#but relatively at least in my headcanon its not like hundreds of years

[kiwibirdlafayette]

its like. 2am but I am once again trying to put some kind of structure to whatever the fuck the continuity of the two main mianite timelines is supposed to be, while maintaining what was previously established that Isles is the past version of the S1 World and making whatever post canon shit ive written still work

like bro hwat is this

(Ignore the hermitcraft thing for now im still trying to decide if VH!Jordan is an extracted variant from the memories/essence of S1/S2 c!Jordan or if he’s been from a whole different timeline who experienced the happenings of Mianite but a little to the left)

[qhazomb]

so i got two different versions of the "leviathan au." one where it's a whole different situation from regular (not-a-game) HLVRAI, in which gordon and benry first meet when gordon is test driving an experimental exploration sub for black mesa... and another one where it follows along with the regular not-a-game AUs, and the leviathan is benry's true form. this second version also follows my headcanon that benry really was 'born' in 1994 (and is just a year younger than gordon).

benry hatched from an egg that had crashed down onto earth over a hundred years ago, and the crator its impact made turned into a small lake over time.

(the entity that laid that egg had been... dealt with by the overly territorial mr. coolatta, along with the rest of the clutch. unfortunately for mr. coolatta, he missed one egg. and said egg would prove to be a major headache source for him yeaaaars in the future.)

in the early morning of january 1st, 1994, the egg finally hatched, and a little larval space squid dragon crawled out. he remained in that lake for five years, curious about the world and other creatures beyond its shore, but always too nervous to leave the safety of his cradle.

until one day, when a smaller version of some of the beings benry had sometimes seen hanging around the lake finally spotted him. and gave him a candy bar.

this version of the AU uses the whole 'gordon and benry really DID know each other as kids' idea, and in this case, they knew each other over the course of one summer. lil six-year-old gordon and his family were spending the summer at a relative's lakeside home, and while exploring the lake beach, gordon encounters and soon befriends a 'lake monster'. (all the adults of course write the kid's tales of his new lake monster friend as a child's wild imagination, naturally.)

communication between the two of them is at first pretty one-sided, which doesn't bug gordon much cause he's pretty sure his new friend 'Sparkly' is just an animal (monsters are a kind of animal, duh) so he's not expecting sparkly to understand him. gordon is at least able to understand how 'sparkly' is feeling, though, as the weird rainbow bubbles he sings out make gordon feel things that don't feel like his feelings. which he thinks is really weird but also kinda cool and he wishes his cat missy could do that.

benry is eventually able to finally really understand what gordon's saying, once he's able to briefly make a mental connection with the human. VERY briefly. just long enough to get an understanding of the following things:

the english language (at a six-year-old's level at least).

that his new friend's species are called humans.

that humans don't think things like him exist, and would freak out if proven otherwise. this is why gordon won't let benry follow him when the bigger humans call him to come back to the big boxy shelter.

video games are a thing and apparently super fun. benry would like to try video games. pushing buttons to make a lil guy on a picture box do stuff, as if you were the little guy. sounds neat!

if benry wants to do anything outside of his lake without having to hide all the time, he needs to look less like himself and more like a human (looking like a human will also make talking like one easier. can't really form a lot of the sounds they make with just a beak.)

unfortunately, this didn't happen until like a day or two before gordon had to go back home. but gordon told benry that he'd be back next year! he'll think up a ton of new stuff for them to do until then!

...doubly unfortunately, sometime late fall of that year, black mesa finally finds benry and takes him down to their facility in new mexico. so the next year that gordon's family goes to visit at the lake in summer again, gordon gets no response when he calls out to 'sparkly,' no matter how many times he does. after a time he gives up, accepting that his lake monster friend is gone, and then eventually even forgets he ever existed, believing any memories to be imaginary friend stuff, like his mom and relatives always assumed.

benry didn't forget, though.

...but he did forget what he orginally looked like. not long after gordon's family left, benry got to work on practicing looking human. the hands were the easiest part, he already had hands like that, he just had to get rid of one finger (why humans only got five??). arms and torso were no biggie either, really. the hard part was the head and legs. legs weren't toooo hard to figure out, they were kind of like arms, sorta, but human heads and his head are SO different, like, wow. that took a while.

by the time black mesa had found him, he was looking mostly human. but not enough to trick anybody. especially not anybody with ways to detect the cosmic energy his body radiated.

black mesa never knew about benry's true form, as he never went back to it once during his captivity (and eventual employment for good behavior) at the facility, and eventually benry himself even forgot what he really looked like... which could possibly be blamed on some of the experiments conducted on him. his memory may be a bit wonk in some regards, but it's not THAT bad.

it's not until after the big beatdown in xen that he finally starts to remember... he respawns, but in that midform, rather than his usual human disguise form.

he's unable to try and shift further, as the 'containment' mr. coolatta mentioned turns out to be a whole new research facility that black mesa sold benry off to in order to secure extra funds for repairing and rebuilting their own labs.

this new place, Lancer Labs, seems to have gotten the same weird 'dampening field' that 'mesa had to keep benry's powers nerfed.

the scientists at lancer are also not as 'nice' as black mesa's, if you can believe that.

benry's stuck there for a year, being as uncooporative as he possibly can. lancer has been able to learn all they can from examining his body, but they have made like 0 progress with mental/behavioral studies, and they're starting to get real tired of benry's shit. so upon reviewing various files and reports they got from black mesa, including some recordings from during the rescas, the researchers at lancer labs get an idea for something that might finally get their prized specimen to stop being a stubborn ass.

in the middle of the night, gordon freeman is abducted from his own home.

they could tell from some of the rescas recordings, that benry seemed to be rather fond of the humans he was travelling with. lancer is going to use gordon as a barganing chip.

benry had become pretty listless and dejected during his new captivity, but seeing gordon get dragged into this shit was the kick in the pants his drive to escape needed. gordon may have been a big jerk, but he doesn't deserve being locked up in a lab for the simple crime of knowing benry.

benry just has to wait for the right moment to break outta here....

[snailofkale]

so its occurred to me that kirby hcs i talk about with my buddies so often that they don’t even need to be restated anymore and we’ve kind of just accepted as fact are, in fact, entirely noncanon and could do with specifying! specifically those surrounding Kirby, Meta, DMK, Galacta, and Morpho.

also this post is gonna be really bad and confusing im so sorries

THESE ARE JUST MY HEADCANONS!!

They’re being stated as though factual because it would be annoying to specify every time!

so, to start, they’re all the same species. i’m pretty sure this is a fairly common hc? specifically, kirby is a preadolescent child and doesn’t have wings YET, whereas the others are adults who didn’t have wings as children. normally i call this species “kirby” and its members “kirbies” but i’m gonna call them

orb knights

in this post for the sake of clarity.

orb knights live for many thousands of years. kirby is only a few hundred years old (~200) prince fluff is older (idk how much i haven’t thought about him that much), Meta (and DMK) are several thousand (i don’t really have a solid estimate for them, not over 15k) (honestly i hesitate over 10k), galacta is a few tens of thousands (i generally put him at 50k?) and morpho is at least a few hundred thousand. the time at which morpho was a child is so ancient that the only way to know about in detail it is to be that ancient

orb knights tend to get darker with age but this isn’t a universal rule. also, the actual hue of their bodies doesn’t typically change much.

the age of an orb knight (physically and mentally) doesn’t translate properly into human terms. meta knight is old but not elderly, if that makes sense. galacta on account of being sealed has partially forgotten that time passes at all so he has in a way transcended describable age. morpho has as well for reasons i’ll get to. kirby is not a baby. he’s more like ~10. the younger an orb knight the easier it is for me to describe their age, personally.

orb knights have a sort of built in awareness of their culture and traditions despite possibly never meeting another member of their species. its sort of like the world’s worst hivemind meets instinct, or maybe like vaguely remembering something you read 6 years ago and trying it out and it working. the most notable and visible aspect is the masks, which orb knights usually make not long after they grow wings, many describing a comforting sense of having someone telling them that’s what they’re supposed to do.

orb knights (and indeed, many species in the kirby universe) have anatomy only possible with magic. they have no brains, no bones, no proper digestive system, and no circulatory system. they’re basically just a thick somewhat squishy membrane with eyes enclosing a mouth that leads nowhere, keeping themselves held up and locomoting with sheer force of will.

the texture of their skin is extremely variable, going from totally rubbery (i imagine galacta knight is on this end) to, rarely, downright fluffy (none of our known orb knights are fluffy, prince fluff doesn’t count because he’s made of yarn.) (if he wasn’t made of yarn he would probably be fluffy though). i’d imagine kirby has a very soft peach fuzz feel, morpho is more like velvet, and meta is probably somewhere in the middle of those two.

orb knights don’t die from age. they sort of fade out of existence very slowly. morpho knight is effectively dead. morpho knight is also the grim reaper, but more importantly he’s dead. most orb knights do not become the grim reaper upon dying

when an orb knight is dying this way, they lose all their power. the only way to gain this power back is by fusing with an entity of roughly equal power to their former self. this fusion is temporary and will break down in a relatively short amount of time, leaving both participants mostly unharmed.

orb knights can also be scarred, injured, and killed (skipping the “ghost” phase morpho’s in). all of these are exceptionally difficult to accomplish. when kirby falls in battle, he isn’t dead, he’s exhausted. DMK’s mask scar indicates an actual scar.

alright thats all i have rn sorry for how long ghis post is

[truly-quirkless-a]

So, in my personal headcanons, the entire 'Quirks' thing started in a technological equivalent of the 1990s. The first three generations of Quirk-users had tech associated with the 1990s, the next three, the 2000s, and the most recent two- the 2010s, with the anime being on the cusp of what is 2020s tech (in line with the ninth generation of Quirk users). Save for All for One and extreme outliers, anyone beyond the seventh generation of Quirk-users is dead. So the world is mostly populated by seventh, eighth, and ninth generation Quirk users- with kids being the ninth.

I understand most going the route of 'Toshinori barely understands tech and can only just send E-Mails', but in my own headcanons, that's- very much not true. He grew up around decently-modern tech, so he knows his way around it. He's had to live with it his whole life- but because of what a shut-in he is when he's not being a Hero, his grasp on memes, internet culture in general, and using tech outside of its base purpose...is beyond him.

Of course, if he had to, he could easily sort out more applications for the tech he does have (two phones as the baseline- one for All Might, one for Toshinori). But...he's never had the time, nor the desire.

I do think he'd be able to grasp the concepts relatively fast if ever he was shown, but...eh. That's me. I don't think of him as 'mmm dude cannot sort tech to save his life', so much as 'dude hasn't felt a need to figure out anything beyond the baseline'. Of course, now he's got an SO who's spent pretty much their entire life hiding in modern tech and the like, so- he's gonna learn pretty fast on at least a few things.

Though he still can't sort out tech specs to save his life...

And of course, if there are nine generations total, with the ninth being in their teens currently (Midoriya's generation) that means that a bare minimum of 215 years have passed since the first Quirk-user was born. Obviously this elongates further since some generations probably took longer to have kids, so I'd say a good 300 years, Earth-time.

Of course, my timeline assumes that All for One and One for All were born either in the first or second generation, which means All for One is easily a few hundred years old. Gotta love those longevity Quirks,---

[epicspheal]

I posted 403 times in 2022

215 posts created (53%)

188 posts reblogged (47%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@a-tale-of-legends

@weliveinapokemonworld

@epicspheal

@incorrectpokechampionquotes

@ballonleaparadise

I tagged 402 of my posts in 2022

#ask epic spheal - 101 posts

#champion leon - 74 posts

#cactusverse - 67 posts

#pokemon worldbuilding - 55 posts

#pokemon oc - 44 posts

#anipoke - 32 posts

#pokemon meta - 28 posts

#pokemon headcanons - 28 posts

#rival hop - 27 posts

#pokemas - 27 posts

Longest Tag: 121 characters

#i love headcanons like these that show how people who can't get the traditional starters might choose their first partner

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Okay, a few weeks back, I posted how the success of someone trying to make a career out of Pokemon training largely depended on starting location and what their financial background looked like. So after thinking about it, you realize that of all of the regions with leagues so far, Galar is actually the fairest league as far as eliminating barriers for trainers to compete. Let's start with the money. We know at least in Pokespe that Rose has made programs in Galar to help poorer trainers get into the gym challenge (which confirms my sad headcanon that many trainers are screwed out of a traditional journey out of socioeconomic states *stares at my Trainersona and her story*). So we know Galar does make an effort to help struggling trainers. Then let's think about the sponsor system (not so much the endorsements as that just seems to be a letter of recognition and that the endorsers seem to not be obligated to give other support). We know you can gain sponsors as you become more well-known on the Galar circuit, which would mean extra monetary support. Then there's the whole starting location thing. I know many people IRL complained about the strict linearity of the gym challenge, but in universe, it makes a lot of sense. By having everyone start off with the same first gym, it's easier to accurately measure skill level. By having the opening ceremony be the send-off place, everyone is literally starting off in the same location Motostoke. That means a trainer from Wyndon isn't burnt out just trying to get to Milo's gym, and it doesn't give the trainer who already lived in Turrfield an unnecessary advantage by just hopping out of bed and mosying down to the gym. Even the fact that the gym is on a schedule helps create equality. The gym challenge is likely chosen at a time when there are no big harvests (therefore not screwing over trainers from Turrfield/Postwick/Wedgehurst who might need to help on the family farm) and when the weather is relatively mild so that trainers from say, Circhester or Wyndon aren't being snowed in and thus maybe having to halt their journeys due to a blizzard. Having a set date for the start (and thus dates for registration and endorsement) gives people the same amount of time to prepare. The watts trading system in the wild area also helps by allowing trainers to passively collect watts and can be used to buy needed Pokeballs and TRs at prices they may not be able to afford with regular money. This helps improve movesets among poorer trainers compared to rich trainers who can buy the expensive TMs from the Pokemon Center Stores early on. Now it doesn't mean Galar's system is perfect. One could argue that the endorsements (not the sponsorships) could still perpetuate class inequality because there's theoretically only a limited number of endorsements per year (as it's not realistic to expect Milo and Nessa to challenge hundreds of trainers per year in a small timeframe) and that people with more connections are more likely to rub elbows with people who could give them an endorsement. And again still coming from a rich family may give you a leg up by having Pokemon bred for you or just having extra money to spend on yourself and your Pokemon. But still, I believe the Galarian gym system sets up the fairest gym challenge for its trainer by actively attempting to reduce barriers that prevent sizable chunks of the trainer population from reaching their full potential.

106 notes - Posted April 20, 2022

#4

Alright I’m going to just say this now. I’m predicting that the antagonists of Pokemon Scarlet and Violet are going to be the professors of the game. There’s two ways I can see this going. The first is to have the opposite version professor be the main antagonist. So in Scarlet, it would be Professor Turo, and in Violet it was Professor Sada. I’ve seen quite a few people talk about this option and it’s definitely a viable option especially to make sure both characters exist in both versions. Personally I’m thinking about the idea that it would be the reverse. So in Scarlet, since Professor Sada is the main professor, she would also serve as the main antagonist in Scarlet (with Turo doing the same in Violet).  I call them antagonists because I don’t necessarily think they will be flat out evil (I mean they could absolutely end up being monsters but I don’t feel like jumping to that conclusion just yet). I could see their deal being potentially just obsessive over a certain ideal, romanticizing it even and not really looking at the pros and cons. Perhaps they had an event in their life that makes them yearn for the past (Sada) or the Future (Turo) without considering the that the past, present and future all have value. 

111 notes - Posted June 1, 2022

#3

Okay, so I realized I haven't done a review of the Hisuian Snow episodes yet (which, spoiler alert, I think are really adorable) and I will do them soon. But for now, I wanted to focus on one part of the episode: the medicinal leek. I've always been curious about how the healing items in the Pokemon world and how they're able to heal. For the longest time, I thought that the modern potions we get in non-legends mainline games were just marvels of modern pharmacology. But then comes Legends, with probably my favorite mechanic in the game, crafting and foraging. And then, with this second Hisuian Snow Episode, we get to see exactly how the leek works. By squeezing some of the liquid from the inner portion, the shiny Hisuian Zorua was able to help Alec's sprain heal instantly. That's amazing, and honestly, I wish we had something like that in real life. Also, that debunked my original theory of the potions being a modern marvel of pharmaceuticals but just the fact that even the non-Pokemon plant life has special properties. This checks out when you consider the copious amount of berries and their effects in the games. Yet Legends Arceus does pose some limitations. As we see in-game, there's a whole medical corp that often contains people who were seriously maimed by the wild Pokemon. So there's obviously a limit to what things like the berries and leeks could heal both in humans and Pokemon. We've even seen massive injuries in Pokemon, like Ash's Pikachu having to be defibrillated or his entire DP team being bandaged up long after the Paul battle at Lake Acuity. Even in the Yellow chapter of Pokespe, Pika is badly injured getting back to Oak's lab, where it surely passed by berry trees. Even if we can assume Pika did consume an oran berry here and there, it still wasn't enough to heal everything. So it definitely begs the question of where the line is drawn between what can be healed by leeks, herbs and berries and where more modern medical advances need to be brought in to save the lives of both people and Pokemon

115 notes - Posted June 15, 2022

#2

It's been 25 years in the making but our boy finally did it... Ash Ketchum is now the strongest trainer in the Pokemon anime! Yes, I may be a diehard Leon fan, but before Leon was created I was an Ash Ketchum fan. Ash and Pikachu were what got me into Pokemon all the way back in 1999 and now to see this. After so many failures and setbacks, this was the thing my kindergartener self always wanted to see for Ash

This shot from the episode in particular put me into absolute tears. These are the Pokemon I grew up with (yes I'm a gen 1 person) and I knew at this point Ash was going to win. There was no way Ash could lose after a scene like that and with them playing Mesaze Pokemon Master. And also it makes sense storywise...Leon is always meant to lose his crown as the unbeatable champion...so Leon winning would just defeat the whole purpose of his own story arc

See the full post

312 notes - Posted November 11, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

My thoughts are with the people of Ukraine today as they deal with the invasion as well as the people of Texas as they deal with the horrific anti-trans legislation that is being put into law.  It’s been a horrifying past 48 hours to see so much of the world fall into even more violence against innocent people.

360 notes - Posted February 24, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[volterran-wine]

Accursed Fate || Caius X S/O

z Requested by Anonymous: "I adore your blog so much! You’re my new favorite writer 💜. I’ve had this idea in my head for a long time, and I’m honestly really excited to finally be able to share it with someone! I totally understand if you don’t want to or don’t feel comfortable writing it though, don’t feel pressured! So the idea I had is this: Caius finally finds his mate, but there’s one problem; said mate turns out to be one of the few remaining werewolves. Angst and drama ensue."

𝐒𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: Caius has waited patiently for his soulmate to one day cross his path. What he did not expect was to come across them deep within the woods at the crack of dawn, bloodied and filthy as the sun filtered through the trees. His heart breaks, for he knows what kind of bite that marks their flesh…

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 1211 words

!𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬! This one is heavy angst, definitely check the tags for this one;

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: ... Anyone who has read certain headcanons of mine know how this is going to play out.

𝐄𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐲, 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲

Caius was born to hunt, conquer and kill.

Or, at the very least that is what he wanted his enemies and most of the vampiric populace to believe. How it pleased him to know his name was spoken in hushed whispers among most vampires that feared The Volturi. His infamous lust for violence had kept him and his family safe for hundreds of years. But no tale was as gruesome as the one he had spun about The Children of The Moon; how he had drove them to near extinction hundreds of years ago. It was not entirely true however; werewolves would appear every now and then. A stray wolf would infect a handful of humans and him and his men would go out to exterminate them.

This was the only reason that Caius found himself deep within the woods on the borders between Romania and Hungary, his clothes a little worse for wear but still in relatively pristine condition. He had brought with him a couple of their newest recruits, teaching them how to easily trap, injure and kill their natural born enemies. With a deep sigh Caius looked over his last kill of the night, a large and pale beast that had attempted to rob him of his head; a foolish endeavour. He had intended to join the rest of his party when the wind suddenly shifted, a particular smell reaching him and igniting his hunting instincts once more.

The corner of his mouth lifted into a vicious smirk, this would be an easy kill; Caius thought. Luckily for his prey he did not discriminate, no wolf was too small or wounded for him to seek it out. He picked up his pace, gracefully weaving in between the trees as he concentrated on the tracks ahead of him. Even from a distance he could smell just how injured the werewolf was, the scent of its sour blood perforated the air as Caius neared his final prey for the evening. On the other side of the woods he could hear how his hunting party had begun disposing of their own kills. He would have to be swift if he were to join them.

And there, just about thirty feet ahead of him he could see the large shape of a werewolf leaning against some trees, panting and injured. The moment it became aware of its would be killer the beast let out a pitiful wail and began dragging itself towards safety, and Caius felt as if the wind was knocked out of him all of a sudden.

He did not understand why, but his instincts screamed at him to not hurt this Child of the Moon as it crawled away from him; dragging itself against the forest floor and coating the foliage with its foul smelling blood. Why? Why could he not put the beast out of its misery already? He wanted to go home and reward his guard for a successful hunt, as well as spend time with his family.

He watched as their bones began to crack and contort, and it must have been painful for the wolf began whimpering like an injured dog as it slowly reverted to its human disguise. Pathetic, Caius thought as he stalked them; knocking away tree branches and rocks that laid in his way. He could feel the sun at his back, peaking across the horizon and sending beams of golden light through the birch forest. He had had enough, the beast was now vulnerable and he would kill it as he had done so many wolves before it.

With the last of their strength his now human prey looked back at him, fear and confusion swimming in their eyes; and Caius froze.

It was as if the world fell away from beneath his feet, the earth itself wishing to swallow him whole before he could reach the Child of The Moon. Now he understood why he could not harm this ... person. They had been intended for him once upon a time, and the fates themselves were screaming from within the shade; do not harm them. Dread filled Caius like never before as he watched them, crawling in the nude ��� desperate to get away from him.

He had failed.

Again.

And now he had to right his wrongs.

Caius fell to his knees before them, leaves crunching beneath his weight as he shifted closer. His fine Volturi cloak was now coated in both dirt and blood alike, most likely ruined forever. With trembling hands he reached out to cradle their face, turning their head gently so they were facing him properly.

Their eyes shut tightly in order to not look at him, turning violently to get out of his grip but failing to do so as they screamed in agony. A searing pain settled in his chest, as if someone had stabbed him with a red hot poker. Perhaps it was the mate-pull that desperately tried to solidify a bond between them, or more likely; guilt. "Please... look at me" his voice was raspy and luckily his plea did not fall upon deaf ears, for his would have been mate opened their eyes cautiously; peering at him. Tears had begun gathering, and soon enough they would spill over.

For a while Caius let his eyes wander over their body; a gash in their shoulder was deep enough to show bones and oozed with puss, a wound kept bleeding profusely near their abdomen and multiple of their bones were fixed at unnatural angles. Though the sun had began to rise they were shaking, teeth clattering as their lips began taking on an unnatural shade. Caius swallowed down the venom that had gathered in his mouth on pure instinct.

They had beautiful eyes though, he could see beyond the exhaustion and imagined how fierce of an individual they must have been — not just anyone could be his mate after all. For a second Caius let himself imagine what they would have looked like if they were a deep red. But those were dreams that would never be, fate had not been on his side after all. Caius had laws to follow.

"I will spend the rest of my life making up for not finding you earlier."

His grip shifted ever so slightly, it could easily have been mistaken for a loving caress; the way his hand now sat firmly beneath their jaw. His thumb stroking their cheek reassuringly as his other hand grasped on to their matted hair at back of their head. Caius took a deep breath, attempting to filter out the stench of his enemies and finding their sweet perfume underneath.

"Forgive me,— "

A vicious crack and yelp was all that was heard before the forest was still once again, the only noise the birch trees that had softly began swaying as the wind picked up.

────

On the outskirts of the woods a village lay, quiet and unaware of the carnage that had befallen the lands so close to their home.

When the sun was at its highest point the townsfolk would talk of how they had heard a wounded beast wailing. How its sorrowful cries pierced through the peaceful morrow, lost and alone in the world.

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞; If Caius ever breaks into my home in order to enact his revenge I will frame my followers.

[jgnico]

hiii i just swallowed all your jjk meta tag, and i just wanna say !!! your rambles about satosugu are vv valid and real i love how u dissected these boyos and ur meta post about gojo being disconnected to other people really struck a chord in me bc like yes!! he is but it also doesnt mean he cares he just really cannot connect w anyone in a humane sorta way (esp after getou and the spvi jsadashdga pls stop me i can literally see the manga panels flashing before my eyes its not funny) i'm wondering if you have any ideas on what gojo's life was before his time in tokyo college tho (like what was his relationship w his parents, was he close w any of his relatives, etc., etc.), bc we never really had anything in gojo's past aside from him being absolutely spoilt but never like the bigger picture.

The Flashback arc is always playing through my mind like a silent movie, so I feel you there. Also, that first meta post about Gojo's sense of empathy is still one of my favorites that I've written so I'm glad you like it!

As for my thoughts on Gojo's early life, I actually do have a few ideas of what that was like. With him having both an inherited technique in Limitless and a clan technique in Six Eyes, I think he was definitely put on a pedestal within his Clan growing up and most likely spent a lot of time having to represent his Clan due to his status in the Jujutsu world.

We even get a hint toward this from a flashback of Toji's where Gojo and a woman (who I'm assuming is a servant based on her simple, solid colored yukata vs Gojo's patterned one) visit the Zen'in Clan when Gojo is still fairly young.

I think that this occasion was Gojo acting as the head of his Clan for business with the Zen'ins or at least, meeting with the current head as a formality. If that's the case, I can understand why Gojo is so disillusioned (or at least, very unimpressed) with authority within Jujutsu society. If he truly has been dealing with Clan business and the other Clan heads along with the higher-ups from a young age, then it's easy to rid yourself of the idea that they're anything exceptional or wise.

On the other hand, we can take this moment as Toji going to visit the Gojo Clan to see Satoru in person, which I also think probably happened a lot. The Gojo Clan is at the head of the Jujutsu world simply because of Six Eyes's existence, so having it born back into the world after a few hundred years (I'd say probably 500, since it's tied to Tengen) would be a huge deal for not only their society but the Clan as well. They hold power because of people like Gojo, so I can see his life being sheltered and fairly boring with a lot of emphasis placed on Clan formalities.

As for his family, we honestly don't know, but I headcanon that they had very little personal say in Gojo's upbringing. I think that his childhood was handled the same way that a royal's would be, where the good of his Clan's image and status always takes precedent (which we see with Noritoshi Kamo in his flashback's during the Goodwill Event) and where him being raised was a collective effort of people that ranked high enough within his Clan to get a say so.

The thing about having a strict upbringing like this is that it often inspires rebellion in a child, especially in their teen years, and we get a good look at that in Gojo's personality within the Flashback Arc. He's loud, he's disrespectful to his peers and his elders, he doesn't like taking things seriously despite other people wanting him too. But he also has an odd sense of innocence that rears its head when he has to deal with something that he wasn't prepared for (his shell-shocked reaction w/ the Time Vessel Association and his disbelief in Geto's actions) which really gives an idea of how much he truly didn't get how twisted the world could be before he experienced it himself and is also another consequence of being sheltered as a child.

You carry a sort of naivety about random things forward with you and while that doesn't mean that you're necessarily naïve yourself, it does mean that you'll run into situations (especially emotionally) that you have no prior experiences to lean back on to help you cope with what's happening. You'll also tend have a hard time connecting with other people empathetically, because again, you don't share similar experiences with them that you can reference when you need to.

This is why I believe that Gojo has a largely sympathetic personality instead of an empathetic one. He does genuinely care, we see over and over again how much he cares, but he can't necessarily place himself in another person's shoes either. So we end up with moments like him embarrassing Utahime in front of her boss for his own personal enjoyment or him badmouthing Megumi's missing father to his face when they first met or him responding to Yuuta's suicide attempt with "Yikes, you're kinda gloomy" instead of something more appropriate to the situation.

But yeah, I think Gojo had an incredible amount of pressure and propriety placed upon him growing up and that it (along with the events of the SPVI) is largely responsible for both how he views the world around him and how he presents himself to that world.

[isoldmysoultojonahclemence]

Clemence Father

JONAH’S ROUTE JUST CAME OUT ON IKEREV TW AND I’M ON PART 12 AND I RLLY WANNA CAUSE SERIOUS BODILY HARM TO JONAH AND LUKA’S FATHER RN. I TALKED ABOUT HIM BEFORE ON LUKA’S EVER AFTER POST HERE BUT NOW IMMA TALK ABOUT IT AGAIN BC BELIEVE IT OR NOT, HE’S AN EVEN BIGGER ASSHOLE IN JONAH’S ROUTE.

BUT ANYWAYS HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED.

SPOILERS FOR JONAH’S EVER AFTER UNDER THE CUT

(ps the screenshots all have that orange recording button bc i want to look at them without having to go through the entire route again. sorry if they’re kinda annoying!)

Aight, so Jonah proposed to MC (well, he kinda just announced that MC is his fiancee from now on but whatever), and he decided to bring her to the Clemence house for this party to meet the family. Luka was there as well, standing in a corner. MC kinda wanted to join him in the corner as well, but Jonah dragged her off to meet his relatives. But they all seemed to dislike MC because she’s not from a good background.

Then, this dude enters the scene:

[Translation:

A dignified-looking man walked over here, looking at me, who is standing by Jonah, in surprise.]

And then, when Jonah goes to introduce MC as his fiancee, his father cuts him off by saying that he never heard of Jonah having a fiancee before. Like, Jonah was in the middle of a super serious and sincere introduction and his father just interrupted like that in a super cold voice. I was already starting to dislike him at this point, but I didn’t wanna fight him just yet.

Also, here’s something that kinda surprised me:

[Translation:

(His looks seemed to be similar to Luka’s, but his disposition...

(It seemed to be 50 times scarier than Jonah when I first met him...)]

I found it kinda weird how Luka actually took after him in terms of looks more than Jonah did??? Like, my original headcanon was that Luka didn’t actually look very similar to his father, which could be part of why he was ignored so much, but I guess he was ignored even when he looks like his father. Ouch.

Also, whenever the Clemence father makes an appearance, the thing that MC talks about the most is how scary/stern his disposition is. He must be someone really ruthless to warrant that kind of description.

After that, his father goes on to guess that Jonah had made the decision to bring MC without consulting anyone in his family because he knew that his decision would be opposed. I suppose that Jonah’s father does know him quite well, but it actually unsettles me more, because he seems to have no regard for the effect he has on his sons. Like, Jonah literally had to fight to keep his head up under such pressure.

So Jonah goes on to explain why he chose not to tell anyone about it, but his father interrupts him AGAIN with this huge speech about how the Clemence bloodline cannot be mixed with a bloodline of unknown origins. They have kept his tradition for hundreds of years, and that every single heir has accepted this fact and chose to marry someone of high social standing. 

Jonah, naturally, was pretty angry, and told his father that he has gone too far. But guess what? This dude ignores him YET AGAIN and tries to convince MC to marry Levie instead of Jonah. Seriously. No wonder Jonah never listens to anyone else if this was the role model he had. I’m really starting to grit my teeth at this point.

Also, something concerning is how Jonah’s father knew that Levie is after MC, since that was classified information. Jonah confronts him about him, but he brushes it off by saying that he was the former Queen of Hearts and he has all the information sources he need. I wonder how powerful he was when he was Queen if he was still so influential in his retirement. And yeah, he totally strikes me as the sort of guy who would order Claudius to assassinate people...

But anyways, Jonah’s father tells him that he’ll pretend as if he heard nothing and walks off, even though Jonah tried to tell him that he wasn’t finished yet. What a guy.

Jonah leaves MC with Luka and goes after his father. Luka takes MC to his room and tells her something really sweet. He tells her that to trust “that guy” (Jonah) and to wait for him, which really showed his reliance on his older brother. Like, even though he rejects Jonah a lot and avoids him, deep down inside he still believes in Jonah. 

And after a few parts we get a flashback where Jonah recalls the conversation he had with his father after he goes after him, and this is where my blood starts boiling.

So the Clemence father reminds Jonah, in a pretty harsh way, that when he had rejected marriage alliances in the past, he has always said that he’ll find someone better. He then goes on to call MC “that kind of person” (as in, a person of low birth and social standing), and Jonah gets pretty mad at him for that:

[Translation:

Jonah: Even if you’re my father, I cannot allow you to call her “that kind of person”...!

Clemence Patriarch: Don’t change the topic!

Hearing his father’s roar of fury, Jonah wasn’t scared in the slightest, and instead glared fierily back at him.]

I find it kinda interesting how the game refers to Jonah and Luka’s father as “the Clemence Patriarch” instead of “Clemence Father” or something. That would probably make more sense, because the term “Patriarch” can refer to a grandfather, an uncle, a cousin, etc., not necessarily a father. But I guess this highlights how his identity as a patriarch is prioritized before his identity as a father.

And then this scene happens:

[Translation:

Clemence Patriarch: Whatever you say! There is nothing more to say, get out. 

Clemence Patriarch: In order to prevent the failure of the first, we still have a second.

Clemence Patriarch: I will disown you as my son, and make Luka the heir of the family, and then he’ll be the one to marry a high-born noble lady.]

DUDE WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF

IT DOESN’T WORK LIKE THAT??????????? YOU CAN’T JUST DECIDE THAT YOUR SON IS A FAILURE WHEN HE DOES ONE (1) THING AGAINST YOUR WILL AND TOSS HIM OUT AND MAKE YOUR OTHER SON THE HEIR???????????????????

Honestly he makes Jonah and Luka sound so expendable, and that’s really not okay. They’re human beings, his own SONS, not an object to be thrown away when it served its use. Like, if I had any doubts about why Luka left his family before, this scene just explained everything. Who would want this guy as their parent????? 

And of course, as the best nii-sama in the world, Jonah caves.

[Translation:

Even though he wanted to follow through with his own ideals, he couldn’t let his important brother, Luka, be sacrificed.

Not only would Luka have to bear the burden as the heir, a burden that he has been bearing for many years, 

And he would marry some lady who he has never met before, this absolutely cannot happen!

Jonah: Just this one thing...please don’t do it.

Jonah could only bend to his father’s will.]

JONAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH MY POOR BBY LET ME GIVE YOU A HUG (っ˘̩╭╮˘̩)っ

He’s literally in an impossible position right now. If he wants to marry the love of his life, he would have a sacrifice his precious brother, and if he wants to protect his brother, he would have to sacrifice his fiancee. If he wants to keep them both safe, then the only real solution would be to leave the Clemence family.

Come on, Cybird. Y’all made him turn against the Red Army in his original route and now you’re making him turn against his family now??? When will the torture for Jonah and his stans ever end??????????

And here’s a few other lines from the Clemence Patriarch to disgust you:

[Translation:

Clemence Patriach: I am a generous and maganimous person.

Clemence Patriach: As long as the Clemence bloodline is protected, I don’t care if the heir is you or Luka.]

......I literally have nothing else to say.

Istg this dude is the worst parent in the Red Army, and the Red Army is already brimming with awful parenting skills. Lancelot’s father pretty much neglected him and Edgar’s uncle straight-up abused him, but you could still tell that they cared about their sons in their own little twisted ways. Lancelot’s father eqipped him with all the skills he would need to be King, and Claudius took all responsibility for the Bright family business in the end, protecting Edgar. And then we have the Clemence father who’s all like: i MaDE TwO kIDS foR a reASoN anD ThAt iS To HAVE ONE OF THEM REPLACE THE OTHER/USING ONE OF THEM TO THREATEN THE OTHER IF THEY MESS UP. ALSO NEITHER OF THEM MATTERS APPARENTLY BC THEY’RE BOTH JUST TOOLS FOR CARRYING ON THE BLOODLINE.

DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE.

I get that this is only part 12 and he’s probably going to have a redemption scene or at least some whitewashing at the end, but STILL. I really, really, really, really, really don’t like Jonah and Luka’s father.

[aktosage]

Wait wait wait I just had a cool idea

I don't know what you have written down for ideas and stuff, but what if whirl was the one to train arcee? In the comics whirl and arcee got along really well and I feel like they would still tolerate each other in tfp, but if they had prior connections it would be an established connection to build off of. Like if whirl took in a young arcee and taught her how to fight and how to survive (since I headcanon that arcee was pretty young when the war started) and eventually he asked her to join the wreckers, but she declined and went off on her own. And hundreds of years later they meet (during tfp) and they have to work together again and its like a sweet moment of "hey this is the person who taught me everything". And you could say that whirl is really not a good teacher, but he has a soft spot for sparklings (and younglings I'd imagine). I think it would just be really interesting to see them interact with the other wreckers too. Like wheeljack and bulkhead being super surprised that arcee was almost a wrecker. But whirl is like "nah, my girl can wreck with the best of em', I should know since I taught her myself". Is this an excuse to give arcee a strong standing relationship? Or an excuse to give whirl a (adopted) kid? Mayhaps

Sorry this is so long and rambly. I just really like these 2 lone wolves

(๑･̑◡･̑๑) let me surprise you rn

I actually did keep the IDW dynamic for these two!!! Buuuuut👀 Whirl is the younger one! I like the idea that Arcee is actually pretty old in tf standards and I wanted to keep that in TFP (also even funnier that she’s the smallest and has an attitude of a coming of age teenage girl) I’m not a SUUUPER big fan of tfp Cee, she’s cool but agh I much prefer the IDW interpretation (tho she does get better throughout the seasons <3333333)

Anyway Whirl and Arcee dynamic!

Whirl was always problematic, thus his empurata head and claws (which makes me think of shockwave but that’s a thing for a whole different time) SO! He was put in the same squad as Arcee to discipline him at least a bit. (I will cover his backstory and why he got punished another time)

Him and Arcee aren’t that far age wise, but she was under the strict regime fairly quickly and just sticks to the big rules (bc she will disobey, as shown in TFP) She was mostly there to train WITH him, but her agility and use of her arm blades definitely inspired him to put his claws to good use �� I reckon that he was quite upset or even insecure after the procedure. They got along well most of the time because both are fairly short tempered and act on impulse, tho Arcee is more reserved. He was sent off to join the wreckers because 1) they needed a flyer (exodus tells us that there’s been a SIGNIFICANT lack of fliers amongst the autobots) 2) his anger could be put into something 3) Kup and Ironhide could control him relatively okay. Arcee declined because, while yes her size would be a plus in the Cybertron resistance she had an established team and partners that boarded the ships that were to leave Cybertron.

Her and Whirl lost contact, no hard feelings just war, death, famine and all that💀 They would reconnect quickly as if nothing happened for the same reason tho :] Will definitely draw them interacting (Little blue and Big blue combo) Also would break Arcee’s “shell” because during the war she got the role of the “reliable or serious” one much to her disliking (which I BET is the reason she’s a helicopter mom sometimes? Like it’s easier to not allow anything than to let things happen pfff) ALSO!!!!! Her “loosing partners” streak could start off with Whirl👀 since she knew him Pre-war and could believe that he’s dead because he joined the wreckers without her and she had no way to contact him (comm liks very restricted because Cybertron was under Shockwave during that time, and he’d take any chance he’d get to locate the resistance)

Arcee definitely learned some things from him as well as he did from her and those things did stuck throughout the war. Whirl would be “That one crazy wrecker that went to prison like 3 times and escaped twice”. There were probably more units of the wreckers (Magnus, Kup and Ironhide maybe? Ironhide left for the guards tho, they needed forces as well) so Magnus just heard stories about Whirl and he was anything but ecstatic when Whirl arrived

Your asks are SOOSOSOS NICE!!! I LOVED the Whirl dad idea, buuuuuut I hope that this is okay as well :( I see them more, in this universe, as a older sister younger brother but both equally chaotic duo

:] asks stay open, especially regarding this bc wowowowo this is nice wowowo I’m comfortably sharing my thoughts mwah ily thank u

[toonqueen]

Duckvember 2020

-Dreadful-

SORRY I’M ON A KICK WITH MY HEADCANON FOR NEGA-GLADSTONE.

*Sees what the next prompt after this is.* Well shit. Btw Grandma Coot in this is Grandma Duck. Nega Grandma doesn’t use her married name in the Negaverse cuz FUN TIMES. 

This again is in the 87/comics universe headcanon I have. Whee.

Some casual cussing cuz Negaversers cuss okay. 

:readmore:

---------

“I have some business in the city. Would you like to come with me?” Elvira Coot asked her grandson. 

The young teenager was sprawled out on the couch, watching some violent cartoon nonsense on TV. He looked up at her, since the show wasn’t really holding his attention. “Which city?” Grimstone replied as he fiddled to find the off button on the remote. 

“Which city,” she snorted, as if Grimstone had cracked a bad joke, “I remember when Duckburg was farmland. St. Canard is the only real city around here.”

“Alright, I’ll go. Right now?” 

“Yes, right now.”

Grimstone got up quickly to put on his shoes and an overly large sweater his Grandma had knit him. A sweater she had done within days of taking him in. Though she was sometimes short with her grandson, and often painfully blunt, she obviously cared for him. 

Grim’s childhood was rough; from a controlling mother to being locked up in a basement for years before running away and joining a wayward group of kids. Despite his Grandmother’s harsh attitude, this was the best he had it so far. Meals three times a day, and actually appreciated when he did work around the farm. Grimstone was allowed to wander the swamps freely, spend alone time in his very own bedroom.

“Where are we going exactly?” Grimstone asked as they headed to the pickup truck parked out front.

“Picking up two more generators,” Grandma answered, climbing into the truck. Grimstone hopped in beside her.

“Don’t you have, like, four already?” Grimstone stated as he buckled his seat belt. Grandma started the truck without putting on hers. Grimstone wordlessly glared at her until she sighed and put on her own seat belt. The young teen already had several arguments with his Grandmother that she couldn’t be a doomsday prepper but not wear her seat belt for safety. There was irony somewhere in that. 

“Six,” Grandma corrected, “you can never have too many generators for when the world ends.”

Grimstone, upon first being taken in by his Grandmother, did find her doomsday survivalist side an unexpected quirk. His mother had never been like that. Sure, his mother dearest had lived “in the now’” making some selfish decisions but wasn’t so pessimistic about the future. 

And the way Grandma stocked up, like there would be hundreds staying on the farm when the time came. He found that even more strange; before he came to the farm it was just her living there alone. She’d mention the other family sometimes, his cousins. All her many grandkids. Grim often wondered why she wasn’t a part of their lives anymore. She hadn’t even been a part of his until he accidentally found the farm. And that was just pure luck. 

Ol’ Elvira Coot had purposely stopped talking about the inlaw side of the family related to the McDucks. She noticed Grimstone would tense up and get unusually quiet whenever she mentioned them. She also picked up the boy was a little claustrophobic. Grimstone definitely did not like going into some of the storage rooms in the basement. There were a few comments Grim had made here and there about staying with other relatives when his parents died. The same he clearly ran away from. 

Grandma didn’t pry since it seemed to upset him, but she was willing to listen if he ever wanted to talk. Often Elvira just wanted to tell him that if she had known her daughter died, she would have come get him, but she wasn’t sure if that’d only upset Grimstone more. One day she’d tell him everything.

Most of the drive Grimstone was silent, which was normal for him. He always liked to observe the wide expanse of the swamp around the farm, turning into dry grasslands before getting closer to St. Canard. Crossing the bridge, he finally piped up. “They fixed the frayed cables on the left side finally.”

“Yeah, I just noticed that, too,” Grandma Coot retorted. A worrisome thought crossed her mind, but she bit her tongue. “You can stay in the truck while everything gets loaded.”

“Nah, I’ll go with you. Maybe you’ll get a better deal if they know you have this adorable mouth to feed,” Grimstone said, playfully sarcastic. He gave a cheeky smile without showing any teeth. 

His Grandma noticed ages ago Grimstone never smiled with his teeth. Just like her. 

“Hmm, I wouldn’t bet on that, bucko,” Grandma replied, keeping her eyes on the road as she reached over to ruffle his hair.  She remembered when he would shy away from any physical contact. However, it only took a couple weeks to get over that wall, and the little brat quickly accepted hugs and affection. 

Grim turned his gaze from the window to the elderly duck. “Hey, can we stop by that ice cream place we went to last time? After you pick up your stuff?” 

Grandma Coot chuckled. “Oh, so that was your scam all along, huh? Here I thought you just wanted to keep your precious grandma company when all you really wanted was that tabasco ice cream again, hmm?” 

Although Elvira was only feigning hurt and joking, Grimstone still felt like he had to defend himself. “What! No!” he argued. “I just thought of it now! That ice cream was some good shit but I still like spending time with you!” 

“I know, I know. How about we pick up a whole carton of it to bring home? *But*, then you have to clean out the goat stalls,” she bargained.

“Yeah, sure, okay, fine,” Grim grumbled and crossed his arms. In truth, he really didn’t mind the busy work around the farm. He wasn’t going to let her know that any time soon, though, since chores were often traded for treats. “Sometimes I wonder how you took care of that place all by yourself before I came along.”

It was a simple comment. He didn’t mean anything by it. Elvira sighed sadly, “Well, I wasn’t always alone.” After a silent pause, she added gingerly, “But now I have your bastard ass to keep me on my toes.”  

“Hey!” Grim playfully back-handed his Grandma lightly on the arm. 

“If you’re calling that a punch, we need to work on your fighting later,” Elvira smirked. 

“My shooting’s gotten really good! I hit all the cans yesterday!” the teen said defensively. 

“I know, I know. I saw,” Elvira chuckled, and smiled. 

Grimstone smiled faintly in return. Sure, she was a weird old lady sometimes, but he was glad he had at least one family member that liked him around. 

It wasn’t long until they pulled into the parking lot of a warehouse near the pier. There was a large boat with a dark green tarp over its semi-exposed cargo. Grimstone recognized the familiar generators. There were two rugged looking seagulls standing outside a small building nearby.

“Stay in the truck,” Elvira ordered. Grimstone didn’t understand; why bring him if she was only going to make him wait in the truck? He grumbled lowly but did as he was told--for now. 

Grandma hopped out of the truck and headed to the building beside the dock. “Right, boys. The usual deal?” She looked up at the two much taller birds. 

“Actually, the arrangement is going to be a little different. The boss is here today and wants to change some things,” one of the seagulls explained. He directed a hand to the door of the building. 

Elvira’s eyes narrowed as she proceeded to enter. She had a feeling their “boss” was up to something. “Well, you old bastard, what do you want now?” she growled.

Scrooge sat behind a desk in the office, lazily puffing a cigar. “Me? Nothing,” he replied. “The price stays the same for you. I just need to know why you require so many of these generators. Powering a whole city up there, are you now?”

“You keep selling me crap I need to keep replacing. That's why,” she lied somewhat. At least two previous generators she had to mod and repair herself. 

“You haven’t found anything interested in that cesspool, have you?” Scrooge inquired, shifting and turning his chair halfway around. He looked out the window at her truck.

“Nothing you’d care about,” Elvira muttered, “and I prefer my home not be called a ‘cesspool’, thank you.” 

“Why stay on a useless swamp that barely has any fertile farmland? You’ve always been hiding something. Before we can finish this transaction I need to know what that is,” Scrooge insisted, not turning back around.

“There isn’t anythi--” Elvira started to raise her voice but was interrupted by one of the seagulls practically throwing a familiar fourteen year old to the floor. 

“Hey, boss, we found this kid snooping around,” one seagull explained.

“I wasn’t snooping around! I was literally standing at the rail of the dock looking out at the water, you idiot! I--” As soon as Grimstone started to get to his feet, he noticed the duck sitting behind the desk and froze. 

Elvira momentarily took his sudden silence as him worried she was mad. “Grim! I told you to stay in the truck,” she said, walking over to her grandson. She stopped then, and realized the kid wasn’t upset. Something far worse. He looked panicked, terrified, frightened. 

At the sound of Grim’s voice, Scrooge spun his chair back around, facing forward. His surprised look melted into an oily, insidious smirk.

“Well, if it isn’t my lucky charm. Wondered where you went off to. Been a while, hasn’t it?” Scrooge stood from his chair, cane in hand, and stalked around the desk.

Grandma Coot didn’t need to know the history between these two. Grimstone had a run-in with Scrooge at some point between his parents passing and joining the gang of kids, and it obviously had left the most painful scars. She quickly stepped in between the two, snapped, “I don’t think so. We’re leaving. Keep your generators.”

Grimstone, still stunned, went to join his Grandma. Before he could move, one of the guards grabbed Elvira from behind. She fought, fists flailing, before her arms were pinned down to her sides.

Grimstone backed up against the opposite wall. 

“You’ll be leaving without the lad,” Scrooge explained. “Trust me, once you know what he is you wouldn’t want to take him with you.”

“Don’t you lay a finger on him!” Elvira growled and snarled. Though her arms were trapped, she furiously kicked back at the seagull holding her. 

Scrooge could only chuckle as he approached the cowering boy. “It seems I made quite an impression on you.”

“I’ll go with you. Just please don’t tell her,” Grimstone muttered.

“Oh no, sonny. She needs to know what you are or else she’ll try to come get you. Like she used to try with all the other brats,” Scrooge taunted. He pressed his cane handle under Grimstone’s chin, just getting a whimper from the boy. He drew back the cane, bringing it down on Grimstone’s head. 

Grimstone tumbled to the floor. He scrambled to get up, on hands and knees when Scrooge hooked his cane around his neck and violently yanked. The boy took a sharp breath like he had been drowning for those brief seconds. “Open up, and then I’ll let her go. Hm?”

At first the young duck didn’t do anything. His head was swimming. His mind jumped to the night Scrooge had exposed his secret to the rest of the family. To Matilda, the woman who’d taken him in, to all the cousins near his age. He lost everything after that, and he was going to lose it all over again.

Grim was brought back to reality when Scrooge pulled on his neck with the cane. He saw his Grandma fighting furiously to get out of the guard’s arms. He couldn’t let her get hurt, even if it meant losing the last family member he had on his side. 

With a strained sob, Grimstone’s beak split down his cheeks. Past the orange and into the feathers, and down his neck appeared a row of teeth, opening like a second mouth. This was only a small glimpse of the truth, but he didn’t want to ruin the sweater his Grandma had so lovingly made him.

Though his torso rumbled, shifted, he made sure the extra toothy mouth opened wide on his bill and neck. He was sure Scrooge wouldn’t ask him to show more. 

“See, looks like Daphne had a little monster. So, how about my employees load you up with two generators--no charge this time. Can’t say I’m not gener--” When Scrooge looked up from Grim to his Grandmother, he was in for another surprise. 

Elvira had the same wide row of fangs split open past her cheeks. Not only that, but feathered tendril-like limbs were coming out each sleeve of her blouse alongside her arms. The fleshy vines grabbed around the seagull’s arms. With a squeeze and a bend, the guard had to let go. Scrooge’s cane was still hooked on Grimstone’s neck when the old mallard tugged on it again. The teen, while still consumed with emotional dread, was elated by what he saw. 

His Grandma was like him? Why didn’t he realize that was a possibility before? His mother had been like this too. Not until this moment had he finally put two and two together. 

“Oh, I see. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Scrooge’s voice seemed calm, “then, let's make another arrangement. How about--”

There wasn’t any negotiating, as Elvira’s tendrils wrapped around the stunned guard that was loosely holding her. She was able to lift his body with the monstrous limbs and toss the seagull right at Scrooge. Both crashed through the window and into the water outside. 

Grimstone would have been dragged with Scrooge too, but spare tendrils held him tight, plucking off the cane.

Grandma Coot then grabbed Grim’s upper arm with her hand. She quickly made him run with her to the truck. One of her tendril’s was putting the key in the ignition and turning it while her hands checked the wound on Grimstone’s head. He had curled up on himself in the passenger seat, still not knowing what to make of the situation. By reflex, Grimstone stiffened and his exposed openings of teeth closed up. 

Elvira gave him a soft smile before taking the wheel, tendrils retracting back up into her sleeves.

“I had thought Donald would inherit the curse. But of course it would be you. Looks like I have a lot more to teach you than just shooting,” she said, as if this was the only way she could comfort him. Accepting him. She hit the gas and drove off like a bat out of Hell.

Grimstone had so many questions now. Questions he was sure he’d get answers to later. That she was like him. He uncurled and got comfortable, easing back and relaxing, as if nothing was wrong. He wasn’t exposed as a monster, because she was one too. In that moment, strangely enough, it meant they were still family.

“So, uh… Can we still stop for that ice cream?”

------

Thanks again to @cataradical for beta ahhhh.

This came up with the prompt cuz I could picture my Nega Grandma duck saying 'Dreadful' to Scrooge with the same energy as that Kim Kardashian tragic gif. loool.

[sittingoverheredreaming]

Before Age of Calamity can come and make this a moot point, I want to share my headcanon that along with Ganon’s power being much weaker in BotW than it was a hundred years before (due to Zelda fighting him down for a century), a big part of why the Champions lost to the blights when Link could take them out with relative ease is that the blights were not at all the Champion’s main focus when shit went down.

First, rather than a one-on-one like Link has, I do think that at the very least there were corrupted guardian scouts fighting alongside the blights. More enemies swarming also makes sense! It’s shown that monsters were increasing in number, and Ganon was so calculated in his strike you can’t say it’s out of the realm of possibility that there weren’t Lizalfos climbing up and into every opening, or Lynels taking aim with volley after volley of elemental arrows. 

More than that, though, I think the Champions all had priorities that outranked fighting the blights.

Urbosa I see as singularly focused on getting the hit on Ganon. She fights Thunderblight only so much as she needs to to keep her aim steady and the controls in her grasp. She is willing to die, if she can help take Ganon out. What point it there in fighting for her own life, if the being that would destroy everything is not stopped? She does not let Thunderblight distract her. She attacks it with her powers as she can, uses what movement she can spare to defend against its blows, but she will not let Naboris lose its lock on Ganon. She waits for the signal even as her strength begins to wane, as Thunderblight starts landing hits, as her body begins to fail. It would have been enough, had less gone wrong. Had Link and Zelda been able to make it into the castle. Had Zelda awakened her power just a little sooner. Urbosa would have died, but she would have gotten her shot in, and maybe even just one shot from a divine beast might have weakened Ganon enough for Link to strike him down. But the signal never comes, and by the time she turns to fight Thunderblight properly, she has already lost.

Daruk would have expected to go the same way. He and Urbosa are older than the others, they can hold the line and pray that two beams will be enough and that Mipha and Revali will chose to run. Daruk has always respected their choice and their abilities, but they are children. When Fireblight appears, he knows his duty, and he hopes against all hope that they will forget theirs. 

But unlike Urbosa, he does not find it so easy to be steadfast. Ganon’s stirring alone was enough to cause a rumbling in Death Mountain, and Fireblight takes that further. With Rudania perched on the mouth of the volcano, it has the perfect position to use its power to trigger an eruption, sending lava and rocks careening towards Goron City. Daruk cannot find it in himself to let his people die. He uses nearly all of his strength to erect his Protection around the entire city. He faces Fireblight, in hopes of taking it out in time to still make his strike against Ganon, but maintaining the protective barrier drains him, and he’s so used to fighting with it around himself.

(When he dies, the barrier stays around the city for years. Not a single Goron civilian is harmed in the Calamity.)

Mipha faces a similar situation with Zora’s Domain, but without the ability to protect her home so succinctly. She sees the armies of Guardians and monsters advancing, and she makes a decision. A late shot when the signal comes will surely be alright for the sake of saving her people, her father and little Sidon. She drives Ruta down from her post and holds the line at the mouth of the Zora River. There is a reason only one Guardian ever made it to Zora’s Domain. She faces Waterblight while maneuvering Ruta to fight everything else Ganon has thrown her way. When Zora soldiers come, having used the time she bought them to prepare and strategize, the battle has dragged her to the ends of her healing abilities, and Waterblight strikes its final blow as she tries to return Ruta to her position to strike Ganon.

Revali could have— should have— a much easier go of it. In the air, Windblight is the only real threat to Medoh. The Rito have an evacuation plan, and Ganon has very little that can follow them into the skies, and even less that can keep pace.  By virtue of flight, Medoh has a clear shot of the castle from anywhere, so there is little need to keep her in place. Revali can fight Windblight without worry.

Except. From so high up, Revali can see everything happening in Hyrule field. Before Windblight materializes, he can see Zelda and Link’s path to the castle, and exactly how many enemies are ready to ambush them. Guardians pour from the pillars around the castle, and even if Link were as miraculous as everyone seems to claim, he would not be able to cut through them all. Not that Revali cares about Link himself. It’s their mission, that’s all. Link was chosen, and whether that was the right choice or not, he’d damn well better survive to see it through. And so, for the sake of this mission and this boy he definitely doesn’t care about, he dives off Medoh to help clear the way. It’s a job best suited for and archer, after all. Link can deflect a Guardian beam one at a time, but Revali can shoot three arrows at once and have them all hit, and he can draw another round before he’s even spotted. He takes down Guardian after Guardian. And despite how quickly they fall from the pillars, he seems to be making headway. 

Until he hears the unmistakable sound of a Divine Beast charging its laser beam.

He looks up to see Medoh where he (rashly, foolishly) abandoned her in the sky, a dark figure at her helm, her target set on something on the ground— Link and Zelda, as they approach the castle. Revali takes to the air, berating himself for making such an oversight. Windblight shoots as he approaches, its aim just precise enough to drive him back. Revali realizes that if he is going to board Medoh, he has to take a hit. He flies above Medoh and dives for the controls, descending as fast as he can, and Windblight lands not one but three shots, but Revali manages to hit the controls so that Medoh’s beam fires into the sky instead of at the two figures now fighting Guardians below. He dies knowing he failed, Medoh’s beam will not be ready to fire again if Zelda and Link make it to Ganon and give the signal. (But he also dies knowing that maybe, he also succeeded, because they have a chance to make it.)

[ginnyq]

WIP ... Monday

I’ve missed the last WIP Wednesdays (and Six Sentence Sundays, and and and ...), so here’s a BIG chunk of the WIP I am currently (as in, right this moment) working on.

A week or so ago, my good friend @jellysharkbat posted this headcanon about Cullen:

Let’s say its modern!Thedas.

Let’s say Cullen didn’t go the military route.

I’m not saying he’d become a veterinarian 100% without a doubt but Cullen Stanton Rutherford would totally become a vet and coo over his patients constantly.

And that inspired me. So, jelly, here’s the beginning bit of my latest (modern) Cullistair fic, Puppy Love.

~

“Oh, no!” the vet tech said as Alistair followed her to the back room. “No need to ask why you’re here, sweetie!”

She was speaking, of course, to his beloved mabari, who was limping. Her right paw had swollen to at least half again its normal size, and she actually whined and, even worse, leaned into him when the vet tech reached down to lift her up onto the table.

“It’s okay,” Alistair murmured to her. “These nice people are going to help you. I promise.” To the tech, he said, “I got her.”

He squatted and, as he had done to get her in and out of the car, wrapped one arm around her chest and the other around her belly just in front of her back legs and heaved her up onto the table. Maker’s breath, before today he hadn’t lifted her since she was a puppy, and now she was two-hundred-plus pounds of pure muscle. Once he set her on the table, she immediately lay down and looked at him with sad eyes.

His heart broke to see her like this, as it always did whenever she was injured. The last time had been years ago, back when they were still fighting darkspawn. Only this time there was no blood and really no indication of what was wrong other than the swelling and her limp. And even back then, she’d always been tough and stoic, so Alistair knew she was in a lot of pain. She was getting older now, which put her at risk for all kinds of problems, and his mind couldn’t help but go to the worst possible scenarios — cyst. Tumor. Cancer.

“Oh, sweetie,” the vet tech said, grabbing a treat from a jar and holding it out. “Don’t worry. We’re going to get you all fixed up in no time.”

In yet another indication of just how much pain she was in, she shied away from the vet tech’s offer and nuzzled against Alistair’s hand. Alistair stroked behind her ears and murmured comforting words as the tech put the treat on the table.

“Just in case,” she said with a smile that Alistair couldn’t return. “So we can make sure we’ve got the right file, you’re Alistair Theirin, yes?”

Alistair nodded, his gaze never leaving his sweet girl.

“Don’t worry, Dad,” the tech said softly. “Dr. Rutherford is the best. He’ll be in to see you in a few minutes.”

“Did you hear that?” he asked her when the tech had left. He stroked and scratched between her ears, her favorite spot. “Only the best for you, girl.”

Alistair had his doubts, though. This Dr. Rutherford was not their usual vet. They’d been seeing Dr. Dennet for years, and he knew her up one side and down the other — literally. But when  Alistair had realized how serious this was, he’d taken the first available appointment, and it wasn’t with Dr. Dennet. Dr. Rutherford was relatively new to the practice — if Alistair remembered correctly from the email he’d barely skimmed about a new vet — but he couldn’t be bad if Dr. Dennet had brought him on, right?

“You’re going to be fine,” Alistair whispered, though he was pretty sure he was comforting himself more than her.

The door opened and a man asked, “Now, who do we have here today?”

When Alistair looked up, he got his first look at Dr. Rutherford. And … wow.

He was about Alistair’s age and almost as tall (which was saying something). Curly blond hair. A deep, mellifluous voice. And he was built. Somewhat stocky, with biceps that stretched his scrubs just enough to be distracting.

Damn. Dr. Rutherford was hot.

“Hello,” Dr. Rutherford said without looking up, flipping through paperwork on a clipboard. “Barkspawn.”

He snorted a bit as he said the name, but not in the way so many people (with no senses of humor) did, like it was stupid. Dr. Rutherford actually seemed to find it funny, which was a definite point in his favor.

“Well,” Dr. Rutherford said, setting the clipboard aside on the counter and actually crouching down to look Barkspawn in the eye. “It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Spawn, though I do wish it was under different circumstances.”

Now it was Alistair’s turn to snort, and he actually cracked a little smile for the first time since this whole thing started.

“I’m Dr. Rutherford, but you can call me Cullen, all right?” Still speaking to Barkspawn, he noticed the untouched treat. “Oh dear. You must be feeling really bad if you don’t want this.”

Slowly, he reached his hand out to pet her, and Barkspawn allowed it with a whine.

“I know.” Dr. Rutherford spoke gently to her. “I’m so sorry you’re hurting. But I’m going to do whatever I can to help, okay?”

And to Alistair’s utter surprise, she nuzzled into his hand.

Holy shit. Was this guy some sort of mabari-whisperer or something? Major points in his favor.

[claiirvoyantjedi]

｡･:*:･ﾟ☆  || Headcanons :: Eileria ||  ｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

I thought I’d share my headcanons on Kyrra’s homeworld, Eileria. I’m not done, and some of the details definitely needs work. But this is primarily for myself to refer to when I use Kyrra’s Lady of Eileria verse and I think I already have way more details than I’ll ever need.

Enjoy!

Asterological information

·         Region Mid rim

·         Sector Nicandra sector

·         System Eileria System

·        Moon(s) Geon II Yeliv

·         Trade routes The Couter route The Celanon spur

·         Rotation period 26 standard hours

·         Orbital period 324 days

Physical information

·         Class Terrestrial

·         Atmosphere Breathable

·         Climate Hot and dry

·         Primary terrain Cities Plains Mountains and hills Oceans Forests

·         Points of interest Oquion Sanctuary

Ruroluna bay The great Eilerian sea Lake lands Mos Miara Palace Vulcano fields of Nagrea

Societal information

·         Primary language(s) Basic Twi’lek

·         Immigrated species The foregone (Extinct) Humans Twi’lek

·         Government Aristocracy

·         Demonym Eilerian

·         Major cities Mos Miara (Capital) Jiamel Filhnaes Su’inia Viphaistia

·         Major imports Electronics Technology Ore

·         Major exports Silk Art Organic chemicals Wine Foodstuffs Perfumes

·         Affiliation The galactic republic The Confederacy of Independent systems

·         Most of Eilerias major cities are located at the coasts, but the capital of Mos Miara is located on the inland

·         Eileria’s seas are farmed for the Cetu, a seaweed used in pharmaceuticals.  When treated correctly it contains a chemical that provides very potent pain relief. Its production and processing is regulated for trade reasons as well as the danger of disturbing the aquatic life that also thrive on the weed or farming it to extinction.

·         A peaceful people who take great pride in hospitality and generosity. One of the great offences one can commit on the planet surface is to disrespect the rules of hospitality by disrespecting your host and their home or mistreating your guest. 

·         Eileria is home to a fairly large population of Twi’leks, having welcomed them as refugees many years ago. Many chose to stay and became part of the community.  The current ruler of the principality of Bylene, L’idara Deulara, is a Twi’lek.

·         About two thousand years prior to the Clone Wars, Eileria was deep in bloody civil wars. The noble families fought each other for power and control over the system. Over time and through many treaties the large battles turned into quiet assassinations and from that to sabotage and espionage, to finally settling on the peaceful and cooperative system currently in order. Everyone agreed on never letting the bloody shadow of their past return, nurturing peaceful ideals, philosophies and diplomacy.  

·         Even though the bloody and violent days are far behind them, teaching the youths of noble families self-defence is a tradition that have not really faded with time. For younger generations of the noble class to get together in friendly spars, showing off their skills, is common.

·         Aside from nobility being unable to keep rom killing each other, the past systems also brought on regular revolts from the people they ruled. Even now the council ruling Eileria is exceedingly mindful of the will of the people, because they can and will fight them if they are unhappy, and they are educated enough to know it.

·         Eileria was once populated by a race now only known as The Foregone. A humanoid race that was eradicated about a million years before the rise of the old republic when a great catastrophe caused earthquakes and tsunamis to destroy their civilization. Traces of them are still found in the shape of ancient buildings, on the ocean floor and dotting the landscape of the inland.

·         On Eileria the age of responsibility is 17. At this point the individual is considered an adult and is legally responsible for their own actions and affairs. Before that they are the responsibility of a parent or legal guardian.  

·         Eileria foster a people who value peace, philosophy, artistic expression and education. The ruling body were composed of families who represented and contributed to the spread of these values among the masses the most.

·         Eileria is split into 5 principalities, each ruled by a duke or duchess. These nobles make up the ruling council who, along with a group of elected officials and local representatives, get together to discuss issues or make any decisions that affect the people as a whole,  including but not limited to such issues as laws, taxation or handling of growing conflicts. The current rulers are Aarek Lira of Piatz, Shesea Pabrivi of Nagrea, L’idara Deulara of Bylene, Filo Ulesse of Criyne and Lis Ahidaris of Eideyria. The title is passed down to the current occupant’s eldest child when they die, retire or for any other reason is incapable or unwilling to maintain the position. This is assuming they are of the proper age. Though seventeen is the age when one is legally considered an adult, you need to be at least fifteen to sit on the council. A seat can remain empty for up to a maximum of three years before a new duke or duchess will be elected to take the place. If there is no one to inherit the title the council will elect a new duke or duchess to take the place. There has been no need to elect a new member for over a hundred years.

·         Although the five nobles rule together, every five years a chairperson is elected from among them. Whoever is elected serves as the face of Eileria and the council on official matters, but they have very little authority to do anything without first addressing the issue with the council. However, they serve symbolic importance and well-liked chairmen can have a lot of influence over the people. At the start of the Clone Wars Shesea Pabrivi of Nagrea was the chairwoman, replaced shortly thereafter by Aarek Lira of Piatz who then held the seat throughout the war.

·         The current Eierian representative in the Confederacy of Independent systems is Senator Peri Lira.

·         The Eilerian winters are relatively short and mild; usually marked by an upswing in colder winds, shorter days and rain. Snow is a rare occurrence for the coastal cities but the regions around the mountains can on a more regular occasion wake up to snow that has blown down from the mountain ridges.  On occasion harsher winters will swoop in, covering even the coasts in snow. It’s not too common however.

·         The traditional greeting on Artorias is to place the right hand placed flat over the heart and then brought down to the side, palm facing out towards the person you greet. In formal situations this also accompanied by a bow. The bow is done in two different ways, depending on who you are addressing. To someone who is older or of higher status than you the bow is done by carefully shifting the left leg back a little and gently bending the knees.   If you are greeting someone younger or the same age as yourself, of lower or similar social rank, you simply do a gentle lean forward at the waist. All while doing the proper movement of the right hand.

·         The people of Eileria don garments that are comfortable for the hot, dry climate.

·         A past tradition for colors was that which set strict codes for what colours and hues you were allowed to wear depended on your age.  White and near white shades for the very youngest and adolescents who are then gradually introduced to more colours and deeper, darker and more vibrant shades as they grew older. Black was a colour reserved only for the very oldest of the community, only seen on citizens over the age of seventy. This tradition barely holds on, usually only applied for formal events or ceremonies. However, due to the hot climate and often blazing sun, light colours are favoured as everyday wear.

·         During the warm months most wear clothes sewn from fabrics such as silk, Illiaweave and Ceouruwool , made from Ellaria’s natural resources. Other fabrics such as synthetic materials are primarily imported and are used, but not quite as common. The Eilerians take a sense of pride in what they create themselves.

·         Illiaweave is a lightweight, breathable material that protects the skin from the sun and wicks away moisture really well, keeping the body cool without adding bulk and weight.  It is made from the Illiagrass, a waist high plant that grows pretty much all over the planet naturally, but is also grown more controlled by farmers. It’s a strong and durable material, and is suitable for anyone from the noble classes to the working farmers due to its accessibility and the way it can easily be woven thicker for further durability, or so thinly and fine that it’s almost transparent and very delicate. Illiaweave is the most commonly used fabric overall on Eileria.

·         Ceouruwool is a type of fabric made from the fleece of the Ceouru, a horned medium sized mammal who graze the pains and hills of Eileria. The fleece when cleaned, spun and woven creates a dense, warm cloth that repels water and wind very well. Much clothing used for the wet and windy winters of Eileria are made from this material.

·         Jewellery is a common type of accessory. Earrings, bracelets, arm rings and anklets as well as various types of circlets, diadems and headdresses are popular among all classes and sexes. The intricacy of the craftsmanship and value of the materials is what sets them apart. Ribbons woven in spirals or nature inspired patterns and then braided into the hair is a much simpler alternative to an intricate gold chain set with precious stones.

·         Most Eilerians own at least one brooch. It is a very iconic type of accessory for Eilerians, often given as gifts when a child is very young and over the years receives or collects chains, beads, stones or charms to attach to it. It is fairly rare to see an Eilerian wearing necklaces, but in contrast it is very common to see them with a brooch or even a pair that connects with one or more chains or a string of pearls or beads between them across the chest. Though usually decorative, sometimes these brooches serve the function of holding a scarf or a garment in place.

·         The silhouette of the Eilerian fashion is generally defined by draped, gathered, tucked and pleated fabric. Loose robes, dresses, skirts and kaftans, trousers, shirts, jackets and coats often follow similar cuts. Scarves, shawls and wraps to protect the head and face from the sun, or hats and caps also add to the silhouette.

·         Low contrast patterns woven into fabrics are common, as are edgings, trims, embroidery and other decorations, though the lower classes prefer plainer garments for everyday use. Most decorations are heavily inspired by the local flora and fauna, often depicting nature in its various forms. Many of the structures left by The Foregone are also decorated with spirals and wave-like patterns, something the Eilerians have adopted as well.

·         There are no real rules for hair, but just prior to the clone wars shaved undercuts were fashionable. Cutting patterns into it and wearing the rest of your hair short or in an updo to display the undercut was popular. Trimming beards into elegant patters and donning braided hairdos was also very popular.

·         Shoes vary greatly depending on the wearers work, geographical position, social status and the occation. Along the coasts simple sandals or flat shoes are comfortable for everyday wear. Towards the inland and the mountainous regions, boots or spats provide better protection against the elements. For a formal occasion sandals, flat, low or high-heeled shoes are all appropriate options.

·         Prior to the Clone Wars Eileria were already harbouring a dislike for the hypocritical and corrupt senate.  The people of Eileria value peace and diplomacy, honesty and generosity, and they saw only how the republic were carving out the resources of mid and Outer rim worlds to make the core prosper, all while doing nothing to aid those who suffered at the hands of ludicrous taxations, aid refuted or delayed because of vague or overly complicated policies, allowing criminal syndicates, piracy and raiding to roam the edges of the mid rim and the outer rim as they please.

·         Months before the outbreak of the Clone Wars, Eileria had already joined the Confederacy of Independent systems. They did however remain opposed to the fighting throughout the war and promoted peaceful negotiations, provided humanitarian aid and took in refugees whenever possible.

·         All children of Eileria are required to attend school between the age of 5 and 15. After that there are alternatives to enter higher education, apply for stipends to attend universities off world and the like. While the primary education is all paid for by the government, higher education only provided the education itself and some material for the students. Things like lodging and literature need to be paid for by the student. However, even if a citizen had no desire to approach higher education, they were free to attend the many talks, debates, lectures and smaller coursers often provided by the colleges, local libraries and seats of learning for free or a symbolic fee. These could range between a wide array of topics.

·         Eileria is composed primarily of four classes: The nobility – The richest and most influential of the people. The highest members of this class are the rulers of Eileria. They are responsible for providing and protecting the means that makes it possible for the rest of the people to live comfortably and capable of following the values such as peace and education. They are responsible for ensuring the schools are properly maintained, its students fed. It is their job to make sure everyone has a home, that medical facilities are properly functional supplied and off-world trade is properly done. The middle class. The largest of the groups. These are the people living in the cities. Craftsmen, merchants, artisans, teachers, workers, all those who makes Eileria thrive.

·         There exists a worldwide security force, compiled almost entirely of volunteers trained in hand-to-hand combat, marksmanship and piloting.  A small number are located in each larger town and city, conducting both local peacekeeping, being ready for any approaching off-world threats and protect the members of the ruling council. However, they do no longer have an official military. The guard stationed inside the Mos Miara Palace building are known as ----

·         General crime rate is very low. The most common major crime is the unlicensed farming, harvest, processing or selling of the Cetu Seaweed. Breaking the sacred rules of hospitality is also considered a major crime.

·         Only a very small number of blasters are allowed on Eileria and anyone who wants to own one or to bring such a weapon onto the planet must be able to provide a weapons permit. If they don’t have one, they can apply for one at boarder control, but it’s a rather long and tedious process. If they do apply for a permit or can’t show one but still wishes to proceed, their weapon will be confiscated until they leave. Most weapons owned by civilians are stunners and all security force weapons are set to stun by default. Lethal blasters are not easy to come by, what you’ll usually find are either stunners or low-energy types that are usually owned by farmers inland or in the mountains to defend themselves or their cattle from the wildlife.

·         Eileria has two spaceports; the larger and more modern port of Jiamel and the older, smaller one of Mos Miara. It is through the Jiamel spaceport that most of Eileria’s intergalactic trade is done. 

·         Eileria has a thriving agriculture. Vineyards, orchards and fields stretch from the dry, sun-drenched areas of the coasts to the slightly more temperate regions of the inland and mountains.

[stoopsbookstore]

Vampire!Yuta Kink Alphabet

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

If you managed to take him down from the fuckboi phase, you may actually get more than the kiss on the forehead, pat on the ass, hit it and quit it wave.

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

His fangs, of course. They're the source of his power, everyone finds vampires sexy, so just one flash of the pointy teeth and pants are dropping.

Your neck, duh!

No, just kidding. He actually loves your thighs, "the sweetest blood I've ever tasted in my 200 years of living."

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically)

He cums inside of you, no matter where he is. In your mouth? Cumming inside. In your ass? Cumming inside. In your vagina? Cumming inside.

It literally doesn't mean to him because one, he's dead, so that means his cum is basically worthless, and two, less cleanup.

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Please dom this boy. He has been wanting to sub for someone since he's been turned, but literally everyone he has fucked has been a sub. The closest he got to subbing was when he hooked up with a nymph named Wooyoung, who was a power bottom.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

He's been alive for 200 years, he's been a vampire for about 175, so let's say about 2,000 for his body count, give or take a few hundred.

He's been alive for 200 years, do you reallt expect him to remember EVERYONE he's boned? And I'd sure hope with that many years of living and that many people in his bed, he's experienced.

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

The Bassett Hound.

It's basically a more intense verison of Doggy Style.

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

Goofy is his middle name.

He loves to make jokes about making love versus fucking, how many people he has fucked in the same spot, his favorite place to fuck and if his partner doesn't like it.

"Lol, okay. I can just find someone else."

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

He gets that shit waxed monthly, he knows the wax ladies by name and he even goes to their birthday parties.

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

The only intimate moment is when he bites you, he wants to associate that moment with a tender feeling so you keep coming back for him.

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

He doesn't really have to masturbate because he has a little black box lets be honest its not little of numbers of people he can hook up

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

Dom... I guess...

Jesus fucking Christ, someone please let this boy sub for you

Biting, that honestly should be a given

Tying his partner up

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

Everywhere, you can't stop him from fucking someone deadass in the middle of the dance floor or in the bathroom at the local dive bar?

Hey, how long has that girl's body been there? She looks like that Sanghee girl.

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

What doesn't turn him on? It seems like such a cop-out, but literally everything can and will turn him up.

A short skirt, a big bulge, nice thighs, big boobs, small boobs, a nice ass, crop tops, oversized shirts, long hair, short hair, natural hair, straight hair, curly hair, wavy, hair, blue eyes, brown eyes, green eyes, grey eyes.

Literally everything.

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

Anything with poop.

That's it, that's his line.

And of course, anyone underage, but that's a given

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

He's such a tease, he will eat you out or suck you dry in both ways for hours upon hours. If you're a human, you will be knocked unconscious by round five or six.

P = Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

Fast and Rough! Fast and Rough! Fast and Rough! He is like a damn jackrabbit with his hips.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

Yuta is the king of quickies. He can fit about 3 to 10 quickies in an hour, depending on his mood and their location.

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

There isn't really much for him to experiment with, he's tried everything at least one.

EXCEPT SUBBING, HOLY FUCK, SOMEONE PUT A COLLAR ON HIM, PLEASE!

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

Yuta can go for a full day of fucking and he has! Several rounds, he thinks his record is about 30 rounds in one day.

Miss Im Jinhyuk... her husband was so pissed when he found them in bed together, but holy shit will Yuta remember the taste of that guy's blood.

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

Yuta literally bought the entire stock of an Adam and Eve store to set up a kink mansion that he is having built.

His favorite for girls is the vibrating chastity belt, the moans are always so sinful and he loves fucking with the speed of the vibrators.

His favorite for boys is the anal dildo that looks like a tentacle. Yes, it's a stereotype, yes, he knows how it looks, BUT LOOK IT FUCKING GLOWS IN THE DARK!

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

You'd like he would fucking love to tease, but no. He's the type to just get to it, he has the lube if there's any pain, but he's down to business right away.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

There's a reason why he is one of the most hated vampires in the tri-state area.

He has to make as much noise as possible to show everyone he's still a relatively young vampire who can make their blood sluts feel better than they ever could.

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

He met you as a blood slut and fell in love with you, to the point of he thinks you're his mate and you are, but you remind him so much of his former partner that he can't bring himself to rescue you.

The guilt eats at him and he, of course, fucks away the feeling, but he can't stop thinking about you.

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

He's big enough to get the job done, small enough to be hated by those who couldn't get off.

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

His sex drive is so high, he could literally fuck every single for the rest of his life and still not be tired.

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall afterwards)

Pretty quickly if he's in his bed and kicking the other party out. If he's in someone else's bed, about 30 minutes if they haven't kicked him by then.

[unfolded73]

Fiancés (1/1) -schitt’s creek ff

The fourth in the Labels series. David and Patrick visit the Brewers during their engagement. Also ended up being a sort of reaction fic to 6x08, at least partially. (ao3)

WARNING: This fic references a homophobic relative of Patrick's, and explores Patrick's fears about members of his extended family not accepting him. Also it explores some of the mistakes that Marcy may have made in the past, even though she's fully accepting now. In my headcanon, Patrick's reluctance to come out to his family had a reason.

Rated Teen, 3823 words. Previous fics in this Labels series: Boyfriends; “I Love You”, Partners

Other Season 6 reaction fics: 6x01, 6x02, 6x04, 6x06, 6x07, 6x13, 6x14

__________________________________

Fiancé, n. a man engaged to be married

~

He’d tried to prepare himself, but really nothing could have prepared Patrick for the incongruity of David Rose standing in the middle of the living room he’d grown up in, examining the pictures on the mantel with a crooked smile.

David was in an outfit that, for him, was toned down — a white sweatshirt and a simple pair of black jeans. Patrick wondered if his fiancé was consciously trying to round off his edges in front of Patrick’s family. After all, the last item of clothing he’d seen David buy off the internet was a skirt that looked like someone had partially disassembled a pair of jeans and called it a day, so in comparison, this ensemble was positively dull. It made Patrick sad, if that’s what was in David’s head. He didn’t want David to feel like he had to hide who he was. He wanted David to be as comfortable with the Brewers as he was at home.

Not that Patrick was feeling especially comfortable either. At least his skin was back to its normal pallid colour after the engagement picture debacle the previous week, but the whole thing had left him feeling a little off. On top of that, he and David had agreed to this weekend trip under duress. Patrick had a lot of family, some of whom wouldn’t be able to make it to the wedding, so Patrick’s parents had convinced them to squeeze in a weekend trip in spite of all the other things they were juggling: visits to caterers and florists and taking care of the store, plus they had the joint bachelor party that Stevie was planning for them coming up soon. It was a lot.

Not to mention, Patrick’s one request for the weekend — that a few members of the family do an escape room together, a recent family tradition that Patrick really adored — had been nixed by his parents because they couldn’t include everyone. He’d complained to Stevie about it until she got fed up and left the store while he was mid-rant.

So here they were, and in a few hours the entire extended Brewer clan would be congregated in the backyard, scarfing down hot dogs and judging his choice of a life partner.

“You were very cute,” David said, pointing to a picture of Patrick at around seven years old. “Look at those curls.”

“Yeah, my hair still does that if I let it grow too long,” Patrick said, joining him next to the fireplace.

David looked at the top of his head. “I’d like to see that. I bet it would be devastatingly sexy if you let it grow out a little bit.”

“It’s not, trust me.”

David pressed his lips together, visibly holding in his argument. “Okay.”

Patrick raised his eyebrows. “Okay? You’re not going to insist I grow it out before the wedding?”

“No,” David said, reaching out and petting Patrick’s hair a few times. “I was going to wait until after we’re married and then insist on it.”

“Hmm.” Patrick closed his eyes, David’s touch soothing as always. They’d driven all day yesterday, arriving at Patrick’s parents’ house too late to do more than say their hellos before collapsing into exhausted sleep in the guest bedroom, the room that used to be his. It was only upon waking that Patrick had given some thought to the teenage boy he’d been, and what he’d think to see Patrick now, in bed with a man in his childhood bedroom. He’d curled around David under the thick blankets and for several minutes just savored the fact that he was allowed to have this: a family who loved him and a man who wanted to share his life.

“Boys? Breakfast is ready!” his mother called, and David’s eyes lit up.

While they were eating, David and Marcy talked wedding details, and Patrick couldn’t help but remember similar conversations between his mother and Rachel. At least this time, listening to these discussions wasn’t giving him an anxiety stomach ache.

Patrick’s phone chimed, and he pulled it out to see a text from Stevie with a link to the spreadsheet where they were tracking RSVPs for the wedding. while you’re there can u get a final y/n from the rest of ur relatives? her accompanying message read. Patrick clicked to open the Google sheets app on his phone, scrolling through to see which names still didn’t have a reply marked.

“Hey, Mom? It looks like we haven’t gotten a reply for the wedding from Aunt Chrissy,” Patrick said.

His mother’s eyes widened a little, and then she looked down at his kitchen table. “Oh, I… I don’t think she’s feeling well enough to travel.”

Patrick frowned. “What do you mean, well enough? Is she sick?” It wouldn’t be the first time one of his relatives got seriously ill and his mother didn’t tell him right away. When he’d been at college, he’d gone days without being told that his grandfather was in hospice. To this day, he wondered how long his parents would have gone without telling him if one of his cousins hadn’t mentioned it in an email. Would they have kept it a secret through his death, and beyond, so that Patrick would have come home for Christmas and asked about granddad, with no idea that he was dead?

“Oh! No, she’s… um…” Marcy was looking anywhere but at Patrick. “She just can’t make it.”

“Will she be at the party today?” he asked, frowning at his mother’s demeanor.

“No. She won’t be here today,” Clint said, and there was something dark in his voice. Patrick sensed David tense up at his side.

“I mean, we didn’t even get an RSVP card from her, and she used to send me a birthday card every year without fail. It’s not like…” And then it dawned on him, and his stomach plummeted to the floor. He felt like an idiot. “This is about about me being gay, isn’t it?”

Marcy gave him a pained expression, and that was all he needed to know the truth.

Patrick picked up his breakfast plate and stood, his chair scraping the floor and making Marcy jump.

“The thing is,” Marcy said, “she’s gotten even more religious as she’s gotten older, and—”

“Uh huh.” He didn’t want to talk about this. “It’s fine.”

“Honey—” David started.

“It’s not fine. Believe me, we had a very heated discussion with her,” Marcy said.

The last thing Patrick wanted to think about was his mom defending him to her sister in a ‘heated discussion,’ but he couldn’t help picking at it a little more, like a scab before it had healed. “What did she say when she got the wedding invitation?” he asked, facing the sink. David came over and put a hand on his back, a hovering presence at his side.

“I don’t know. We haven’t spoken since before your invitations went out,” Marcy said.

Patrick spun around and gaped at his mother. “You haven’t spoken.” He could remember them talking on the phone constantly when he was a little boy, his mother with the house cordless phone pressed between her ear and her shoulder as she cooked, and then later, the little flip phone with the pull-out antenna that was his mom’s first cell phone. She talked to Chrissy all the time, and his father used to gently rib her about it. Marcy and Chrissy, two sisters only a year apart in age who had grown up thick as thieves in a house with two brothers.

“If she isn’t going to accept my son and his partner, then I can’t have a relationship with her,” Marcy said, suddenly fierce, a mother bear protecting her cub. “It’s as simple as that.”

“What did she say about us?” he asked, and he didn’t want to know, except he desperately did want to know what could have made his mother so angry.

She shook her head. “Just some ugly things. I don’t want to say any more about it.”

Ugly things, Patrick thought. He could imagine the gist of it. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Clint said.

“Nothing,” his mother confirmed.

Clint slapped his own knees and stood up from the table, an obvious ploy to pull the ripcord on this conversation. “I’m going to start getting things set up out back. David, can you give me a hand?”

David grimaced, looking to Patrick to see what he needed. “Go ahead,” Patrick said. “I’m fine.” David squeezed his arm, his eyes filled with worry and sympathy. “I’m fine,” Patrick assured him.

“Are you sure?” David asked, visibly torn between being a model son-in-law and doing as Clint asked, and staying by Patrick’s side.

“I’m sure.” Patrick forced a smile. “I know you want some input into the whole backyard barbecue aesthetic.”

“Okay.” David hesitated another second, then kissed his cheek and followed Clint outside.

At a loss for what else to do, Patrick started washing the breakfast dishes, but his mind was like a dog with a bone. This was exactly what he’d feared, what had kept him from coming out to his family for so long. He wasn’t that close with his aunt, but she and his mother had been two peas in a pod. Was it really possible that they’d diverged so completely in their thinking? Or was his mother just doing a really good job of pretending she accepted him and David together?

When he turned around and grabbed his mother’s plate, she took hold of his arm. “Patrick, you know we support you a hundred percent, right?”

“Yeah.” But something made him add, “I mean, I’m sure a part of you wishes that I’d stayed in town and married a nice girl and had a couple of kids.”

The hurt look in his mother’s eyes stabbed him in the heart. “Of course we don’t wish that. It’s your happiness that matters.”

Patrick knew he should drop it. He knew it. His engagement party was today; now was not the time to air out the effect of his upbringing on his sexuality. But it was like now that he’d cracked the door open, or maybe now that his Aunt Chrissy had cracked the door open, everything was going to spill out and he had no power to stop it.

“Do you remember my friend Karen from high school?” Patrick asked, looking at the plate in his hand without really seeing it.

“I… your lab partner in biology?” Marcy asked.

“Yeah. She came out as bisexual that year, and when I told you that her parents were giving her a hard time about it, do you remember what you said?”

Marcy’s eyes were wide. “What did I say?”

“You said, ‘surely it would be easier for her just to date boys.’”

His mother opened and closed her mouth a couple of times. “I don’t remember saying that.”

“I never forgot it,” Patrick said. He remembered questioning his sexuality at one point in college and then deciding it would be easier not to go down that road. That road led somewhere difficult.

“Sweetheart—”

“And look, you said plenty of tolerant things too. You watched Will & Grace, and you shook your head disapprovingly at hatred from others. But there was always a layer of what-a-shame, isn’t-that-sad… I don’t know, tragedy to it. Like being gay was an unfortunate disease that needed our support. Like it was cancer.”

Marcy looked positively stricken. “Patrick, I didn’t feel that way. Why would you think I felt that way?”

“Because you never said anything to make me think otherwise.”

Tears slid down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry. I never meant… Patrick, I’m so sorry. If I indicated any sadness about someone being gay, it was just because the world was such a hard place for gay people. But things have changed. I’ve changed.”

“I know.” He set the plate back on the table and rubbed his hands over his face. “God, I didn’t mean to stir all of this up now.” He swallowed around a lump in his throat, hoping David and his father wouldn’t come back inside to find them here like this.

“No, I’m glad you told me,” Marcy said, reaching out and squeezing his hand. “I know we made mistakes, that we didn’t give you the space to be who you are, and I’ve spent so many nights lying awake thinking about that—”

“I don’t want that. And I don’t want you to sever your relationship with your sister on my behalf. You don’t have to do that.”

“I do, sweetheart. Chrissy knows she’s welcome to reopen communication with me if she accepts my son for who he is.” She plucked up a napkin from the napkin holder in the center of the table, dabbing at her eyes. “Until then, I can’t have her in my life.” She took a deep breath. “Now,” she said, clapping her hands as if to dismiss their heavy conversation, “let’s get this kitchen cleaned up. I’ve got a million things to do to get ready for the party.”

Patrick nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

~~~

When he was sufficiently motivated, David Rose was quite capable of turning on the charm, Patrick thought, watching him presiding over a table of Patrick’s cousins.

He was already aware of that, of course. David was impolite when he didn’t care what people thought of him, but Patrick had seen this version of David emerge before, particularly with vendors. He imagined this must’ve been what David was like when he ran an art gallery in New York, full of sparkling conversation. Everyone seemed to adore David, but it bothered him that it was this fake version of David they adored, not the one Patrick knew.

Picking up his tongs, Patrick opened the grill and nudged all the sausages to flip over.

“Hey, Pat,” his cousin Dennis said, bumping his shoulder. “Want another beer?”

Draining the bottle he’d been holding, Patrick tossed it into a recycling bin. “Sure.”

He watched Dennis pull two bottles from a cooler and open them. Patrick and Dennis were the same age, same grade in school, played on the same hockey team growing up. There was a time when Dennis was the closest friend Patrick had. He felt a sudden pang of regret that he’d let the family gossip tree and a couple of Instagram posts do the job of coming out to the rest of his family, even to Dennis. It had just been too exhausting, after finally telling his parents, to think about having to do it all over again with everyone else. Now he wondered if that had been a mistake, at least in the case of his former best friend.

Dennis handed him one of the bottles and then clinked their bottles together. “Working the grill at your own party, huh?”

“Dad needed a break,” Patrick explained.

“How are you doing? You look good, man.”

Patrick glanced down at himself, at his ordinary jeans and t-shirt, wondering what Dennis was seeing. Well, perhaps he was in a tighter t-shirt than he used to wear, now that he thought about it. And he knew he was in the best shape of his life — David’s appreciation of his arms was a powerful motivator. Patrick adjusted the ballcap on his head. “Thanks. You too.”

“You still playing hockey?” Dennis asked.

“Yeah, there’s a league I play in,” Patrick said. “And baseball too.”

“Oh, cool. That’s cool.”

An awkward silence settled, and Patrick couldn’t help but notice that Dennis hadn’t congratulated him, or mentioned David at all. Maybe Dennis also wasn’t okay with who he was, and was just being polite and trying his best to ignore it. Maybe Dennis was looking at Patrick’s cosmopolitan, effeminate fiancé with his demonstrative hand movements, and thinking how tragic it all was. Their poor little Pat, being regularly sodomized. Patrick wasn’t going to delude himself into thinking that there weren’t other bigots among his aunts and uncles and cousins. That there wasn’t judgement hiding behind their polite smiles.

“You know, if you’d told me when we were kids that you were gay,” Dennis said, “I would’ve been in your corner.” Patrick’s eyes snapped to his cousin, and he was awkwardly scratching the back of his head. “I hope you know that.”

The hulking homophobic creature Patrick had been conjuring in his mind dissipated into smoke. “Dennis, I didn’t know I was gay when we were kids. It was a… much more recent discovery.”

Dennis looked relieved. “Oh. Okay, I was kind of imagining you suffering in silence all that time. I felt really bad about it, man.”

“I mean, I guess I was suffering, but I couldn’t have articulated why.” He opened the grill and stuck a probe thermometer in one of the sausages, then started putting them on a clean platter.

“Yeah.” He put a hand on Patrick’s shoulder. “I’m really glad you’re happy now.”

Patrick smiled his first genuine smile all day. “Thanks. I really am.”

“I mean, you should be. Your fiancé is… how’d you pull a guy that hot, Pat? He’s way out of your league.”

“Okay,” Patrick grumbled, taking the platter over to the food table. “He’s not that far out of my league.”

~~~

“Your family is very nice,” David said as he returned from the bathroom, his face freshly scrubbed and moisturized, his coziest pajamas on.

Patrick looked up from where he was sitting at the foot of the bed, staring down at his hands, and he offered David a small smile. “Yeah.”

“Hey, are you okay?” David sat down at his side, and then wrinkled his nose. “You probably should go shower the charcoal smell off.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna…” Patrick took a shaky breath. His heart was racing for some reason. He couldn’t understand why. And why he couldn’t seem to haul enough air into his lungs. “I’m…” He heaved another breath, and a weird noise came out of his mouth along with it. Almost like a sob. “I…”

“Oh, honey,” David said, and Patrick felt his large, comforting hands on his shoulders, smoothing down his arms, his back. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” Patrick managed, a tear splashing onto his jeans. Then another. “I don’t… I don’t cry.”

“No, I think we’ve established that I’m the crier in this relationship,” David said, his hands pulling Patrick into his chest. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“It’s just…” Patrick heaved another breath, shaky. “It’s all of it, the stress of the wedding planning and this trip… I’m just tired. I’m really tired. And the thing with my aunt, and it made me wonder… who else in the family thinks… thinks I’m…” More tears were falling, running down his cheeks and soaking into David’s sleep shirt.

“I don’t know the answer to that, but I know that I met a lot of people today who adore you and are genuinely happy for you.” David was rubbing comforting circles on his back. “And also, fuck your aunt.”

Patrick hiccuped out a small laugh. “Yeah.”

They sat there for a while, David rocking him and rubbing his back and it was so good, it was exactly what he needed, to have someone to lean on, to shoulder all of this because he just couldn’t fucking carry it all anymore.

“My mom and her sister aren’t speaking, and it’s because of me. Because of what I am,” Patrick whispered. His darkest thought. If he couldn’t say it to David, then he couldn’t say it to anyone.

“But you know that’s not your fault. It’s hers.”

“I know that intellectually, but deep down it still feels like… it feels like my fault.”

“Yeah, you should have just worked harder to not be gay,” David said.

“I know. It’s stupid.”

“No, it’s not stupid. It’s human to feel that way. You just have to keep telling yourself that you are who you are and that anyone who doesn’t like it can fuck off.”

“I’m not used to feeling this way. At home, it feels good, being gay. Like I know who I am, and that I can… I can be proud.” Patrick’s stomach twisted, uncertain if he should say the next part. “I think it’s why the spray tan thing bothered me so much. It made me feel like you weren’t…” Patrick sighed and pulled out of David’s arms.

“Honey—”

“Like you weren’t proud to be marrying me. That you wanted me to be someone I’m not.”

“Patrick.” David’s face was stricken. “You think I’m not proud to be marrying you?”

“I mean, my cousin Dennis did say you’re way out of my league,” Patrick said with a smile, trying to lighten things up with a joke.

“Patrick. I couldn’t be more proud to be marrying you. Look at you! You’re so fucking smart and talented at literally everything and you’re just stupid hot—”

“Okay, David.”

“I literally tripped over my own feet the other day because I was distracted by your arms, and… and you sing and play multiple instruments, and sports—”

“You don’t care about sports.”

“I don’t, but I love that you’re good at them. You’re the one that’s out of my league. Patrick. I want to shove you in the faces of everyone who ever thought I wasn’t good enough.” David’s eyes turned glassy, and he blinked rapidly. “I want to say, look, if this amazing man thinks I’m worthy of spending his life with, then I’m… then I’m not nothing.”

“David. You’re not—”

“I couldn’t be more proud that you want to marry me.” A tear slid down David’s cheek.

Patrick leaned in and kissed him softly on the lips. “Me too.” David put his arms around Patrick’s neck, and Patrick dragged his lips over to kiss his favorite spot on David’s neck before sinking more deeply into the hug.

After an amount of time that Patrick couldn’t quantify, they finally pulled apart. Patrick picked up David’s left hand, his fingers running over the gold rings.

“I figured planning a wedding with you would be better than planning one with Rachel and it is, but there are parts of it that are still stressful.”

David laughed. “Yes.”

“It’ll be a relief to just get to the part where we’re married already.”

David pulled his hand back. “You aren’t… looking forward to the wedding?”

“No, I am. I mean, not the stressful mad dash of it, not the logistics. Not whatever disaster we can’t predict that’s going to throw everything into chaos.” He took David’s hand again and looked up and smiled at the grimace on David’s face. “But standing up there and putting a ring on your finger? Saying our vows to each other? That part I’m looking forward to. And do you know why?”

“Why?”

Patrick squeezed David’s hand in his own. “Because I’m proud.”

[epicspheal]

Okay, a few weeks back, I posted how the success of someone trying to make a career out of Pokemon training largely depended on starting location and what their financial background looked like. So after thinking about it, you realize that of all of the regions with leagues so far, Galar is actually the fairest league as far as eliminating barriers for trainers to compete. Let's start with the money. We know at least in Pokespe that Rose has made programs in Galar to help poorer trainers get into the gym challenge (which confirms my sad headcanon that many trainers are screwed out of a traditional journey out of socioeconomic states *stares at my Trainersona and her story*). So we know Galar does make an effort to help struggling trainers. Then let's think about the sponsor system (not so much the endorsements as that just seems to be a letter of recognition and that the endorsers seem to not be obligated to give other support). We know you can gain sponsors as you become more well-known on the Galar circuit, which would mean extra monetary support. Then there's the whole starting location thing. I know many people IRL complained about the strict linearity of the gym challenge, but in universe, it makes a lot of sense. By having everyone start off with the same first gym, it's easier to accurately measure skill level. By having the opening ceremony be the send-off place, everyone is literally starting off in the same location Motostoke. That means a trainer from Wyndon isn't burnt out just trying to get to Milo's gym, and it doesn't give the trainer who already lived in Turrfield an unnecessary advantage by just hopping out of bed and mosying down to the gym. Even the fact that the gym is on a schedule helps create equality. The gym challenge is likely chosen at a time when there are no big harvests (therefore not screwing over trainers from Turrfield/Postwick/Wedgehurst who might need to help on the family farm) and when the weather is relatively mild so that trainers from say, Circhester or Wyndon aren't being snowed in and thus maybe having to halt their journeys due to a blizzard. Having a set date for the start (and thus dates for registration and endorsement) gives people the same amount of time to prepare. The watts trading system in the wild area also helps by allowing trainers to passively collect watts and can be used to buy needed Pokeballs and TRs at prices they may not be able to afford with regular money. This helps improve movesets among poorer trainers compared to rich trainers who can buy the expensive TMs from the Pokemon Center Stores early on. Now it doesn't mean Galar's system is perfect. One could argue that the endorsements (not the sponsorships) could still perpetuate class inequality because there's theoretically only a limited number of endorsements per year (as it's not realistic to expect Milo and Nessa to challenge hundreds of trainers per year in a small timeframe) and that people with more connections are more likely to rub elbows with people who could give them an endorsement. And again still coming from a rich family may give you a leg up by having Pokemon bred for you or just having extra money to spend on yourself and your Pokemon. But still, I believe the Galarian gym system sets up the fairest gym challenge for its trainer by actively attempting to reduce barriers that prevent sizable chunks of the trainer population from reaching their full potential.