#but you get the really long headcanon/rambly version that's all just ideas for now

[imagine-shenanigans]

hey guys i haven't even had a chance to see atsv yet i just know spoilers and i want this man biblically, i'm talking carnally, i want him in a way that hurts feminism, i want to bring the whole damn movement down so i can be his stupid little housewife and raise his damn kids so i can watch him be happy and then also get railed into losing every brain cell i have

anyway here's some abo headcanons, they include spoilers for the movie/his backstory probably because idk what is and isnt a spoiler because i havent seen it yet.

also this one works a bit differently than my normal layout, it goes SFW and then dips NSFW and ends with more SFW but they're all clearly labeled!

Reader is written gender neutral with they/them and the nsfw section has afab and amab sections, but since I'm Nonbinary and AFAB that's probably how it's gonna come off for most of the reading, just to warn you!

Miguel O'Hara x Reader N/SFW ABO Headcanons

Rating: Explicit

Word Count: 5k words

Content Warnings (tell me if I miss any): Dubcon, ABO, Obsessive Behavior, Toxic behavior, Omega reader, Alpha Miguel

For these headcanons we're gonna exist in a weird liminal space where Gabi is like, five to six or so and he brought her home with him or some shit idk man I just think he's a hot single father anwyay, also this is assuming omega reader because i think it's hot

if anyone wants a version where Miguel follows more canon and he still lost his kid and came back you're free to request that too i love that shit, just for this specific one i wanna raise his damn kids so-

SFW

Alpha, big alpha energies.

Miguel is the type of guy who's pretty obsessive with what he claims as his, I would honestly say borderline yandere vibes without fully delving into it - his mental state in this au/situation is also a lot better since he still has his daughter, so he's genuinely a lot less "feral" than he tends to get without her, even though in this we'll say he did almost lose her.

So when he claims someone, he's going to be damn sure he means it.

This ones a bit of a general headcanon but he doesn't really have a type when it comes to the people he likes, other than he needs someone who's interesting to him. Whether it's because you're hotheaded, or even keeled, whether you're snarky or sweet, he just needs something for his brain to latch onto.

Not a love at first sight guy but he is an "obsession I can't place" kind of guy.

Miguel has really enhanced senses when it comes to scenting, so it takes some damn strong suppressants and scent blockers to completely block him out... which if we're pretending reader here is falling with the abo trope of "hiding being an omega" (which we are because I love tropes) is just what gets him obsessed. Clothing and perfume that masks your scent, suppressants and scent blockers, and a confident attitude are all enough to throw most people off the (forgive my pun) scent.

But not Miguel.

His spider DNA has the animalistic side to it that fucks with his hormones regardless, makes it easier for him to pick up on the pheromones that even most attentive alphas can't, he's damn near a personal lie detector with how smart he is and how attuned he is to what his nose and instincts tell him, even when he's using serums to keep the more feral urges at bay.

He can only get a whiff of you, fainter than most betas, and it drives him fucking insane knowing he can smell something but he can't figure it out. He can't place it, and it nags at his brain. He can smell a whiff of flowers, or sugar, or something undeniably citrus (depending on what you headcanon your own smell to be) but he can't place it and he hates that shit.

Ends up pulling some traditional alpha shit and he can't even help it, starts trying to crowd you until you kick him in the shin or Peter B or Jess shoos him away. He has to figure out what it is, he has to know.

It only gets worse when he brings Gabi in (a babysitter fell through) and you end up butting your way in to play with Gabi and Mayday, delighting in watching them for the day instead of whatever you were supposed to be doing. They're both so cute and sweet.

Gabi smells primarily like cinnamon and a bit like dewey grass - she's not old enough to have presented yet, but her basic scent, unaffected by the secondary gender hormones, is simple and sweet, reminds you of a summer morning.

She takes after her father in that regard - Miguel smells *warm* and a bit musky, like trees and cinnamon and, a bit like a camp fire. A small tinge of oil, when you pick it apart, and you can't tell if its from the lingering scent on his skin after fixing a broken machine nobody else could, or if that's part of his natural scent.

(Mayday smells like marshmallows, and carmel, funnily enough)

When you take care of Gabi and Mayday, your scent lingers on their skin, mixes and twists in a way that Peter B can't notice but Miguel can. It's all he can do not to be a damn freak and pick his baby girl up and sniff her hair to try and figure out why she smells like that (not in a creepy way, to clarify because there are some freaks on here, but in the same way a dog gets baffled by smelling you use a new perfume, or in the way of when you pick your kid up and go "WHY DO I SMELL CANDLES ON YOU WHAT WERE YOU DOING")

He almost can't stand how his head swims when he watches you pick Gabi up and gently throw her up in the air a bit, watching you let her climb onto you while you're distracted just like Mayday does. Soothe her tears when she accidentally breaks a toy because she's still learning to control her super strength.

He doesn't know that he wants you either, not until long after he's already manifested feelings. Doesn't realize how protective he is, doesn't realize how differently he treats you. He doesn't realize he's lingering in your area just long enough to make sure he can fill his nose with the faint scent you give off.

He assumes you're a beta - not that it mattered to him, really. Miguel would just as soon marry another alpha as he would a beta or an omega, as long as it's you.

He doesn't realize what he's doing until he's got a piece of your clothing in his hands, holding it in the dead of night up to his nose. A scarf or a glove or a jacket you'd leant to Gabi during the day and she'd spilled her juice on it and he'd taken it home to wash it.

He can smell his daughter's scent, louder than life, so familiar he could have a handful of pepper thrown at him and he'd still be able to wrap his arms around her and move her out of harm's way in the direst of straits.

And then there's yours, linger, mingling with his daughter's scent, and it's the parent of his child.

It's not, it's not the woman who birthed Gabi, it's not the woman who contributed to making her. It's you, the only other person he ever wants near his child in that capacity. And it's intoxicating. It's infuriating. It's overwhelming because the full breadth of his own emotions is so strong as he realizes what he's been doing. And he can't even tell you because he holds himself to a specific standard, a specific code of ethics, and even though he wants to risk it all just so his hindbrain (both alpha and spider and his own human instincts all mingling in one) can have his little loves all wrapped up in his arms, safe where he can protect them.

He only just has the strength to wash the piece of cloth and return it. It takes everything he has not to cling to it, to make a pretty little nest to protect his family in, webs and pillows and fabric, a basis of protection so you can properly make it your own and -

He controls himself, and returns the scarf the next day, leaving it on your desk because he can't bear to look you in the eyes.

The days struggle by, a stark contrast to his normal snark, to lingering in your space and snorting and rolling his eyes. To being by your side more than he normally is. It's disheartening, it makes you feel rejected, and he knows it.

But he doesn't stop, this tension that can cut through the air lingering. Even Gabi and May notice it, the older girl frowning and the younger fussing when the two of you are in the room together.

And then your heat happens.

(brief bullet point break because there's a limit to how much you can have in one bulleted section on tumblr and I don't remember what it is but I'd rather just break here)

You've been on suppressants and scent blockers for years now. Being in your line of work (whether you headcanon this as a spiderperson version of you, or a different kind of superhero, or a civillian all working in the society) it's necessary. Omegas aren't rare but they're not the majority of the population like betas are. In Nueva York, it's a coin toss if you'll be fought over in the streets like some prize to be won, or if you'll be coddled like a child who can't figure out what's best for them.

It's half safety half preference at this point, from your original universe's standard (before it had burnt to cinders before you), and this one's. Your suit, your meds, and your behavior, they're all meant to mask and confuse.

But you can only make it so long on the prescription you've got, the long-lasting shots that were more reliable than a pill. The scent blockers go first - not by design, but by chance. You'd been giving yourself lower doses since you'd wound up in Nueva York, supplementing it with deodorants and lotions swiped from stores and hospitals that could afford to spare the supplies when you can't buy it covertly. But you'd still been low in comparison to your suppressants.

You shower more frequently, lather yourself with soaps and deodorants and lotions of different scents and ones that have blocking effects, and for the most part it works. You can't quite fool Gabi - too smart, too tuned in to your emotions like her father could be. She's got a sharp nose, and she wrinkles it when she can smell how confusing your scent is. She asks questions, and you can't lie your way out of it, but you are able to bribe her so she's distracted long enough that she forgets the question. Miguel notices, when he picks up Gabi, but he can't quite figure out exactly what's wrong, and you leave so fast (he assumes with the tension that lingers between the two of you) that he can't figure it out.

You're so certain you're in the clear.

But then your shots run out, and even you can't get more without a prescription. And while your health information would never go through Miguel, you know that the medispiders have to go through him or Lyla for any heavy duty things like suppressants, because they have to be resourced more carefully.

And your last doctor, although wildly shady, and incompetent, and operating out of an apartment, was right about one thing - suppressants will rot you from the inside out if you're not careful. If you don't let a natural heat occur, it will only be worse in the long run. (Although you suppose he probably had a greasier, grosser reason for telling you that.)

And rot you from the inside they have - all your natural reactions to a heat, all your normal bodily functions don't work properly, when confronted with something they haven't seen in years. You know within seconds of your suppressants flushing out of your system what's going on. You're still in the pre-heat phase of things, and you feel like you're dying. You aren't, and you know you aren't, but you feel nauseous and feverish and incoherent within an hour tops. Only long enough to let you panic and send a text to Miguel that you can't watch Gabi like you'd planned. That you're going out ad you won't be back awhile. You leave your phone in your room, when you pack your bag and head for the nearest somewhat reputable hotel that you can afford. You brace the door with the dresser, explicit instructions left for the front desk to, under no circumstances, contact you for the next week.

You get an order of pre-made meals to slap into the fridge, water and juice and all sorts of drinks and things shoved haphazardly inside once the bot brings it in through the window. You're barely coherent enough to retain control to crush the landline, rendering it inoperable, before you barricade the rest of the room.

You're definitely not in control when you nest, blankets and pillows and clothing all thrown haphazardly around as you go fully out of your gourd.

You're damn well out of your mind by the time you would have normally realized the card you were using was in Miguel's name.

(another very brief line break in this portion for drama but also so I don't hit any limits)

Miguel is pissed when you leave so suddenly.

Sure, he's been avoiding you, and sure, you aren't actually together, but you're his damn it. You don't know it, and sure, he's not going to acknowledge it out loud until something happens, but you can't just leave him and your child and his child who loves you high and dry like that!

It's laughably easy to find you, to find the hotel you've checked into. He doesn't even wait to figure out the reason you left, he's so quick on his honestly kinda toxic bs.

Gabi is left with Peter B and Jess for a bit, and Miguel is honestly so smug that he finds you so fast. You were so sloppy about it. So quick to leave that even though you left your phone behind, in a moment of clarity, you barely bothered to take back streets. You used his own damn card he'd given you to pay for the hotel for two weeks, and to order food.

If he weren't half out of his mind with concern and anger about how quickly you left, he'd be angry you used the card without asking like you normally did.

(His hind brain purrs with it though, knowing he's provided for you)

He doesn't know what did it. Miguel genuinely doesn't know what he did to earn your ire in such a way, but he can guess. He doesn't think it's how cold he was, in the beginning, but he isn't sure that it's not how he'd warmed up to you. How, when he'd let his guard down without realizing it, that he'd flirted with you. Had that made you uncomfortable? Had every 'innocent' brush against you turned you against him? Certainly, it could be his absence, his sudden coolness and stonewalling. It could be how he refused to look at you, when you were in the room. Tried to hold his breath after he'd realized what he was doing.

He doesn't really listen to Lyla when she tries telling him things. He heard where you where, found out the room, and swiped a key before Lyla could finish talking about vital signs and behaviors. She knows to set his alerts to emergency only for the foreseeable future, because she's figured it out much quicker than he has, and she figures she'll at least spare herself the trouble. Gets Gabi set up with Jess for the night, and is on her way so she doesn't have to deal with what's about to go down.

He's surprised by the dresser in front of the door, when he tries to get in the first time. It's easy for him to move - he just lowers his center of gravity and pushes his way into the room, slamming the door shut before he can inhale.

The hotel room is nice, with a kitchenette and a small entry area with a couch and a television. The bedroom is just tucked out of sight. Exactly what he expected when he'd heard the hotel's name - he'd never been, but he recognized it.

And it's when he inhales, that he realizes why.

Your scent hits him hard and fast, chokingly sweet in the back of his throat in a way that makes his hindbrain roar. His pupils blow wide, and if he didn't have such a strong self control, he'd have torn the damn door off its hinges looking for you.

He remembers, in that moment, why he recognized the hotel. It was one that was best known for its handling of customers in heat and rut.

NSFW INTERLUDE

(We're gonna start with general headcanons and go back into the specifics of the scenario in a sec but it's all relevant fjasdkl;)

Miguel is a Dom-leaning switch, he prefers to be in control as often as possible, regardless of whether he's topping or bottoming. Nine times out of ten, he wants to fuck his partner until they're an incoherent, babbling mess, because he enjoys the power and control it gives him, enjoys the dynamic of it.

As he gets more comfortable with a partner, he's more willing to accept the idea of subbing, enjoying it more when he has someone he trusts behind the wheel, so to speak.

(Because yes, Alphas can be subs too - that's a whole thing I could get into and might if someone asks)

And Miguel, even normally, is already a possessive guy. He's needy, and stakes his claim, and when we're talking about abo Miguel?

Sheeeeeesh

The moment he scents you in the air, the moment it clicks in his brain that you're going through a rut or a heat, it goes straight to his dick.

He damn near loses it, fighting not to tear the door off its hinges as he stalks to your room. Your scent is so strong in the air that even though he knows he should turn around, he still at the very least wants to make sure you're okay. So the sight of you, face down, ass up, fingers pressing into yourself, he almost loses his damn mind.

His pretty little wife/husband/spouse coworker, his crush, is an omega. It's almost too good to be true, and he can feel his fucking fangs extend, his mouth watering as he stares at you. You're too blissed out to even realize he's there, slick dripping down your thighs like a fucking faucet... and his name is on your lips.

He could cum untouched, could die a happy, happy man after seeing this.

He has dignity, and self control though, even as the force of your hit heats him. He's genuinely concerned, a moment later, his instinct to breed to claim tampered down by his need to care.

You cling to him, hazy, feverish, and incoherent. You beg him to claim you, to mark you, to fuck you. Miguel wants to, he does... but he instead kicks his shoes off but otherwise stays fully clothed, his cock so hard it hurts as he grabs the closest bottle of water, and an ice pack, and climbs into your haphazard nest with you. He probably should have left by now, but instead he seats you against him, your back pressed to his chest, and he presses the ice pack to your forehead, ordering you to keep it there as he makes you drink water, sip by sip.

You whine, and beg, and squirm, but you obey.

He fucks you on his fingers, once he's gotten some water into you. Hard and fast, leaving you breathless, tense, until you cum all over his fingers, oversensitive as he fingerfucks you into another one, and another, arms like steel wrapped around your waist as one hand pounds into you, the other wrapped around your dick or circling hard on your clit. It's not enough to genuinely sate your heat, but it's enough to help. And he doesn't trust himself to put his own mouth to use - barely trusts himself to speak, even though most of what he growls into your ear is, strictly speaking, complete and utter nonsense as he's caught in the moment. Every time you cum, he praises you, telling you how good you are for it. How sweet you look, with tears streaming down your face, cumming so well for him.

When there's enough coherency for you to have a conversation (but not coherent enough to be mortified), Miguel is able to get the rough gist of the situation. He really can only piece together that the heat is going to be a strong one, that it came fast, and that you had panicked. There's a confession, to be had there. He agrees to help you through your heat, but only under the condition that you're his.

It's toxic, and of dubious consent at best, but he'll pull as many orgasms out of you as needed to keep you coherent enough to talk to him. He's helped an omega through a heat or two, and he knows what he's doing. He's not exactly clearheaded himself, in making the decision - but he does make sure that this is truly what you want before he proceeds.

When he's sure that it's not just the heat speaking, that you truly do care for him, that you want him to stay even after your heat has subsided, he allows himself to indulge.

Sympathy ruts are common, and it builds slowly inside of him as he indulges in his instincts. Holding you, kissing you, pressing his fingers inside of you over and over and over again until you pass out. He keeps you wrapped up in the nest, adding his shirt to the mix while you sleep, but not trusting himself to completely strip quite yet.

Miguel is an attentive alpha.

(While you sleep, he excuses himself from the nest to call his daughter, to assure her everything will be okay, and he just explains simply that you'd gotten sick, that you needed him for a bit, and that he'd be back once you were feeling better. He promises to call every night, and he works out a schedule with Peter B and Jess in the meantime.)

(When you overhear him, voice so soft, so protective, so gentle, it half makes you want to swoon, and half want to climb on his lap and fuck yourself stupid on his cock until he fills you up so you can give his daughter a sibling.)

This man is going to spend a good majority of his time pre-sympathy rut fucking you open on his fingers and his mouth. He wants to make sure you're ready, wants to make sure he can enjoy this for as long as possible.

By the end of it, he makes sure to fuck you, nice and steady, a hand on your throat and his lips on yours. He makes sure you're nice and coherent for it. He wants to make sure you remember it, when he claims you. When his (fucking horse cock, the dude's packing like ten to twelve inches which is great for my chubby bitches like me) dick fills you up so full that you're almost certain you'll break, hiccupping and sobbing as you keen and wail, the nest below you soaked as he fills you up. His fangs sink into your neck and you cum, right then, his hands grabbing your thighs so hard he's sure it will bruise. He fucks you through your orgasm, knot catching until it slips inside. He rubs your clit/tugs on your dick as he finally knots you, making sure you cum just one more time for me, cariño.

normal Miguel definitely has a claiming and breeding kink, so it's fucking intensified by ten when he's omegaverse Miguel... let alone when the man's subject to his rut. You'll be covered in scratches and bites and hickies by the time you're both coherent enough to function properly again.

Which... for Miguel, is a solid few hours of coherency at a time.

For you? You're only ever coherent in short bursts, and it's like the peak of your heat constantly for almost the full week.

This next bit just mostly borders on nsfw/has some nsfw parts so i'll put it at the end here before going back to sfw

Like I mentioned before, Miguel is a very attentive alpha.

He's going to fuck you seven different ways in an hour with his superhuman stamina, but he's also going to make sure to actually take care of you.

He makes sure you drink electrolytes and water in equal measure, makes sure you eat, and sleep, and he bathes you himself, carrying you into the shower and keeping you pressed against him as he massages your muscles and washes your hair and body with a soft cloth, using completely unscented soaps and shampoos so it doesn't overwhelm you. Presses bandages to your scrapes and bites so you'll heal faster. Cool cloths and ice packs and fever reducing medicine.

He finds he has to bribe you, during this time, even for the most basic tasks like eating and drinking, and he would be lying if he said he didn't enjoy having to plug you up with his cock just to get you to eat wasn't hot as hell. The fact that you need him so badly you'd rather forgo basic necessities... it's addicting. Granted, he doesn't actually let you - he's got enough control that he can make sure you're taken care of in all regards.

Back to SFW time!

After your heat itself passes, you're subject to the suppressant sickness that comes with it. Your fever has broken, but you're still nauseous and dizzy and fatigued as your body flushes everything out of your system.

Miguel is beyond pissed when he finds out why you're still sick.

It's reckless to not even have a natural heat once every six months, let alone taking your suppressants so solidly that you hadn't had one in years. If he'd known, he'd have said consequences be damned and would have bitten you the moment he walked through the door, and taken you to the hospital.

He doesn't care how embarrassed you are, when he packs all of your things back up into the sealable bags, and dresses you in his own clothing. He's almost out of his mind when he takes both of you back to HQ - only just remembering to take back corridors to the medic so they can check you over properly.

You've then got two spider people who are pissed, as the medic rants about how dangerous that was, how stupid it was that you did that, instead of just swallowing your pride and letting them help you control things. They order you on house arrest for a full month, to make sure your body can recover properly. No suppressants, no scent blockers (at least the medical kind) for a couple years, and only medicine that's medically necessary, and even then it has to be monitored more carefully.

Miguel lets the Medispider tear you a new one for a moment while he steps into the hallway, giving you privacy and space to figure things out with the doctor while he catches up with Gabi.

When you're done with the Medispider, it's not a question on if you're staying with Miguel or not - you really don't have a choice in the matter, he tells you. When you're recovered, you can decide if you want to move in or not, but until then he was going to personally keep an eye on you.

Gabi, who lacks the complete understanding of the why and the how behind it all, is just glad that the person they've been trying to scheme their father into confessing to is actually going to live with them. (Even if only for about a month.) She grins smugly when she realizes you smell like her dad.

Miguel lets you have pick of the house, when he carries you back to his beautiful, cozy suburban home. He leaves the proper tour up to Gabi, as he carries you both, letting Gabi tell you about everything excitedly. You stay in his bed (you two had claimed each other, and although Miguel does give you the option of your own room... you'd rather die than lose the comfort that comes with being around your mate.)

Miguel cooks properly for you while you stay with him and Gabi.

No more prepackaged meals, he sneers, instead making you chicken noodle soup from scratch, with bone broth and lots of vegetables. Breakfast every morning before he takes Gabi to school, tucks you in to sleep while he pops into the HQ to check on things. He's out of commission from missions while he cares for you, but he still makes sure things go smoothly. He's home by lunch, sometimes bringing you fast food instead of cooking so you can have your fill of a greasy burger or fries or something to sate the part of you that needs something unhealthy and indulgent. Holds you in his lap while you both eat, watching TV on the couch.

He finishes his work and goes on emergency-only mode when it's time to pick up Gabi from school. He tucks you into the passenger seat if you feel up to it, buckling you up himself and pressing a kiss to your lips, even though he doesn't need to. He knows you can buckle yourself up, and lets you do so when you insist, but it makes him happy to know he's taking measures to keep you safe.

He does force you to take a blanket with you, just in case though.

When all three of you get home, he makes dinner, sometimes with Gabi helping him, sometimes you, sometimes just himself. He has a pretty wide range of foods he ends up making, but it's primarily because they're foods he likes, or Gabi likes, and he learned to make them. He's a good cook, overall.

It's the best work-life balance he's had in a long time.

When you're better, he all but begs you to stay.

And god, how could you say no to him?

(Also for those who it matters for, if you do end up pregnant from the Heat Adventures he obviously loves kids and would love one with you, but if you don't feel ready/don't want to have kids other than Gabi, he absolutely respects it, and will talk about options with you. Granted, he'll be disappointed, but at the end of the day it's not something he CAN'T move past. Discusses birth control options with you almost immediately when the two of you get intimate again.)

[hmsdoodlin]

(22) Heart and Soul <3

Long ramble under the cut

I’ll be honest I have no idea why these two resonate so much with me, they barely interact in the album one on one. But I think they’re really cute and I’m kissing them on the tops of their heads. They have so much potential.

(Please don’t crucify me for any of this, I acknowledge that some of my takes may be ooc. This is all based on interpretation and whimsy. Soul is hard for me to characterize.)

My version of Soul is tired. He’s driven to drastic decisions that he does not want to do. He loves his Heart and his Mind with his entire being just as much as he hates them, they’re him! They’re a package deal! But in Cacophony Heart and Mind are far too absorbed with their rivalry to really acknowledge him unless it’s to turn the argument in their favor. He feels ostracized and used, more like something to be fought over than a friend. I think he’s really lonely.

And then you have Heart. Someone who yearns to be understood but struggles to express himself in a healthy way. He craves for unity just as much as Soul and Mind do, but ultimately crumbles beneath his own perception of the others and his loathing. He wants to love, he has the capacity to if he is the entire emotion spectrum, he just can’t express it right now because of everything going on inside his head.

Soul really needs a hug and to feel loved -> Heart really needs a hug and to feel understood

Both are incredibly lonely in their own ways, but they also have the ability to be mutually beneficial for each other in Cacophony.

Assuming Soul is half and half of both sides, he’s able to understand and at least sympathize with Hearts point of view. He doesn’t agree with it, he can see past all of the twisted perceptions, but he’s able to provide the sympathy/understanding that Heart needs. No matter how small. And in turn Heart is able to provide that brief feeling of togetherness and unity. Heart is most likely the easiest to connect with on a surface level, and therefore the best option for when Soul is feeling down and hopeless.

Heart thinks the entire world is against him, he believes that Mind and by extension Soul hate him and want him gone. Soul is able to quell the moons worries, at least for the night. Soul believes that his sides hate him just as much as they hate each other, he wants them all to get along. Heart can provide that feeling of unity, physical touch acting as a form of reassurance and communication. He can pretend that everything is good for a moment and that the warm body beside him is how it’s supposed to be.

I headcanon Mind as touch adverse and Heart as very physical, so Soul is the perfect middle ground! Heart and Soul are able to connect on a very emotional level, and therefore have an easier time showing affection and being close. Lots of cuddles! Lots of comforting! They don’t have to talk, there’s no pressure, they can just hug and everything melts aways. They want to keep each other safe and happy.

Their relationship is so appealing because there’s no barrier between them. They can connect with and understand each other on a very emotional level, switching seamlessly between comforter and comfortee in most scenarios.

I have a lot to say about them in an angst sense, but it delves a bit too far into headcanons and is incredibly long. That’s a discussion for another time, I’m trying to focus on the positives of their dynamic here. Heart and Soul angst absolutely cooks though, trust.

I may be delusional. But in my HEART and in my SOUL they are very close. They share the same night sky! The moon orbits the earth and controls the tides! You can only see the stars when it’s night time!!!!

(Quickly going to clarify that I personally accept a lot of different interpretations of Hearts blindness as canon, I generally like and accept most headcanons even if they conflict with eachother. Soul blinded Heart? Cool. Mind blinded Heart? Epic. Heart was always blind? Awesome. I personally don’t really care and I think all of them can be true simultaneously. Why the hell not, time does not exist on a linear scale. I don’t agree with Soul being 100% an abuser though, he’s just as much of a complicated victim as the other two.

I personally like the idea that Heart did it to himself in apathy the most. Doodle Heart has subscribed to that, as will all/most of my interpretations of him. My Soul didn’t hurt him in that way. And I think he was actually quite mortified when he found out.)

Be silly be goofy, do whatever the hell you want, at the end of the day this is my own personal point of view. They swim in my brain like little amoeba and have rerouted all my nerves. I’m definitely more inclined to be soft on them so take everything I’ve said with a grain of salt. My ass is biased. On my hands and knees begging for more content of them though. PLEASE.

On a less serious note. I think Heart is Souls little guy. He love him :(

[2demondogs]

Hi! Could I get some domestic Charles headcanons? Like if him on his own ranch with his partner and children?

Sure!! Gender-neutral reader! Sorta hit a block on this one bc while I want to wife Charles up 100%, I am very much destined to be a Cool Gay Uncle, so I hope it's okay lol.

Charles does most of the hunting, slaughtering, and cooking. He's good at the former, doesn't mind the rest, and he likes that you compliment the latter. If you want to join him catching dinner or cooking it, Charles is usually more than happy to have company. He'd also love the opportunity to teach you whatever he can; once they're old enough, teaching the kids is his favorite way to bond with them.

He does need alone time, and wants to give you yours. There's only so much interaction anyone can take, and Charles is a naturally reclusive man. Normally, he'll take hunting trips or repairs around the place as an excuse to be on his lonesome for a while. If you're not someone who frequently needs to recharge on your own, he'll probably worry that he's stressing you out being so... around.

For a quiet guy, he rambles at night. Charles tends to talk pre-sleep anxieties out with you when he's tired enough — and he has a lot of them, for living such a slow life nowadays. Things from the past, what comes in the future, what that hide will fetch. By the time kids come along, he'll wear his brain smooth on one side worrying about them. Especially the girls. He is a Girl Dad for sure.

Charles is not very good with young kids. He's good at respecting them as their own tiny, more chaotic versions of adults. Patience is a virtue, and he can put up with their nonsense — though that's more affectionately thought than anything — for a long time, as long as they're satisfied in committing it. Once they start crying, though... let's just say that approaching a child the same way he approaches wounded animals worked until he spoke too hard on accident, and the kid burst into tears again.

Kids love him regardless. Usually, anyways. There was a period of time where babies tended to cry whenever he looked at them, and neither of you really know why to this day. But he's quiet, so they can talk all they want; he's tall and sturdy enough to climb; very firm hugs, and doesn't mind giving them; and once they're old enough, his advice is solid without being too kind. He's kept his physique if only because, for some reason, every single kid has loved being swung around like a feed sack. Like most things, he doesn't get the appeal, but whatever makes the critters happy, y'know?

Despite the difficulties, a family was never a bad idea. Charles likes the idea of having roots, and having them with you. Anything stationary is a grace in his life. To think the rest of it could be nothing but that is at once suffocating and comforting. He'll probably drag you all on a few trips and wander off on some excursions to sate the drive to run around, but beyond that, he's just fine being a homebody now that he's got a home.

One of his more sentimental insistences is a yearly family portrait. It's an expense, but ranching is good enough money to warrant it. Beyond expressions of contentment, he doesn't often make gestures or say much in the vein of this— but it says enough about what you all mean to him that he gets a few prints of each one.

He doesn't tell the kids much of his history. Of course, he connects with them as deeply as he can because they're his babies. Charles is the master of dropping absolutely horrific lore on them over a beer once they hit their thirties, but before then? Good luck. It's dangerous, sure; he wasn't always a good man, no, and sometimes he's ashamed; most of all, what happened in and to the Van der Linde gang — and the world they sprouted from, and where that world is buried, and where the world is going nowadays, and everything else — still scares him. He would be happier if you didn't know a lick of it, either.

[donelywell]

how does your version of the Phantom Ruby work?

Oh buddy you're in for one hell of a ramble.

I don't care that this is stuff I wanted to reveal in my Forces retelling- I'm babbling about it neow! Besides, I have no idea when I'll be motivated enough to continue my actual canon adjacent au, SO WE CAN HAVE FUN WITH THIS!

Tw: blood

Okay, so the Phantom Ruby is an ancient artifact hidden in a pyramid in Regal Ruin Zone (Sonic R Stage because I really do hate it when zones are just a one and done thing, not overused like Green Hill Zone per say, but I want to actually explore the zones instead of just zooming by them for about 4 minutes total).

A legend says that if you sacrifice some of your blood to it, it will grant you the power to make your wishes a reality. Zero (I'm going with the headcanon that Infinites name used to be Zero) was a huge fan of this legend, he heard about it when he was doing some bounty hunts near the zone.

When you give the Phantom Ruby your blood, you and it are locked together until the blood supply is used up. Only the blood user can use the Phantom Ruby.

The Phantom Ruby is a sentient gemstone (haha, watch me make every single gemstone in Sonic sentient gods), but it lies dormant until someone feeds it blood. Because the Ruby doesn't want to go back to sleep for who knows how long, it starts whispering things into the users mind, feeding thoughts into their head to make them use the ruby more. To give it more blood, to be consumed by the lust for power.

The legend told of a god who was banished and imprisoned into the ruby. Centuries later a crow mobian found the ruby and brought it to their travel group an echidna, a leopard, a tortoise, and a scorpion. They were ambushed later that night and the crow bled onto the ruby in the battle. They realized it had the power to grant wishes, and the crow grew insane with it's power, becoming consumed by the ruby.

The other members of the group realized they need to stop the crow and cut its connection with the ruby, so they begged the gods to give them a way to save the crow. In turn, the gods gave each member a gemstone blessed by different gods a citrine, jade, amethyst, and an onyx. With the gemstones powers, they managed to save the crow from the ruby and lock it deep in a pyramid covered in complex traps and curses as to keep people away from the cursed Phantom Ruby.

Eventually, the group disbanded, with each of the members who helped save the crow carrying the gemstone they had with them as they all scattered to the different corners of the planet.

Ehem- now past this goes into the plot I have for Infinite in my Forces retelling, so you can skip this if you want.

Zero managed to get past all the traps in the pyramid and capture the Phantom Ruby for a bounty he accepted from a mysterious person who wouldn't reveal their identity. This however led to him getting the Phantom Ruby inserted into his chest and have it drive him insane with the whispers it constantly had speaking in his head. He snapped, going completely insane and mindlessly following the voice. He became Infinite, the vessel for the god of illusion.

The legend wasn't lying, as he continues to abuse it's power, the Phantom Ruby slowly started to consume him. Literally. The Phantom Ruby slowly turns his body into it as he uses the power. The process is accelerated when The Resistance begins to be able to push back after the 6 months, making him use his illusions more.

It's up to The Resistance to find the legend of the Phantom Ruby, get the citrine, jade, amethyst, and onyx (names still deciding on), and stop Infinite (and Eggman).

Thank you for letting me ramble about this! I tried to hold myself back a little bit at least from spoiling some of the plot I have for the retelling because I don't wanna ruin the story (if it ever gets made) by spoiling everything about the Phantom Ruby.

[maybeimamuppet]

i give you permission to ramble about any mean girls headcanons you like and why

PEOPLE KEEP ASKING ME ABOUT HEADCANONS AND I GET SO EXCITED BECAUSE I HSVE SO MANY AND RHEN THEY ALL LEAVE MY BRAIN AND I GET SO SAD!!!!!!! i need to update my list because the people that live in my brain now do not align with that so much anymore

anyway

1: i love when cady is absolutely fascinated by the most mundane american thing. i love it it’s fantastic and delicious. her favorite thing in the entire world is a shopping cart. how can you not love her.

2: i am OBSESSED with janis’ hair NOT being dip dyed (in american stage version tbc). it is blonde because she dyed it as a plastic and keeps it out of spite because she knows it adds to the aesthetic regina would absolutely despise. the anger is stored in the hair.

3: for some reason i’m obsessed with giving cady deceased siblings. the first one was literally just because i wanted laylas middle name to have some significance. that’s it. but the more i think about it the more she just seems like that fits? and i think i’ve done it at least three times so far

4: in a similar vein i’m so into having janis raised by a single parent. and also damian but his is canon

5: karen has so much untapped angst potential. “and how when coach carr tells me he has an ‘open marriage’ that his wife probably doesn’t know that they do!” BABYGIRL WHY IS HE TELLING YOU HE HAS AN OPEN MARRIAGE HM

6: i am very into (recently, still very unexplored) the idea of aaron and janis being stepsiblings or something like that and cady’s just like hhhhhthiswholefamilyishot

7: aaron is a drag queen as an adult. nuff said.

8: i’m also really into giving people the most mundane useless quirks that most of the time i don’t even mention. cady never wears matching socks. janis does yarn crafts when she’s angry. damian will not rest until he gets that one specific judy garland playbill from 1937 (i made up a year pls don’t yell at me). cady is the one who can’t cook in all of her relationships. janis hits the ceiling a concerning amount when she goes bowling. cady wears contacts. regina can juggle. gretchen is a closet tech nerd and loves programming. karen makes a killer fruit punch. regina is terrified of babies. damian kicked out janis’ baby teeth during a tap routine. the little things.

9: cadnis specific one but i LOVE when janis is the one who keeps begging for a pet and cady is like “babe do you have any idea how much work pets are. where did you even find that raccoon now we have to go get you a rabies shot”

10: and arguably the one i love most is cady being totally down for “weird” relationships. she’s got ideas of love that haven’t been altered by any western media. qpr? with the right person/people she’s down! dating a girl? hell yeah! enby? why not! she’s got a few questions but they’re still cute! polyamory? hell yeah more love to go around! i fully believe she just would love so hard she’s just willing to try whatever she can get and respects the hell out of more taboo relationships :) as long as it’s between consenting adults and whatnot ofc. safety and love are her top priorities

[cookinguptales]

Okay so now that I've had some time to digest and think about Late Night with the Devil, some thoughts.

Sorry in advance, this got really, REALLY long as I rambled about all-male secret societies, who and what was possessing whom throughout this movie, literal and metaphorical hauntings, how fame and fortune tempt us all to give up our humanity, and uh. Family youtubers.

I really enjoyed the film, but I do have to wonder, to start with, if other people will get all the allusions...? I didn't think about it until later when I was reading confused posts by other viewers, but I guess the film does kind of predicate on a lot of somewhat arcane knowledge. Like you can understand what's going on without it, but I do think you get a lot more enjoyment out of it if you have a good working understanding of, like, the Satanic Panic of the 70s, the parapsychology/esper craze, James Randi's whole thing, Anton LaVey, Waco, late night hosts like Johnny Carson, and of course the Bohemian Grove.

The Bohemian Grove is kind of... like, obviously a lot of the people making up conspiracy theories about that recently are alt-right assholes (see: Alex Jones), but it is very much a real thing. It's kind of a modern Masonic situation, imo, where you get these big groups of rich, influential men together and they do silly, juvenile vaguely pagan frat boy shit. It's edgelord stuff. But because they are secretive and they are powerful, people come up with all of these conspiracy theories about them.

(I mean lbr that's kind of the history of the occult in general, isn't it? lmao. People ask me if I was afraid when I was studying secret societies and occultism and it's like -- no, these were by and large just rich assholes fighting over headcanons about rituals that they made up based off of deeply faulty scholarship. But I digress.)

The fact of the matter, though, is even if the actual rituals and stuff are kind of silly, the main focus is really rich, powerful men meeting up with other rich, powerful men and networking like crazy. It does keep the rich rich, the powerful powerful, and political resources focused on men. Like the Masons, women aren't allowed in the Bohemian Grove -- and women in politics have bitterly criticized the way that they're being excluded from this kind of networking.

(God, it's so fratty. It's so fucking fratty.)

So in that respect, it is kind of something to be feared.

And... I do think you see that aspect of it reflected in Late Night with the Devil. The consolidation of power, the networking with shitty people, and the way that women are "sacrificed."

[massive spoilers for the entire film to follow!]

I do think I want to see this movie again to firm up some of my ideas, because I suspect that there are a lot of details that I missed the first time I watched this. (And I really should have watched the open captioned version of this; I couldn't understand a lot of what the demon was saying, rip.) But here are some initial thoughts.

The heart of this, obviously, is the demonic presence at the Grove and the way that men go there to sell their soul for power. In a very literal sense, that's what's happening in this film and it's what happened to Jack Delroy. He made a deal with a demon for fame, and that demon ended up taking everything from him to achieve that.

But... metaphorically speaking, it seems clear that Jack Delroy was very willing to make human sacrifices in his day-to-day life. He may have literally (and I think accidentally) sacrificed his wife's life to a demon at the Grove, but he very consciously and willingly sacrificed her for fame when she was alive, too. I mean... imagine having a spouse who is actively dying of cancer and making her make an appearance on your show two weeks before she passes. For ratings. Imagine how much it must have physically taxed her. Imagine how difficult it must have been for them both emotionally. It even could have hastened her death. But he was still willing to do all that for views. He sacrificed his wife, his home life, and his overall privacy for views.

(Family youtubers, anyone? 🙃)

He's also willing to sacrifice his girlfriend, his crew, his audience, and a little girl for ratings. Gus, his voice of reason. He was willing to humiliate him onstage and wouldn't let him go home when he was scared. His audience, whose trauma he was entirely willing to capitalize on through Christou's act. His gf, who I'd argue was probably using Lilly as well, was totally thrown to the wolves when he realized it'd make good television.

Like -- yes, there were supernatural forces at play. Supernatural forces claimed these lives. But Jack sure as shit wasn't being very careful with them, and these supernatural sacrifices always, always mirrored his mundane ones.

(I mean... he performed a human sacrifice of a little girl on national television while in a hallucination about using the sacrificial dagger on his dying wife. It wasn't subtle. lmao)

Moreover, the producers of the show were also very willing to put people in harm's way and capitalize on tragedy for ratings. So... there's a really unsubtle message here about fame and capitalism and the way it tempts you to sacrifice your humanity to get ahead.

(MAYBE LIKE UNDERMINING YOUR ARTISTIC INTEGRITY BY USING AI INSTEAD OF HIRING ARTISTS, IDK)

I'd in fact argue that pretty much everyone who got on that stage that night sacrificed their humanity a bit for fame, with the possible exception of Gus. Gus was the voice of reason, but I mean... he was still there. Maybe a message about how once you get in, you can't get out. :(

But yeah, Jack's obvious, but also Christou, who was willing to use people's trauma for fame. June, who was willing to use a little girl's incredible trauma to advertise for her new book. Carmichael, who got off on humiliating people just to make himself seem smart.

Like... they all started with a kernel of something good (wanting to help the grieving, wanting to help traumatized children, wanting to stop charlatans) but in the end, show biz turned all those urges into the most amoral, selfish, and cruel versions of themselves.

And all of those people crumbled when they were confronted with something real.

(Side note, our theater was in hysterics when Carmichael tried to offer the demon the check. lmao)

Truthfully, it felt like all of them had made their own individual deals with the devil years ago. Halloween 1977 was just the devil finally coming to take his due.

That's the main message of the movie, I think, but there are still some smaller details I want to talk about.

The Grove itself was an obvious allusion to the Bohemian Grove, which is a secret society of powerful men who meet amongst the redwoods in Northern California. Their mascot has always been an owl, which is why you repeatedly see the owl motif throughout the movie. (Happy Owl-ween, the owl mask, etc.)

Abrasax makes sense as a demon to choose (the strong historical associations with magic and demonology, the reoccurrences in many world religions (and occult groups), the role in Gnosticism, etc.) but there seem to be vibes of Stolas, an owl deity who communicates arcane knowledge to humans in exchange for their souls, as well. I noticed a lot of little allusions to Abrasax throughout the film even before Lilly started manifesting, like the movie being shown after the show being about Abrasax.

Lilly... She was rescued from a cult that seems to be a hybrid of Anton LaVey's Church of Satan and the Branch Davidians who died during a siege by the US government in Waco, TX. (Like the cultists in the movie, their compound caught fire when they were being raided. IRL, it's unclear whether the fire was started as a suicide cult situation or if it was started by the actions of the government as they tried to flush people out.) In this cult, girls were sacrificed at age 13, and all who witnessed that sacrifice would fall under the control of Abrasax.

So... she was rescued at age 10. Three years have passed. So she is now 13, the age at which these girls were sacrificed. She was due, in other words. Who and what was possessing her... that's the question, I guess. Demons, historically speaking, were known to speak foreign languages, speak in the voice of other humans, have psychic knowledge their hosts shouldn't know, etc. So she did exhibit symptoms like that.

I think... there are a couple of options here. There's Abrasax specifically, there's June's theory that she was possessed by a minor demon, and there's Minnie. Or a combination of the three.

It's pretty clear that Minnie's presence is felt throughout the whole taping. You can see her reflection various times throughout the movie, she manifested through Christou, and obviously you see her in the tape playback.

(And when I say my theater YELLED. lmao)

The question is, though... Is it really Minnie? And if it is, what does she want? Has she been haunting Jack all along? Is she there because, as it's the first Halloween after her death, it's her last chance to deal with her unfinished business? Did the demon allow her to manifest? Or was the whole thing an illusion created by the demon all along?

(I'd like to note here that, historically speaking, there was a theory that ghosts aren't actually real. They're actually demons masquerading as the spirits of departed loved ones, and they want you to summon them and listen to them so they can tempt you away from God. You can read this in the writings of a lot of the ancient Christian theologians. Or you could have talked to my grandmother, who also told me this when I was a kid! :') But she's dead now so I guess you'd have to do a summoning and find out for yourself.)

All that said... I come down between two current theories. I'd have to watch it again to firm up my ideas.

The first theory is that she's been trapped on earth for the past year, but because it's Halloween, she can haunt them. They mention at the beginning of the film that Halloween is a recent spirit's last chance to take care of unfinished business. So this could have been the case with Minnie. That said... what exactly was her unfinished business? Was she trying to protect Jack and the others? Or hurt them? Was she angry, or was she just, as Christou said, sad? Was her "an unmarried man wearing a wedding ring" referring to the way that Jack was grieving her and still wearing his ring, or the way that he wasn't much of a husband to her when she was alive?

The second theory is that, when she was sacrificed to Abrasax, she became a part of that legion. She was, like Lilly and the other little girls, essentially raised to be sacrificed, and once she was, she joined everyone else who is under the control of the deity. It's still hard to sense whether she was trying to help or hurt throughout the broadcast, but it explains her presence (she came with Lilly, not Jack) and how she was used during Jack's hallucinations to ultimately get him to perform the sacrifice on Lilly, thus bringing all audience members (both in the studio and at home) under Abrasax's control.

Either way, Minnie, in this film, is literal ghost haunting the stage -- but also a metaphorical one. The ghost of all of Jack's past misdeeds and the humanity he's sacrificed to get ahead. She's guilt and she's shame and she's desperate grief, and I guess it's no wonder that the negativity surrounding her was enough to kill Christou when he touched it.

I do think it's fascinating that all of the women in this movie are, in a very real and physical sense, sacrificed for the aspirations of men. (The little girls are sacrificed, Minnie died of a mysterious cancer, June dies because Jack pushed for her to stay, etc.) But metaphorically speaking that seems to be the case as well. They're constantly expected to put their own comfort and safety aside for the men in their lives, and their own aspirations are consumed by the men's.

Like I said, it feels very telling that women aren't allowed at the Grove. Women are constantly being denied power in this movie (or are only allowed power when it's in service to a male costar/deity) and it's largely because they just don't have the connections that the men do. The deals were made while they weren't in the room, essentially.

I'm not sure if that was a conscious choice being made, but it does seem to dovetail nicely with the strong, strong sexism and male privilege present in real-life secret societies of powerful men that disallow women. Like June only getting to shill for her book because Jack let her, women are only allowed at the real-life Bohemian Grove in very limited areas -- and only as a male member's guest.

Um... back to Lilly, though. What the hell is possessing her? She speaks as Minnie a few times, but that could be because Minnie is a part of their legion or just because she's trying to freak out Jack. Demons are known to lie using the voices of loved ones. Minnie's presence could have been influencing her, but I definitely don't think that's all that was in there.

The question, really, seems to arise from what June said about Lilly changing like a week ago and how she started talking about Jack nonstop. At least one presence in Lilly seems to be the same deity that Jack spoke to in the Grove when he was making his deal with the devil (so to speak) because it mentioned that encounter. But is that the only one in there? Is it the same deity that's always been in there? Or did it come to her only a week ago as a way to get to Jack and complete their contract? ("It is done.")

Lilly refers to her demon as Mr. Wriggles (which feels like an Exorcist allusion) and it seems like she has a pretty good lid on it. And when that demon is brought out of her by June, it seems confused and frightened. But Lilly is pretty clearly possessed the entire rest of the broadcast, so really the two options are that she was faking the entire time just to fuck with them (entirely possible) or there were two different deities, perhaps the original (lesser) one put in her in the cult and Abrasax(?) newly arrived to claim Jack and his audience.

It's fascinating watching her, because you can see her slip in and out of a possessed state several times when people aren't paying attention to her (jerking, spacing out, etc.) but it's hard to tell whether that's different presences coming in and out of control, her "talking" to what's inside her, etc. Again, this is a thing I think would benefit from multiple viewings. I'm really not sure if the Grove creature is new to her body or if it's been there all along biding its time, and it's only changing its behavior now because it wanted to be on tv.

While her recently changed behavior seems to lean towards the former, I am sort of stuck on the detail that Jack said early on, that he read June's book and couldn't stop thinking about it. That could just be normal fascination (and he did end up having an affair with her) but it could also be demonic intervention. That would indicate that the demon was manipulating him into putting Lilly on TV long before a week ago.

What is not really up for debate is that the presence inside Lilly now is one that has connections to Jack through the Grove and promised him fame. Lilly (before she was visibly possessed) alludes to this promise by telling Jack that he'll be very famous after tonight. And once the ritual starts, she is seen taking electrical energy from the set and cameras. She is literally getting her power from the audience viewing the sacrifice. (It's very Ringu.) And after Jack stabs Lilly, the studio audience, audience at home, and presumably real-life audience watching this movie, are all put under Abrasax's control.

("Hail Abrasax" is seen multiple times throughout the film, which might also imply that the documentarians themselves are trying to spread this contagion after watching the video.)

Uh... a few more small things.

Carmichael Haig is obviously James Randi. Like Houdini before him, Randi was also a stage magician who dedicated his life to exposing "supernatural" charlatans. He did indeed offer a huge sum of money to whoever could prove him wrong. Carmichael even looked like James Randi. (Though I'd point out that "Haig" is the name of the man who constructed the owl statue at the real-life Bohemian Grove!) I suppose it makes sense that he'd be such an asshole in a world where demonic possession does actually exist.

The one thing I'd say is... it's hard to say whether this was a case of the filmmakers not thinking through implications or if this really was a nasty joke, but Randi was, IRL, gay. He came out late in life and got married to a man shortly before he died. So the implication that Carmichael, in the movie, wanted to join the Grove largely because he was perverted is... iffy. Carmichael was never stated to be gay in the movie (that I noticed) and it's hard to suss out whether the orgies he was talking about were relating to the all-male membership of the Grove (i.e. a gay orgy) or the women that these powerful men had hanging all over them (i.e. a... less gay orgy) and I do think which they were implying has major implications for what they were saying about a man who was, IRL, gay.

Like... if the implication was that he must've been willing to hurt people in order to have wild sex because he's gay, that's uh! Not great! But if the creators didn't realize that aspect of Randi's life (it was less publicized because, as I mentioned, it happened later in his life) then they might have just been pushing on that trope of powerful men using women.

Really, really hard to say.

Next, Christou. Christou... it's hard to say whether the man was psychic at all. It's clear that he was doing a lot of fake-ass cold reading beforehand (though I do want to go back through it and see if there really was any allusion to a Peter- character involving the skeleton) and was using interviews to find grieving audience members. (Two practices that James Randi talked about a lot IRL.) But he also did have a very real experience when he sensed Minnie and, while overwhelmed, didn't seem particularly shocked by it.

If I had to guess, I think that Christou does have some psychic powers (which is why I want to investigate the Peter thing) but can't control them well and is easily overwhelmed by real phenomena. He plays things up for the cameras (I noticed his accent slipped when he had his real experience, lmao) but I wouldn't be surprised if, like everyone else on stage, there's a kernel of something real in him.

Finally... that fucking skeleton! I want to do an entire watch through just to examine that guy. He was in the flashbacks about the Grove, so I think it's likely that he might've been a member of that. He also is the only one who refuses to take off his mask, which seems to relate to the dialogue at the beginning of the film about wearing a mask to protect yourself from spirits during Halloween. I think he's definitely in on what's going on, to some extent, but it's hard to figure out exactly in what capacity. Was it a Grove member, or maybe a cult member? A follower of Abraxas? Was it actually the personification of Death?

Hard! To! Say!

Like I said, I really do want to rewatch this movie to pay more attention to small details I might've missed in the theater. I'm also looking forward to seeing it with subtitles. It wasn't a perfect movie, but it was intriguing and original enough that I really enjoyed it and want to watch it again to puzzle through it. Really, the one big mark against it was the brief use of AI, which is just -- god, it's infuriating.

It's such a small part, so it would have been so easy to not do. (Apparently it wasn't even IN the first festival showing.) But it kind of pollutes the whole movie, especially when such a large message is not fucking over real people in the quest for success in the media landscape.

Plus, it just kind of looked like shit.

I know it's probably a lost cause, but I would be thrilled if they hired a real artist and redid those images for the Shudder release. It would be so easy to fix, and it would make the movie a lot better. Those commercial breaks were so funny and if they had better interstitials (that didn't make you feel icky just looking at them) then it would boost an already great film.

I just. I don't even know why they did it in the first place. I'm guessing, based on the fact that they weren't in the original screenings, that they were pressed for time to finish things...? But come on, surely you can find some artist who can do something quick for you. It wasn't even a moving image.

So uh... yeah, I guess that's where I'm at. It was an interesting (if slightly hokey) movie pulling together a lot of threads to make something cool and mysterious, I liked a lot of the acting (particularly Jack Delroy's) and set design, I wanna chat with people about it -- but I can't really in good conscience fully recommend it because of the AI thing. It's just such a disgrace to artistic integrity. Here's hoping they hire a real fucking artist.

[blade-ranger-301]

Sorry about the bots!! I have the same problem on my main and side blogs. 🥲

So here is a normal question for ya! What are some of your favorite Blade HCs?

Ah glad I'm not the only one. They're so annoying 😭

And thank you for the ask! Means a lot and I'd love to be able to interact with others about our OC's and headcanons

I have a few of my own personal HC's for the angry helo 🚁:

- British. Despite the Planes 2 film being set in the US (I'm assuming), I'm writing my own fanfiction which is basically my own version of the film with added OC's, and it's set in the UK JUST for the sole reason that I can write Blade as a Brit 🇬🇧 (I have another post that support this lore: land, fire statistics, etc)

If Blade was British, he'd be from Northern or North-Western England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 He's got that vibe in him: Typical working-class, an unmatched taste in humour, down to earth, sarcastic, takes no shit, stubborn and incredibly stoic (especially this), and I would imagine he would swear.. a lot

I think another reason why this is fun for me is that I can show other non-UK followers what the UK is really like. None of that London aesthetics shit. Idk how others view my country but whenever you look at ✨️UK aesthetic✨️ pics online, it's either London or cute little countryside cottages. A lot of photos and posts on social media perceive the whole of the UK as one big "London" island. Blade is none of that, and I think it'll be fun to see what he brings to the table 🇬🇧

- another HC is that he's best friends with Bravo and Echo. I've not yet explored how he meets and befriends them

- Blade occasionally drinks on the job. Not intense drinking, but Maru would definitely make him a glass or two to prevent him from going on a rage induced murder spree on everyone when he's in one of his bad moods. It's even hinted in the film when Maru sarcastically replies to Cad via radio "Oh, he's out back sipping a Motojito". So Blade's definitely having a few cheeky mojito cocktails on the sly whilst on duty. Maybe that's why he's sometimes so calm and chill in the movie XDDD

- The biggest HC I'm exploring is a big self-insert in Blade's past. Nick is alive so there's a reason why he leaves filming, but he's dealt with another traumatic experience in the past.

For the entirety of 2024, I've been dealing with the aftermath of a best friend breakup. In all 24 years of life, this is probably the worst BFF trainwreck I've experienced to date. That person is also a member of the LM community (not here) and have since replaced me with a new best friend also in the LM community. So this year I've been processing the up's and down's in my mental health. It's been 1 year since it happened, and I'm still not the same and it still affects me, but I've survived and maybe I've come a long way since but it doesn't feel like it - but I'll keep on trudging forward *keep calm and carry on Brit energy 🇬🇧✨️*

I'm planning on Blade going through the same 'best friend betrayal' ordeal because I think that maybe this will help me in some way. Due to this event, Blade will be affected badly and will become depressed, withdrawn, melancholic and angry, and will actively isolate himself from his team and others. When my heli OC Toni comes along, she'll have a hard time earning his trust, but with time, patience and Maru's help, she will eventually break through his shell and he'll be a much happier character in future and they'll become a couple.

I'm not sure how the timeline and scenes will pan out, but I use quotes to take notes and ideas for now, but I struggle with motivation and creativity often. But I'm going to get the Planes 2 fanfic out the way before I can worry about this one XD

But anyways thank you for letting me ramble and I hope you all enjoyed the read ☺️

[cacodaemonia]

You seem to know a lot about AO3, do you know how to engage more of your readers? I’ve been trying to get comments on my fics but all I get is kudos. I just want to know if people are enjoying my writing

Hi there! I definitely wouldn't say I'm an expert when it comes to AO3, but I find the fandom culture around AO3 to be really interesting, so I do talk about it a lot, haha. I've only been posting works there since 2019, though, and I'm sure folks who have been doing so for longer or have volunteered as tag wranglers or on the policy & abuse committee, for example, would know a lot more than I do. <3

But I'm really sorry to hear that you only get kudos and no comments on your fics! That really sucks. :( Like you said, you have no idea what those people actually think about what you made—just that they consumed it.

Honestly, I'm not sure I'm a good person to ask about getting readers to interact because I post both fanart and fanfics, which isn't super common, at least among people I know. I'm pretty sure that most of the folks who comment on my works followed me from Tumblr to AO3 back when I used to post art here. If I wanted to share nsfw images, I could only post cropped versions of them on Tumblr, so I would sometimes do that and link to the full image over on AO3. I suspect that's a big reason why I even have subscribers on AO3, haha. My writing certainly isn't better than that of plenty of people who also write for very niche ships and don't get as many kind comments as I do.

I also started out in my current fandom making art and writing about more popular characters until I quickly shifted focus when I found some that I like much more 😂 But I'm sure that quite a few people found my stuff because of those old works, and some of them probably stuck around.

Speaking of popular... This isn't something I do because I'm only motivated to make things that I like, but of course, there's always the 'write stuff for popular ships/characters' option. :/ Even now, when I happen to include fan favorites in my fics or art, all kinds of people come out of the woodwork to comment on them. And because I'm a contrary ass, that then makes me not want to create works featuring those ships or characters XD;;; But anyway, that is one option, haha.

A friend recently told me that they started asking little questions in the notes of each chapter of their fics, and that seemed to encourage readers to respond in the comments, so maybe that would be a good thing to try? I haven't tested it, so I can't say.

One thing I have tried that I think has made a difference is adding a blurb in the end notes of my works that I got from @longlivefeedback! They have a great template that you can customize and try out if you like (just make sure to read the bug fix part about curly/smart quotes versus straight quotes, since the curly quotes will kill your html).

One tried and true method to get more people commenting on your fics, of course, is to get to know people who also like the fandom/characters/ships you write about. Read some of their stuff or comment on their art or just chat about headcanons etc. And maybe they'll check out what you wrote.

(My caveat to this would be: do not do this with the sole purpose of getting someone to comment on your fics. I've had plenty of people do this to me, and it was so transparent that they had no interest in me as a person, but just wanted me to draw their OCs or scenes from their fic, or reblog their art, etc. Trying to manipulate someone like that just for your own gain is such gross behavior, and of course, I'm not saying you would do it, but it's common enough that I wanted to mention it 😓)

Okay, unsurprisingly, this got very long and rambling, haha. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful, but I hope you get more folks interested in your writing!

I'd be curious to know if other people have advice for @sonofhighrock! :)

[somewhere-on-knowhere]

@malvo-ish Starbula bingo for you! :D

Unsurprisingly, I LOVE THEM. The ship that brought me out of a looooong writing retirement because I love them that much xD

Long ramble/essay below!

I actually started shipping them in the months leading up to Vol. 3's release as a crackship, thinking about how cute it would be if Nebula developed a crush on him, but also angsty because she is once again going after the love/approval of someone who prefers her sister over her. So when I saw the opening of Vol. 3 for the first time, I straight-up had an out-of-body experience for a second because it was exactly what I wanted but thought would never happen xD Like, I thought we'd get a couple of friendly interactions between them at best! And then the shippy moments just kept happening! (The sound I made in my quiet-ass movie theater when the "it sounds more like her" scene happened will haunt me for the rest of my life xD)

But yeah, I love everything about their dynamic in the movie. The old married couple bickering, the way they can communicate without words, how they take care of each other. And I genuinely feel like they could be really good for each other once they take the time to get over their respective issues on their own. Both of them are learning to love themselves, doing things that will help them grow and become better versions of themselves, and at some point down the line, I like to think that Nebula will know better how to deal with her feelings for him, and Peter will become open to loving someone new.

Their relationship is just, a combination of so many things that make my head go brrr. Like, just the idea alone of Nebula falling in love with someone is really interesting and something I didn't think would ever be explored, and it shows how far she's come since GOTG1. I usually don't care about romance in the MCU but in this case, it's a great direction for Nebula's arc if you ask me. Also, the DRAMA. Because I find a lot of the appeal of Starbula comes from both characters' relationship to Gamora. They both loved her and she loved both of them, so they probably connected over their shared grief, and once romantic feelings emerged between them, they'd retreat from it at first.

Like, this is all headcanon now but Nebula might see it as betraying Gamora if she were to act on her feelings, not that she even knows how to do that. And Peter would have a shit-tonne of trouble moving on from Gamora. And I think both of them would have this lingering fear that their feelings weren't genuine. Nebula might think her crush is a result of her still feeling like she has to compete with Gamora and prove someone will choose her over her sister. And Peter might assume his feelings for Nebula are just him projecting his love for Gamora onto someone connected to her. I know these are very real criticisms of Starbula but like... if they could get over these things, I think that would be the ultimate sign that they're getting over their issues related to loving and being loved; kind of a perfect conclusion to their healing arcs?

Idk I love that these two make me think like this xD I haven't spent this much brain power on something in many years, hence why I can't stop writing about them (I've got like seven WIPS now help). I adore them both and they deserve happiness and love, and I want them to love each other. And it'd be great if a future movie or special explored that, but if not I'm more than happy to rotate them around in my head and draw my own conclusions. That's the beauty of how open-ended GOTG3 is. <3

[yourlocalartsonist]

Heya! I wanted to ask about your fic, "Moths Fly In Packs", that I wanted to know for a while. Forgive me if it was answered or not:

What was your main inspiration for the actual story? Was it just a Rise AU? Did you automatically create Salena for this story? I wanna know the origins of story and what got you writing the first chapter!

Heyyyyy bestie how's it goinnnnn~

Aight so this is actually one of my favorite things to talk about cuz my ass cannot shut up about this fic but it was quite a few things that got mushed together to create the fic

First off, it was originally gonna be a comic! I just got heavily back into Rise after watching the movie in January 2023 and yk the show was cancelled for a while now. I really missed the show and already read through like every headcanon, x reader, and whatever the fuck I could find at the time so to satiate myself, I decided to make a story of my own! That was kinda already the drill for me anyway; if there's a piece of media I adore that never got the love it deserved, I continue the story myself

It was gonna be a comic focused with the boys as the main characters just like the show and would be seen as a continuation. I wasn't planning on releasing it any time soon since ya know... comic but Salena was indeed still gonna be in the story. She was just gonna be a more minor character? Not background, more like on the same level as April or Splintz; pops up often but not always

And then I realized that was a stupid fucking idea cuz no way in hell I would ever survive the torture of making comics :D I don't even enjoy making em for the most part so yk-

I had a different idea on the side. I was thinking it'd be interesting to have a separate fic version of the story but told from Salena's perspective so the audience would understand her more. But then as I kept developing the story, I realized this was the more interesting version anyway! I had a shit ton of ideas and a lot of topics I could critique and commentate on. It was genuinely fucking interesting the more I looked at it, even tho I was hella nervous no one would care for my random ass OC enough to accept them as the main character over the boys-

On a more personal note, I was going through a lot of shit prior to rejoining Rise which made my senior year of high school get a very depressing start. But in a way, watching the movie and the show saved me. Not even exaggerating, this show's done a lot for me than I'll ever be able to express. When I thought about making the fic and settled on it being the story I tell, I wanted to express all my feelings and hardships I've been through. I wanted to explore them through Salena and externalize a lot of the messages I learned and Rise felt like the perfect outlet for that; the characters just genuinely fit

That's the real reason why I had the first chapter out in like a month or two. I wasn't even sure whether to post it, it was entirely an impulse move. But I don't regret it one bit

I really do hope this story find the people I want it to. People who felt just as alone as I did, I want them to know they aren't. There are people out there who understand, who've been through the same, and who've survived and gone onto thriving. I wanted Salena to feel relatable to them since she's quite literally the first character I've made who's truly based off of myself

On the flip side, I also hope it'll reach people who have no idea what I'm talking about and haven't ever experienced what Salena has. I want this story to be an opportunity for them to step into someone else's shoes and learn how to empathize. That was why I loved books as a kid; they helped me learn to empathize. So maybe, my story can do the same. Help people to empathize with folks like Salena who are struggle and have no idea how to say so

Sorry for the long ass ramble. I genuinely do believe the origins of this fic is extremely interesting so I really love talking about it ;w;

Cheers to Chapter 9 finally being out!

[seagull-energy]

All righty then! For the Tolkien fandom:

...the moment in the story that I started shipping my OTP from this world

...my three favorite characters and why I love them so much.

...which characters I think should have interacted more in canon.

And for the Marvel fandom:

...the moment in the story that I started shipping my OTP from this world

....my three favorite characters and why I love them so much

....which scene I would like to erase from the universe and why.

And for Nat and Yelena both:

...the scene that I think shows just how awesome they really are.

...the scene that I think adds depth to their character or the relationship this character has with someone.

...a headcanon I have about this character.

Please and thank you! :D :D :D <33333333

Wheeee thank you for the ask!! Sorry it took so long for me to respond, it turns out I had a LOT to ramble about haha.

TOLKIEN:

...the moment in the story that I started shipping my OTP from this worldUnfortunately I cannot answer this one properly because Aragorn/Arwen has been my Tolkien otp since the first time I read the books at the fresh young age of six, so I have no idea when specifically I started shipping them. 

...my three favorite characters and why I love them so much.

Arwen!!! I love her quiet presence through the narrative, I love that she’s a symbol of hope and rebirth of the world, I love her kindness and empathy towards Frodo and the fact that she’s the one who gives him the option to sail to Valinor, and I love her coming of age arc. I have a whole ESSAY about the Themes of her story that I will share upon request, but as it is almost a thousand words long I think I’ll leave it out for now ;)

Legolas!! He’s been my favorite fellowship member since I first read the books. I desperately wanted to be him as a kid and he’s one of the foundational pillars of my ongoing love of archery. I love the layers of his personality and that he brings both solemn gravitas and fun whimsy to the group. 

Éowyn!!! My appreciation of her has kinda shifted over the years from very basic “she's the one girl who gets to have a major and active part in the story and she kicks the witch king’s ass which is cool” to a more nuanced appreciation of her story as one of healing from a very dark and unhealthy emotional state. I love the themes of her arc so much, and I also really love her relationships with everyone. Her friendship with Merry is excellent <33 Also in my not-so-humble opinion “No living man am I!” and the speech that follows (which I can almost quote from memory) remains one of the most badass lines in all of fiction. 

...which characters I think should have interacted more in canon.

This is a very basic answer, but Arwen and Éowyn! I think they both have a lot in common and a lot of differences that could lead to some very interesting conversations. Arwen was put in basically the same position as Éowyn during the war of the Ring, but I don’t get the sense that she ever resented being left at home in quite the same way. I think the contrast between Arwen working within the system of gender roles to send aid to Aragorn (the banner, the elessar brooch, etc.) vs Éowyn breaking the system completely is fascinating and I’d love to see them compare perspectives! *eyedarts at chapter 3 of Bearing Hope’s Sword which is currently sitting on the back burner but may get some of these musings when I finally get around to it (although Arwen’s situation in that fic is quite different from canon)*

I also wish we could’ve seen more of Frodo and Merry because I absolutely adore their relationship in the first half of Fellowship and unfortunately it gets quite sidelined after that because of the way the plot goes. They grew up together!!! At the beginning of the book I’d argue that they’re probably the closest hobbit pair.

MARVEL:

...the moment in the story that I started shipping my OTP from this world

Ok so disclaimer that my Marvel shipping opinions vary WILDLY from version to version and I am even more of a multishipper here than I usually am and thus picking a single OTP is very hard. If I had to choose just one, I think I’d pick Steve Rogers/Natasha Romanov…. But they’re another one that I’ve been shipping since I was very young and thus I am fuzzy on the details of how it started. SO to avoid giving a wishy-washy Ï-don’t-really-know answer twice in a row on this question, I shall pivot to my OTP for specifically Avengers Assemble (cartoon), which is Steve/Nat/Tony Stark. I started shipping them after watching 3x03 Saving Captain Rogers for the first time. I believe it was a combination of the lines “or did you digging through his sock drawer already tell you that?/don’t mistake knowing where Cap is for knowing who he is.” and “does this count as you saving Cap’s life, or is this one mine?/As far as I’m concerned you’re both lifesavers.” that really made me think “oh, this is an established relationship”. Once I was looking for it, I couldn’t stop seeing the chemistry and thinking about the potential and well, the rest is history… *eyes the 10+ fics/fic drafts I’ve written for them over the last 3 years* I’m hopeful that one day the rarepair canoe will expand beyond just me and my sibling, but that will require me to actually get my act together and finish some stuff. XD

....my three favorite characters and why I love them so much

Hehe… these will not be surprising…

Natasha (who else could it be? XD) In what has become a running theme in these answers, she’s another character that I imprinted on at a very young age and decided to base large chunks of my personality around. Everything about her compels me. Her friendships with Clint and Steve are great, she’s almost always the most competent person in the room, and her sense of personal identity and relationship with her past is always fascinating. She’s never liked what she does as Black Widow, but she does it because no one else can and because she believes it’s her duty as a kind of penance for all the bad she did before she defected. I think there’s so much complexity in her story and on top of all that, she’s just cool. And fun; I love her sense of humor and how sassy she can be.

Steve Rogers. I just like kind people who care about the world and try to do the right thing no matter what. Also his shield is really cool and I want one (it’s probably my favorite Marvel weapon). I think his time displacement is really, really heartbreaking and stories about him learning to let go of what was/what could have been in favor of looking to the future and valuing what he has now (the Avengers) are really compelling. I love that he’s fundamentally a nerdy art kid at heart (begging modern stories to include his freelance illustrator career more, let him have a life outside being Cap). Did you know there are multiple comic panels that show him reading LotR? Steve Rogers is a canonical LotR fan and I cannot be normal about that. I like thinking about his relationship to his public image—what does he think about being the ‘face of America’? How does he handle being fundamentally a propaganda symbol? Stories where his personal ideals clash with authority/the government are always so interesting. Also he’s really smart!! And solves problems by being clever and tactical because he’s not tank-y enough to just smash/blast through things!! He’s just really cool and I like him a lot :) Also fun fact: it feels very silly to say that Captain America is one of your favorite superheroes when you’re the only American in a room full of Europeans XD

I think the third spot has to go to Yelena. In the comparatively short time I’ve known her, I have sought out almost everything she’s ever been in (I’m missing some of the comics because they’re linked into bigger storylines and aren’t black widow solo books, but I’ve got a lot of them) and grown irreversibly attached to her. Whether it’s her MCU or comic/AA version, her dynamic with Nat and how it relates to her sense of identity is always fascinating, and I love thinking about both who she is in relation to Nat and who she is when she decides to strike out on her own and stop living in Nat’s shadow. I love her dry sense of humor and her no-sugarcoating attitude. The fact that she’s canonically ace makes me unreasonably happy and I will never shut up about it. I hope the MCU continues to do her justice and she gets a complete and satisfying arc that doesn’t end with a scene that feels like a middle finger to everyone who ever loved her. Give her a trilogy please <333

Honorable mentions go to: Gamora (MCU), Songbird (AA), Kamala Khan, Squirrel Girl, Illyana Rasputina, Kitty Pryde, Laura Kinney, Storm (X-Men TAS/97), Xu Xialing (MCU), Nightcrawler (X-Men Evo), and Logan <3333 I have a lot of favorite characters

....which scene I would like to erase from the universe and why.Oooohhhhh there are unfortunately a lot of options for this…. The first one that comes to mind is Nat’s death because it SCARRED me and I think it was such a waste of her character. I feel similarly about Gamora’s death so honestly if it was up to me I’d just erase the soul stone from the MCU entirely because it seems like its only purpose is to kill off female characters. Then there’s Nat’s whole “I’m broken” speech from Age of Ultron that is just awful and should never have been written. Like yes I think Nat does wish she could have kids (or at least the choice to have them), but NOT WRITTEN LIKE THAT!! And a more structural complaint, I hate that Monica Rambeau got stuck in the alternate universe at the end of The Marvels and I wish it never happened. It just leaves the movie feeling so unfinished and unsatisfying! I wanted a conclusion to that movie’s story, not set up for the next story! Tony Stark got to fall back through the wormhole so why doesn’t Monica??? It was a really awful ending to what I thought was an overall decent movie that really soured it for me. So yeah, I think those three are the scenes/plot beats I would erase.

OH WAIT ONE MORE. The post-credits scene of Black Widow. It is absolutely beautiful right up until the moment where what’s-her-face shows up and starts casually talking about revenge on Clint. Like, SHUT UP. LET ME HAVE MY EMOTIONS. It is the one and only post-credits scene I will not watch because it annoys me so much, which SUCKS because the first half of it is so good. So yeah. I’d just cut what’s-her-face out of it entirely. Begone, exposition lady. Okay now I’m done complaining.

NAT AND YELENA:

...the scene that I think shows just how awesome they really are.

How about every scene either of them has ever been in? XD For Nat the first one that always comes to mind is her introduction scene in Avengers 1 where she’s tied to the chair. I vividly remember watching that scene for the first time and being in awe of everything about it. “I’m in the middle of an interrogation, this moron is giving me everything.” is SUCH an iconic power shift and then she follows it up with the most nonchalantly incredible fight scene and escape, effortlessly proving that she is the absolute best in the world at what she does and there was never a moment where she wasn’t in control of the situation. Truly my jaw was on the floor and I have not stopped thinking about it since 2012.

Yelena’s most awesome scene is a little harder for me to pin down because she has a lot of awesome moments but not as many full scenes focused on her. If I had to choose though, I think the dinner table scene from Black Widow is a strong contender because there’s so much emotion and really important character stuff there (“the best part of my life was a lie and none of you told me” kills me every time, augh). In terms of pure ‘cool fight is cool’ I’m also a big fan of her reunion fight with Nat because the choreography is really creative and the cinematography and framing are just pretty. 

...the scene that I think adds depth to their character or the relationship this character has with someone.

Ohoho I have several of these. Also I’m going to focus specifically on their relationship to each other because otherwise we’ll be here all day

For the MCU: The vest scene/that bit where they’re drinking beer and bandaging Yelena’s wound. I love the blend of banter and heart, and I think that the vest is an incredibly compelling character piece. The widows finding their own identities outside of the Red Room is SO important to me and I just love everything about how it’s written. Also the push and pull of Yelena diving straight into forging her own life and personhood vs Natasha having spent the last 10 or so years staying fairly confined to the Black Widow identity is interesting. Nat never stopped being a spy/assassin, she just changed who she was working for, and I think this scene with Yelena forces her to confront that for really the first time. I desperately wish we’d gotten this movie earlier in the MCU so that this could’ve been a proper turning point in her character arc that could’ve been explored in future movies… but that’s a WHOLE ‘nother kettle of fish

For Avengers Assemble:

The scene at the end of 3x14 Seeing Double when they have that confrontation about choosing what they want their lives to be and oh hang on a second is that a thumb drive with information about Natasha’s pre-Red Room past????? This scene is so short and so simple AND YET I have been losing my mind about it for like 3 years at this point. The lines “There’s room for both of us, there’s room for all of us.”/”I don’t share” and “You can’t help me, I’m made to destroy” (heartbreaking delivery on that last one btw) are so good and are along the same thematic lines as my fave comic scene (see below) which is very fun. Yelena in this episode has such wonderful complexity in such a short time and I am DEVASTATED that it doesn’t really carry through to her other episodes on the show. (making her a villain minion was a WASTE of her character but that’s another rant) And oh yeah, did I mention THE THUMB DRIVE???? AA writers you can’t just drop “[this is]your memories, your childhood before the Red Room. Want to find out who you are? How to break free from being someone else’s creation? This is your chance…” and then NEVER RESOLVE IT. Like, was Yelena telling the truth??? What information did she have?? Why was she carrying this around?? And most importantly, what does Natasha DO with it???? The last shot we see of this drive zooms in on it lying on the floor next to Yelena’s abandoned stinger gauntlet (this shot is implied to be Nat’s pov as it is following her eyeline from the preceding shot). And then it’s just never seen or referenced again for the rest of the show??? Like I know the message of the episode is that Nat’s past doesn’t matter, it’s the life she’s built for herself that’s important, but you’d think we’d at least get some closure in the form of seeing her destroy it/leave it behind/etc. This scene was the spark of my very long WIP Red Shadows (and the entire Nat backstory series of which this fic is a part) btw so I can thank it for at least 15 fic ideas. I am very unhinged about it.

For the comics:

THIS scene. I love it so much I have a photo of this page in my camera roll two separate times.

It’s such a beautiful illustration of their comic dynamic and an amazing insight into Nat’s own self-perception. She hates being the Black Widow and would like nothing more than to live a life where she gets to be a person (the very next page after this one has the PERFECT line “Why be the Widow when you could be Yelena?”) but she keeps being the Widow because it’s all she feels she can do. Good stuff. I love the MCU sibling dynamic so much, but I’m also really glad this version of Yelena and Nat’s dynamic exists. The whole conflict of “I’d be a better Black Widow than you” vs “You deserve better than to be Black Widow” is delicious. I highly recommend this comic run. (Devin Grayson 2001, the trade paperback is usually sold as ‘Black Widow: The Itsy Bitsy Spider’)

...a headcanon I have about this character.

These are both for Avengers Assemble canon because I can’t think of any specific headcanons for the MCU or comics.

Nat wears her hair loose in defiance of all practicality as both a symbol of self-determination (because she was forced to keep her hair short/tied back when she was in the Red Room) and as a handicap to hold herself back from her more violent training. Having to work around her hair makes it harder for her to accidentally kill or seriously injure someone. 

I don’t so much have headcanons for AA Yelena as I have an entire detailed arc planned for her across multiple fics (I think part of this is because she’s such a minor character in canon that I personally have a difficult time coming up with headcanons that aren’t specifically related to expanding her story) so uh, spoilers for fic plans I guess? The resolution I have planned for her redemption arc is having her join SHIELD and developing a friendship/mentor+mentee relationship with Sharon Carter, which I hope will be as compelling on page as it is in my head. They go out for coffee once a week to gossip snarkily and de-stress. :))

Sorry for the essay lol, I have many thoughts :))

[little-creature-business]

TRANS SANJI RAMBLE!!

I am an enjoyer of headcanons and WILL and HAVE headcanoned the straw hats and other characters with different/conflicting headcanons bc you wanna know why?? I can make different universes and versions of them bc DAMN a lot of these headcanons are hella good

Though I will say, as an enjoyer of headcanons, I am in a drought of transmasc Sanji stuff <\3 I DUNNO IF IM LOOKING IN THE WRONG PLACES OR NOT qwq

+before anyone says, I adore transfem Sanji w all my heart and I am glad she gets the representation bc WOW a lot of people are clever w the stuff they come up will, I really do love it and a lot of you even think of things I would’ve never thought about !! ^o^ jus a little bummed out there’s not as much transmasc Sanji content bc as soon as I saw him on screen I was like “the radar is going off”

ps if you read this far, transmasc Sanji headcanons (hear me out, most likely ooc) (also zosan)

I have been thinking about them SOOO MUCH tbh.. Sanji doesn’t feel 100% while cooking because of cramps?? You bet Zoro will notice and try and help out best he can in the kitchen despite how many times he would get kicked and/or yelled at..

sparring?? Sanji feel miserable and always thinks Zoro is going easy on him so he accidentally blurts it out one time while they are going at it and Zoro is just like “No lmao??” And might reveal smth about Kuina.. and then Sanji cries about it because even in smth like sparring he’s seen as equal to him

I think during WCI (I have not.. watched it yet teehee) while Sanji sees his brothers + sister again they’re all like “what the fuck happened to you” and Sanji is all high guarded about it but says he’s trans and he’s a guy now and they’re all like “oh ok, anyway-“ and it goes on like normal but they respect him (please pleaseeee)

Sanji while he’s with Zeff,, ofc Zeff is like “well now I got an 8-9 year old daughter to take care of” and Sanji doesn’t mind at first because he doesn’t exactly know what he’s feeling but he knows that being called “daughter” doesn’t feel right. I feel like he would discover later on what being trans meant from a frequent customer and he’s all happy because!! Wow he found out!! What best describes him!! And the next time he talks to Zeff he’s all like “so you know that regular we get through the door?” And then tells Zeff and Zeff is all like “well then, I’m happy either way for you, do you want your hair cut or different clothes?”

Running with ideas,, Sanji would probably be scared of taking testosterone/one piece equivalent because of the needles if they didn’t have a gel form. Which is why awhile after chopper joins he asks the little reindeer about it..

I also have a feeling Sanji would be afraid of surgery?? He wants to get top surgery but the idea is SO scary to him,, so he ops for binding,,

Mainly Zoro but also the crew has to remind him to not bind for too long since he can get caught up in cooking, Zoro will ALWAYS ask him to take whatever he binds with off before they spar/fight not wanting to let the cook hurt himself

this is it this is the post (I’m so mentally I’ll)

[theoriginaltortuga]

Thoughts and opinions on Connor and Devon through the it lives series 

warning: long post, very rambly, and spoilers abound

So this might go in headcanon territory but ill try to keep it general for this post

ILITW:

I’ll admit connor was like the fourth LI i romanced after i started playing it lives and even then it was only because i had a specific playthrough i wanted. I don’t know how other people do it, but i changed my MCs personalities and appearances based on what i wanted their ending and final nerve score to be. So Devon Hernandez, my sole survivor, needed to be kind of a prick, or at least have severe foot in mouth syndrome, while maintaining the highest nerve he could and dating Connor was the best for that

But alas I fell hard for this character i previously skipped a lot of dialogue for. Connor is a wannabe bad boy in the best possible way, he’s got the leather jacket, the cool car, and the fighting skills, all while being “forbidden” by being Stacy’s brother. (won’t lie i was expecting a slight conflict from that even if it was just in flavor text, but im not mad that she was cool with it)  

the banter between him and Devon really worked for me, and i loved how even outside of the romance specific scenes there was still acknowledgment of the relationship (whether thats a failing on pb’s part or done because he’s technically on screen less than the others im not sure) 

More on personality, Connor is interested but not pushy, acts like he’s “not too good” while being too good at all times, a caring person and a fun one, an affectionate boyfriend and doesn’t put up with people’s shit. I realized i actually cared about him the second he offered to take Devon to a diner with burgers the size of their face

Main Route (connor and MC live, all their friends are dead) : 

Jumping through time to ilw and him and Devon are horndogs living together in a cabin and scarring their friends with their sex life, which was a direction i wasn’t expecting but one i loved anyway. Again all the small acknowledgements of their relationship killed me and pet names are always a win. Connor evolved from background character and “The Love Interest” to a semi-main badass. 

One thing i loved about it lives within is that all the characters from the previous books felt like themselves in a way that’s hard to explain but basically you just bought that these were the exact same characters and the fact that it was a completely different writer never crossed my mind

There is a kind of maturity in Connor and Devon’s relationship that is nice to see because they have been together 4 years, while still staying true to the versions of them we first met

This route ended with Connor proposing to Devon and getting them their beautiful house with the porch swing and several dog children and I loved the final moments of happiness in their otherwise kind of heartbreaking story

Good Route (connor and MC live, everyone lived):

Basically the same as above, though I will say I love the idea that the whole memorial Stacy knew exactly what was about to go down and I may or may not nudge aside the idea that Devon let their friendships fall to shit and their all like bridesmaids or groomsmen, its not that them falling apart again is unrealistic or bad, it just makes me kind of sad so I ignore it in my own hc

Bad Route (connor and noah live, everyone else died and then so does Connor):

The one i just finished playing and all the interactions between Connor and Redfield!MC were so sweet and i loved them but it always held that kind of bittersweet feeling.

I played with Noah also being into Devon which was also painful, but the line “i suspected for a while now” made me laugh because all i can imagine is an internal montage of Noah being annoyed at Connor and Devon’s affection and constantly looking at Devon with heart eyes and Connor just like “wow i should’ve clocked that like last year” 

i have a lot to say on the Devon being comforted scene that i will save for the hc post but the call back to “too good” was *chefs kiss*

And towards the end realization that Connor was a horror, the accidental hope i gave the crew, and then Connor’s horrific (in the best possible way) death was so wonderfully written. You know when you read something so good that you just have to do a couple laps around the room? That was me. 

Rowan flung Connor into the fucking ceiling and the description of his blood dripping onto them and Devon was just so gnarly. Devon has lost everything, watched most of the people they loved be brutally murdered before their very eyes, and is lashing out while also being sort of aware that its not really Rowans fault which speaks a lot to their character but it hurt so freakin much

and don’t even get me started on the graveyard scene and the parallels with the other Redfield!MC graveyard scene, metal rose and all. I mentioned it before but my Devon in this route is just burnt out on love and friendship and people in a way that i’ll get into more in a hc post but yeah he’s not finding love again and i don’t think he’d ever want to

In conclusion, i love connor and devon together and I thank the og ilitw writers for writing their relationship and the ilw writers for making it even better and tearing my heart apart along with Connor’s and Devon’s in very different ways

[pidgecv]

early morning ramblings///

posting this for funsies

pidge talks about romance as horror for far too long and makes no sense in the process 2024 colorized

relationships as a vessel for psychological horror has always been something that fascinates me. take killing stalking for example. a viscerally disgusting and terrible work of horror fiction that i honestly find really compelling conceptually. now did SOME of the fandom™️ completely miss the point and just go “omg yaoi” yes, they did. and yeah the story is like,, not my thing exactly in execution i didn’t finish the comic itself. im not the biggest fan of gore and it crossed my personal line into shock horror (got a bit too into the wrong kind of uncomfortable) but it’s all preference. however, the inherent horror of things like stockholm syndrome, or the idea of a frankenstein being infatuated with his monster not because of who they are but because he made them are both SO interesting. imagine a person loving someone who they have manipulated and abused past the point of humanity. not romantically necessarily (though yeah that’s totally a thing, that all-consuming fascination being misunderstood as a sick romance) rather like a personal project they’re absolutely obsessed with. their creation. except that creation has feelings as well. or maybe in extreme cases, used to at least. problem is it’s difficult to write platonically, since a lot of that stuff can come off as romanticizing abuse and it’s a very delicate topic. deffo easier to have someone eat their own arm and call it a day. going back to stockholm syndrome, in a way it’s a removal of agency (which is a staple of horror media lol). so the horror could be applied both ways, the obsessed and the obsession. the monster and its twisted creator. the inhuman and the inhumane. idk it’s just so damn interesting. it gets complicated and tricky to pull off, but horror doesn’t mix well with cut corners. i may try and expand on this sort of idea but in a far less extreme way for the swapverse. absolutely nothing romantic, in fact i headcanon (or i guess canon?) both versions of cleo as aroace (fully, not just somewhere in the middle of the aroace spectrum but completely disinterested in romance and sex repulsed) ((mostly just wanted to explore familial and platonic bonds without having to consider any sort of romantic stuff)) (((yes s!cleo had a boyfriend pre apox. it was qpr, they were both aroace but were besties for the resties and were gonna marry for tax purposes))). but i’d love to pull off a platonic obsession. jo would absolutely obsess over her work. she would be so proud of herself for creating cleo. living (debatably) proof of her skill. her magnum opus. every success of cleo’s is actually jos, but also every failure is taken the same way. jo sees it as her own failure, and takes out that selfish anger on cleo or even V sometimes. cleo struggles with her humanity. she was one of the first infected. not patient 0, but one of the first. early enough to have been institutionalized and studied at least. and jo has twisted her memories so much that cleo doesn’t know anything about herself except that she belongs to jo. she’s property, a dangerous weapon. that’s what makes their deaths so poetic. jo dies at the hands of V, through her own weapon. because while cleo hit the detonator, it was V who rigged the bomb. Cleo and jo depend on each other so much. the way you need the sword to cut but the sword needs you to polish. to sharpen. even to forge. of course V is the only one who survives. cleo was never going to be able to live without jo and vice versa. they weren’t friends. they weren’t family. they were something else entirely, something torturous and hateful and tragic. a dynamic of lies and manipulation and cruelty. they died as they lived, together. while the original final lives cast was threatened by the new world, they managed to overcome it by being a team. in the swapverse, the outside world was never the threat. they dominated the apocalypse, thriving compared to the og crew. but they were torn apart from the inside, and they couldn’t overcome it. yet another reflection of the original cast. i was gonna type more but hit tumblr limit goodnight fazgang

[botanicalcanopus]

imagine a dead session that's basically an adaptation of dante's inferno

[note: the planet taken into the session becomes treachery while the black queen is holed up in fraud]

Okay I think this will be rather long but only because I am genuinely in love with how many possible ways you could use Dante's Inferno for Sburb. So bear with my rambling.

First: Holy Fuck Cool Session Idea Like it would be really cool for a 9-12 player session. We only have the small sample size of Homestuck that shows sessions tend to evenly distribute players between moons. But, like I keep iterating like a broken record Sburb literally makes Anything Possible* (yay). So whether you do one dead session like the ask says, a session of nine with each character/land/denizen being represented by one circle, or adding in some extra "circles" such as the the bottom layer with Satan where resides, Earth/mortal realm, and Heaven. Literally a fun concept to give your characters probably even more religious trauma! :D *As far as I've seen

Second: Putting the Dead in Dead (Skip to the Third Section for Ask Answer) What is a Dead Session: A dead session (for anyone new or too busy to research) is what happens when you don't prototype your kernel sprite pre-entry to the Medium. The referenced ask is in relation to Caliborn's session, which is a unique case where if a player tries to solo the game, the kernel turns into a blackhole to bring your entire planet into the session as your land. Skaia then darkens and explodes into 15 planets with a blackhole where Skaia used to be. One must then travel to and defeat either the planet's boss or all life on that planet, and place a bomb strategically somewhere (and by proxy escape said planet) to blast it into the blackhole. This is obviously a reference to the game Snooker (what is commonly called Billiards but they are actually different!) which fits English's whole Pool Ball theme. Once a planet is concurred the player will receive a follower/helper (in Caliborn's case the Leprechauns) and each planet gets progressively harder with less time to defeat the next one. If you survive this and if you survive your Denizen's Choice then you will be granted power beyond comprehension. Calliope did say that it favors Time players and that should be relatively obvious why. It is a fair bit more complex but that's the main gist!

Third: I'll Stop Fucking Rambling and Answer Okay so a Dante's Inferno would be a sick way to handle this and assuming that it doesn't have be exactly like Snooker each time with all 15 planets showing up (or you just get super lucky and have some pocket immediately), it would be 10 total in this session. The Player's planet brought in would be one of the layers like the asker says. The nine layers of hell, and therefore the nine planets that would be summoned would be Limbo, Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Wrath, Heresy, Violence, Fraud, and Treachery. All of these would need to be defeated in order like we've seen before, skipping 8 for last as well since that seems to be the mechanic. Now Satan in the story technically lives in the last layer (Treachery) but you can also separate him by technically putting him in a sublayer called Judecca. Soooo, if you make Satan/Lucifer/Devil your denizen you could technically have Treachery be its own planet. The Black Queen being holed up in Fraud makes sense. It was the layers of thieves, sorcerers, flatters, beggars, etc. A royal who's main job is to oversee the kingdom would have the silver tongue necessary to charm and make many fraudulent claims. My headcanons for this would be that the helpers you'd get could be something from Christian-based mythos, and since The Felt members were so broken power-wise it wouldn't surprise me if you either get young cherubs, some of the higher ranking demon princes, or some version of fallen angels as your crew. Your Land if you end up winning would be something like Land of Sin and Salvation, but the aspect doesn't have to be tied to Hope per say it just has heavy themes.

Or do whatever you want. That's just my two cents :) Cool ask, Anon.

[bluegekk0]

bit of a ramble incoming, feel free to ignore. i'll put it under a read more thing in case it gets long

i think i've reached a point where i made such a specific image of the au characters in my head that i can't enjoy them outside of it anymore. like, it's really hard for me to separate the two, if i hear "grimm" i think of the au grimm, it's hard to think of him outside of the au context. idk if i'm making sense

but weirdly enough i'm kind of glad that's the case? i can definitely feel my interest in the game and especially fan content slipping away, and i would've likely moved on to something else by now. but i love the au, i love it so much, i still think about it daily and all of the lore and personalities i made for these characters keeps me going

i guess feeling uncomfortable with some ships or headcanons because of how strongly i associate the characters with my versions is something i just have to live with. usually it's not bad, it's quite easy to ignore it since i don't specifically go looking for hk fanart and fanfics these days. i guess what bothers me the most is when people leave that kinda stuff under my art. y'know the usual pk discourse and jokes kind of comments especially. it's unavoidable, and i can't blame people for not knowing all of the lore of my au, but i think that's the most irritating and upsetting part of all of this. it's the reason why i stopped posting as much art in some spaces, all the jokes about pk killing children real get old, and a bit upsetting whenever they're targeted at fpk (since the whole thing is so much more nuanced in the au)

in some ways i also feel like i alienated myself a little. i'm so deep in the grimm x fpk rabbit hole that i don't have much in common with people who stick to wyrmroot. hell, the way i wrote wl in the au kind of makes me dislike her (as a person, that is. i still think she's a cool character, i just made her a bit of a shitty person since i kinda like her as the more unpleasant of the two. the cold and uncaring tree being), and i feel like a lot of those people wouldn't like what i've done with it. same goes for hornet and all the headcanons and interpretations where she hates her father. i see where those come from, but i kind of feel like an outlier with how i portray her in the au. and of course there's fpk himself. i don't have to tell you how much he differs from your usual pk interpretations. but he means so much to me that i genuinely can't see him any other way

that being said, i love the au too much to stop because of any of this, and the fact that there are people who enjoy it gives me another reason to keep going. it's my comfort au, and i'm so, so glad i can share that feeling with you all, and reveal more about it as i write it. i've never been so invested in anything before, not to this extent, so it makes me so happy that there is an audience that supports it. i love you guys so much, you have no idea. i can't thank you enough

honestly i don't know what point i'm trying to make here. i just wanted to put it into words, i suppose. i may have already mentioned some of this before, but it's still constantly on my mind and i wanted to get it out of my system. but again, thank you guys for still being here. it means so much to me