing?

[scarletskiesinthepaths]

Why do you think Levi is subjected to more ableism in the fandom than other characters in the series?

You know, Anon, I’ve wondered the same thing. I’ve often thought about why Levi in particular faces so much ableism from fans, especially compared to other disabled characters in Attack on Titan, like Erwin (who was an amputee) and Hange (who lost an eye). I think one important difference driving the ableism against Levi is how his role in the narrative was tied so strongly to his physical prowess; he was literally hailed as “Humanity’s Strongest.” For many fans, this moniker became his entire identity. When they see Levi at the end of the manga with severe injuries—half-blind, facially scarred, and using a wheelchair—there can be an almost visceral reaction: they feel he’s “lost” what made him exceptional and, consequently, his worth.

Of course, this attitude misses the deeper point of his character. Levi’s true “strength” was never about having perfectly functioning limbs or unmatched reflexes; instead, it lay in his resilience, moral compass, and capacity to protect and care about others despite intense personal trauma. Unlike Erwin or Hange—whose strengths were regarded as intellectual, strategic, or based on charisma—Levi was mythologized for his physical abilities. And our society, unfortunately, tends to place a premium on physical performance; people often conflate physical prowess with overall capability and even personal value. Notice how many superhero stories focus on those heroes being heroic because of their superpowers. When that physical prowess is removed, the ableist assumption is that someone becomes “useless” or “broken”. Erwin and Hange aren’t subjected as much to this particular form of prejudice because their disabilities aren’t perceived as negating their worth.

Furthermore, mobility disabilities in particular are frequently treated with greater bias and discrimination—there is a long history of society perceiving a wheelchair user’s life as diminished or over. Because Levi’s injuries affect him in very visible ways (eye injury, wheelchair use, and facial scarring), the ableist rhetoric becomes more overt: some fans leap to the conclusion that he’s a shadow of his former self, rather than recognizing he’s still the same exact individual who overcame a violent childhood, survived countless battles, and bore tremendous responsibility and loss on his shoulders, all with immense compassion.

What’s especially ironic is that Levi’s endurance and courage remain perfectly intact; if anything, his hardships only reinforce how indomitable his spirit is. Being in a wheelchair doesn’t negate what he’s achieved; it highlights how much he’s lost yet continues to survive, pushing forward with the same mental and emotional fortitude. By dismissing him because of his physical injuries, people undermine the story’s nuanced message: that genuine strength is measured by character, not physical strength.

All in all, I believe Levi faces more blatant ableism because people struggle to separate his core character from his once-renowned physicality. The fact that he ended the story visibly disabled, rather than “bouncing back” with minimal repercussions, forces certain fans to confront their own biases regarding disability. Instead of reading it as an empowering statement rooted in realism—that Levi is still himself, still strong in ways that truly matter—some choose to read it through an ableist lens, judging his worth by his physical condition alone.

[perseidlion]

The Interview With the Vampire TV show is a perfect example of how adaptations do not have to follow the source material closely to be an excellent adaptation.

(This is a spoiler-free commentary, but it does discuss the dynamics of the characters in general.)

I read the books back in the day, and of course, saw the original movie. Despite a laundry list of big changes, the series still feels extremely true to the books because it captures the spirit. It gets the characters and their fucked-up dynamics right. It doesn't shy away from them being melodramatic monsters. It keeps to the rules established in the source material. The show also makes sure to preserve key moments and key scenes, but always with a twist.

Since they did that, they were free to shift things in time, amp up and adapt certain dynamics, and change the race of characters in a way that deepens the story and complicates already extremely complicated power dynamics.

The original movie stuck more closely to the era and the appearance of the characters as described by Anne Rice, but I don't think the story loses anything by changing those two elements. In fact, it gives it modern relevance and room for political and social commentary.

I have never ascribed to the idea that an adaptation has to be slavishly accurate to the source material to be a good adaptation. It just has to be smart enough to identify what to keep and what can change. An adaptation adapts. Honestly, I find it boring when I see exactly what was in a book up on screen with no surprises. Where's the fun in that?

The difference between a good adaptation and a bad one is not how accurate it is to the source material, but how well the adaptation respects what made the story compelling to begin with.

What's important here?

Lestat is dramatic and powerful and a monster who is deeply charismatic, but also manipulative.

Louis is overdramatic and self-hating, but oddly drawn to Lestat.

Claudia is fierce, but bitter about her eternal childhood.

Their relationship is deeply toxic but with true affection. They are monsters, but monsters capable of intense love and devotion - to the point where it has the power to destroy them.

THAT is at the core of this story. THAT is what they keep intact. This frees up all sorts of avenues for play around a few key plot beats.

This room for play also gives opportunities to expand on thinner characters or rewrite them entirely. It's been a long time since I read the books, but I don't recall Daniel standing out as more than a framing device, especially in earlier books. But in the show, he's one of the best parts. Not only does he take a much more active role in the story, he delivers some of the most hilarious and cutting lines of the entire series. If the show had stuck closely to the source material, we wouldn't have this Daniel.

It was also smart of them to make Claudia a few years older. The eternal child element is preserved, but the layer of arrested teenaged hormones and womanhood that will never blossom adds an extra layer of angst and sadness. She is stuck forever in a state of rebellion, never allowed to settle and come into her own.

Having her be a young Black woman also deepens her attachment to Louis, visually, socially and symbolically. They are different from Lestat and they understand each other in a way he never can. She's still very much the Claudia from the book but with layers added to deepen her character and add new, fresh dynamics and complications.

It's also delightful to see the show take the homoeroticism that was subtextual in the early books with Louis and Lestat (and in the original film) and making it unapologetically text. Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles have always been incredibly queer and subversive, but it's amazing to see that side of it fully embraced and stated plainly with no ambiguity or qualifiers or hints. It's queer and that queerness is woven into the fabric of the entire narrative. Louis and Lestat are the toxic beating heart of the Vampire Chronicles.

It's also important because we need messy, dark, fucked-up queer narratives. Sweet, coming-of-age stories and romances are of course, important - especially for younger queer people. But us older queer folk not only want to see ourselves in multiple genres, we want permission to see imperfect, messy, and yes, even evil characters. It's a way of reclaiming the monstrous queer that was villainized for so long and making it our own. We want to find something beautiful in the dark.

If we all thought about it, we could probably think of dozens of examples where a show or movie went far off-script from the source material and was still an excellent adaptation.

Interview With the Vampire is just the most recent and one of the best examples of a stellar adaptation that respects the source material but also builds and expands on it.

I look forward to seeing how they surprise me next season.

[gnomewithalaptop]

I'm still too distracted to write so here have a list of YJ-cast centric fics that make me froth at the mouth

Kon-centric recs:

I Want It That Way (1990s Tim/Kon) by WynterSky / @wynterstars -- A revamped, 90s-style Superboy origin story with added Lex Luthor AND a lil bit of 90s Robin for spice and flavor. Honestly, this whole series is so elite -- goes hard with the Superboy mythos + angst PLUS the third fic leans hard into the secret identity shenanigans in a way that'd make Miraculous Ladybug jealous. The first fic splits its attention between Tim and Kon, but the latter two are solidly Kon-centric

one plus one (easy math) by connerdrakewayne / @comphetkoncass -- Cassandra Cain and Kon go to a gala together. I'm always a sucker for a good Cass + Kon friendship. This one's very short and sweet, and it gets the job done -- 10/10 would read again

a timeline can be a haunted house by connerdrakewayne -- post-universal reset Kon angst + terrible coping mechanisms! This one goes so hard I read it three times. Tbh this author has an excellent handle on Kon as a character in general, so I honestly recommend just checking out their whole fic stash

Tim-centric recs:

Top 10 Secret Identity Fails by @havendance -- Tim's new English teacher is his on-again-off-again superhero teamup Helena Bertinelli (aka the Huntress). This one's just fun, okay -- the whole thing reads like it could be straight out of Tim's 1993 solo run, plus I love the dynamic between him and Helena. Overall just a very cool vibe

only the dead stay 17 forever by Sky_Dust (couldn't find their tumblr sorry) -- Listen, I've really been restraining myself here, because I realize my love for time-travel bullshit is not universal, but I genuinely couldn't not include this one. This bad boy is a Tim-centric time-loop featuring a seriously unhinged Tim -- definitely a darker tone, but I can't stop rereading it

Bart-centric recs:

reflections on respawning: a gamer's uncertainty by merils / @mamawasatesttube -- Bart has a hard conversation about his death and subsequent resurrection (feat. Kon) man, I just vibe with this one so hard. It's such a thoughtful take on Bart's more contemplative side, while still managing to keep his personality intact

the backlash to the backlash to the thing that's just begun by @kermit-coded -- trans/gnc impulse my beloved <3 also we get some funky Max & Bart bonding, made much rawer and more real by the fact that it's the 90s and nobody knows what they're doing. Again, feels like it's straight out of Bart's solo series

Cassie-centric recs:

you and I, we are more than just this armor by @suzukiblu -- KonCassie bonding + gender feels. They're both so trans in this, and the author does a great job of really digging deep into their complicated feelings (both about gender and about each other)

(also PLEASE somebody give me more Cassie-centric fic recs I'm literally begging you)

Team recs

I'm all yours but you're all mine by suzukiblu -- Poly Core 4 Soulmates AU! Essentially, everybody gets their 'soulmark'/soulmate-identifier (not really, but the best word) right when Kon wakes up in his pod, and because Superboy hasn't really made his big splash yet, they misidentify their soulmate as Superman; this is an issue mainly because 1) they're all 14-15 and Superman is roughly 30-ish, and 2) by the time this fic takes place, Superman is pretty verifiably dead. Currently in-progress, but this is such an interesting and fun take on the usual soulmates trope. I pinky promise you won't regret reading it

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[gretavanmoon]

The Rhythm Section - Part 1

(Re-release!)

Sam x female Reader, Danny x female Reader (yeah…yep)

6.9k words

rhythm sec·tion /ˈriT͟Həm ˈsekSHən/ - the part of a pop or jazz group supplying the rhythm, generally regarded as consisting of bass and drums

+ Heyyy bestie lane! I wrote this waaaay back in 2022, right when I would still consider myself a novice at smut LOL. But I think it deserves its time in the sun again for all the new folks on Tumblr, so I dusted it off and shined it up a bit. It's lightly edited, so have fun with that :P

+ Warnings: 18+! Cursing, Drinking, Smoky Bar Scene, Mental Dilemma, Dirty Dancing I guess

Smut: Unclean Thoughts, Memories & Flashbacks, Heavy Flirting/Touching, Insinuation and Mention of a Threesome

ONE - CHANCE ENCOUNTER

You were tired. Your muscles were beyond sore. And you absolutely did not feel like answering the buzzing phone that was inching its way closer and closer to the edge of your night stand. You wanted to ignore it and focus back in on the brain-rot TV show you were enjoying, but it's insistence made you realize you simply had to pick it up.

Your life had been pretty drag for the past few weeks, and work left little to no room for personal enjoyment. The buzzing phone gave you a tiny inkling of surprise and excitement, thinking maybe a friend was calling to give you some entertainment for the night.

The most excitement you'd had lately was a run-in with an ex-flame, Sam, at a bar you frequented. He’d spotted you from across the room, making eyes at you for only a split second before breaking away from the group of friends he was with to come over your way.

“Y/N? Hey… I thought that was you over here,” he said as he slipped between you and the empty barstool beside you. “How are you? How have you been?”

His eyes seemed to dazzle you just the same as they always had, and the feeling of his hand rested respectfully on your shoulder seemed to catch you more off guard than you thought it would. The smell of his earthy cologne instantly overtook your entire being, his scent tied to memories so strong that you felt dizzy. 

“Sam, hey… I’m good! How are you, what are you doing here?”

He took the stool beside you, and the two of you spent the next hour or so catching up and talking about life. Sharing stories, laughing into your drinks, and ignoring the fact that the magnetism the two of you always shared was still very much intact, and very much overwhelming. You’d both chosen to come out late that night, and the bartender was calling last call before you could even register that it was after midnight.

You had to admit, even though it was only a chance encounter, you felt sparks as his hand brushed against yours when he insisted on paying the bar tab at the exact same time that you did. You ended up giving in and letting him pay for your three gin & tonics, and he also insisted on walking you home.

“You really don’t have to, Sam. It’s not very far to my apartment,” you had said, glancing at your watch.

“I know it’s not far but you’re still a gorgeous young lady walking the street by herself at night,” he pushed, wiggling his eyebrows as he flirted.

The scoff that left your lips was unintentional. “That’s never stopped me before, Sam. How do you think I get home every other night?” you questioned, feeling somewhat offended that he thought you couldn’t defend yourself. “Plus, you never even went back over to your friends…”

The deep brown of his irises flashed your way, giving you a look you knew so incredibly well that it nearly shook you to your core.

“Just let me. Please?” You knew he wasn’t going to let up. “So I can go to sleep without worrying about you...”

“Alright, but just to the door,” you finally gave in, giving him a furtive grin.

“Just to the door.”

The two of you walked slowly down the street to your apartment, which was only about six blocks away. 

“I can’t believe it’s been over a year since I’ve seen you, Y/N,” Sam had said. “We used to have some good times,” he reminisced, putting his head down and shoving his hands in his pockets as you walked down the uncrowded street. 

Though it was a short-lived affair, you and Sam used to sleep together fairly regularly when he would be in town. Things never got serious, but you had fun. It was more of a booty-call type relationship, which was fine with you. You were busy with school and work, and you didn’t have time to settle down, anyway. The sex was great, the two of you melded together quickly and learned the ins and outs of each other’s tastes more thoroughly than you had with any other partner you’d had in the past. 

“Yeah, we did have some good times, didn’t we? I’ve missed you and your ‘Busy tonight?’ texts,” you laughed, the gin still swirling through your system. 

Sam grabbed the back of his neck and began massaging his shoulder as he let out an embarrassed laugh. “Yeah, I miss sending those texts, to be honest. I can’t believe you don’t have someone in your life...” You had explained to him earlier at the bar that you were extremely single still, concentrating on life. Your career as an RN was a bit taxing, as you worked in a hospital that concentrated on rehabilitation of injured patients. You found yourself tired, mentally and physically, at the end of every single day. 

“Yeah, I don’t have much time to give to another person, so I’m still just hanging out,” you gave Sam a sheepish smile as you wanted to gush about your current life, but still felt a bit disconnected from him. It had been over a year since you’d even seen him.

The warm Spring breeze blew your hair into your face, pulling a few pieces of hair across your eyes. He slowly reached up and pushed the strands behind your ear, leaving his hand rested on your cheek for a few seconds while you caught each other's gazes. 

“I know. Always-busy-Y/N, giving more time to work than to herself," he'd complained, still having you figured out all too well. "Well, if you ever want to…relax...you know where to find me. We’re home for a month or so until we have to go back out on the road,” he spoke low and graveled, that certain key of his voice pulling you back into him just like it always did.

“Hm,” you muttered, your skin on fire just from the proximity. “That’s a nice long break.”

Though you hardly noticed it at the time, Sam’s eyes were trained on you in a way that they never had been before. Long, sultry, and slow, he raked them across your body as if it was the first time they’d ever seen you.

“Sure is. Plenty of time for some R&R…” Not only were his eyes dragging, but his words were, too. They were suggestive and insinuative, leaving hardly any room for you to say no in the instance that he’d ask you to "meet up" again. 

He was biting his bottom lip in as the breeze picked up into a rushed wind, the air becoming heavier as you felt tiny specks of rain beginning to collect on your arms. You couldn’t stop your wandering gaze from reconnecting with his, catching his eyes as they drank you in. God, he’s still just as beautiful... 

You collected your thoughts, pulling him into a fast goodbye hug before the rain picked up for good. “Thanks for walking me home, Sammy. I really appreciate it.”

Though you wanted the embrace to be short lived, he had other plans, taking your body into a full-fledged hug as he pressed his body into yours, resting his chin on top of your head. “You’re welcome, gorgeous. See you later?” And like his question was meant to be rhetorical, he turned around and rounded the corner, disappearing before you even had the chance to answer him.

+

That was two nights ago, and now you found yourself staring at your buzzing phone on the nightstand. The clock read 9:14pm, and of course, it was a string of texts from Sam. You scoffed as you rubbed your tired eyes and picked up the phone.

Maybe: Sam

Hey gorgeous! 

It’s Sam, still have my number?

You’d never tell him that you deleted his number after you realized it was of no use for you anymore.

What are you up to this evening? Daniel and I were thinking about grabbing a drink if you’d like to join!

You sighed and slammed your phone onto the mattress. You liked Sam. You really did. But it had been so long since your flings were regular, and you had grown up a lot in the past year. Between getting a new apartment, getting a promotion at work, and starting school again to get your BSN, you truly had let your past with Sam slip into the very back rooms of your mind. You had loved focusing on yourself and your career, and you had to admit, you were proud of yourself. You also hadn’t had many men grace your mattress since Sam... a one night stand here and there, but nothing of substance. You only found yourself thinking of Sam every once in a while, when you’d hear a song by Cat Stevens.

Or when you took a walk alone and would catch yourself wanting to send him a photo of a pretty flower you found. 

Or when you’d light candles around your apartment to wind down after a long day…

Or when you had too much to drink and found yourself lonely and succumbing to the overwhelming need for the touch of your own hand…

But only sometimes. Sam was busy with the band now, and you thought he had long forgotten about you. They had released their second full length album not long ago, and after its success, they had left on a giant tour and stayed busy with shows and the like. You were so very proud of him for following in the footsteps of his brothers and traveling the world with them and his best friend, making the music they loved for their loyal fans. Sam was so talented, you always told him you secretly thought he was holding his talents back and that he could apply so much more to the band. He never disagreed, but you could tell that he always insinuated a maybe someday, but not right now attitude. And you respected him for that. 

After adding his number back into your phone, you paused and held it against your forehead before deciding to reply to the text. You did have tomorrow off, and after the long week you’d had, you could really use a drink. 

You:

Hey Sammy, not much just relaxing at home. I guess I could meet you guys out for a bit, where are you headed?

Almost immediately, you saw his text bubble pop up to tell you he was typing. 

Sam:

I think Daniel said he wanted to go to Sloan’s, if that’s cool with you?

Sloan’s was actually your favorite spot, better than the place you’d happened to run into Sam two nights prior. It was an old dive bar down a backstreet, sort of tucked away, fairly small and uncrowded, but was always full of folks out to let loose. 

You:

Sloan’s is perfect. I’ll see you in a few! 

You sat up in bed and stretched before  making your way to your closet to change into something a little more presentable. A light sweater with a short velvet skirt and thigh high boots seemed a little much for the smoky sticky dive bar, but  it had been some time since you let yourself wear something other than scrubs or a pair of old jeans.

After spraying some volumizer in your hair and freshening up your makeup, you reached into your cabinet full of perfumes. The options were endless, but your eyes landed on an older bottle that had been pushed toward the back, a forest green bottle with a golden lid. It used to be your absolute favorite a year or so ago, and if you had the timing right, it’s probably the exact scent you wore when your rendezvous with Sam first began.

After two spritzes and applying some to your neck behind your ears, you caught the scent that drove your memory back in time, just like Sam’s cologne had done a couple of nights ago: You and Sam, no clothes, pouring rain outside, sitting in the backseat of your car together with arms intertwined around each other’s bodies in one of the steamiest encounters you’d ever had.

“You smell like honeysuckles and rain,” he had said, his voice breathless as his lips ghosted across your ear.

The memory was as fleeting as the smell of your perfume on your nose. You forced the memory away and finished getting ready, grabbing your purse to head downstairs and to the bar. 

Somehow, you had gotten there before Sam or Danny. You found a seat at the nearly empty bar and the bartender immediately greeted you. 

“Evening darlin, the regular?” Sloan asked. 

“You know me well, Sloan, yes please. Can you make it a double?”

Sloan, the sixty-something owner of the bar who was rough around the edges but had a heart of gold, shot you a questioning look.

“Rough day at the hospital?” she asked as she reached for a taller glass.

“Eh, not really. Just feel like I’m going to need it tonight,” you replied, dodging her glare. You’d been frequenting her watering hole for long enough that she knew enough about you to treat you somewhat like a family member… always looking out for you and even being your wingwoman on a few occasions. She shrugged her shoulders and handed you your drink, with extra limes. 

You looked toward the small stage in the corner of the bar and saw that a band was setting up their instruments for the evening. 

“Who’s playing tonight?” you asked Sloan as you sipped the first of your strong drink.

“Group called Spill, booked them about six months ago. They’re actually fairly hard to get ahold of, really coming up on the scene, so I hear. They did me a favor playin’ somewhere small like this…” she explained as she pressed glasses down onto the brush in the sink. 

You nodded in understanding, becoming fairly excited that Sam chose tonight, and Daniel chose this bar. 

Before long, the band began jamming a little bit to check their sound. They sounded sweet, kind of jazzy, kind of r&b. Then, a gentleman walked in toting an instrument case.

“Sorry I’m late fellas, got a little tied up with the lady,” the man joked with his bandmates. They met him with high fives and handshakes, patting him on the back like they hadn’t seen each other in ages. He then pulled out a saxophone from his case and began hooking it into all the respective cords and wiring. 

You’d been there about 20 minutes just enjoying the peace of the environment when your phone buzzed with a text from Sam.

Sam:

Almost there! Sorry, our meeting ran long.

You quickly replied,

No biggie! It’s starting to fill up, there’s a band tonight.  See you soon.

Not long after, Sam and Danny were greeting you with ‘hello beautiful’s and hugs all around. They took barstools on either side of you, and Sam signaled Sloan down to your end of the bar. 

“Ready for another, love?” Sam asked you.

“Sure, same thing please, ma’am,” you told Sloan. 

She brought your drinks, and the bar was filling up significantly now. The band had started to warm up a bit more, and you were loving catching up with Sam and Danny and hearing all their wild tour stories. You hadn’t seen Danny in a long time, probably since before you’d seen Sam last. You did notice his hair was longer and his stature had become significantly more muscular. But his personality was generally the same…still his same old genuine self. 

“Wow, you guys are really full on rockstars now. How cool am I to be hanging out with you right now?” you joked and poked Danny in the side. 

“We aren’t THAT famous, do you see people flocking to us for autographs right now? No, you don’t,” Sam retorted with sass. The alcohol had caused his eyelids to hood just a bit, and his words had started to just slightly slur. The band picked up and was playing at full volume now, letting their jazzy melodies reverberate off the old wooden walls of the building. People had begun to gather on the small makeshift space in front of the stage, using it as a dance floor. 

“These guys are pretty good, I’m digging the sax sounds,” you said. The lead singer was filling the room with his deep and raspy voice that floated over the sounds of the keyboard and complemented the saxophone perfectly. The band looked and sounded as though they had been playing together for many years. 

“Yeah, they kick ass,” Danny exhaled and looked at you sideways, giving you a displeased expression. 

“What?” you asked him, noticing Sam had become quiet, too. “What’s wrong?”

“Nah, nothing’s wrong at all, huh Daniel?” Sam jested as he peered over the top of his glass. “Wrong isn’t in our vocabulary tonight.”

“Mhm,” Danny hummed, scrunching up his lips. “That word is hereby banned, tonight, ok?”

You winced in slight confusion, wondering why it mattered. “Banned? So, I can’t like…say it—“

“Nope!” Danny confirmed loudly, leaning into you. “You can’t. But, its counterpart… that word, is allowed.” His voice was deep as he leaned into your bubble, his eyes glaring deeply into yours. “You know what that word is, Y/N?”

You swallowed, taken aback as you tried to make sense of the strange turn in conversation. “Uh, right?”

Danny’s palm slapped the bar in front of him, startling you a little as you heard Sam giggle from your other side. “Right! Right is the word. Everything tonight…will be, right.”

You couldn’t help the expression that painted your face as you tried to put the pieces together, wondering what the fuck Danny could be talking about. You glanced to Sam as he gave you a reassuring look and nod that said ‘just go with it’.

“We actually have a little confession, Y/N,” Danny spoke up again, his voice laced with faux guilt.

You swallowed the large drink you’d taken and looked over to Danny with questioning eyes. “Confession?”

Sam twisted in his seat, turning to face the stage as he leaned in close to your ear. “We kind of wanted to come and scope this band out to see if they’d like to tour with us a little bit on this next leg, and open a few shows for us,” he admitted. “We’ve all been listening to them for a while, they have a few EP’s out and everyone agrees they would sound great being openers.”

Your eyes grew wide with surprise.

“No way, that is SO cool! I am 100% in agreement with you guys asking them. They truly sound amazing in this little bar, I can only imagine what they’d sound like in a real show setting,” you babbled in excited succession. The boys nodded in agreement. 

“That’s kinda why our meeting ran late, they gave us the OK to move forward if we agree,” Sam added. 

You fell into disbelief again. “Wow, they’re gonna be over the moon,” you breathed as you looked to the band again, a mix of older and younger gentlemen who seemed to fall right into their music, moving from one song to the next with ease. They were true entertainers. 

The night was going on splendidly, and you found yourself getting more fuzzy from the alcohol. You also caught Sam stealing glances at you overtop of his glass, to which you would return with a smile and a wink. 

On top of the passing glances, he began subtly adding a hand to your thigh, an occasional “Remember that one time” story, and a “Daniel, doesn’t the lady look lovely tonight?” You’d roll your eyes at his attempts, knowing all too well the routes Sam would take to get you back to your apartment with a quickness. 

After a while, the three of you decided to move from the bar to an open corner table to get away from the direct sound of the band, and so they could hear them from all angles. You’d lost count of how many drinks you’d had, but you had noticed that Sloan had discontinued making them doubles, and lightened her hand while pouring the gin, of which you were very thankful. She had also begun to hand you a glass of water with each new drink you ordered. You made a mental note to tip her well tonight. 

After about an hour of talking amongst yourselves, the band announced they were going to take a short break, and Sam and Daniel both stood simultaneously announcing, “Time to take care of business!” You watched as they made their way over to them, shook their hands and introduced themselves. Sam then handed them a few business cards, and you were impressed with the looks of astonishment on the band members’ faces when they put two and two together, and realized who they were talking to and what they were being asked. Again, Sam and Daniel took the time to have short conversation, and shake each members’ hands once again. 

They began to make their way back over to the table, smiles plastered across their faces. You watched as the band all looked at each other in disbelief, and then all celebrated with a collective hug and excited hops and jumps around the stage. Giant smiles adorned all of their faces, some even hugged one another. A few gentlemen in the band were significantly older than Sam and Danny, but were excited nonetheless. You beamed with pride as they returned to their seats at the table.

“If I didn’t know any better, I think you guys just made their night,’ you said as you squeezed a lime into your drink.

Sam replied, rubbing his hands through his hair, “Yeah, I mean I think we were more nervous than they were! We’ve been watching and listening to them in bars since before we could legally drink. Our dad introduced us to them years ago when he played a benefit show with them. He went to high school with the drummer.” 

You sat smiling at your two friends and you realized how amazing they were as humans, taking time to make genuine relationships with people they hardly knew, and trying even harder to maintain relationships that already exist. You watched as they began to bounce ideas off one another and watch the band as they began to pick back up again. Pride filled your belly as you were overwhelmed with joy to be there with them tonight, watching them as they organically grew their professional careers while also trying to help out the little guys. 

“S’why don’t you have a boyfriend, Y/N?” Danny asked from across the small, round table. “And don’t tell me it’s because you don’t wanna be tied down…”

Your eyebrows shot up as you realized he hit the nail on the head. “Actually uh, that’s exactly why I don’t. I like my freedom…” you admit, folding your arms on the table. 

You heard Sam scoff from beside you. “Heard that one before…” he groaned, turning away. His sudden negative tone hit you in the chest. 

Danny noticed, too, but turned the conversation back to you. “Freedom, huh? I get that.” He sipped from the neck of his beer, swirling the last of its contents before tipping the rest back. “That why you wouldn’t ever make things official with Sam?”

You choked on nothing while Sam choked on the liquor he was swallowing. “Daniel! Shit…” Sam gritted as he repositioned himself awkwardly in his seat. You felt your face flush. 

“Um, for your information, Danny…he uh. He actually never asked…” The words escaped you before you could even think them through, and though they were the truth, you couldn’t help but feel resentment for speaking them. Of course he never asked. All you did was preach to him how much you loved being alone, and how you were too busy to commit to anything serious. You made it well known that you wanted to stay single, sleeping with Sam whenever you both saw fit without ever making a true commitment to the relationship. 

Of course he never asked. 

A quick glance to Sam’s downtrodden expression set that feeling in stone. You knew he wanted more back then, but you were too focused on yourself and unwilling to let yourself feel any kind of happiness that he may have brought to the table, simply for the fact that you’d rather keep things this way than ruin your own life with heartbreak. You were selfish, and you knew it. 

“Would you have said yes? If he’d have asked?” Danny pressed. 

“Daniel, can you shut the fuck up, please? Y/N, I didn’t ask him to—“

“Maybe,” you answered quickly. “Maybe not.”

“But you miss him, though?” Danny went on, much to Sam’s disapproval. “You guys obviously had chemistry, I mean, I remember how happy you’d both get when—“

“Daniel. Stop.” Sam interrupted him with force, his tone serious. "She doesn't want to talk about this. And honestly, neither do I."

You rolled your lips between your teeth, contemplating on how to save this now quite awkward situation. “Of course I miss him. We had… some excellent times, didn’t we Sammy?” you asked rhetorically, turning and focusing all your attention back onto a red-faced Sam. You placed your hand on his thigh and took notice that his arm was still balanced on the back of your chair. You could almost feel the muscles in his leg tense at your touch. 

“We did…” he quietly replied, letting his eyelashes flutter as he grinned sweetly at you. 

Just then the band started playing a very upbeat song that had a funky disco vibe to it, and suddenly Danny was reaching across the table, placing both of his hands on your face. “Please dance with me?” he asked, yelling over the music. Before you could answer, he was pulling you toward the dance floor, walking backwards slowly and not caring who he bumped into. His eyes were glued to yours, and he was mouthing the words along with the song. 

When you finally made it to the dance floor, he spun you around a few times before pulling you close and placing one hand on your lower back. His other hand held yours out to your side. Dancing had always been your most favorite thing, and it was rare that you found a partner who could keep up and move on-beat with the song, at all. Danny was a bit taller than you, but the way he effortlessly tossed you around the floor while keeping his feet and hips perfectly in time with the song had you floating, mentally and physically. He incorporated footwork and slides, spins and even dipped you low a few times. You were extremely impressed with his dancing skills and his ability to lead you without even having to try.  

“Daniel! Why didn’t you tell me you could dance?!” you demanded of him loudly overtop of the music. He continued to spin you around again before pulling you in close. He bent down slightly and pressed his mouth  to your ear, the touch sending an unexpected shockwave through your system. 

“What made you think I couldn’t dance? It’s literally my job to have rhythm,” he responded before pulling back and raising his eyebrows at you as if to say, ‘duh’. The more you considered it, the more it made total sense. His whole body had to keep time for hours on end as he played the drums, making sure the entire band was in check with what was happening during shows. 

You looked over to the table to find Sam still seated, relaxed back in his chair with his arms crossed, a wide smile across his face as he watched the two of you dance. You looked back to Danny who was returning your stare with the most intense look in his eyes. The neon lights mixed with the small disco ball was making his already dark complected skin glow an almost red, and his long, dark curls were pulled back into a low bun, making the small strands that had fallen around his face look even more sultry. He smiled coyly, showing off his bright white smile.

Suddenly he pulled your arms up around his neck and wrapped his arms around your waist, forcing you into a tighter squeeze than while you were dancing. He fluttered his eyelashes into a long blink before opening them again. He began a slow, sensual swaying back and forth that now matched the slower bluesy song the band had switched to. 

He leaned in to your ear once again, pausing for a quick breath before he spoke. “You know he really likes you, right?” He pulled back and smiled, waiting for your answer with his hands still balanced on your waist. 

You looked at him sarcastically. “I mean, I could have guessed that, I think…” you responded, trying to off-play it as he brought the awkward situation back again. 

Danny bit his lips to fight off an accusatory smile. 

You tucked your hair behind your ear as you avoided his gaze. “I mean, I kind of thought we just…had fun together, you know? Neither of us ever had time for anything serious…”

“Yeah yeah, solid excuse. I’m sure that’s how it started out for him, too. But here lately, I think he’s started to miss you for more than just, having fun…” he trailed off. You glanced over to Sam again. He sat in the same chair, now leaning down with his elbows on his knees, sipping on his drink. He had rolled the sleeves of his button up to his elbows, flexing the muscles in his arms a bit. 

When he saw you looking, he took his free hand and finger-combed his shoulder-length hair back, never breaking eye contact. Then in a whirlwind, Danny had you up in the air, spinning you around with the song. He lifted you slightly so you were looking down at him, catching you off guard as your feet dangled over the floor. 

He lowered you back down slowly, suspending you in the air as you descended. Before your feet could hit the floor, he made sure his face was within inches of yours, your lips daring themselves to brush against his. Suddenly the proximity felt wrong, with Sam watching your every move. “Danny, I—“

He pulled away a little, his eyes bouncing Sam’s way for just a second before he returned all his attention to you. You had your hands still balanced on his arms, and he felt sturdy and strong below your now loosened muscles. He pulled you in close, and began to sway along to the music once more. 

What is happening? What is this? You know he is doing all of this on purpose, but why? 

As he moved closer on the crowded dance floor, you could feel him under his pants, grinding into you in all the right places. He pulled your arms up around his neck again, catching you completely off guard as you began to succumb to the response your body was giving him. He put his lips to your ear, and placed a long and slow kiss right onto it, feeling little to no shame in his action.

He was breathing slowly, and you felt your whole body go warm with a tingling sensation. He started placing small kisses onto your ear and behind it, pushing your hair away from your neck as he did so. You wanted to pull away at the risk of Sam seeing it all, but something held you there, in complete bliss at the feeling of Danny’s mouth on you. You physically felt your eyes roll back and close, and you felt that warm and familiar tinge in your stomach and core, one that you weren’t sure what to do with, but you also didn’t want to go away.

“He won’t be mad, don’t worry,” he growled. 

“A-are you sure about that?” you laughed awkwardly, catching sight of Sam still seated in your peripheral. 

“Positive…” Suddenly his hands tightened around the muscles of your hips. “Y/N, do you know what the rhythm section is?” You closed your eyes as he spoke quietly but directly into your ear.

You raised your eyebrows in question as you pulled away for a second, telling Danny to go on. 

“It's the section of a band completely separate from the rest, but you’d never know it when you watch us perform. It’s our job to keep the pulse of the music going,” Danny continued to pull firmly on your love handles, slowly moving his hands to your lower back and back to your waist. He was pressing his fingertips gently into you, making the ambience of the room all the more heavy.

You felt extremely and overwhelmingly turned on, in more ways than one. This felt so wrong on so many levels… he shouldn’t be doing this, especially in front of Sam…

But there is that forbidden word… wrong. 

You couldn’t stop yourself from loving it, from letting it happen. There was something about the feeling of Danny’s hands on you, how they traveled, how they decided your next move for you, guiding you in the direction that he wanted you to go. 

In a moment of confidence, or better yet, weakness, you turned your head to the side a bit, exposing your neck. Danny took advantage of the angle, laying his lips right overtop of your carotid artery. He began lightly plucking at your pulse with his lips, exactly on beat with each hit of the kick drum. He continued to sway with the harmony of the singing and guitar, but his lips were moving in exact congruence with the deeper, underlying sound of the bass and drums. 

He crept back up to your ear. “See? It’s all about multitasking, knowing exactly what the song needs to sound like and being perfectly in time with the other half of my section, which in our case is Sam’s bass. We’ve got to be able to do it all. Hear it all. Feel it all...”

Danny pulled you slowly to the edge of the dance floor closest to your table. He turned with his back to Sam, so that you could look over his shoulder and right at Sam, who was already boring his eyes directly into yours. Danny pulled you close again and the song moved into a sultry, saxophone ballad with heavy melodies and tempo switches. 

…But you kept eye contact with Sam. Danny leaned in close to speak again, his voice painfully gritted. “You see sweetheart, without Sam and I, the band would have no back bone. We are great musicians apart, but when you put us together, we anchor everything down, naturally. We build a framework for all the other frilly shit to build on top of. Strong, the both of us, but not nearly as enticing without the other.”

The whole time, Danny never stopped his hips swinging in unison with yours, hugging firmly with his half-hard dick grinding into your core. “We learned a long time ago that we’re better together, and once we find our rhythm, that’s where the magic happens.” As if he could hear the words, Sam suddenly smiled a devilish smile from across the room, and took another long sip of his drink. 

You pulled back from Danny and looked him right in the eyes, questioning his motives, wondering if Sam knew what he had said to you. You could haul off and slap him, but the look in Danny’s eyes was hungry and confident. He brought his lips together and bit them both, now returning your questioning look. You dropped your arms from around his neck, and quickly made your way back to your table. 

Your mind was buzzing with confusion… wild, dirty thoughts had begun swimming through your mind as it made all of the connections on its own. Suddenly it all made sense. Suddenly the puzzle was complete in front of you, and honestly, you were pissed at them for it. Pissed that they even thought this could be a reality, but even more pissed that it felt… good. The sensation of Danny’s hands on you while Sam watched…fuck. It felt too tempting. It felt too… right. The one word that Danny gave you permission to use, tonight. Of course. 

Two wrongs. 

You stood in front of Sam, looking down at him without saying a word. The only response he gave you was a cheeky grin followed by a glance and a head tilt toward the door. You folded your arms across your chest, and felt Danny join you in standing before Sam.

The three of you shared a wordless nod. “Alright. Ok,” you spoke quickly and firmly, surprised at your own quick decision to go along with their outlandish request. Your body was absolutely burning already. For Daniel? For Sam, for them both…

Fuck, you’re drunk. But not that drunk. And still yet, this decision feels… the opposite of wrong. 

You know what? Fuck it. You deserve this. Is it outside of your comfort zone? Astronomically so. And you'll probably have regrets in the morning. But you know them, and you know they'd never do anything to make you uncomfortable. And who knows? Maybe it won't even happen once you get home and reality sets in.

You grabbed your purse that was hanging on the back of Sam’s chair and turned on your heels to beeline to the door. On the way out, Sam threw a hundred on the bar and told Sloan to keep the change. The guys shared waves to the band, as if to say “talk soon”. 

The three of you were quietly booking it down the street toward your apartment, with you keeping the pace three or four steps ahead of them. Your mind was racing with drunken thoughts, but you were still sober enough to realize what you were doing, what you were about to do. You hardly ever bring one man back to your home, let alone two. God, what the fuck?! 

You contemplated turning around, stopping them in their tracks, and ordering them to go back home. But something kept your feet walking, and if you had to guess, it was the feeling of Danny’s lips still attached to your neck, and the look in Sam’s eye when he wordlessly nodded toward the door.

You made it to the front doors of your building, and you reached into your purse for your key card. The doors unlocked, and you made your way to the elevator. After an awkward 20 seconds of waiting, the three of you stepped inside, and you pushed the button for floor 13.

They stood in the back of the elevator, and you to the front by the doors. You kept your back to them until the doors closed. As soon as they latched and the elevator began its ascent, you turned around quickly to find them both staring you down with devious expressions. Danny stood with his arms crossed and head rested back on the wall, eyeing you seductively. Sam was leaning with one arm on the back wall, and the other was twirling his mustache, also looking at you with those stupid familiar needy eyes. Stupid, stupid.

“Is this real? Are you guys playing a joke on me?” you finally asked in a pressing manner.

Neither one spoke, but instead shook their heads saying ‘no’, at the almost exact same. Sam said quietly, finally, “Not a joke, love.” 

Suddenly the elevator stopped on your floor. You waited for the doors to open behind you, and made your way over to your front door. As you began fumbling for your keys, your fingers became numb, like they had completely forgotten how to work. Here come the nerves. You finally opened the door, and held your arm out to invite them in first. They awkwardly, but confidently walked into your living room, clearing their throats as they made entry. You rushed and grabbed a bottle of vodka from on top of your refrigerator, and three glasses from the pantry. You set them down forcefully on the kitchen island as they finally gathered in. “Make us something strong. I’ll be right back.” 

You sauntered off to the bathroom to gather your thoughts as quickly as you possibly could. You shut the door behind you and leaned on the sink and looked at yourself in the mirror. ‘What the hell is happening?’ you thought. 

You lightly slapped yourself on the face a few times, willing yourself to get a grip. You were way out of your comfort zone, but for some reason, you felt completely safe and confident. And not to mention still extremely turned on. The alcohol was beginning to wear off a bit due to the influx of adrenaline of the realization that you just brought two men home with you, but you were counting on the vodka to bring that air of confidence back. You knew you were going to need it. 

You looked at yourself in the mirror again. “Just fucking do it, stupid. You’re a grown adult,” you whispered to yourself, reminding yourself that you really did need this, and honestly, had thought about this situation a time or two before. You took a deep breath and shook out your nerves, blinking away the dryness of your eyes as you tried to calm yourself. You sat down to pee, and freshened yourself up a bit, silently thanking your past self for shaving everything earlier in the day.

After you were sufficiently cleaned up, you nervously returned to the kitchen to find Sam and Danny standing at the island with three drinks made. Sam spoke up first. “Y/N, you know you can trust me. We don’t want to do anything you aren’t comfortable with.”

Danny continued, “Right, and we’ll turn around and leave right now if that’s what you want us to do. Just say the word.”

You stood with your arms crossed across your chest, pondering the two of them intensely. You picked up your drink and took a sip, inhaling the confidence to make your final decision. 

“Okay, and my word is, I want the two of you in my bedroom. Right now.”

+

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[zarla-s]

i forget if you ever said before, but how much of handplates was planned from the beginning and what was added as you went?

Almost all of it pretty early on, haha. Well, at least the main plotpoints...

I knew Sans would push Gaster into the core (not exactly how but I knew it'd happen)

I knew the brothers would stay with Asgore for a while afterwards to adjust to normal life

Knew the brothers would slowly grow and mature into their canon forms while aligning with canon itself (befriending Undyne and Alphys etc) although not the specifics of it

Knew there'd be a murder run that'd get reset and a pacifist run after

Knew Gaster would come back (not exactly how) and the brothers would have a final confrontation where they'd show they were adults now with the strength to face and fight him/their trauma and they'd eventually convince him to come back and try again

I knew a lot of the main points but not how to tie them together exactly or their exact execution, that came as I went along. As an example, shots of Asgore with the brothers were VERY early in my sketchbook... you can see me sketching out some of the layouts for the one with Gaster trying to get Papyrus to kill something at the bottom.

I was drawing Asgore from memory, that's why he looks off, haha. There are also sketches both for Gaster facing off with the monster (although I hadn't worked out exactly what the monster would be at that point), them back in the lab/finding the drill in Gaster's house, and Sans sassing Gaster on the same page about ten pages later in my sketchbook. I also knew that World Revolution was set in the Handplates timeline when I did it but I didn't tell anyone since it'd be huge spoilers at the time lol.

So you can see I was working out multiple parts of the story at the same time, haha. Some of my one-shot ideas got scrapped or reworked, but the basic shape of it stayed intact throughout. A lot of sections had a lot of wiggle room as they came to me - them in the lab, them with Asgore, them in their house, them on the surface, that kind of thing. So what happened during those times and how long I'd spend there I didn't know for sure, I just knew the basic shape of the story and where I was going eventually. It was an interesting way to do it! I had a lot of freedom to run with any sudden idea for the most part, but I also always had a direction and plan for where I was going.

I had absolutely no idea it'd be this long or take this long to finish though lol.

[mediocrecowboyhat]

Set in sand - Chapter 1

We mark the year 1934 and a peculiar journal falls into your hands. It's telling the tale of an outlaw and the downfall of a gang. Some pages are torn and others are downright unreadable, but nevertheless, you are still able to make out some parts of the tragic story.

With the help of a certain time traveler friend of yours, will you be able to safe the author of the journal or will you be the cause for his demise?

Next chapter

Word count: 3543

Disclaimer: This is based on the side quest "Geology for Beginners" so the reader is from the future and aware of some things that happen, but not everything. The reader will also have she/her pronouns and this fanfiction follows the story of RDR2. Also English is not my first language so pls forgive me for any grammatical mistakes!

TW: end-game spoilers will be mentioned very early on in the story, 18+ MDNI, sexual themes, violence, gore, death, misogynistic themes (anything that happens in the game as well)

With the help of a certain time traveler friend of yours, will you be able to safe the author of the journal or will you be the cause for his demise?

The harsh cold cuts through your many thick layers of clothing and your limbs gradually grow number by the minute. Pain shoots through your fingers everytime you move them just to make sure they're still working. The last thing you want is to loose any body parts to hypothermia this early on in your journey.

One foot at the time. Come on.

As you stumble through the knee-high snow and fight your way through the merciless storm, you silently curse yourself out. Maybe your friend was right. Maybe you shouldn't have gotten yourself involved in this.

-

"Arthur Morgan? That name rings a bell, actually.", Francis mumbles under his breath as his eyes trail over the words of the journal you had handed to him earlier.

The book is in poor condition with most of the pages missing and the ones that are still attached, are barely readable. Only a few passages are intact, but it's enough to let you roughly know what happened to the author.

"I thought you might have maybe heard of him during your travels.", you answer with a hopeful tone. Your eyes stare expectantly at the red head as you wait for him to finish reading.

The author wrote the journal around the end of the 1800s which is the same time Francis likes to visit every now and then.

"I think I remember now!", he exclaims with raised eyebrows and you jump up from the chair you're sitting on.

"You do? Can you...help me out then?"

-

You have no idea why the story of Arthur Morgan had moved you so much. His life and the way he put it into words had shaken you to your core.

A shuddering sigh escapes your lips and even through the scarf that covers half of your face, you're able to see the cloud of air.

-

"You want to safe him? Why?", Francis asks and his tone is laced with utter disbelief. Yes, he met the man during one of his travels and even though Arthur didn't know him at all, he still had helped find all the rock carvings.

"The way things went and the way they ended for him...it doesn't feel right.", you explain with furrowed brows.

"It's dangerous. Yes, the country started to enforce the law more seriously during that time, but there were still so many gangs, robberies and shootings. I can't even begin to count all the things that could go wrong on your journey."

Francis' gaze is serious and stern. He's making his disapproval of your idea more than clear, but you're not willing to give up on your plan. Not yet.

"Nothing will go wrong if you help me prepare.", you answer and take both of his hands in yours to give them a reassuring squeeze.

His expression is unmoving, but his eyes betray the crumbling resistance within him. He's only a couple more arguments away of giving in.

-

The memory makes you chuckle. It's a low and bitter sound. Indeed, he had helped you get prepared for your adventure. Your leather bag is stuffed with canned food, some clothes and other equipment that might come in handy.

All the shirts, skirts and pants fit the style of the 1890s to make it easier for you to blend in. Francis had even been so kind to give you a quick history lesson that covered all the basics.

-

The cattleman revolver feels unfamiliar and heavy in your hands as you study the weapon more closely.

"Do you know how to shoot?", Francis asks and crosses his arms infront of his chest as he leans against the edge of the table.

The closest you have ever come to working a gun was reading about it in Arthur's journal, but admitting that might make Francis change his mind about the whole thing.

"Of course.", you lie with full confidence and slide the revolver back into the holster.

-

In the beginning you were a bit disturbed by the sight of the weapon attached to your belt. Feeling the weight of it now and the way it sometimes brushes over your thigh...it brings you some comfort. Comfort, knowing that you have the means to protect and defend yourself.

If only you have been aware over how soon you'd have to use that thing.

-

"There is an abandoned settlement called Colter nearby.", Francis explains and points at a spot on the map that is spread out over the table. "They will be hiding there after that whole ordeal in Blackwater."

This would be your chance to join the gang and get close to everyone. The mere thought of actually meeting these people fills you with both excitement and anxiety. You don't know any of them and it makes you wonder how they'll react to you.

"The winter was particularly bad that year so make sure to move quick and don't get lost.", he says, ripping you out of your thoughts.

"Don't worry."

-

Yes. Don't worry, I said. It will be fine, I said.

Nothing could have prepared you for the pack of wolves that had shown up right after you traveled back in time. Not a single bullet had hit its mark, but the ear piercing noise from the shots had driven them away.

Everytime you recall that encounter in your mind, the beat of your heart picks up frantically and you hear your blood rushing in your ears. The experience had scarred you for sure.

Finally, the snowstorm seems to calm down and your vision clears up again. As you blink the remaining snowflakes away, you spot smoke in the distance. Could that be the settlement?

Without a second thought you pick up your pace and quickly make your way towards the dark pillar of smoke. It's further away than you had anticipated, but after a while you arrive at the place just to be met with...well, no one.

The fire has died down and there is not a single soul to be seen in the area. You notice that the wood is still slightly warm though so whoever had camped here left only recently.

Your eyes wander around, trying to find a sign, anything that could indicate where that person might have gone to. There is only one set of footprints in the snow, accompanied with prints that look like hooves.

It could be someone from the gang who is out hunting at the moment. It's also possible that they went back to the others so maybe these tracks could lead you right to their hideout.

With a new found hope you quickly follow the tracks. Even if it isn't anyone from the gang, that person you're searching for could still give you shelter or food. Any type of help is welcome, really. You're in no position to be picky at the moment.

The tracks lead up a mountain and you see something dark laying on the ground. A pit forms in your stomach as you approach it and recognize what it is.

The sight infront of you is revolting and you fight back a gag. A horse is laying spread out in the snow with its stomach shredded to pieces and the insides hanging out. A foul stench penetrates your nose and you abruptly turn away.

Whatever happened here, it hadn't ended well. Weirdly enough, the horse is the only dead body here though. There is no sign of the owner and you stumble upon more footprints.

It must be the same person from the makeshift camp, by the looks of it. At least the size and shape of the boots are similar. You keep following them and swallow a lump in your throat when your eyes fall on blood. It seems like the person got hurt as well by whatever attacked the horse.

Could it have been wolves? Perhaps even the same ones that wanted to make a meal out of you? You banish the thought before it could make you panic. Now is not the time to contemplate about your near-death encounter.

Someone obviously needs help and that is the whole reason why you're here in the first place. Just because the person in need of help isn't the one who you're actually here for, doesn't mean you should abandon them.

The footprints lead around the mountain and with lots of huffing and panting, you climb over rocks and duck under them. It's exhausting your body more than anything you had ever done before and your muscles grow heavy.

"Hello?", you yell out into the vast nothingness and calm your breathing to be able to focus on listening for a response. Nothing.

You give it another try, but again nothing happens. Frustration boils up inside your chest and you mutter a few curses to yourself.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

Now you're not only extremely tired and worn out from this unnecessary hike, you're also way off the trail that leads towards Colter and who knows if you will even be able to find your way back.

Sure, you could easily follow your own footprints, but by the way your luck has been the past few days, another snowstorm will most likely ruin that plan. Unless the thing that killed the horse earlier comes back to put you out of your misery as well.

Perhaps Francis was right. Perhaps you were being stupid and naive to think that you could possibly travel back in time to-

"Help!"

There it is. A voice. A person! You bite back a relieved sob and take a deep breath to answer the call.

"I'm over here!", the other person answers and you jog towards the source of the voice.

As you peek over the edge of a wall, you're being met with a pair of glassy, grey eyes. A man with long black hair and messy clothes, is sitting in the snow and looks up to you.

"I didn't think I'd meet anyone out here.", he jokes with a raspy voice and you climb down the wall to kneel next to him.

His face is covered in blood and there are deep wounds on his right cheek. It looks like claw marks.

"What happened?", you ask breathlessly as you hurry to open your bag.

"Wolves. A whole pack of 'em." His answer comes out more as a grunt than anything and it's obvious that talking alone brings him too much pain.

You fish out an alcohol bottle and pour some of the content onto your handkerchief. Gently, you dab the cloth on his wounds to disinfect them and he let's out a harsh hiss.

"I'm sorry.", you mumble apologetically, but he simply waves it off. He knows you're only trying to help.

None of you are saying anything while you tend to his wounds and your mind is racing with thoughts and questions. What will you do now? The man doesn't look like he can stand up and you don't have the means to carry him down this mountain.

But even just considering the option of leaving him here to the elements makes you feel a tang of guilt in your chest. Leaving him alone means leaving him to die and you don't know if you can live with that.

"Do you think you can get up? I can't carry you, but if you lean on me we could make it down this mountain.", you suggest and the man opens his mouth to answer you.

Before he can even bring out a word, a gunshot cuts through the air and you let out a startled noise. Another person? This is starting to become quite a party.

Yelling can be heard from a distance. A man. No, it's two.

"Marston!", one of them screams from the top of his lungs and the bleeding stranger infront of you responds almost immediately.

It doesn't take long for the others to find you and you stand up from your spot. The two men are standing on the edge of the wall and one of them jumps down. The next moment you find yourself at the end of a gun.

You lift your hands and take a careful step back while your eyes are fixed on the weapon pointed right at your face.

"Who are you?", asks the man. He's wearing a thick blue coat and a worn cowboy hat with a few bullet holes in it.

"Put the gun down. She found me here and helped.", answered the injured guy and for what feels like eternity the man finally lowers the gun.

You allow yourself to let out a relieved breath as he turns away to face the one still sitting on the ground.

"You look even uglier than before, Marston.", he says to the injured stranger and something clicks inside your brain.

Marston? John Marston?

While your mind pieces all the clues together, the man who is still on the wall reaches out his hand towards you. A friendly smile graces his lips and you return it before taking his hand and letting him help you climb back up.

"You guys are lucky that we found you.", he says and you nod. He's right. Even with your plan to have John lean on you while you walk back, there is no guarantee that it would have actually worked.

You're pretty sure that you would have probably slipped and fallen to your certain death. A few moments later John and the other guy are on top as well.

"Arthur, carry him on your shoulder while we go back to our horses.", the man who helped you up the wall said and your eyes fall on one with the blue coat.

Is this Arthur Morgan?

You lock eyes with him after he throws John over his shoulder and he gives you a confused look.

"What are you starin' at?", he grunts.

Embarrassed, you cough into your fist and let out a flustered chuckle.

"I'm so sorry, sir. It's just that you remind me of someone, is all.", you hastily explain and turn away to prevent any more awkwardness.

What a great first impression you're leaving. As you all make your way back to the horses, the three men introduce themselves to you and you give them your name as well.

"What are you doing out here by yourself?", Javier asks and throws you a curious look over his shoulder.

"I had to leave my home. We...we got robbed and lost the house.", you answer. It's a lie that you and Francis have come up with.

If anyone asks you'd tell them that a gang robbed your home and burned down the house. No one can check your background if you tell them there is nothing left to check. At least that's what you're hoping for.

"You said 'we'. Is anyone else out here?", Arthur asks and shoots you a quick look.

"No. I'm alone now.", you answer which is not really a lie. You are alone indeed.

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that."

Before you're able to thank him, Javier points at something in the distance.

"Guys, I think we got company."

A small group of wolves appear on the hill a few meters away from you guys and your heart sinks. The gunshot and all the yelling must have caught their attention or maybe it's the smell of John's blood.

Arthur hands him over to Javier and pulls out a shotgun as he walks towards the wild animals.

"I'll distract 'em. You guys go to the horses.", he yells over his shoulder and you and Javier start running.

A few shots are being fired behind you, but you don't dare to look back. Your heart is beating a thousand miles an hour and adrenaline rushes through your veins. It's the only reason why you're able to move this fast.

Javier mounts his horse together with John and you climb onto the back of the one you assume must be Arthur's. Just as you turn your head to see where the said man is, he's already by your side and jumps into the saddle.

Without another word, the two horses start sprinting. The sudden acceleration startles you and instinctively your arms shoot forward to wrap around Arthur's torso. Then you notice something in the corner of your eye.

"We got more coming from the right!", you let the others know and grab the cattleman from your holster.

Thankfully, Arthur proves himself to be more than competent with his own gun and takes out the entire pack in a matter of seconds without you having to help out. At least that's what it looked like at first.

Another wolf jumps out from between trees right at the both of you and you extend your arm to fire a shot. It hits. For the first time you have actually hit something.

The rest of the ride goes by quietly with no deadly surprises. So far it's all going to plan (besides the fact that you almost got your face bitten off that is) and with a little luck and persuasion on your part they might even let you stay with them.

Once you reach the settlement, you slide off the back of Arthur's Tennessee Walker and take a step to the side when a large group of people start pouring out from the run down houses.

But the person who catches your attention the most is a man wearing a black coat and a red scarf. It's not his outfit that draws your gaze towards his direction, but more the energy he gives off. There is something about him that makes you feel like you have to be on your toes.

Maybe it's the authority that radiates off of him like the heat of a house on fire or maybe it's something else. Obviously, he's the leader of this group with the way he's barking orders. They don't seem to fear him though.

Then his eyes fall on you and he takes your whole appearance in. You recall a name from the journal as he approaches you with an extended hand and you shake it firmly.

"Dutch Van Der Linde. Arthur told me that you helped them with John."

You only manage a nod.

"Thank you, miss. I appreciate that you went out of your way to help one of my men. Come on, let's head inside so we can talk.", he adds and leads you towards one of the cabins

There is a fire burning inside, but with all the holes in the roof and walls it does barely anything to keep the cold away. Dutch motions towards one of the chairs next to the fireplace and takes a seat infront of you.

Arthur's blue coat appears in the corner of your eye as he closes the creaking door and leans against it with his arms closed. Yes, Dutch said it would be a casual talk, but now it feels more like an interrogation.

Quietly you fold your gloved hands on your lap and wait for Dutch to say the first word. You plan on telling him only the most necessary stuff and would rather avoid getting tangled up in your web of lies.

"So, Arthur tells me you lost your home?"

You avoid his piercing gaze and look down at your lap.

"I did, sir."

On the side of your vision, you see him nod to himself.

"I'm so sorry to hear that. Now, miss..."

Your head snaps up to look at him as he bends forward to get a better look at your face.

"This is a harsh winter and I'd feel bad sending you out in this cold all by yourself, so if you want, you can stay with us."

His offer makes you nod hastily and you try to mask your excitement. There is no need to make them suspicious with your eagerness. No person with a clear mind would be this happy to stay with a bunch of outlaws and you have to play the part.

"We may not be good people, but we care for one another. As long as you pull your weight, we will happily welcome you."

With these words you place your bag on the floor and open it up to reveal the canned food you have been traveling with.

"I got some food on me. Agreed, it's not a lot, but it's all I have."

A pleased look spreads over Dutch's face and he nod.

"It's greatly appreciated. Go find Mr. Pearson and give these to him.", he says and you throw your bag back over your shoulder after getting back on your feet.

Once you close the door behind you, you overhear Arthur say something.

"Are you sure about this, Dutch? It's another mouth to feed."

You hold your breath so you have an easier time listening in on them. Of course, he's right to be concerned about you becoming a member. By the sound and look of it, they're struggling to keep everyone fed.

"We have been through worse.", Dutch answers and a wave of relief washes over you. It's good to know that you won't get kicked out on the first day.

So where is this Mr. Pearson?

[hamliet]

Hi, I love that you’ve started reading the aftg books and the sequels. The meta you’ve written up until now has all been great!

Andrew is my favorite character! Could you do an in depth analysis? Your favorite part of his character or maybe his relationship with Aaron and what it means to the story. I love a complicated family/ sibling dynamic.

I sure can!

Andrew is my favorite character as well. And he's a well-done identical twin! As an identical twin, that NEVER happens! Lol.

I said in my review that Andrew is the heart of the series, and he is. So my favorite part of his character is the slow peeling away of the onion-like layering that covers his character, and we see that at his core Andrew is a bleeding heart, not a monster and not a violent psychopath.

But much like a traumatized child, he hides that away. See, I actually think that despite the hyperbolized narrative, Andrew's trauma response is very emotionally accurate. Kind of like Ash Lynx's in Banana Fish. The people we want to write off and throw away as psychopaths are often the people actually hurting deeply inside.

Andrew and Aaron (and Nicky)

Andrew commits himself to not opening up. But he still binds himself to Aaron, wherein they agree that they will stick together for college. But then they never make any effort to have a relationship, because if they do, then Andrew would have to be vulnerable and admit he cares deeply about Aaron and killed their mother to protect him.

Essentially Andrew attempts to adopt this philosophy (quote from CS Lewis):

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

Hell is all Andrew thinks he deserves.

But, well, because Andrew can't quite give up on Aaron (or on Nicky), blood leaks out of his casket and draws Kevin, Neil, and the other Foxes in.

Andrew's relationship with Aaron mimics the tropes about twins in a deconstructive light. See, identical twins (speaking as one, again) are seen as one half of a human being. Both twins are dehumanized within the narrative, so Andrew clings to this idea--that he has a more human half in Aaron--and won't let it go. He's determined to protect Aaron, and his determination to protect Aaron and Aaron's future unwittingly ensures Andrew is protecting his own future as well.

The series also addresses the oft-written codependency of twins which is greatly exaggerated in fiction. The Minyards are codependent, but only because they're both fearful of vulnerability. Which is why Nicky Hemmick is such an important member of their trio--he routinely pushes Andrew and Aaron out of their comfort zone, for better and for worse.

See, Nicky basically walks around advertising his vulnerability. If Andrew and Aaron withdraw, Nicky holds out his vulnerabilities and brags about them. It's potentially also a maladaptive coping mechanism based in self-harm, but it's also drawn from his past in having to shut down everything he is and was because of his parents.

But Nicky's loss of his parents and the way he struggles to hold on despite their condemnation of him definitely resonate with Andrew. Again, he agrees to go back to the Hemmick household because he knows it matters to Nicky (and to Neil) despite knowing it will end badly. He knows Nicky has to see it for himself, not just be told it. He can't protect Nicky from that heartache--the heartache he himself experienced with Tilda abandoning him at birth while keeping his brother, and then abusing Aaron.

Someday I'm going to write about Nicky Hemmick and why he's one of the most important characters in the entire story...

Andrew and Neil

Everything about Neil is a lie, but everything about Andrew is twisted to the point of covering up his bleeding heart. The pot doth calleth the kettle black, despite what Andrew likes to think. Like, Andrew, you literally use your twin to trick Neil about your actual identity because he can't trust Neil. Neil likewise can't trust Andrew or anyone with his true identity.

Perhaps it's this similarity that makes them so good for each other. Neil, unlike Kevin, Nicky, or Aaron, challenges Andrew to open up to the others, to the wider world. To the full team, and the funny thing is... he succeeds.

"We're never going to make it to finals if we're a fractured mess. You two are holding us back." ... "If you ask for half the truth, you'll only get half the truth," Neil said. "It's your fault if you don't like the answers I give you, not mine.

Like, I'm not sure if people realize, but Andrew's confession to murdering his mother happens right after this scene, where Neil urged Andrew to start acting like he was a member of the team and also tells him to accept the full truth. Then blood falls and "happy birthday jr" (a parallel again--part of Neil's identity is forcibly revealed through blood, but Andrew's identity comes out via him confessing to shedding blood). Andrew goes on to do exactly what Neil challenged him to.

His confession was Andrew's very Andrew way of opening up to his team: telling them the worst thing he'd ever done to see if they would stay or go.

"She didn't kill herself, Andrew," Aaron said, savage with grief. Andrew flicked him a cool look. "I told her what would happen if she raised her hand again. She had no right to look so surprised." "Oh, Jesus," Matt said. "Did you just—?" Wymack pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled noisily. "Could you at least let us leave the room before you confess?"

Actually it was important that they not leave the room, during the scene or symbolically in the aftermath. They're not okay with it, but they also don't condemn Andrew for it. This enables Andrew to be able to trust the team, at least a little bit.

Andrew and Kevin

Kevin promises Andrew that he can give him a purpose. Just like Andrew, Kevin is kind of purpose-less. Yes, "all for the game" and obsessed with Exy, blah blah blah. Kevin's drinking habits suggest otherwise insofar as his Exy-fills-the-void-just-fine argument goes.

The irony is that Kevin does help introduce Andrew to a purpose, but it's not through Exy. Exy is a means to an end, and that end is love with Neil and a family with the Foxes, even if he's always going to be the grumpy one. And through Andrew and Neil and the Foxes, Kevin sees maybe, just maybe, there's something more than just Exy that gives his life value.

Andrew may not care about Exy itself, but he cares a hell of a lot about the people playing it. Because what Andrew really always wanted was just love.

Andrew and Jean

In the sequel trilogy, we see how Andrew foils Jean. It's not a coincidence Neil hears Jean compare Grayson to Drake, or that Riko helped orchestrate Drake's last assault and many of Jean's assaults. We're supposed to compare these characters.

(Side note: I did appreciate how Andrew immediately demanded to know if Grayson had hurt Neil when he was at Evermore.)

But the way in which Andrew and Jean foil each other isn't just in their abuse. It's primarily in their shared humanity, and the kindness they possess. They both tried to protect their abusers and the bystanders because they believe that firmly in the potential of others. Andrew protects Cass at the cost of going to juvie himself. He protects Aaron at the cost of murdering their mother. He protects Kevin and Neil at the cost of being abused by Proust. Jean still saves Zane's life despite his betrayal. Jean still mourns Riko despite the evil he did to him.

But they afford none of that mercy for themselves. Jean doesn't see himself as a human being, and neither does Andrew. No, what Andrew sees himself as is a monster.

The "Monsters" nickname Andrew bears in a typically Andrew way. He acts like he likes it. I think that the text pretty clearly indicates he hates being called a Monster, and the extra chapter from Bee's POV indicates this as well.

"Monster" is a label Andrew uses to self-harm. Him starting to step away from it in the end via admitting to Aaron he loves Neil (even if he never says the words) and continuing his relationship with Neil shows his own healing. He's the one who comes up with the winning strategy of having Neil revert to defense to cover Riko during the final showdown with the Ravens.

By the end of the series, Andrew is well on his way to having a full and fulfilling life with family, friends, and hobbies like sports. He's loved familialy, romantically, and platonically.

[frokenkeke]

Making of Today Forever

Well, it finally happened. After much toiling I managed to finish Today Forever, the follow-up to last year's Ashes to Ashley. Like last time, I also want to talk a little bit about where it came from. By all means, check out Making of Ashes to Ashley as well for full context if you haven't already, as a lot of the points brought up there still apply to this new comic.

Today Forever continues the day after Ashes to Ashley. It is a story about what happens after your great coming out, when everything is new but life still moves on in its familiar mundanity. Despite the elation of last night, Ashley has trouble fully letting go of the past. The loss of the Ride shirt becomes a symbol for the jarring and complicated emotions of reconstructing yourself. It is a story about the nature of happiness, it is an awkward romance, it is somehow also about the 90s band Ride.

While writing Today Forever I gave extra thought to the idea of sequels, in particular the second installment of a story. You do something once and it is the whole of itself, you do it twice and it's a mirror reflection of contrasts, you do it any more than this and it's simply "another one". I always intended Ashes to Ashley to be an episodic series with self-contained adventures. The original comic may be complete, starting and ending satisfyingly; it doesn't need to continue, but nevertheless I wanted it to. I don't want there to be just one story, or even two stories. I want "another one" to be in the majority. Yet despite how much you iterate on something, the second entry will always be the domain of contrasts; number two reveals what was unique about number one. In the differences and similarities we establish the boundaries and understand how the story will both change and remain familiar from here on out.

With this in mind, Today Forever is intended to be the polar opposite of Ashes to Ashley. I selectively reuse only the parts that are most crucial. We still follow Ashley, she's on tour with her band, she's rediscovering herself through a trans lens, the tone is cute and lighthearted, everything is drawn on paper with an old worn down Bic mechanical pencil and digitally colored with an ugly sponge brush built into Photoshop. However, this time we go somewhere new, with outdoor scenes in broad daylight, everyone is enjoying their leisure, they're all wearing different clothes, some characters are more prominent while others are less, shoegaze remains a crucial central theme but no one ever picks up an instrument. These points both expand what Ashes to Ashley can be while simultaneously reinforcing its core. The audience understands the story more clearly. Heck, the author probably also understands the story more clearly.

These were the first preliminary character sketches I made for Today Forever, including the cover art concept which remained more or less intact until the end. I went for a "first day of summer" motif to signify everyone being on their day off. I can't remember why, but it's explicitly written in the script that Gabriel and Miki change outfits somewhere after the breakfast scene. This was probably not that necessary, but it is admittedly funny that Miki puts on her Lush T-shirt (featuring the lemon from the Split album cover!) while Ashley is mourning the Ride shirt. Is Miki teasing Ashley?!

It should be noted that the script and story didn't arrive fully formed in my head! Today Forever went through some pretty drastic revisions, and I kept changing around elements until the very end. Above is the beginning of the first draft, you can see how parts were both cut and reshuffled, while a few remain unchanged. In the first version of the story Ashley actually spent the entire day moping in the van. The intent was to focus on her dynamic with Kate, as Kate was the least featured character in the previous story. To reinforce this, I wrote the rest of the cast out of the plot by sending them off to an amusement park. It was a scattered mess of ideas, quite miserable. I felt lost with the whole thing until my girlfriend Alicia took one look at the draft and asked a simple but crucial question; Why doesn't Ashley go to the amusement park? This practically saved the entire comic, giving me a fun central theme to work with. The ideas wrote themselves, the tone got lighter, the initial story became a bookend for the gang running off to the fireworks factory.

Here are the initial panel layouts for the "final" script. Somehow 32 pages became 37.

Today Forever commits the fatal writing cliché of starting with the protagonist waking up in their bed. This was to immediately connect it with the ending of Ashes to Ashley, to the degree where Ashley is wearing the exact same getup, complete with smudged makeup and loose tights. Rules are made to be broken!

The band's van is bigger on the inside for the sheer writing convenience of having a spacious motorhome. This was inspired by the comic Tank Girl where a throw-away panel blurb states that "the tank is bigger on the inside like the TARDIS". No more explanations necessary.

Debbie getting awkwardly up-close and casual with half-naked Ashley is one of my favorite gags. It's goofy while also suggesting a lot about the characters. I like that Ashley feels comfortable enough with her friends to wear nothing but underwear in front of them.

Floppy Park was initially named Playland as one of several Ride references, subtly alluding to the 1990 Play EP. I ended up changing this because it sounded like a playpen for toddlers.

The panel where Ashley is admiring herself in the mirror is another one of my favorites. She has so much self-love! Also, her face looks funny when pressed on a flat circle.

I was worried about having sufficient space for the breakfast scene, but luckily I fit it all on one page without too many compromises. My biggest dilemma was having choose how Ashley would respond to her day off; either with a puzzled "Hmm...? Free day?" or an understated "Wow". Both felt in line with her personality, but there was only room for one. Looking at it now I'm still conflicted on which to choose. The wow line is still funny to me.

Debbie truly is the ultimate romantic foil to Ashley. While Ashley is painfully clueless and uncharacteristically slow for a bunny, Debbie is kind to a fault, accepting the smallest suggestion with full sincerity. Debbie assumes Ashley understands everything about the situation, Ashley doesn't even parse that there is a situation. Ashley's cluelessness is based on myself, I suspect I unwittingly live every moment like Ashley.

Drawing angry Ashley was heaps of fun. I played around with doodling a full-on "aaugh!" Peanuts pastiche, which evolved into other monstrosities like the Ashley blob and the big eyed Ashley I used to represent myself in the Transparency Aquanaut's Holiday video.

Having the cast argue about the number one shoegaze band was among the most crucial pages to me, remaining intact from the very first draft. I'm just really into shoegaze and have no other outlets for this! I get excited whenever someone tells me they actually sat down and listened to one of the mentioned bands. They're all important to me.

I absolutely love the panel of overly melodramatic Ashley sitting in front of the stereo blasting Seagull (she didn't even pick a sad Ride song, she just literally put on the Nowhere album!). Her graceful theatrical display of sorrow contrasts the scene towards the end where she cries for real. Happiness is one of the core themes of Today Forever. Ashley encounters it as a conflict. She declares today the best day and the worst day with equal hyperbole as she flip-flops between emotions. Sadness is a comfort, sometimes sadness is easier, eventually happiness makes her sad, happiness seems forbidden, yet happiness doesn't declare its presence. In the end happiness always finds her again.

Every now and then I needed to do some warm-up sketches, usually after a longer absence from drawing. At some point I drew old pre-transition Ash again out of curiosity.

The scenes at Floppy Park take direct inspiration from my own amusement park memories. In particular, the setting is based on Gröna lund, the local amusement park in Stockholm where I live and grew up. Just like in the comic, their fun house Lustiga huset is accessed through a cumbersome staircase, has a zigzag hallway and ends in a carpet ride slide. Conversely, the hall of mirrors is in a separate building, and there's no Escher Relatively room.

Like with the fun house, the ghost train is inspired by Blå tåget at Gröna lund, a ride where you sit in blue carts while ghastly horrors jump out at you. I went through a bunch of different ideas for the monster that spooks Debbie so much she exists the comic panel, but ultimately a simple jaw creature with dark shading did the job. The burning scarecrows are of course a reference to the Sonic Youth album Bad Moon Rising.

In hindsight, I probably should've cut the claw game scene for brevity, since it's similar enough to the shooting gallery. If I could revise it I would have Ashley fail the game, for contrast and drama. But whatever, I'll let her have this one. Several of the plushies in the claw machine are old comic characters of mine, they live on as commodified kitsch in Ashley's world.

Returning to the rest of the gang in the Ferris wheel for a crucial shipping report and some cocky evil Ashley's on top. Ashley gets a power boost whenever her femininity is verbally reaffirmed, like when Um Jammer Lammy hears "dojo, casino, it's all in the mind".

The rollercoaster is the big climactic payoff to the amusement park setting. The moment Ashley says "ugh... rollercoasters..." we know she'll inevitably end up riding one! The name Grasshopper is taken from the Ride track of the same name, it's a lengthy instrumental piece which features screams that sound like people riding a rollercoaster, the choice was clear from the beginning. Drawing terrified Ashley was a blast, Ashley's soul slipping from her dead body in sheer terror is an obscenely exaggerated visual. I did not use it because it posed too many theological questions.

The shooting gallery scene was conceived by Alicia, she loved the idea of Debbie posing with a gun. It gave Debbie some depth and a slightly rustic lean. Somehow I find Debbie's marksman skills more believable than Ashley's claw game luck.

As Ashley states, the shark plush is a reference to the cover of Ride's Today Forever EP, which is where this comic got its name. However, it is obviously also modeled after IKEA's stuffed toy Blåhaj, whose blue-pink-white color scheme made it a trans icon.

Ashley and Debbie sit down at the end to emphasize the emotional core of the story. Ashley is peculiar, but in a special way. Ashley finally thanks Debbie for what we can presume are years of patient kindness. They have the perfect romantic moment, yet are both too shy to bring it any further. Theirs is not a "will they-won't they" relationship, it's a "please just do it now god damnit" relationship.

The two pages where Ashley cries and the rest of the gang shows up were late additions to the comic. I felt a lack of emotional punch and a too abrupt cut to the next scene where everyone is walking back home. As the sort of "day after" story this is, Ashley is expressing the feelings I felt shortly after I began my transitioning. Just sheer shock at the realization of how sad I had been for my entire life. Like someone flipped a switch to turn on the lights. That the darkness was so overwhelming I hadn't ever noticed it.

In case the young folks were wondering, Kate is working with screenprinting here. A technique in which one covers a mounted net with a special coating that can be manipulated by burning a monotone motif onto it. Essentially you convert a picture into a shadow that preserves the holes in the net. Stroke a batch of paint across the net and you've got a print!

I had immense troubles drawing the ending scene. For whatever reason I had crammed it onto one page in the script, giving it no breathing room and an abrupt ending. Eventually I just spread it out across two pages to spare me continued pain. I'm not quite sure what "makeshift karaoke" entails, but I imagine the reader will come up with their own funny conclusion.

The last two pages to be drawn were the ones where the gang arrive at the park and Kate's phone conversation with Floyd. These were primarily shoehorned in to make every double page spread satisfying and cohesive. They were seeds of ideas that had been cut because they weren't fully necessary, however they ultimately contribute some last minute additions to the story. The park getting a big establishing panel creates breathing room among pages that are otherwise quite cramped, I also get to elaborate Ashley and Rachel's buddy dynamic. In the same vein, Kate yelling at Floyd was important for her redemption, to truly show that she DOES care and will stand up for her convictions.

While I had a clear concept for the cover from day one, I ended up having a lot of troubles with the finer details. Like how the first comic's cover paraphrases Loveless, I wanted Today Forever to paraphrase the early Ride covers for the Ride EP, Play EP and Smile compilation, which feature framed monochrome beds of flowers. Ashley and Debbie were supposed to be superimposed on top of this, but I wasn't fully in the clear on what they would do, how they would pose, what expressions they would wear. I ended up drawing a bunch of different ideas until I ended on the double blushed side-eyes.

On top of a cover, I also wanted a quick recap of the previous comic, as it had almost been a full year since I made it. I ended up with pulpy mugshots of the cast, taking inspiration from the recap pages in the Dragon Ball manga volumes I read as a kid. The mugshot of Ashley accidentally lacks her ear fluff, oops!

I am glad people enjoy Today Forever as much as Ashes to Ashley. I am still partial to the first one. I do have my problems with the new comic. There are parts that didn't quite come together like I had wanted, it's probably a bit too long, I feel the tone may be too juvenile at points. Mostly I felt frustrated going from one month to make the first story to an entire year for the second one. The last comic is strategically set in vaguely defined void rooms while this one keeps having to establish new locations and props. There are more panels of all the characters hanging out together. There was simply more to draw and less time to do it. Somewhere along the way I got lost in being more careful and meticulous about the clean-up and coloring as well. However, it doesn't matter now that it's all out, from here on out it's in your hands either way.

I will have to think over what I learned from Today Forever and keep that in mind while working on the third comic. Hopefully I can balance it all out. Maybe next time I figure out how long Rachel's ears are supposed to be!

/Kiki

[phoenixfire-thewizardgoddess]

Headcanon - Purgatory AU

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Actually super proud of this one, it was a very specific scenario I played over and over in my head and elaborated on over time. Much like the angelic EMP story, it's the one I'm most excited to write. Because it's a dystopian nightmare, and hope to write it one day when my creativity returns from the war.

The set up is a bit long but I was building the scene for future me, who might have forgotten where I was going with this.

--------------

Alastor climbed out of purgatory on the same frequency he uses to disassemble his enemies; something known only to himself and crossed across the three realms so none but another technologically capable demon might be able to reconvene his banished botherers.

Albeit, this discovery was made with a slight push from her majesty Lilith - though she hadn’t realised at the time. 

He died in 1929 but arrived in hell in 1933. He fudged the timeline a bit for anyone who prods into his infamous ‘well-known’ background.

True, though, rare are the sinners who remain from that time period unless they are powerful or canny, to dispute his claims. Indeed, many assumed he was here long before that time, amassing souls and power to take down overlords. Few really assumed he fell into hell and began tearing powerful demons apart. 

Where he had been in the interim still burned at the core of his soul, and tinged his nightmares with ashen terror if his powers were too depleted to fight them. To bind them away in a corner of his mind to allow true rest.

Purgatory. Such an ominous name for somewhere so vile and twisted. Hell itself was not even close to the cruelty of the Void.

It was a realm without true colour; literal shades of grey, black, and a lifeless off-white that drained the will to live and hid terrors beyond comprehension.

And even now, even with everything Lillith and her angelic sympathisers tried, Alastor’s still not sure how much of Him really came back. There are pieces that faded away there and other bits blurred into compete obscurity, to save his sanity. Not to mention how it messed with his senses; running into so many colours, sounds, sensations, after a desolate place of mist and shadows had been almost physically agonising.

 

Screams and wisps and things in the murk. No society, no safety, intangible... the fate of those who fell between the different realms. Phantom screams and moans echoed on the silent winds, their touch was volatile and a sensation you came to crave in a world where touch was impossible. 

The people there… the Forgotten. Some laid down in despair and died, again and again and again and again. Offering no resistance as their minds fade. The mist carried fragments of sinners swirling on the breeze, the only way to touch one another… and yet, others also threw themselves into the maws of the Guardians, just to feel something once more.

The horror of being there... the endless years of shredding into nothing and fighting to keep your mind and body intact every waking moment, of hearing nothing but the phantom echoes of people long torn apart and your own voice (until it faded into raspy nothingness from lack of use), of staring at placid grey lakes and wondering if it was worth it to keep trying, of endless days hiding from and evading (or indeed fighting) the beasts that lurked in plain sight and ended the Forgotten in their jaws relentlessly. 

The Guardians, all similar, all different. Things of immense proportions, fortified skin like a rhino and twice as deadly with protruding barbs in odd places, some came equipped with many mouths of violent teeth, their hunting calls echoed through you in a manner beyond sound… it rattled the bones.

Some were winged, others quadrupedal, others lurked in the waters. All hungry, all looking to silence any aberrations in their realm. All sensing with beady eyes or sharpened scent tracking or echolocation that made the skin tingle even as you realised it was too late to hide.

Some with tendrils that tapped the ground before them, and others that used their howls to mark you as prey with white sigils that wouldn't come off no matter how much skin you carved away.

You could never see them coming, just run, just hide if possible, playing dead would get you naught but devoured faster. Only to return to the cycle again and again in endless madness.

They were the ground, the sky, the rocks and shadows. They hid in the blinding stark white, and the deepest pitch of black. Your powers were muted here, terrifying and near powerless.

How could a neutral place be allowed such carnage? When Alastor had fallen in, he had assumed it to be Hell… for there was no orientation, no signage or brochure to share the details. But it did not quite match up. 

Later, he would discover that this was a realm untethered by time or space, as sinners from years before and years ahead would fall in at random.  And then, there was Niffty. 

This place was populated by the Unwanted, the Unjudgeable, the Forgotten souls who had either just Missed the threshold of heaven, but did not quite meet the criteria for Hell.

The only amusement Alastor ever managed was the occasional confused religious official who coalesced into a screaming greyed out version of their human form, looking bewildered and clearly calling out for angelic aide that would not come.

The Forgotten remained in their humanoid forms, most crumbling away after cycles of death and reawakening. Why bother to create unique forms for those about to die? But, for the longer-serving Forgotten, they changed over time… each day conquered seemed to tally up somewhere. Their forms enlarging or shrinking, fingertips falling into claws, or faces restructuring, little and almost imperceptible at first but undeniable as time wore on.

You could tell who had lived here long by the changes upon them. 

Those who laid on the ground awaiting endless death, though, they remained unchanged and slowly were trampled into nothingness. To become more of the landscape, the dust that clung to your hair, your clothes, your eyes and coated the inside of your mouth…

Hunger was always. Food was… there, but it did nothing. It satiated the urge for a moment and the hunger returned twofold. It was a cruel little trap.

But the powers, what little began to manifest as you changed or fell in with, strengthened with every day you survived.

Underworld type vibes. Those who lived more than a few days were either fortunate enough to have new minor powers that kept them safe, were lucky, or simply stayed at the side of another who was more experienced.

Partnerships rarely worked out. Another cruelty was that you were intangible to others, meaning no comfort, no ability to hurt one another, no shared warmth, no holding the others as they died, no ability to snag them from the brink of peril. Nothingness.

To see and feel nothing was vile in ways that were impossible to articulate fully.

Their voices are snatched on the winds and the sight of them is somewhat blurred. How else would this place make one feel so… alone, even if in a group? All a game by some sadistic fucking being who thought that those who dared blur the good/bad dichotomy deserved sufferance. 

How Alastor had fallen here was beyond his knowledge. After all, he initially assumed this was hell [a normal and anticipated punishment for his crimes]. But something always felt Off.

When he did eventually find Hell, the real one, it left him confused about his misassignment… had the fact he murdered people worse than himself tipped the scales? Was that what happened? 

When he had made it to Hell, touch became absolutely overwhelming and made him nauseous. Sounds were hard to blot out when one had the sensitive hearing of a deer acclimated to trying to snatch the tiniest displacement of silent wind as a leviathan made of teeth and endless torment trudged towards you across a plain of endless grey void.

And the colours! Never had he been so pleased to see colour again!

Why, as soon as he saw the red sky, his favoured colour from life, Alastor said he would wear nought but that shade for the rest of time… 

And Niffty… she was desperate to touch, to reaffirm where she was. The Cleaning? Dust, any amount of grime would trigger her need to remove it, the paranoia that they might go back, that the void had located them and would take her and Al and all their lovely friends was too much for her.

There were alliances in the void, communicated in silent gestures and over exaggerated words, so that others might read their lips. anguage had been an initial barrier until the pair settled on full english.

[None lived, or stayed strong enough mentally, to keep going for long when alone. Alastor fell to purgatory bc he did kill but it was specific people worse than him. It was defs strange and unexpected to fall there but if he got in surely he could get out. That was a spark of defiant hope he clung to.]

The one little thing keeping him sane was the ability to play music in his head.

Then there was Niffty. She was half mad by the time the pair met; but they made a game of communicating through bizarre gestures, some of her stories seemed rather… concerning, especially the mimed whatever it had been involving her doing a somersault as she punched her elbow and then broke out into a ballroom dance routine while biting at the air. Not clear. He never asked for clarification. 

Hell had many things to recommend it.

And now they could touch, Niffty took great liberties, possessive of Al in her own way; because the others could never understand how deeply distressing it was to lack the sensation of another. Platonically, of course. Even something as simple as sitting next to a person you felt some connection to and having your body heat radiate between you was a sweet, precious gift for someone who had been in Purgatory. 

He breaks out (of purgatory) when something in his head clicks into a new channel, his powers growing stronger as his antlers grew in, acting like antennae.

Heaven was looking down into purgatory, doing their bi-centennial fluff and fold of the dimension and Lillith was being forced to do it as part of adam's revenge at her. Adam HATED the chore, found it ‘grody and nasty, man’.

Her signal is different in an indefinable way... Real somehow. And he follows it, mentally, wrapping the intangible wavelength around himself and niffty's intangible form with something beyond touch, until he felt them slide into the radiowaves. Chasing through the portal as it shut, but in freefall as he caught Hell's frequency, to pull them free. 

They fall, as any sinner might, Niffty shuddering in his arms, suddenly real and blinded by the colours once more. Alastor felt sick from the sudden touch, from the bright lights and bustling everything, from the scents and sounds. Like being in a neverending explosion after such silence.

They crash into Rosie's emporium, stunned, sharp teeth marking them as hers. She takes one look and recognises something is up, these were not stunned sinners, these were fragmented souls. She cares for them first out of curiosity and duty as the Cannibal overlord… and then, simply, because they endeared themselves to her strongly enough that they became friends. 

Rosie helps them work out their powers.

In time, Alastor realises he's a Dealmaker. Niffty immediately hands him her soul for safekeeping, and to tether them together. 

Lillith reaches out to Alastor amused to realise the buzzing she felt in purgatory was now emanating from hell.  A deal is proffered. For a small tendril of her power, her song, to muffle the memories of purgatory that kept them awake and dissociating at night, Alastor agrees because niffty definitely needed it. All she asked in return was that he take on a supportive role for her daughter, Charlotte. 

Care for her as viciously as he had Niffty. She saw potential. She leaves him a cryptic clue about his own signal, which he works out can fragment sinners across the airwaves and immediately goes after rival overlords.

The first one was a fluke, some crass serpent-based Overlord who had dared to be rude to Rosie... and the second was what appeared to be a green flamingo with a gun that was trying to subdue a young woman [that would turn out to be one of Carmilla's lovely daughters]. 

Endearing him to the weapons dealer and Zestial, especially when he refuses to claim her soul afterwards.

"Pish tosh, i was merely aiming for the arrogant fool and accidentally helped your lovely daughter in the process. Perhaps a different weapon would be best, something you can conceal until you need it?" He suggests. Noting that the scientific young woman seems uneasy with the unwieldy spear in her possession. Her hands were small and deft, perhaps a pair of well-crafted daggers could suit her?

When carmilla and zestial meet niffty, alastor's response makes more sense. And if zestial stepped in to help the little woman when some thugs tried to snatch her a few years later, well it was only fair. Alastor offered him some of his power in thanks, making the ancient one laugh and bounce some of his own back. 

“For mine childe, i returneth thine thanks.” Zestial had smiled, his ancient eyes seemed to suggest he had an inkling of why Alastor and Niffty were… as they were. Perhaps he’d heard tell in his many centuries in this Realm. Carmilla also provides a tendril of her power as Alastor reciprocates.

It was not… unheard of for powerful overlords to share power as a token of great favour, usually through carefully crafted deals, but if someone had given them something beyond price, it was the sincerest means of thanks and trust. It was also a good way to hold yourself in their regard. 

Alastor threaded his power to them each, anyway, and Rosie too, naturally. A miniscule tether for them, an assurance they were not overlords on his list, in his own way. 

These tendrils held him in the here and now, and in turn through their deal, kept Niffty grounded as well. A thread of lillith, of rosie, of zestial and carmilla  - all accrue in him, winding about the threads of grey he feels tentatively clinging to his very core. 

Alastor follows Charlie from time to time on outings, and takes care of minor threats even her Thats A Whole Ass Angel gf misses. So naive about the perils of a realm made for death and destruction, really, the girl was likely to be impaled by a sinister mailman at this point…

Then there was Vox, who wanted too much too fast, who gave power and tore it back when he did not get what he wanted. A friendship that might have been more, was on the precipice, if either were stable, and now their connection was naught but a small buzz between them. A crackle of blue in alastor, occasionally seeping down the chain into niffty. Miniscule unlike the other tendrils, but there. Covering the grey threads that clung to their souls.

The grey that was consuming them slowly, though they did not, and could not, know such a thing. And what would they do if it came to light? No one could help, right?

Then, Lillith asked them to come to her, hiding them in heaven. Using her muted healing song to rebuild them and repress the grey. An archangel could fix this, but Heaven would shove them back in the purgatory realm  the minute their escape was known. 

And lucifer was wracked with depression in his palace. Maybe charlotte had inherited something?

Return after 7 yrs and separated. Niffty with Rosie, who adores the little maid. Alastor waits for his time, and then the interview with Katie Killjoy goes wildly awry in the most fantastical of ways. He knocks on the door, and it begins.

Now here they, are two months post early extermination, his wound angrily fighting the mixed mess of his soul, when something happens that should not be possible.

A crack, a rift, a fissure in reality has split above pentagram city and something came through. Not of Earth, not of Heaven. 

A great hulking thing in shades of grey and mist is making the ground shake, it storms towards the hotel in mindless purpose as it seeks out the Missing. Had it escaped, or been released once a breach was known?

For a split second, Niffty drops her duster, eye going out of focus as she stares out the window. “S-Sir…?”

Alastor's own mental eye flashes up past encounters, deadly hunts they had barely scraped through. He fights to keep his ears upright. Heart thundering...

And then the rage hits. The anger and fear and desperate need to remove the aberration fill him to the brim, and the radios go haywire as he strides outside to deal with the issue. 

With a snap, Niffty is armed with two needles as big as her own arms, and out the front door faster than light. 

Alastor shoves the others inside with his tendrils. Not taking his eyes off the Thing as he advised, “Do not touch it, it will dissolve your flesh should you try, and it will unmake you. Charlotte, you should..." the words felt tainted. "Call your father."

“What? You know what this is? Alastor?”

Multiphasic, to attack multiple Forgotten at once who all existed out of phase with one another.

He ignores them, slamming the doors shut and running at it, jumping with the aid of his tendrils to get astride the beast’s head. The many maws couldn't reach you there and the trick was to try strangling it out with the tendrils or stabbing through the primary eyes. 

As Niffty was batted aside, Alastor let himself expand, ignoring the ache as his skin burned on contact, trying to fragment away while he pinned the creature.

It lashed at him, raking at what it could reach with the tendrils, with its sharp teeth and skin. 

Stand still too long and your skin burned away in agonising dust particles. Razor sharp claws whipped past and gouged at him as he used a shield to pin it down. A discharge of radiostatic to short out the voyeur drones as they served no purpose.

Niffty returns with a vengeance and tunnels through an eye to get at the core, the only weakness they’d ever found, and lets Alastor help her tear it apart. The creature making a Not Howl of agony as it collapsed in on itself, and only Alastor’s ability to teleport through shadows stopped the insides of the behemoth from crushing them both.

Skin burning, bloody messes that emerge into the waning afternoonlight as the beast falls. Shadows holding it fast just in case, even as they sizzled. The grass about the thing began to die form the taint of it all.

That strategy had only worked once before when they'd been desperate enough to try it. In the past, distraction, misdirection, forcing one beast into the path of another until they fought had been their tactic. Attempts to kill often resulted in them being devoured or torn apart.

How long they remained fragmented was anyone’s guess, but when they again awoke, there would always be another beast to avoid.

A furious Charlotte bursts outside in demonic form, circumventing the shadows at the doors, and pulls up short in horror. She quickly identifies that they need to get the grey whatever it was off both of them as Niffty collapses into a trembling heap on the porch. 

Niffty screams as someone touches her, their helping hands jerking back. Stuck in her head and certain that the touch was the beast. Gurgling and shuddering in horror at a pain that she didn’t like, and a sense of fear she rarely felt because nothing in Hell had compared to Purgatory so far.

Alastor pulls at his green energy and snakes a tendril to her, settling her with the familiar non-touch enough that her abject horror subsides to more manageable levels.

“Don’t touch her!” He snarls, warning the others back, forcing them back with his shadow. He's fighting down the instinctual panic now the threat is gone, but his protective urge is going wild. Keep niffty safe, keep the others from hurting themselves by touching them.

“Please, you can trust us. Let us help her, help you…” charlie begs.

“You cannot touch us or you will be harmed as well.”

Lucifer bursts onto the scene all wings ablaze, a long-hidden blade drawn and cold eyes that survey the scene with mounting horror. Frantically checking if Charlie is okay, first and foremost.

His eyes are sharp as they snap to niffty, to alastor.  He darts forwards suddenly, to grab the sinners chin, and Alastor jerks back out of reach with a furious almost borderline panicked expression in his eyes. So at odds with his smile.

[explain the smile was set so no one can get a read on them, no one can know what happened. They discount niffty as mad anyway, etc. hide in plain sight]

The sword disappears as the king dissipates the Shadow, and grabs Al by the front of his shirt; placing the other hand against the static laden skin, ignoring the scowl he received, and the admonishments from the hotel guests behind him about not touching the guy, as the King’s eyes go Red to truly See. (explain better)

"I should have known. You shouldn't have been able to do that unless you've been there... how did I not See this before?" He mutters and flexes his wings, dispelling the grey from both sinners’ skin. His power pulses out, gently repairing what was burned, bleeding, bruised, or broken etc. 

"How did you get out? How did you get Her out with you?! It was made to contain anything less than a seraphim..." 

Alastor found his ability to speak was subsumed by the sudden burst of pain in his chest as lucifers power encountered Adams last little insult.

"Dad, let him go, he doesn't like being touched!"

"Oh I don't doubt it... I've been there a few times to do the Check In when Heaven’s feeling lazy, and let me tell you honey, it takes weeks to get over the desire to peel your skin off at anything tangible brushing against it. Lotta seraphim went full celestial form to avoid contact... and it fucks with your head. How are you...?"

"Dad, can you let him go and talk to me about what that is?"

"...one sec, char-char. Let's get these two sorted before they trickle back to their worst nightmare." With a snap of his fingers, Niffty stopped shuddering and sighed. Alastor's eyes rolled back and he crumpled, easily caught by the king as charlie shouted.

"No one go near that thing, it shouldn't be here and i'll need to talk to heaven about it. It’s-... this is bad, Char-Char. Real bad."

"Please tell me what's going on, dad, I'm freaking out here."

Vaggie had a thousand yard stare as she turned it on Niffty, and slowly, Alastor, before staring at the king.

"That's from Purgatory, isnt it, Sir?" She audibly swallowed. 

"Purga-what?" Angel interjects, confused.

"Purgatory, between hell and heaven for those who didn't make the threshold for either realm."

"No i got that, but... its reaĺ? How has no one here found out?" 

"No one outside certain members of heaven, lucifer and lillith know about it. Mortal souls can't escape once there, nor can they choose to enter it. That's one of the Guardians… or as we called them, the Devourers." Vaggie rasped out. Adding "Adam couldn't keep secrets around his girls, the man straight up shared classified shit on movie night just to sound important and see who wanted to bang him that evening."

Sounds about right.

"Hey can we get inside now? If Vox or one of the other overlords sees Boss like that, they'll be here in a heartbeat to kill him." Husk adds, gently lifting Niffty as Angel smoothes her hair down.

Inside transition, move to the staff only area in a side room. 

"Purgatory is supposed to be sealed shut, they check once a century. Huh, maybe that's how the bastard got them out..."

Notes that their souls are fragmented, a patchwork of different energies at play. The chains of his deals tether Alastor (and Niffty) to the realm of Hell efficiently, almost too well in some cases. But it had smothered their tracks in Hell. 

Heals them, including removing adams grace. Lucifer reaches out to heaven who panics and sends emily to help dissolve the creature, lillith as her guide.

Angst.

“Your soul is covered in the threads of it. Was that why you antagonised me straight up so i wouldn't look too closely?” Lucifer asks.

Maybe they do a thing where the others ask what purgatory is like, and Alastor offers to show them using his reality-bending thing. First he looks to Niffty, “Niffty dear, if at any time it gets too much, stab me and I will drop the illusion, okay?”

“Ooooor we could use a safeword?” Charlie suggests, horrified.

“You will see why that is not effective in a moment, Charlotte. Brace yourselves.” 

The sudden vacuum of everything is disconcerting, everything grey and intangible, a nightmare of half there forms and people they couldn’t hear. Hands that reached and didn’t touch. For realism, a Guardian swoops overhead and another rises from beneath Husker and Angel Dust’s feet, Alastor meant to stop it there, but the sudden loss of his own radio signals that tethered him to reality caught him off-guard.

Lucifer, snatching up Niffty who was about to stab Alastor, snaps the illusion away. 

Leaving traumatised hotel staff and guest reaching out for the nearest body to hold onto.

Niffty clung to the King, pupil pinprick with some deep emotion. 

Alastor blinks back to reality as his signal reconnects, feeling far more… Here… than before.

“Apologies, that went further than intended. As you can understand, most assume they went to hell when they arrive. Or I assume they do based on the silent screaming and prayer positions many assume… can’t ask, and there’s no writing utensils!” he laughed.

Charlie was throwing up in a potplant.

Vaggie was holding her hair.

Husk was being squeezed by four trembling arms as Angel Dust did the mindfulness breathing exercises from a few weeks back. 

“What the FUCK was that?” the spider eventually adds, choking on the words. “And people just… get stuck there, cause they ain’t too good or aint too bad to go either way?”

“The Forgotten. Yes.” Lucifer answers. “Lillith and I did bargain with Heaven over maybe taking them in just in case a few thousand years back, but, heh, Heaven won’t fucking listen!” he grinned, anger radiating off his smile. “Purgatory is a land of nightmares when it should be neutral. This was Heaven’s idea of a merciful way to get the over population down. Make the Forgotten want to end, to lay down and accept… which lets the realm slowly erode everything they were and are.”

“...indeed.” 

Beast tracked them to the hotel threads of purgatory on them. There's a breach from the escape. Have to send them back.

Niffty asks to be killed instead.

Lillith's deal is brought up. 

The scandal rocks the overlords, zestial had heard rumours but the rest... vox's spydrone catches info. And he uses it in the next meeting. 

Carmilla offers the only help she can, a small angelic dagger for the sinners to carry as they are forced back into purgatory by Heaven as a means of sealing the breach. 

Charlie points out that this was wrong, they fought for the right to at least be in hell. Breach sealed after them.

But even if it mutes powers they're stronger than before and full of shared power ties to hell. Alastor fractures Purgatory completely in his anger at watching Niffty and the others there suffer. This time, he's bringing everyone with them. 

This time he knows how to locate and latch onto the wavelengths of every person there. How to use the very realm itself as an amplifier to break itself into a thousand shards. Well, he also had another little failsafe.

Lucky he held onto a thread of lucifer and adam's power. The bindings forced the realm to accept an archangel's commands as he collapses it. Thousands begin to fall from the sky above Pride, the beasts destroyed with the realm as Alastor’s wrath flattens them.

Exorcists are sent to catch them and help sort the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. The good enough moved to heaven, others land in hell and stay there. 

Niffty and Alastor fall at the hotel, vaggie and husk grab them.  They won't wake.

More angst, dimmed grey threads on their minds and souls pushed away with small tendrils of others powers. Expended their energy breaking Purgatory, may never wake up… Lucifer turns to the Sins for ideas as Heaven blames Hell for this issue.

Emily is asked to intervene with Charlie, and they point out that more than a few of those souls were one step from redeemed, so why not let them fall to hell where she could work through their failings with them at the hotel?

Eventually get a ‘Fine.” and purgatory is shut down. Anyone not fully for heaven/hell lands in the grounds of the hotel… there’s a bell now.

At least once, the hotel crew have to force an overlord or wannabe off the property to stop them trying to kill Alastor while he’s down, and lucifer tries to heal the sinners with support from at least three of the sins. Siphoned energy.

They use Alastor and Niffty as a test case to see how they can vanquish the grey threads on their souls, and when they find the right combination, a cure is found. 

Spread to other sinners etc.

[a-student-out-of-time]

// Y’know, Until TA had her phobia trauma breakdown during the stream (I am very concerned about her well being—please be okay) I never once thought about the fate of the bodies of the deceased students in Danganronpa (the game ends when the surviving students escape)

In canon,

It’s implied that Makoto and/or Future Foundation will eventually go back for the others left behind in the Bio Lab cold lockers —if Makoto wants to rebuild Hope’s Peak, better than before, he *has* to go back there (the building and the power was left intact when the survivors escaped, so the bodies should be preserved as they last left them)

In the Jabberwock game—it was all virtual reality, so the bodies presumably just disappeared (until that glitch scene—which hinted their friends data wasn’t entirely gone yet) and the real bodies were in pods in a comatose state (they get revived later)

In V3, has a very open-ended type of ending—what was real? what was a lie? could everything have been a simulation? (Many fans have debated about that…)

The topic of actually *mourning* and *grieving* doesn’t really get touched on in media (no one really talked about Kiyotaka when he passed away in the canon games)

But in Tetro, the dead still very much drive the story and influence the plot

Wada (and many others) talk to the dead with updates on recent events, to vent, to cope with unresolved feelings, to say they are missed (they *mattered*)

((It hurts, but Von Babbitt did an AMAZING job writing Tetro))

//I will say TA's doing alright, thank you for your concern

//And yeah, I think this is one of TDP's core strengths, and something I feel both canon and other fangans don't really touch on as thoroughly. Yes, we do get acknowledgements of death and how tragic it is to lose people, but rarely do we get something that goes in depth on the grieving process as TDP.

//Similarly to what you brought up, I recall a comment I saw once where someone was complaining about the use of things like virtual reality. They felt like nobody was as committed to the idea of a killing game as the first game.

//Furthermore, while these games are still absolutely full of tragedies involving the murders, what those tragedies tend to focus on are the motivations of the killers. Rarely do we get any of the characters full-on grieving for their fallen comrades.

//We've gotten hints of it, like Makoto using the code 11037 and the hallucination in DR3 showing that he has survivor's guilt, but those are fairly small in the grand scheme of things. It's not what the story explicitly focuses on.

//In contrast, TDP is stuffed with scenes of characters mourning and trying to come to terms with the emotions they have toward those they've lost: sadness, guilt, loneliness, personal disappointment, irreconcilable anger, and all of it is hard to manage.

//I think what also really makes it work is that none of these kids are criminal masterminds. Aside from one, the murders in this series range from impulsive and poorly thought out decisions to full on accidents. Yet the people behind it punish them in the most horrifying and brutal ways imaginable. Even the most villainous one was the product of a hostile environment that deprived them of individuality and made them feel the only thing that had meaning was evil and cruelty.

//I was actually talking to TA about why TDP works so well. Why does it feel more emotionally satisfying and engaging, even if it's soul-crushing at times? And I believe I've figured out why.

//See, early on, I largely disagreed with Von Babbitt's philosophy here:

_________________________________________

_________________________________________

//To me, this sort of writing approach has always felt incredibly wasteful, like you're only writing characters for the sake of killing them off and making the audience emotional rather than telling an emotionally satisfying story.

//I do still feel that a character dying before their arc wraps up can be the most disappointing thing in the world.

//But now that we're up to Chapter 5, I've softened on this view quite a bit, at least for TDP. And that's because Von Babbitt actually understands the difference between a meaningless shock death and a meaningful one.

//In my experience, when writers fixate on making character deaths as shocking and horrifying as possible above all else, both the story and character development suffers. They don't often consider the long-term ramifications of the death, how it affects others, nor how it impacts audience investment. Especially since shock deaths are often never brought up again and never have any lasting relevance once the shock is gone.

//This applies not just to Danganronpa, but to things like The Walking Dead, Attack on Titan, Game of Thrones, and more superhero storylines than I can name here. I'm sure you can name more.

//But what sets TDP apart is actually that it uses this to its advantage. By not having a single focus character, we get to see everyone's perspective and all their most intimate feelings: their fears, doubts, aspirations, goals, strengths, weaknesses, etc. This gives everyone equal weight within the story.

//And because we get that additional perspective, we in turn have time alongside the characters to mourn everyone's deaths. We see everyone mourns differently and is unsure of how to process their grief, and none of it is ever treated as trivial or unimportant.

//Because TDP is an audio drama, what we also get is a larger focus on character interactions than you'd probably get in a VN-style fangan. You also get less side tangents and tone-deaf jokey bits. TDP still has comedy, but the comedy feels like it comes from a natural place rather than something asinine or inappropriate for the situation.

//This is why I feel TDP works so well. Because our focus is on the characters as a group rather than secondhand through the eyes of a POV protagonist, everyone is given equal importance and their deaths have more weight than they otherwise would have. And the story rightfully treats it that way and explores how the survivors process what's been happening.

//When a story kills off a character and moves on, it's tangentially telling you that character never mattered and you wasted your time by getting invested in them. Stories like TDP force you to confront the fact that these people who you loved and cared about are gone, and now you and the survivors have no choice but to carry on without them.

//Long story short, TDP is really good at what it does. And what it does is punch you in the heart : P

[catsharky]

It looks like her horns are much bugger and more devil like than tiefling naturally. Would her horns grow back to that shape if sue let them, or is it more like docking a tail and permanent? Would she become more comfortable with her original horns being around tieflings more if they could grow back? Why did she trim them initially?

Ehehe I'm glad you caught that, cause yeah you're right her horns are very much meant to be more devil than tiefling!

I figured if a devil is going to screw someone over by giving them a stolen child, why wouldn't they aim to pick one who would bring as much chaos and misery to that person as possible? Ember has no idea who her bio parents are, but she's definitely no ordinary Tiefling.

I put the rest under a read more because it got a bit long:

To try and kind of match the other companions, I wanted her to have the capacity to be incredibly powerful, but limited for game/story reasons. So for Ember, at least one of her parents is someone Powerful and Important in the hells, and that parent is where her sorcery comes from.

It means she's capable of crazy strong magic (like, on par with Gale before he got nerfed strong) but a combination of being self-taught and a lack of motivation means that she's never had a reason to find out what she's actually capable of. She also grew up very isolated, so until she met Gale she was under the impression that magic was just like that for everyone. And tied to all that, one of the most obvious tells that there's something else going on with her is her horns.

I like to think that for most Tieflings, their horns do grow throughout their lives, but hit what's considered 'full sized' by around puberty- at which point the growth slows to a crawl. I also have to assume based on Karlach's broken horn that if the horn breaks? It's gone for good, though they will still maintain that slow growth so long as the core at the base of the horn remains intact.

For Ember however, her horns are just enormous. At age 4 it's expected a Tiefling will have started growing their horns but that they'll still be blunt, nubby things like a baby goat. Ember's were the size they are in the age chart, and continued to grow even larger as she got older.

She likely would have trimmed them no matter what, because not being used to having horns in the first place made dealing with them frustrating, but they're really just unreasonably huge. She trims them down pretty much as far as she comfortably can, the blue tips being where the darker outer layers were cut away.

To her annoyance, they also grow back and do so remarkably fast, which is where the jewelry she has wrapped around them comes from. Those gold embellishments are actually enchanted so they'll stay the size she wants them! (They also keep them from catching on fire when her emotions are high, but that's a whole other thing) So she could actually let them grow back to their full size if she wanted to, she just doesn't because they'd be way too unwieldy and annoying to deal with.

And while I can see some of this stuff becoming relevant after the events of the game, for the duration of BG3's plot this is all just more or less flavour text. The magic stuff is the only part that would have a notable impact.

Also fun fact, this whole part of her backstory is just because I needed an excuse to make her immortal. I didn't have the strength to give Astarion a companion who he'd have to lose in less than 100 years. My heart can't take that 😭 So fuck it, she's the daughter of some big powerful demon or whatever so Astarion can have one nice thing that won't be taken from him!!!

[ben-talks-art]

I have a confession to make... I don't think I like this movie

Before I start I just want to say, I do think this is a good movie. I think the visuals are amazing, it is very creative, has very pleasant lights and colors, the robots all have nice designs, it's paced well, has a lot of good humor despite what the trailers might have alluded to, and overall, as a stand-alone story, it works well for the most part to tell the tale of two friends eventually becoming enemies.

My problems with this movie come from... admittedly a very entitled headcanon-ish mindset of "This isn't how I wanted things to play out."

Kinda like how when you watch Sam Raimi's Spider-Man and you get upset that Peter doesn't tell jokes because that's a part of the character that really appealed to you, this movie feels like it doesn't do the parts of the character of Optimus that appealed to me, or if they do, they don't do it in a way that I wanted.

I grew up with quite a few different versions of Optimus through the years. The ape gorilla one from Beast Wars, the firetruck one from Robots in Disguise, the young one from Animated, and the one with weird feet from the Bayverse.

They all offer their take in Optimus but they all manage to keep the core idea of his appeal intact, that being... He's a boring guy, that just so happens to be THE coolest boring guy ever.

He's someone who is ready to fight and kick ass for the things he believes and giving it his all until his last "breath", but the things he believes in are pretty basic stuff like world peace and things like that. It's like if your school teacher was a superhero, the most boring person you know secretly fighting crime when they have time but still valuing more the importance of teaching and guiding people in need.

To me, what makes Optimus so cool is that despite being this massive killing robot that can turn his arms into blasters, the guy is just a giant dork who loves life.

His sense of duty over protecting others comes from his sense of love for all living beings and for their right to exist. He doesn't see himself above anyone, only above those that try to use their power to cause harm.

He's a pacifist that only fights when he has something to protect, he's a diplomat who always tries to solve things with words and reason first, he's inspiring because he never ceases to believe in the cause he fights for, and he has the leadership skills to back up everything he stands for. The dude is just HIM.

Even down to the name "Optimal", he represents the best of us in the best way possible.

So I was curious to see how he was going to be handled in Transformers One and... He's kinda basic.

My thing with this version, keeping in mind that this is meant to be a young Optimus, is that I don't really see any of the things I admire in him from other versions.

The focus here is more on playing up his "optimism" as Scarlett Johansson says, to show how cool he is because he never gives up, never stops dreaming, never stops fighting for a better future, never thinks he is less than those above him...

And all of that just feels so generic.

It felt like they could not give a damn about trying to show why Optimus loves and wants to protect life and values diplomacy over violence, and instead just tried to turn him into a Disney Princess who "dreams of more" because he was sick of being a miner.

Heck, the first few segments of this movie were showing him being incredibly reckless and putting himself and other people in danger, all of them for pretty much no reason.

He literally grabs his friend and drags him into a race without letting him know and proceeds to jump on top of several racers resulting in many getting injured, and by the time we were done he didn't even seem to care.

I thought this was going to build up to some reality check moment where he needs to grow up from his reckless behavior, but no, if anything, his behavior only leads to good thing after good thing in this movie. He gets praised by his superior, finds a lost message in the trash, uncovers a hidden secret about his people, unlocks the ability to transform and finally becomes a prime.

Optimus in this movie is constantly getting rewarded for being reckless, impulsive, selfish, and for not thinking.

To a point where when he does start acting like Optimus and takes a shot for someone else and nearly dies, I was like, "Oh, yeah... This is meant to be Optimus... Kinda forgot about that."

I just kept watching this movie and going "When is he gonna become Optimus? When is he gonna become Optimus? When is he gonna become Optimus?" and once he did, it didn't feel earned for me.

Again, my problem was that I never got the sense that this guy was someone who valued peace and life. I got the sense that he was impulsive and ready to fight for what he believed, yeah, but I didn't care what he believed in. The stuff he believed in was stuff any generic action main character tends to believe in.

Stuff like "There is something more to life for us out there, that we're all destined for greatness, that if we just believe in ourselves we can accomplish anything, and blah, blah, blah..."

I didn't really get a sense that he believed all life was worth protecting and even sacrificing yourself for.

There was a little bit of that hinted at with a scene with Jazz and the scene where he takes a shot for someone, but I needed more than that. I wanted to see why this dude would lead armies and fight armies just to protect the innocent, but I never really got a sense of connection between him and the innocent.

Like, we get a brief scene where they see a couple of animals and I was hoping he would have a moment going "Look at them... They're beautiful!" but we don't really get that. Or maybe a scene where someone ends up dying on his arms and he decides to devote himself to never let that happen again, but that also never happens. Or perhaps a scene of him talking and hanging out with the other bots, showing them struggling with their lives and giving him some sense of duty of "I need to do something to help them out!", but no, he barely talks to anyone aside from Megatron.

It's frustrating because we have these core four main characters and I kept thinking we would get some great bonding moments to show why Optimus feels it's important to fight for others, but their bonds is really surface-level. I never got the feeling they really knew each other that much.

I was so sad when I heard the speech about how his "Optimism was his greatest quality" because I just know there will be a lot of people coming out of this movie and going "Oh! That's what makes Optimus such a cool character!" and it really wasn't.

I remember in Puss In Boots 2 when they told the backstory of the little dog and we see how sad the two cats got for him.

I believed that emotion, I believed that connection, and I believed that Puss and Kitty would fight to protect him.

I never really believed Optimus truly cared about anyone any more than any generic action main lead would for their extras in a movie.

Transformers One Optimus is not, in my opinion, a good representation of what makes Optimus such an iconic leader, because it failed to convince me that this Optimus was a protector.

They put too much focus on him being an ambitious dreamer, and not enough on him being a hero.

But maybe that's just me. What do you guys think?

[sol-consort]

I ended up having a dream about the Toxic Boyfriend Drell and it ended up with me recklessly* going on a longhaul space job with my best Turian friend as a way to fully detox and get space away from him and ofc I end up dating Turian guy and even end up adopting a turian kid we rescue on the long haul flight. Like deadass me and the Turian guy (whose name was Aclia Domititus) raised this kid from like 6-8 year oldish to 15-16ish all with entolling him in school with packed lunches, helping him with friends, full on domestic nuclear family stuff in this dream before we eventually get back to the Citadel and Drell boyfriend shows up again to corner me in a space superdrug or boots whatever and then my alarm went off

So uh, thanks for the sweet dreams!?

Thank the dream department in your brain for me for coming up with a great second chapter to the story and making my life much easier.

Toxic drell ex pt.2

Part One

Dark content: unhealthy relationship, stalking, addiction, revenge, threats, being held down.

-

You didn't think you'd ever gaze into those dark eyes again, your reflection crystal clear inside the abyss that haunted countless nightmares in years past.

It was only supposed to be a 10-minute run to the markets in the Citadel. You sneaked out of bed early for this, pausing at the bedroom door to steal one last glance at your sleeping husband, Aclia, the turian who sneaked his way into your heart after a decade spent together in the same small ship, going through dangerous spacehaul jobs.

The faint sound of his soft purring as his arm reaches out to your side of the bed, only finding the pillow you've strategically left there, and curling his much larger frame around it, burying his face into it, the remains of your scent lulling him back to sleep.

You were just missing the final ingredient, and objectively, the most important ingredient, to start working on the cake before your child wakes up, you know how embarrassed teens get at the mention of their birthday.

Just as you left the store, at the end of the street, you saw a very familiar looking silhouette.

A drell.

Your sky came crashing down in an instant.

It was him, there was no mistaking it. This specific dark hue of viridian green, the markings atop his temple resembling a crescent moon missing its matching pair.

Black sclera omitting the opaque yellow of his irises, you couldn't tell if he was looking at you or not.

You can't panic.

You need to move, just turn around and go back into the store.

He didn't see you, he couldn't recognise you, you changed, you definitely changed so much in appearance; it's been a decade.

You signed up for that spacehaul job in a moment of desperation, as withdrawal wrangled your lungs, a need to escape him once and for all. You left your phone behind, your clothes, your apartment fully intact. You didn't take a single thing with you on that spaceship partially in fear of any remaining traces of venom... and because of the grim memorise and associations each object held.

So why won't your legs move? Why in this crucial moment is your body betraying you?

His steps slow down, hand hesitantly lifting to reach out. Lips moving as if to speak, you couldn't hear from far away.

He couldn't believe his own eyes, a turmoil of emotions and memories flooding in.

Your heart sank in.

He began moving again, hurried steps.

The adrenaline shot through you like a bullet.

Fight or flight kicking in full force as you ran faster than you've ever run in your life. Vision barely registering where you're going, from one alleyway to another, the need to hide and escape gnawed at your core, for being in the open main street felt like a death sentence.

Eventually, you found yourself in at the front door of your apartment. You wouldn't know how to map the roads you took that led you to get here. You don't remember any of the street sign names you passed by.

But you hear the sound of plates clinking inside, water running, the grumbling of a turian teenager who's doing the dishes. Aclia's light-hearted voice as he replies with a one-liner pun.

Oh, you're finally home.

Your body deflates like a balloon, a deep breath in, followed by a slow exhale as you regain awareness of your surroundings.

Multiple thoughts come to your mind

One, if you don't go lay down in the next five minutes you'll surely faint.

Two, wow the walls of your apartment are really thin.

Three, you're definitely not going to acknowledge what the fuck just happened and whom you came across, just get inside, lay down, have some food and immediately propose the subject of renting a different apartment.

You look down at yourself, your fist still clutching the grocery bag. Bruised knuckles and trembling fingers. A bottle of cake-toppings sprinkles inside, a small label on it spelling "Dextro Safe!"

Things are fine. Things are going to be okay.

You're safe.

You'll go inside, and they would be none the wiser.

One last time, take a deep breath in.

You close your eyes, the air fills your lungs,

And slowly breathe it out.

The air refuses to leave.

Something cold is touching your face.

He's too slow to catch your arms before they move to clutch at the hand covering your mouth. Your nails can't penetrate scales no matter how much you dig into it and attempt to claw it off.

"Stop struggling." he hisses against your ear, the same raspy voice, the sudden jolt in your body at hearing it after so many years.

The insatiable craving you've buried 6 foot down, clawing its way out of the grave.

You didn't meet his eyes. You couldn't stomach it. Even as you felt a wet droplet after another falling against your shoulder, his tears seeping into the fabric of your clothes.

A tremble to his vocal cords, "I just... want to talk"

Your body is screaming at you to close the distance and press back against his chest—"Why won't you look at me?!" his other clinging to front of your shirt, desperately searching for a specific tell-sign in your heartbeat, something all humans lack—to open your mouth and take his fingers inside like you did so many times before, do you remember how sweet they tasted?

You cannot. You have a son.

You can't.

He's crying, you're the one being muffled like a frenzied varren, and he's the one crying.

Your lips part on their own under his hand—"how could you leave? How could you disappear like that?" he speaks, breaking down, you forcefully tore part of his soul, the agonising pain, the numbing loneliness, the things he went through just to heal and then you have the audacity to show up in front of him out of the blue and attempt to flee? To slip through his fingers again? are so heartless as to—you attempt to close them to no avail. Your brain is locking you out of your body functions, the humiliating feeling of helplessness only serving to further increase the hunger you feel for power, for a purpose, for a single taste of his skin.

Aclia.

The nights he held you close as withdrawal churned your insides, forgiving your outbursts, meeting your harshness with kindness.

You won't.

You refuse.

Overpowering these urges at the last second, you're reduced to your innermost animalistic instincts. You bite down with all of your force.

Your nails might not be sharp enough, but your teeth are.

His hand is yanked away. The scales are decimated, plucked from the root and torn to shreds, the red flesh exposed from below, the shape of your teeth forming a bloody mark.

Your knees give out, slamming onto the door with your upper body, sliding to the ground.

You bit him.

You bit him.

And now you're left with a mouthful of his blood.

Throughout all of your time spent with him in the past, all the drell venom you've consumed was filtered, the processed kind mixed with his body fluids. Sweat, saliva, cum, it didn't make a difference, it all tasted like nectar.

You've gone from nearly a decade of sobriety to a mouthful of pure concentrated drell venom.

The door opens, your ever so loving husband coming to investigate the loud thud he heard.

Still kneeling on the ground, your vision blurs. The urge to swallow is too overwhelming. You dig your fingers in between your lips to force your jaw open. Red liquid with swirling neon green stripes comes pouring out, staining the floor, seeping under the shoes of your husband standing at the open door.

...

..

-

The white lights are blinding, your eyes flutter to adjust. The faint buzzing of electronics in the air, the strong smell of... floor cleaner detergent. Sterile dry air fill the room.

A hospital.

Outside, you glimpse the back of your husband, talking to an asari in a white medical coat. On the waiting bench on the opposite wall, lays a large sleeping figure, curled in on himself, hugging your jacket, the very same one you forgot to put on from the hanger by the front door this morning.

You stare at your son through the glass. It feels like it was yesterday when he still had all of his feathers. The adorable tuff of feathers on his head brushed against your shoulder whenever he came to sit beside you while you were piloting the ship.

A sudden and powerful overdose like that should've killed you, it would've ended any other human in your position.

Yet, you're still alive.

..

....

..... You wonder what happened of him.

Part of you doesn't care.

There are cameras outside your apartment. Surely he won't try to pin this on you by claiming you attacked and bit him. Let his plausibly deniability intercede for him now.

There's a digital clock at the corner of the heart monitor screen. You feel relieved as you realise there's still plenty of time before midnight.

Aclia will need to rush to a bakery to get a suitable cake—preferably a turian owned bakery; you lost your trust in the human ones after that one time they served your son what they calimed to be "a dextro safe ice cream cone" that hospitalised him for weeks.

Blow some balloons, get some candles, and it will be a nice modest celebration. You still want him to have a birthday party, after all.