#cause they can skip a lot of the origin stuff but at the same time you can't assume cause these are all different characters

[bagofbonesmp3]

i’m trying to get into the daredevil comics and it’s all your fault, pls pls send recs on where to start/what to avoid i don’t know what i’m doing (i’ve seen the show and read man without fear)

okay, comics to avoid: MAN WITHOUT FEAR

comics to start with: as much as it pains me, Frank Miller is where you start with daredevil. his run is what lay the bases to a lot of what came next... the next big run was Brian Michael Bendis', which I hear people really enjoy as their first daredevil comic, but I feel you'd miss a lot of character context from Frank miller's run at least. that would give you a good head start, if you finish those (it's a lot of issues) you can come back!

[flamingpudding]

The first part of this Au that I went out with so funny thank you for answering it I hope you were able to rest and stuff but anywho

I feel like after those first two parts I feel like RedRobin and Batman have questions about the Ghost King and Vlad relationship like they're asking questions

And the Klarions / Phantom children and the kids keep just dropping he with to college with our mom's parents, he would take kidnap mom and locked him in a basement, he's legally mom's godfather, he tried to marry grandmother on multiple occasions

I just feel like Dan anytime he gets the moment gets mad at him and goes like until you pay the 8.5 million you owe mom in child support is the day that you can call me your son ectoplasm donor.

Also I would find it so funny if outside of their Klarion thing they live with Vlad time from time again when Danny is overwhelmed or need someone to watch over them and the the rest of the people he's friends with in the Infinite Realms can't do it and are friends with the Wayne children

I feel like Duke will be having a heart attack when you realizes that he goes the same high school class as Dan or that Ellie and Dick best friends back when they were children for funsies

Also the reveal of Teekls has never been a cat it's going to get on doctor fate's nerves cuz he knows damn well that things never been a cat also I feel like all of them have the power to rip Dr Fate out of whoever he's possessing body and always he's pulling that power on him anytime they get the chance

Also a review of the fact that Teekl has never been a cat until when like Batman or Red Robin pov

Have I ever mentioned I love your ideas and how fun they are? Cause damn this had me laughing while reading it already.

Also glad the first two parts were still fun despite the mishaps that happed while writing :D

Also I skipped over the Teekl Part for the moment since I didn't know how to tie it in at the moment...

Sooooo anyway.... here we go again~ (sorry if its a bit short...)

Part 1 Part 2

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

Red Robin was intrigued, worried and on several levels suspicious as he watched the interaction between the ones that had been Klarion, the current Klarion and Vlad Masters. He had also a lot of questions, he really wanted answers to but for now he held back.... partially. Vlad Masters was a contact Batman had brought in when the situation with the Demon became more dangerous than they originally expected.

John Constantine had mentioned they would need a even stronger force to really drive that Demon back and off handedly mentioned that something like an Ancient or a Ghost King would be needed. And wouldn't you know, Batman knew someone that claimed to have contacts with a Ghost King or rather THE Ghost King. And as luck would have it, Vlad Masters was in Gotham because of one of his relentless attempts at striking a business deal with Bruce Wayne. (That really had been an unexpected luck but by now Red Robin was also suspecting something else was at play.... [Like a bored Ancient of Time])

Well either way now he was watching, just a step behind his mentor, how Batman was grilling Vlad Masters on his relations to the Ghost King, since apparently they (the hero's assembled) wouldn't need to do anything anyway since the Ghost King was handling the demon threat. Red Robin did realise that not all heroes present were convinced but what else could they do but wait right now? Since according to Klarion their Mom aka the Ghost King was already dealing with the situation.

So with that happening, the well known bat-paranoia, curiosity, suspicion and need to know every good damn detail of a situation arose full force. Not that Red Robin minded, as mentioned before, he had a lot of questions too. Plus he wasn't so sure if the other Heroes had caught it but there were some disturbing things Klarion and is siblings sort of dropped that really needed clearing up.

While Batman was grilling Vlad Masters, Red Robin listened in but then decided to his own sort of questioning with Klarion, the current one.

"So... you called Vlad Masters 'old man'? And your suit is in the 'old man's style'?" the question was asked directly to the current Klarion. Since they were apparently here just to watch Red robin was sure he could just try having a sort of civil talk with his questions.

Klarion on the other hand grumbled crossing his arms, before uncrossing them again to pet the demon cat on his shoulder. "I just went with his dumb vampire look but more fancy and classic and less insane colouring."

The arched eyebrow stayed sort of hidden under his mask but it was there and Red Robin knows that tone Klarion used. It's the same Red Hood has when he begrudgingly admit do doing something the way Batman would. Which raises the a question he already had on his mind, how he could interpret Klarions use of 'old man'. Which would give Batman even more incentive to question Vlad Masters on his relation to the Ghost King. Also for now he was going to ignore the 'dumb vampire look' part, but he did note it down in his mind for later.

"Vlad Masters is your 'old man'?" There probably was a way to ask a little more subtle or nice but they were waiting for the Ghost King to beat up a Demon and he was making small talk with subtitle questioning with Klarion. So sue him for being blunt after all. Also the face Klarion was making right after he said.

"Well Far Frozen gets a hot summer." Was the instant reply and Red Robin blinked unter his mask. There probably was some information he was missing behind that reply.

"Ew no! He wishes though. But Vlad is like double or triple our Mom's age! He even went to collage with Grandpa Jack and Grandma Maddie!" Misrule suddenly interjected apparently done pestering Nightwing as she leaned over Klarion, resting her head on his and causing Teekl to hiss at her. Well that certainly got his attention now and with the way he saw, form the corner of his eyes, Batmans head wipe their way and then back at Vlad Masters it certainly also got his mentors.

"He wishes...? Triple your Moms.... age? The Ghost King?" His mental information board was getting more and more chaotic with the information he was getting.

"He acts like we are his kids and has a right to be called Dad by us." Misrule shrugged dismissively to which Klarion growled, he growled! Red Robin was tempted to check his ears because this was the first time he heard Klarion growl towards his sister.

"The day I call your DNA and my ecto donor anything with the context of father is the day he pays Mom the millions of child support he owns him and additional pays for emotional and physical distress." Okay, Red Robin was not ashamed to say he did a double take at Klarions growl and the fact that several alarm bells went off hin his mind with that one sentence alone.

"Mom has his own castle and riches from the previous King. Not like we would actually need that money. Plus Vlad does pay for your school tuition." Misrule answered her brother, complete ignoring the fact that Red Robin was having a mental crisis and thinking that Vlad Masters might even be an even greater threat, then just a weird and suspicious potential business partner and that the reason he has a summoning stone for the Ghost King might be a custody thing regarding Klarion and his siblings.

So with all these things what did Red Robins brain decide to focus on? "Vlad Masters pays your school tuition? No wait you go to school?"

There was an awkward moment Red Robin received two very similar looking deadpan stares from Klarion and Misrule, the first Klarion.

"Of course I go to fucking school Mom would kill... well no thermos ground me if I didn't." Another drop of information Red Robin didn't know how to handle, what the hell does 'thermos ground' even mean? Was that like their version of grounding?

"Oh isn't today like a school night?" Misrule suddenly piped up pinching her brothers check and Red Robin felt weirdly reminded of some of the interactions he used to have with his siblings. It was strange to see Klarion like that.

"Shit... I forgot to do my part of my group project with Duke..." Klarion grumbled and Red Robin did a double take once more, blinking several times as there was a very very important information drop here, his head snapped towards Nightwing in hopes that the other had also caught it and thankfully, he had and while Signal wasn't present at the moment because he had done day patrols already and had been barely awake anyway when this whole Demon mess started.... they had gotten a hint of figuring out Klarions identity, they were certainly going to use later.

For now they had some more red flags to investigate in regards to the relation of Vlad Masters, the Ghost King, Klarion and Klarion's siblings.

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

Little Bonus (Next day after Demon Crisis):

"Hey Duke, who are you working with in a group project?"

"Huh oh that is Dante Masters-Nightingale."

"Masters-Nightingale? As in Vlad MASTERS?"

"Yeah, that what he said his temporary guardian's name is that pays for his schooling."

"Wait didn't I go with Danielle Nightingale-MASTERS to school too? We were like besties in school!"

"Oh god...."

"Tim, you okay you look very pale. Are you okay? Dick too..."

"BRUCE! VLAD MASTERS NEEDS TO BE PUT ON THE RED WATCH LIST AND WE NEED TO TALK WITH THE GHOST KING ASAP!"

[acourtofmarvels]

Comfort - Cassian Pt.1

Summary: MC has a hard time coping with Rhys, her brother, being under the mountain. She originally leans to alcohol until Cassian confronts her to lean on something else...

Warnings: Alcohol abuse, mentions of vomit only at the beginning. Mentions of smut but nothing detailed (sorry)

Word count: 2k

"Oh, gods," Cassian groaned. He gagged, stuffing his nose into his arm to try not to smell it.

"You can leave," I slurred. My head was currently in a toilet, puking my guts out. Cassian was behind me, holding my hair back.

"Yeah and let your drunk ass choke on your own vomit and die? Don't think so." He gagged again as I threw up again.

"I'm not drunk," I replied. I was so very drunk. Of course I would never admit that cause that would mean he was right. And I don't like when he's right.

"We're having a long talk in the morning. You can't keep doing this every night." His voice was soft and full of concern. I wouldn't remember this conversation by the morning.

I would wake up with a pounding headache. A glass of water and a piece of bread with an elixer to help with the headache on the nightstand by my bed. I would see a fresh pair of clothes layed out in the bathroom beside a warm bath, kept warm from the magic of the house.

After my bath I would go back to sleep and wake up around lunch time. I would go to the kitchen and most likely find Cassian and/or Mor sitting at the table eating lunch. We wouldn't say anything to each other. I would eat lunch and then go about my day with whatever duties was needed of me. That following night I would either drink myself into the same pattern or cry myself to sleep.

I couldn't deal with my emotions very well. It seemed like everything was always heightened, especially sadness and anger. I found it hard to cope which is why I leaned toward alcohol. Just to numb it all. The night I didn't drink was punishment to myself. The guilty feeling just made me want to feel it all. I couldn't do anything to help him.

That next morning was different though. There was nothing layed out for me like usual. I deserve that. I never deserved Cassian's gentleness in the first place. It was never spoken but I always know it was him who left the stuff for me. Guess last night was the final straw. Whatever... I didn't care.

I ran my own bath and changed into clean clothes. I brushed my hair and pulled it up away from my face. I walked out of my bedroom in the House of Wind and went downstairs to the kitchen.

Cassian, Azriel and Mor were all there. I knew if they weren't out early in the morning they ate breakfast together sometimes. Rhys and I would join a lot in the past before but...

I wasn't ever awake for breakfast nowadays. If I was up that early I would skip breakfast and spar with Azriel at Windhaven. It felt like forever that I had been in the same room as all three of them. Thank the gods Amren wasn't here.

"Good, you're awake!" Cassian said loudly. I winced and closed my eyes. He did that on purpose.

"Would you mind keeping your voice down, please?" I whispered. I sat down at the table with them and some hot tea appeared in front of me. I loved this house.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Do you have a headache or something?" He didn't lower his voice. He was angry. That's fine.

"Azriel, there is something I wanted to show you," Mor said to him.

"Right, you mentioned you wanted to show me that. How about now?" Azriel replied. They both stood up from the table and walked quickly out of the dining room.

"You guys aren't slick." I rolled my eyes. I knew what they were doing.

"The drinking has to stop." Cassian went straight to the point. "You're not helping yourself."

"You don't get to dictate how I deal with my pain," I replied taking a sip of my tea.

"It's been 10 years," Cassians voice was soft and quiet now. "You have to find something else to lean on. You're going to drink yourself to death and I-... We can't lose you too."

I couldn't help the tears roll down my face.

"Our brother is in the hands of a monster. I cannot imagine the horrors he is going through and there is nothing I can do to help him! I can't save him, Cass... I can't free him. I do not know if he is okay. And I miss him so so much."

I hadn't let myself cry in front of my family since the day Rhys never came home. Since he spoke to all of us mind-to-mind that he couldn't come home.

Cassian was knelt in front of me, pulling me into his arms to cry into his shoulder. I knew he was crying too. We all shared the same pain. We all dealt with it differently. After a few moments of just holding onto each other, oh so very tightly. That deep fear of losing each other just how we had lost Rhys, we pulled away.

Cassian held my face in his hands, forcing me to look him directly in the eyes, our noses basically touching from the close proximity. "The drinking needs to stop, or slow down at least." He brushed away the tears on my face with his thumbs. "You are not going through this alone. We need you. I need you. You can't push us away."

"How do you deal with it?" I sniffed.

"I don't always. It hurts like hell and I'm fucking terrified for him... But Rhys wouldn't want this. He'd want us to be strong. For him, for each other, and for our court. Our people look up to us." Cassian pressed a longing kiss to my forehead. "You are not alone."

"What do you do when it gets to much?"

"Fight. Scream. Cry.... Fuck," he shrugged and I couldn't help but laugh a little. Cassian smiled when he saw he made me laugh. "I'm being serious. It's a great stress reliever."

"I'm aware. I just wasn't expecting you to say that when we are having a serious talk." I leaned away from his embrace, wiping the remaining tears from my face.

"You think highly of me if you think I can be serious for more than ten minutes." Cassian's smile matched my own now. We both bursted into laughter.

"Why did they send you to do the talking then?" Cassian stood up from his crouching position and sat on the table in front of me.

"Because Azriel would cave the second you started crying, Amren would most likely be the one to make you cry, and Mor didn't have the balls to confront you about it. We agreed that I could talk to you, comfort you and make you smile afterwards."

His smile fell after a moment of silence. "I need you back. This was the first time I've heard you laugh in 10 years. I need the old you back. And I'm not leaving your side until you are."

"I can't get back there. Not until Rhys is home and safe."

"I know... But you're not alone in this. We go through this together, okay?" Cassian held his hand out to me. I hesitated before I nodded and took a hold of it.

*** 5 years later***

"I gotta get to the Illyrian camp, Az is expecting me in 20 minutes." Cassian was walking around the kitchen of the cabin looking around for his things.

"Can't you tell him you're running late?" I pouted.

"You know he hates when people are late. He's already pissed at me for last week. 2 minutes late and he has a come apart." Cassian pulls on his boots.

"Yeah he really went hard in our training yesterday since I was late." I walked him over to the front door.

Cassian turned the knob to the front door and opened it slightly. He let out a yelp and jumped slightly.

"What's-?" His hand clamped over my mouth and he pushed me back to where my back was against the wall.

"Mor! Hey!" My eyes went wide. Oh shit. "What are you doing here?" He sounds so suspicious. Was he even trying to act normal?

The wards in the cabin will mask my scent and basically soundproofs the whole cabin to the outside. There's no way she will know I'm here until she steps a foot inside.

But if Cassian doesn't stop acting all shady then she's gonna know somethings up.

"Why are you acting all weird?" I could just imagine the confusion on her face right now. We are so screwed.

I was trying so hard not to laugh right now. Cassian's hand pressed tighter over my mouth. His thumb ran gently back forth on my cheek.

"I've got a female over. Look I don't need your judgement, okay? A guy has needs. But I would really prefer you not come in." Okay he's not wrong. He didn't say who he had over. Cassian is awful at lying so telling the truth is more convincing.

"Oh, really Cassian? Ugh," Mor gagged. "You couldn't have taken her somewhere else? This is our place. We share it."

"Don't act like you haven't brought someone up here to fuck before. We've all done it. Now, what do you want?" I smirked against his hand. I reached out my arm and ran a finger down the inside of his wing. Cassian inhaled quickly and tucked them in away from my reach.

"I left a book here that I need. Can I come in and get it?" Cassian moved more to where he blocked more of the entrance.

"Where is it? I'll get it." Mor told him where she left it and what it looked like. He closed the door in her face quickly. His hand that was covering my mouth now gripped my jaw.

"You cruel, wicked thing. Are you trying to get us caught?" He towered over me. His eyes flared with passion as he looked down at me.

I bit my lip and batted my eyelashes up at him. "Maybe," I smiled innocently.

His hand trailed from my face down to my throat where he squeezed gently. "You're so in for it tonight." He leaned down so close I thought he was going to kiss me. I craved it. I wanted him. I know he could smell my arousal.

His lips brushed against mine before he pulled back and walked away. "You're not the only one who can tease." He had Mor's book in his hands now. "I've gotta go. When you touch yourself later make sure you think of me." He winked at me before opening the front door and walking out.

Asshole.

Ok so I stopped the excessive drinking that day Cassian talked to me 5 years ago. But I was having a hard time channeling my emotions into something else. I think I definitely wore Azriel and Cassian out with the constant sparring. Which was a shock. I screamed a lot, cried a lot. Cassian was by my side the whole time like he said.

400 years. 400 years I have known Cassian and not once have either of us made a move. I know Cassian never did because I was Rhy's little sister. I never made a move because I didn't want to anything to change between mine and Cassian's friendship.

But one night. Just one night I was so tired of screaming and crying. My whole body hurt from sparring with Azriel that morning. But I still needed a release. Some sort of release.

I don't think I remember exactly how it happened next. I think 400 years of pent up sexual frustration finally broke between the two of us and neither one of us gave a fuck about what the repercussions would be.

And we haven't stopped since. We can't tell the others. No one can know. It's our secret. Mor and Azriel wouldn't understand. Amren couldn't give a fuck. I think she already knows anyway.

Azriel probably suspects something is going on. He is the spymaster overall. He knows everything. He hasn't said anything otherwise which I'm grateful for.

Maybe this happening between Cassian and I wasn't so surprising. I've always been attracted to him. I've always loved him as my family and best friend. Who am I kidding though? It's obviously been more than that.

We have something special.

I think he could be my mate. I love him so much. If he's not my mate I don't even care. I want him forever. I need him for eternity.

Part 2 continues here

[luveline]

Hi id love to send u a request but I just can't match your genius mind, id looooveee more zombie!au Steve!!! 🥺🥺🥺🫶🏻🫶🏻 maybe smth about r or Steve almost being bitten by a geek?

hi!! thank you angel!! zombie au steve x fem!reader, 3k

"Sneaking around with your boyfriend would've been considered sort of scandalous a few years ago," you think aloud, eyes skipping over medication labels slowly. "Now it's the norm."

"We are the opposite of scandalous," Steve says. 

You push pill bottles aside to meet his eyes through the gap in the shelves. He narrows his gaze. "You know how you saw me naked, like, a week after we met?" 

Steve's glare turns playfully salacious. "Yeah?" 

"Did that make it less, uh, important? Not important. Was it less intimate for you when I was naked on purpose?" 

Steve returns his eyes to the pill bottles. "No." 

"Is that weird for me to ask you?" 

"No, that's not weird, why would that be weird?" He looks up again. His expression softens. "Don't worry, it's not weird. It's a normal question. You're wondering if I was… desensitised." 

"Yeah, exactly. Were you desensitised?" 

Trust Steve to say something snippy and then feel bad enough afterwards to immediately backtrack. There's no need for him to feel guilty because you'd known he was joking, and if he weren't it wouldn't matter to you —you know being outside of camp makes him nervous, and tightly strung. You aren't expecting him to be all smiles, especially when you're asking peculiar questions. 

"If anything," he says, his voice a murmur that evidences shy affection, "it was way more special. I knew you back to front already, but the first time you showed me you, on purpose, it was different." 

You grin at him. "Like a look don't touch scenario where you finally get to touch?" 

"I'm trying to be sweet on you." 

"What was it like?" you ask. Your smile is audible. 

"Like fucking relief." He reaches through the shelves to squeeze your hand. "You're being slow." 

You take your hand back and return to the task. You're looking for anti-seizure medication for one of the children at camp. It's an important mission and neither of you had hesitated when Joyce asked you to go, but you can't say you enjoy being out here. Talking to Steve makes things better. Easier to cope. Talking to Steve about loving him and being loved by him could make you forget a pike through the chest. 

You move to the next shelf below. 

There aren't many drugs for epilepsy. You aren't sure the child even has epilepsy, but no one has the knowledge to identify anything else. Sarah (Robin's fast friend from camp) read in her field medic journal that a seizure can be caused by lots of things, and she also said that sometimes what looks like a seizure isn't a seizure at all. What is it, then? you'd asked. 

The page was missing. 

You're working through a mental list of four drugs methodically, scanning and rescanning the labels on the bottles in the back of a pharmacy. This is the raw stuff, the kind that sometimes needs to be ground and poured into capsules with filler, so if you do find the right meds you'll also need to find a pestle and some other equipment. It's a hassle, but it's worth it completely if it helps. 

"Clonazepam," you read. You lift your head. "Steve, that's the right one, right? Clonazepam?" 

Steve's head snaps up. "Yeah, that's the last resort one. Where's that?" 

He rounds the shelves to be on the same side as you, seemingly hoping for similar medications to be in the same place. His hand drops casually to your shoulder as he bends, reading each label with a determined brow. 

"Valproate," he says, relieved, hand closing around another bottle. "Okay, two options. Thank god." 

"Do they have the side effects on the bottle?" you ask. 

Steve turns the bottle but there's no second label.

"The side effects are usually worse than the original problem," he says, frowning, "remember those migraine pills we found, the leaflet?" That's how bored you and Steve had become at one point in your isolation, you'd started reading medical pamphlets. "I'd rather have a headache than lose my sense of smell." 

"Depends on how bad the headache is. You keep looking for the, uh, the carba-Tegre one. I'll go scout the equipment." 

"Tegretol," he corrects lightly. "Carbamazepine, brand name Tegretol." 

You're impressed by his memory. He sees that, and he lifts his hand to you. Palm your way, you can see he's written the names of the medication as you'd been advised to find by one of the camp members, a retired carer who worked bedside for a lady who suffered from epilepsy. 

"Your spelling is terrible," you say. 

"Whatever," he says flippantly. You're barely ten paces away when he adds, "I love you." 

"I love you too," you say. There's no need to call. The building, this entire town, is silent. You'll hear a geek a mile away. 

You poke at dusty equipment sceptically. You don't need filler, you don't think, but it affects absorption, maybe? You're not a pharmacist nor a chemist, whoever's watching knows you didn't have time to become much of anything, you're just doing as the retired carer advised. There's a press contraption with what feels like hundreds of caplet sized holes toward the front. You put it in your bag and lament its weight as you search for a pestle. 

"I've found the filler," Steve says. "There's a huge container of it. Lactose. And another of starch."

"Starch, like potatoes? We could put her medicine in mash potato."

"I think we just need a pestle and a weighing scale now. And some hand sanitiser." 

"I'll have the scales and the sanitiser, what about Robin's deodorant?" you ask. 

"At the front. I'll get it. You'll have another one?" 

"Please tell me they have that Carribean Crush one again, it was lovely." 

"You're lovely. I'll find it." 

The weighing scale must get its name from how ridiculously heavy it is. That along with the pestle has your bag feeling like a boulder attached to your neck. Maybe Steve will be willing to share the load with you. Actually, there's no need for maybe. If you tell him, he'll carry it with you happily. 

You scan the room for useful things. Batteries, food, things you've trained your eye to pick out of a bomb site if necessary. You pocket a pen for Steve and leave the rest where it lays, stepping out into the slightly bigger medications room before rounding a plexiglass wall to the pharmacy counter. Steve crouches down the aisleway, rejected roll-on deodorant on the floor beside him. 

You're about ten feet away from him when the geek lunges for him. 

You can't even tell it's a geek at first, it moves quickly, quietly, smooth as a living human. They've become diverse as the infection thrives, and you should've been thinking about that fact. You should've been standing at the front of the room. 

You freeze. You freeze and you waste time. 

"Steve!" you shriek. 

Steve's flat on his side, kicking with the entire force of his body. The geek actually bounces back with the force of each kick, but he's persistent, and stronger than he should be, a mottled hand on Steve's shoulder and decaying teeth snapping with a sound like cracking marble near his face. Steve tries to scramble from under the geek and its face falls down by Steve's ribs and upper arm. He yanks his arm away, and there's an odd ripping sound. 

You run so fast down the aisle to protect him that you can't slow, the entire weight of your body and the heavy bag you carry throttling the geek with a horrid slap against the glass door. It flies open and you topple out onto asphalt, sliding across the geek's body and taking the brunt of your rolling in your hands and the top of your face. Steve shouts a war cry and barrels after you. You go on knees, hands trembling and rushing as you grab for the knife in your belt. Steve lands on top of the geek and drives the blade of his pen knife straight into the crease between its brows, grunting as he goes, his breath coming too fast. 

You've clipped your head on the floor, the warmth of blood trickling down your brow. It doesn't concern you. 

What concerns you is the sizable tear in Steve's coat. 

He almost cuts you with his knife as you run at him, yanking the sleeves of his coat and jacket down. 

"What– what are you doing?" he asks. You tug at his sleeve like you've been possessed, panic a coil that won't loosen in your throat. "What–?" 

If he's been bitten, you'll have to saw his arm off. It's the most horrible thing you can think of, hurting someone you love, hurting the one person you love most. Your breath is half sob as you finally get his outerwear off of his arm. You don't know how to do that to somebody and especially Steve, how could you ever sever a limb? But if it will stop the infection, if it would save him—

You push the long sleeve of his t-shirt up his arm and stare down at his arm. Bruised near the wrist, pale, threaded with dark-green veins, his skin is unbroken. He hasn't been bitten. 

You pull his arm to your chest and almost break down there in the street. Steve stands with his coat hanging off of his one shoulder and doesn't respond to your actions for a long, heavy second. 

"You thought it bit me," he says. 

Your breath catches. 

"It didn't bite you." 

"No," he says, "it didn't bite me." 

"Your coat." 

Steve pulls you back inside of the store. He looks around the room twice, and then leads you to an empty corner to hug you. 

You're frenetic and frantic at once, hands sliding up and down his arm, eyes tracing his light skin like an injury might materialise. 

"It didn't bite me," Steve says, "but you're bleeding." 

You hiss as his fingertip locates your cut forehead. It must be a very small cut considering how little it bled. You've had head injuries that wept for hours, leaving you dizzy and disorientated from the subsequent lack of blood. This one's a wimp. 

You've also seriously hurt your shoulder from the backpack's weight and your small skirmish. You're not going to tell him that, not now, not when you've been dropped face first into the horror of potentially losing him forever. 

Steve eases out of his jacket. He takes your hand from his arm and pushes both sleeves up, bearing both arms in front of you. 

"It didn't get me, honey. Try to calm down." 

He says it softly, with no judgement or condescension. Only concern. 

"I'm fine," you say. 

It's strangled, you'll admit. Steve turns his arms to show you both sides before he tilts your head up and toward the meagre filtering sunlight, analysing your head injury in detail. 

"Did you hurt yourself? When you fell, did it feel like you hit it hard, or was it something sharp?" You don't answer, and he gets snippy. "Y/N, tell me. Did it hurt?" 

"Steve, you're the one who almost got bit." 

"And you're the one who almost died of a fucking concussion not that long ago, in case you forgot. Sit down. I'm not kidding, sit down." 

You blink, mildly startled by his hissing, and sit on the ground. He's being snappy because he's panicking, that's all it is. You hold back an unhelpful comment that your concussion had been months and months ago, so it kind of was long ago. 

He lets his coat and jacket fall to the floor and jogs back up the aisle to the bandages and gauze. He takes a detour for antiseptic, and then he sets himself down in front of you. 

"Did you hit it hard?" he asks. 

You shake your head. 

He doused a piece of gauze in antiseptic. "Sting," he warns, washing the length of your forehead with his makeshift wipe. He quickly swaps the bloodied one for a clean one. "Hold this." 

You hold it. He gets back up, scouring the shelves by the bandages until he plucks out a small box. He crushes it with his hand and the medical tape inside falls into his waiting palm. He sits again, tears two strips, and lines the edges of your gauze with them. It would all be much easier if they had big band-aids. 

"Show me your pupils, baby," he says. 

Steve, for his street smarts and survival skills, used to freak out about injuries. But Steve freaking out freaks you out and he guessed that soon enough, so every cut and bruise these days is met with a silent approach. It's the opposite of your reaction. Embarrassment starts to creep in. 

You widen your eyes and let Steve check your pupils. 

"Same size," he says. 

"It's just a cut." 

Steve shuffles across the floor so his thigh is pressed to yours, rather than having his back to the store. He breathes out slowly, breathes in quick, and then forces the bottom of his palm into his thigh cruelly. 

"How the fuck did that happen?" he asks. If he weren't being hyper vigilant, he'd be scrubbing his eyes in a tell tale nervous tic. "We haven't had something like that in months. We swept this whole place when we came in, where the fuck was he hiding? I feel sick." 

"You do?" you ask, terrified. 

"It didn't bite me," he assures you again. Thankfully without any annoyance. 

"It ripped a chunk out of your coat with its teeth. Forgive me for thinking your skin was less hardy than pressed plastic." 

Your acidity shocks you both. 

Things are awkward for a split second, 'cos it's difficult to feel awkward around someone who you've spent every second of the day with since you met. You feel for a moment that you could just take him by the shoulders and shake him. You love him, you could never hurt him, but he has to see sense: he doesn't understand how much you need him. Not to keep you alive, but to give you a reason to do it yourself. If he got bit, you'd die. Plain and simple. Internally first, but surely the heartbreak would murder you in the end. 

"I didn't know you were so disagreeable," Steve says. 

"I didn't know you knew a word that long."

Steve laughs, startled. You want to be mad, but you're so thankful that he's not dying and so suddenly wiped you can only laugh with him.

"I forgot how quick you are when we fight," Steve says. 

"We don't fight anymore." 

"That could be amended. Especially if you're going to get fresh with me."

"You started it." 

"I always start it." Steve flicks your shoulder."Let me see your head," he says. You turn your neck so he can see the outermost side of your head. "You swelled up like a helium balloon when you fell through that floor. It was right at the back of your head and I could tell something was wrong… This is fine. It bulged out last time." 

"It what?" you demand, pulling another rare laugh from him.

He winds down, clasping your knee. You cover his hand, and only then do you realise it's shaking.

"Steve, you almost died." 

"But I didn't die, I'm fine, and you need to stop freaking out because high blood pressure is definitely bad for a concussion. You could die yourself if you don't relax, seriously." Steve clears his throat. "Sorry, for getting heated. And thanks for knocking that guy clean off of me, what was that? You holding out on me when we wrestle? That was clean." 

"That was like, a mom's adrenaline thing. No, not 'cos I'm your mom, idiot. Loved one's adrenaline. I thought you were gonna die and suddenly I could've run for fucking gold in the Tokyo Olympics." 

"How did I get some of that? Whenever you're hurt I just feel like crying." 

"I think the crying bit comes after. Maybe if you tried getting to me quicker you'd have enough adrenaline to save me." 

He smiles before he talks, so you know it's going to be bad, "If a geek eats me during an adrenaline rush, am I a human Red Bull?"

"Okay, you have to keep an eye on the store because I need to be hugging you," you say, giving him little time to disagree as you climb on top of his lap. 

It's not comfortable nor sexy, but for once you don't care how heavy you are. You wrap your hands around the back of his neck and cradle his head, his face hooked over your shoulder so that he can still see your surroundings. He slides his hands underneath your coat and hugs you in turn. Your heart's still racing, and his hands are still shaking, but you lived. He lived. You've defeated danger for the hundredth time. 

"This really doesn't get any easier, does it?" you ask, petting his hair.  

He pats your back. "No, I don't think so. S'why I need you with me." 

"That's why I need you." 

Steve dots a quick kiss against the column of your throat. When he puts his chin back atop your shoulder, it's with a heaving sigh. 

"I can't believe you almost got bit," you say. 

"Yeah, well. Nobody has any manners anymore." 

[mamaestapa]

All I Want For Christmas Is You

•pairing: Joe Burrow x reader

•series summary: Y/N Y/L/N moved to Cincinnati, Ohio for a new start. Move in day arrives and she discovers something terrible...the apartment complex gave her the wrong lease. Instead of living with who she originally was supposed to, she's now living with the hottest quarterback in the NFL, Joe Burrow. Y/N is stuck living in the same apartment with him for a year...which the two are not thrilled about. However, as time goes on, they realize that maybe this wasn't the worst thing that could happen to them. Will Y/N and Joe stay enemies, or will they find themselves falling in love?

•chapter summary: Time skip! You and Joe decorate the apartment for Christmas! Fast forward a few weeks to Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and a couple days after Christmas…a lot happens. And what happens when Joe finds out you met someone while he was back home?

•word count: 6.5k (i think this is the longest chapter i’ve ever written HAHA)

•warnings: ANGST, a LOT of fluff, another almost kiss, christmas/holidays, and a very sad Joe

series masterlist

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December 5, 2022

"Do you have a Christmas tree?"

"What?" Joe called from the bathroom. You sighed and walked out of the kitchen. The bathroom door was wide open so you decided to walk into the bathroom and talk to Joe. You, of course, assumed he was decent since the door was wide open.

"I said-."

"AYE, AYE-."

You covered your eyes and turned back around. You were not expecting to see Joe butt naked.

"I'm sorry! I assumed you were decent! The door was wide open." you exclaimed, defending your actions. You chuckled and added, "Plus, it's not like I haven't seen it before. Hell, pretty much all of America has seen your ass."

You turned around, peeking out from under your hand slightly. You pulled your hands away and opened your eyes completely when you saw Joe had a towel covering his waist now. Your eyes scanned his body, taking in the muscles of his biceps and his chest and abdomen that was glistening with droplets of water. You just couldn't look away...

He cleared his throat, causing you to tear your gaze away from his body and look at his face instead. He let out a slight chuckle as a smirk pulled at his lips.

"You were saying what about a Christmas tree?"

"Do you have one? It's December now and I think we should put one up."

December is your favorite month because of Christmas. You love all of the decorations and the lights. The cold weather, the hot chocolate, and the baking is all very enjoyable.

Joe shook his head, stepping into the shower and closing the curtain behind him. He reached out and peered from behind the curtain.

"Can you hand me my clothes?"

You furrowed your brows and handed him his clothes.

"I can leave so you don't have to change in the shower?"

"Thanks," he brought himself back into the shower and said, "well you're already in here," he gestured to the bathroom, "and I'm already in the shower getting dressed so..."

You shrugged and continued to talk.

"I think we should decorate the place a little bit. Maybe put some lights up, find a tree, get a wreath, you know all the Christmas stuff. Maybe some stockings because it's not Christmas without the stockings."

Joe pulled open the shower curtain open, stepping out onto and the bath mat and ruffling his wet hair with the towel. He nodded along as you spoke.

"I don't have a tree here though."

You shrugged, "We can buy one."

"Who's we?"

"Okay, I will buy one," you stepped out of the way so he could he look in the mirror, "did you not have one last year?"

"I did," he said, rubbing his fingers through his damp hair, "but I didn't bring it here. It's either in storage or at my ex-girlfriends place."

Yikes.

"Well we, I mean, I can just buy a new one."

He shook his head, "I'll go check after I finish getting ready. I think I have some other Christmas decorations in storage too."

Joe finished up in the bathroom and was getting ready to leave before he turned to you and asked, "Wanna come with?"

You shook your head, "You go ahead. I'll stay back here and clean up a bit, figure out where to put the tree."

"Okay," he said, giving me a closed lip smile, "I'll see you in a bit."

"Okay." you smiled, watching as he left the apartment.

You started to clean up around the apartment, making space for the tree and any other decorations Joe may have found in his storage unit. You’ve recently found out that Joe is only staying in this apartment because he's looking to find a house once the season ends. He had a house last year, but he left it for his ex-girlfriend when they broke up. He told you he needed a fresh start, so finding a new place was the perfect place to start. But their breakup happened at a tough spot in his schedule, so it was more convenient for him to rent an apartment instead of buy a house.

You on the other hand, you don't know what you’ll do once September rolls around. You’ll probably just renew the lease for another year and look for a place while you work more hours at the boutique with Macee.

About fifteen minutes later, you got a text from Joe:

Joe- Can you come down and help?

You liked the message and went down to the parking lot to help him grab the decorations. A wide grin appeared on your face as you saw him pull out the box that contained a mid sized fake Christmas tree.

"You have one!"

He set the box down on the pavement and nodded, "I've got the tree here," he pointed to two small boxes in the passenger seat, "Lights in that box, and a couple other decorations in the other one."

"Nice," you said with a smile as you walked over to the passenger side of his car and grabbed the two boxes.

You offered to help carry the other box, but Joe insisted that the tree box was small enough for him to carry by himself.

Once the two of you were back up to the apartment, you started to put the tree together.

"Did you have a fake or real tree growing up?" you asked, placing the branches into the slots.

"Fake," he said, putting the top of the tree on since you couldn't reach, "you?"

"Real when I was in Colorado, but fake once we moved to Arizona."

Joe nodded, "Would you ever get a real one again?"

"Yeah," you said as yo began to fluff the tree, "I'd love to get one every year once I have a family of my own, you know make it a tradition."

Joe smiled, "That sounds nice. I would love to do that too someday."

"Well," you stopped your movements and looked at Joe, smiling sincerely as you said, "any girl would be lucky to have that with you."

Joe's smile grew slightly bigger as the two of you just looked at each other. He took in a breath, seeming like he had something important to say. You looked at him, waiting to see what he had to say. He let out the breath and rubbed his palms on his shorts before bringing them back up and rubbing them against each other.

"Oh!"

You jumped slightly, taken aback by his sudden enthusiasm.

"We don't have ornaments."

You chuckled, "Yeah we might need those."

"I'll run to the store real quick. You wanna put the lights on while I'm gone?"

You nodded, "Sure."

"Great, I'll be back in a few."

You watched as Joe left the apartment, frowning slightly as your mind wandered back to that moment where you and Joe just stood there, looking intensely into each others eyes and not saying anything. That's been happening a lot lately between you. The tension obvious, but neither one of you daring to say anything or make a move. You feel conflicted and confused and when it comes to Joe. You don't have feelings, but, you can't deny the fact that he's a very attractive guy. You don't have feelings...but there's something there that you just can't quite figure out yet.

You began to wrap the LED lights around the tree, your mind still somehow wandering to Joe. That's also been happening a lot more recently.

You wish you knew why though...

~time skip~

"Hey," you smiled, "You find the ornaments?"

"These?" he asked, smiling as he held up the packaging with red and gold ornaments.

"Perfect!" you clapped your hands and took the package from him, opening it up and beginning to put the ornaments all around the tree. Joe helped too, placing ornaments on the back and left side of the tree as you worked on decorating the front and right side. Once all the ornaments were on the mid-sized tree, Joe hung the leftover led lights along the cabinets in the kitchen. As he hung the lights up, you made both of you a cup of hot chocolate. You were putting marshmallows onto the top of the warm chocolatey liquid when you noticed a bag sitting on the edge of the couch. The bag seemed full, looking like there was some sort of fabric in there.

"Hey Joe?"

He hummed, turning around to look at you.

"What's in that bag?" you asked, pointing at the plastic bag on the couch. Joe walked over to the couch and picked it up, motioning for you to come over to him. You set the bag of marshmallows down on the counter and walked over to where he was standing. He pulled out two white stockings, holding them out in front of him.

One stocking had a red J while the other had a red (Y/F/I) -your first initial)

He bought stockings with your initials on them.

You smiled, but were a little shocked as you were not expecting him to do something like that.

He looked down at the stockings and then back at you. A slight blush on his cheeks as he spoke, "They were on sale and I figured you'd like them. Afterall, you said it yourself, it's not Christmas without stockings."

Your smile grew bigger at his words. You did say that to him earlier.

"I love them Joe. Thank you for getting them."

He smiled, "Of course. I'm glad you like them." He handed the stockings to you and followed you over to the Tv where you hung them up on each side of the white Tv stand.

The two of you stepped back, looking at the stockings.

"They look perfect." you said, smiling as you admired the matching stockings.

"Yeah they do." Joe said quietly.

Except he wasn't talking about the stockings.

The rest of the day was spent putting up small decorations, drinking lots of hot chocolate, and watching Yours and Joes favorite Christmas movies.

Christmas truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

A FEW WEEKS LATER…

December 24-28, 2022

Today is Christmas Eve. One of your favorite days of the year.

Joe had a game in New England today, so he hasn't been in home since Thursday. While he's been gone, you’ve been busy wrapping gifts, baking cookies, and doing some last minute shopping. Since your family can't make it to Cincinnati for Christmas and you can't make it to Arizona, you have decided to just mail gifts to each other this year.

It made you sad knowing you couldn't spend the holidays with your family, but you’re extremely thankful that you have Joe here with you. Throughout the last couple weeks, you and Joe have gotten very close. You’ve had some slightly awkward encounters with eachother, but that hasn't stopped the two of you from growing closer and strengthening your friendship. A few weeks ago, Joe promised you he would be there to celebrate Christmas with you on Christmas day, even though you told him to be with his family. He even offered for you to come to his family Christmas on the 27th—that he planned so he could be with you on Christmas day, but you declined. You appreciated the offer, but he deserves to spend that time with his family. Besides, he already has to spend almost every day with you. You figure he deserves a break.

You were sitting on the couch reading a book and listening to Christmas music when your phone began to ring. You picked it up from the coffee table, frowning slightly when you saw Emma Hubbards contact name pop up. Emma rarely calls you, so you were a bit confused as to why she was calling you, especially this late at night. (Emma is bold, you are italics)

Hey Em, what's up?

Y/n, I'm worried.

You immediately frowned. Her voice was shaky, sounding like she was on the verge of tears.

Why? Did something happen?

Sam hasn't called me yet. He always calls when they land.

Maybe he just hasn't had a chance to call you yet? I wouldn't be too-.

Y/n, they were supposed to land an hour ago.

Your heart dropped. You pulled the phone away and looked at the time. Sure enough, exactly an hour ago the team should have landed in Cincinnati. You tried not to panic, knowing if you seemed the slightest bit of worried, Emma would start to panic.

Emma, don't panic okay? I'm positive there was just a weather delay. It looked like Foxborough was supposed to get a snow storm overnight, maybe it came in early?

Y/n you don't understand. Sam would've told me if there was a delay. Somethings wrong, I just know it.

You sighed, unsure what to say next.

Maybe he doesn't have good service? Im sure everything is fine.

What if it's not though?

Emma, do not stress yourself out over this. It's not good for the baby and it's not good for you. I promise everything is OK, okay? If he doesn't call within the next twenty minutes, I'll come over and we'll make some phone calls and see what's going on.

Y/n, I’m so worried, what if-

She was cut off by your phone buzzing, you pulled it away, seeing that you were getting an incoming call from Joe.

Em, can I call you back? I just got a phone call from

Joe.

Of course, please take it. Tell him to have Sam call me.

I will.

You ended the call with Emma and answered the call from Joe. Standing up from your spot on the couch to pace around the living room. Something had to have happened. Their plane is an hour late and Joe never calls you. (Joe is bold, you are italics)

Hello?

Hey Y/n

His voice was shaky and he let out a sigh after he said your name. You felt your heart drop once again, beginning to fear the worst.

Hey, is everything OK?

Not really. We had to emergency land at JFK, the plane engine failed.

Oh my god? Are you OK? Is everyone OK?

Yeah, Yeah we're all good. Listen, I'm so sorry sweets, but I don't think we're gonna make it home tonight. I'm uh, *clears throat* not even sure if we'll get home tomorrow.

Oh. You stayed silent, making Joe sigh softly on the other side. He felt so bad.

Y/n, I am so sorry.

No, no you have nothing to be sorry for. It's not your fault.

I'll make it up to you, okay? I promise. If I don't make it home in time for Christmas, you're going with me to my parents house. I'm not letting you spend the holidays alone.

You felt tears well up in your eyes. This whole situation is nobody's fault, but, it still sucks. A lot. You were really looking forward to spending Christmas Eve and Christmas day with Joe. As of now, it looks like that's not happening though.

Okay. Well, keep me updated and please get home safe.  Also, tell Sam to call Emma please. And make sure Logan calls Macee, too.

I will. Logan's on the phone with her right now. And hey, If I don't make it home in time, please go somewhere tomorrow.

I will.

Good. Bye Y/n

Bye Joe.

You said quietly, pulling the phone away from your ear and hitting the red button to end the call. You sat back down on the couch and rubbed your eyes, trying to hold back tears.

You don't know why you were getting so emotional over this.

Maybe it's because you’re not home with your family in Arizona. But you’re starting to think it's because you may not be able to spend Christmas with Joe.

Both of you went all out to make sure this was an enjoyable Christmas for both of you. He got stockings with both your initials on them, you made his favorite sugar cookies, and you were going to exchange gifts when you woke up tomorrow morning.

It sucks that you may not be able to now.

You took a deep breath and picked your phone back up, deciding to send a text to Macee.

Y/n🤍- I'm sure you've heard about the guys possibly not making it home for Christmas. In case they don't make it in time, want to come over? I have lots of hot chocolate and cookies ;)

Macee🎀- I'm hopeful they'll be back, but I just got off the phone with Logan and it doesn't sound promising. I would love to come over and spend Christmas with you though❤️

Y/n🤍- Awesome :) keep me updated if you hear anything, I'll do the same. 

Macee🎀- Of course! love ya Y/n❤️

Y/n🤍- love you too Macee❤️

You shut your phone off and set it down on the couch, letting out a deep sigh. You’re so glad the guys and everyone are OK, but the situation still sucks.

You decided to watch a movie as a distraction, hoping that maybe you’ll hear from Joe once the movie is over. You made yourself a cup of hot chocolate and curled up on the couch with a blanket draped over your legs. You turned on National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, a movie you’ve already watched about a dozen times since the start of December. It's your favorite and it never gets old. As the movie started, you let out a sigh as a you tucked your legs up onto the couch.

This was going to be one long night.

~time skip~

The ending credits of the movie began playing. You let out a sigh as you stood from the couch, tapping your phone screen to see that it was almost midnight and you still haven't heard from Joe since your phone call. You yawned as you picked up your coffee cup and walked into the kitchen. You rinsed the chocolate residue out of the bottom of the cup before placing it into the dishwasher. You started the dishwasher and as soon as the cycle started, you heard a noise coming from the front door. You cautiously walked out of the kitchen and into the open area between the kitchen and living room. The door swung open as you held your breath in anticipation.

Joe walked into the apartment, closing the door behind him and dropping his bags to the floor. He turned around, the light from the Christmas tree illuminating his face. A dark blonde curl had fallen against his forehead and he had bags under his tired blue eyes, clearly exhausted from the game and his flight home.

"Hey Y/n." He greeted, a small smile on his face as he saw you.

You ran up to Joe, instantly wrapping your arms around his body. He seemed taken aback at first, but he eventually hugged back, pulling you close to his body. Your delicate hands rested on his shoulder blades as his were wrapped firmly around your waist. He laid his cheek on your head as you let your right cheek lay against his firm chest. You stayed in each other’s embrace for a moment before you pulled away from him and looked up at him, smiling softly.

"I'm glad you're home."

"I'm glad I'm home too." He said, voice just above a whisper, "I didn't think we were going to make it in time."

"Well, I'm glad you did."

You and Joe stood in silence, one of his hands still placed gently on your waist. You looked into each others eyes, his blue eyed gaze intense. You gulped as you looked into his eyes. You reached out for his hand, holding it in yours as both of you started to lean in close to each other. It was definitely a heat of the moment type of thing...

Just as you were inches from each other, Joes stomach growled loudly, causing both of you to step back from eachother. You laughed as his eyes widened and his lips formed in a straight line. Something always had to ruin the moment...he thought.

"You must be starving!" you exclaimed, walking into the kitchen and realizing he hadn't eaten anything since probably this morning before his game earlier.

He chuckled and followed you into the kitchen, "That obvious, huh?"

You smiled and opened the fridge, looking to see what you had.

"I can cook this fresh chicken for you? or warm up leftovers?" you said, holding up both options for him.

"Leftovers are fine."

"You sure? I don't mind cooking."

Joe chuckled, "Y/n, it is," he looked at his phone, "eleven fifty at night. You don't need to cook chicken for me."

He leaned against the counter, pacing his hands on the edge of the marble countertop. The veins in his arms and hands extremely prominent in that very moment.

"I'll just make something in the morning."

"At least warm something up."

"Y/n, I'm fine, seriously."

"Your stomach says otherwise."

Joe rolled his eyes and pushed himself off the counter. He pulled the leftover barbecue chicken out from the fridge, putting it into the microwave and warming it up.

"There. Are you happy?"

You nodded, "Very."

He shook his head and chuckled as he grabbed a plate and some silverware. Once the chicken was warmed to his liking, he put it on the plate and began eating. After he took a few bites he looked up at you as you let out a yawn.

"You don't have to stay up with me. Go to sleep."

You shook your head, "S'okay. It's almost midnight, I have to stay up just a little longer."

He smiled and went back to eating his late dinner, thankful for the company even if he wouldn't admit it. Joe finished up his dinner fairly quickly. He was washing his plate off in the sink when you looked at the microwave clock and saw that it was midnight.

It was finally Christmas day.

"Merry Christmas Joe."

"Merry Christmas Y/n."

You each gave each other warm smiles as you bid farewell for the night, heading to bed to get some sleep before waking up in the morning to celebrate your favorite holiday together.

~about 9 hours later~

You woke up from your peaceful sleep to the wonderful smell of coffee.

In your opinion, that’s a great way to wake up. Especially on Christmas morning. You got out of bed and put on a black bengals sweatshirt you got from the boutique. It was a bit oversized, covering most of your flannel sleep shorts, but it was extremely comfortable and kept you warm, so you decided to wear it. You walked out of your bedroom and saw Joe in the kitchen, standing by the coffee maker and pouring each of you a cup of coffee. He turned around at the sound of your feet hitting the hardwood floor, smiling softly as he saw you walk towards him.

"Mornin," he greeted, handing you a cup of coffee. You chuckled as you saw his outfit. He was wearing his Krusty Krab sweatshirt and gray sweatpants. Two of his favorite clothing items.

You thanked him for the coffee and set the cup down on the counter.

"I couldn't remember which creamer you liked." He said as he shut the fridge door.

You grabbed the peppermint mocha coffee creamer and poured a decent amount into your coffee.

"I usually like vanilla, but," you held up the peppermint mocha creamer, "when this is in season, it's my favorite."

Joe nodded, taking a sip of his coffee, "Ah, I'll remember that for next time." He winked as he finished talking.

You let out a laugh as a small smile appeared on my face. If someone would have told you three months ago that Joe Burrow was this much of a sweetheart, you would have called them crazy.

You and Joe both went into the living room and sat on different ends of the couch, the two of you enjoying your coffee as you woke up. You looked outside and saw that there were a few snowflakes starting to fall.

You smiled as you watched the snow fall start to pick up. This would be your first Christmas with snow that you can actually remember.

"Look," you said pointing outside, "it's starting to snow."

Joe chuckled, "Yeah. This your first white Christmas?"

You shook your head, turning to look at him as you spoke, "No. Well, kind of."

He furrowed his eyebrows, "Kind of?"

"It's the first one I can remember. The last white Christmas I had was in Colorado and I was two, so I don't even remember it."

Joe nodded, "Well, if you stay in Cincinnati you'll get a White Christmas almost every year."

You smiled , "Good to know."

There's many reasons why you plan on staying in Cincinnati, but you’ll get into those another day. You’ll be sure to add snow on Christmas to the list.

You and Joe finished up your coffee and continued to make small talk before Joe set his coffee cup down and got up from the couch, telling you he'd be right back. You watched with a perplexed look as he walked out of the living room and into his bedroom. He came back out only a few seconds later. In his right hand was a small rectangular box wrapped in red wrapping paper with a gold bow in the middle. He handed the box to you as he walked by before he sat back down on the couch.

You and Joe both agreed to get each other something for Christmas. You told him he didn't have to get you anything but he insisted. You didn't want him to spend any money on you, even though you spent quite a bit on his gift. Speaking of Joe's gift, you went to grab his from your room as soon as he sat back down on the couch. You handed him a box about the same size as the one he gave you, wrapped with the exact same paper and bow.

Joe chuckled as he looked at the present you handed him, "Did we get each other the same thing?"

You shrugged, smirking playfully at him, "I guess we'll have to find out."

He smirked, gesturing to the gift in your hand, "Ladies first."

You smiled and looked down at the gift. You carefully ripped away at the wrapping paper, eyes snapping up at Joe and mouth gaping open as you saw what the box said.

Cartier.

"Joe, I-."

He cut you off, "I know what you're going to say, just, open it."

You opened the box cautiously. You’d never gotten something like this before. You looked up at Joe, letting out a surprised laugh as you saw what the box was containing.

Cartier glasses. Not just any pair though, they’re the exact same pair that Joe owns.

"Joe these are amazing," you grinned, carefully picking up the glasses from the case, "but you seriously didn't have to get these for me. I don't even want to know what you spent on these."

Joe chuckled, "Im glad you like 'em. Don't worry about how much I spent, it doesn't matter. I wanted to get you something nice."

You smiled sincerely, "Thank you so much Joe." you leaned over on the couch and wrapped your arms around him, pulling him in for a hug. He smiled and wrapped his arms around you, squeezing you gently before both of you pulled away. You felt weird as you pulled away from him and looked into his eyes.

You almost felt like you had butterflies?

You shrugged the feeling off and put the glasses on.

"How do I look?"

Joe was beaming with joy as he saw you put the glasses on.

"You look good, Y/n."

"Now all I need is a sherpa jacket and a J B nine iced out necklace." you said with a wink.

Joe chuckled, "I think I can arrange that."

You laughed and took the glasses off of your face, putting them back into the case. You looked at Joe and clapped your hands together, "Okay, your turn."

He smiled and began to unwrap his gift.

"Now before you look inside, I don't know if you have one, but I got a some help from Ja'Marr..."

Joe pulled the jewelry box out of the wrapping paper and carefully took the top off. He grinned as he looked at the necklace.

"Y/n I love it."

You smiled, "Good. I wasn't sure if you had one or not."

He shook his head, "I don't-well I do now."

You wanted to get Joe something special for Christmas as a thank you for being a good roommate and for staying with you on Christmas day. He didn't have to stay with you, but he did. And you really appreciate that.❤️ So you had Ja'Marr help give you some ideas of what to get Joe and the two of you decided on a necklace that had a large number nine covered in diamonds.

He took the necklace out, veiny hands caressing the diamonds that covered the number nine. He looked up at you and smiled widely as he said, "It's perfect. I love it."

"I'm glad." you smiled, "because it took an arm and a leg to pay for that thing." you chuckled as you continued, "No, it actually wasn't that bad. Ja'Marr helped me pay for it too."

"You didn't have to do this for me Y/n." Joe said, "but I really do love it."

"Yes I did. You deserve it. Thank you for being a good roommate Joe," you smiled, "I wouldn't want to be stuck with anyone else for a whole year."

Joe chuckled, a slight blush appearing on his cheeks as you said those words.

"Well I'm glad you feel that way. Feelings are mutual."

"Good." you said, chuckling softly.

Joe opened his mouth like he was going to say something, but he closed his mouth just as quick as he opened it. He just sighed and looked at you with a soft smile.

"What?" you asked, my voice soft as I spoke.

He shook his head, "Nothing. I just," he bit his lip before he said, "I'm glad I get to spend Christmas with you is all.”

A blush rose to your cheeks as you smiled at Joe. Those butterflies you felt earlier started to come back as you looked into his soft blue eyes. Something about Joe in this moment made him seem so dreamy to you...

Your eyes flickered down to his lips. So many unspoken words shared between you by just one look. But you know you can't act on them.

Joe is just your roommate, and friend of course. But nothing more. No matter what you may be feeling for him, you can't act on them. Besides, he could have any girl in the world. Why would he want you? You’re just his roommate. You thought.

Joe got up from the couch, you, doing the same. You hugged each other, thanking one another for the gifts. Joe pulled away, and smiled down at you.

"The offer still stands y'know, coming with me to my family Christmas."

You smiled up at him, shaking your head as you said, "It's alright. You go be with your family, you need some time to yourself with them."

His smile faltered slightly, “Okay."

"I appreciate the offer though."

He nodded, giving you a sincere smile, "Of course. Now, how about some breakfast?"

You smiled, "Sounds good to me."

The two of you went into the kitchen and prepared breakfast. Joe making both of you an omelette with turkey bacon. As he was making breakfast, you made more coffee. The two of you enjoyed your breakfast and coffee together, making small conversation about how to spend the rest of the day as you ate.

After breakfast, you called your parents and wished them a Merry Christmas. It was weird not being in Arizona with your parents for the holidays, but, you’re thankful you were able to spend it with someone as great as Joe. After calling family, you and Joe decided to take showers—separate showers, that is. And then get back into your comfy clothes and watch your favorite Christmas movies all day, taking the occasional break to make the remainder of the Christmas cookies left in the freezer.

Christmas with Joe was truly something special. You don't know if you’ll ever get to experience another one like this one, but you hope you will again someday.

A FEW DAYS LATER…

Joe's Pov:

I walked into the apartment and let out the breath I felt like I was holding the whole ride home from Athens.

I had just gotten back to Cincinnati after my visit back home to Athens, where I celebrated Christmas with my family. It was a very nice couple of days, getting to see my family and celebrate the holidays with them was wonderful. Even if I see my mom and dad almost every Sunday we have a home game, it's still nice to see them, especially at my childhood home.

As I was back home for those couple days, I talked to my parents about my living situation. They knew I had a roommate, but they didn't know I had Y/n as a roommate. I had nothing but good things to tell them about her. I told them a little bit about Y/n and I showed some pictures to my mom, who of course had to go on and on about how beautiful she is. And when I agreed with her...well...that's what got me into the situation I'm currently in right now.

I told my mom about the feelings I have for Y/n. She was beaming with excitement as she heard me talk about Y/n and how much she means to me. She even went on to say she hasn't seen me this happy in quite a while.

And after I ranted to my mom about everything I feel about Y/n, she gave me some advice. Not much though, she kept it straightforward and simple.

She told me to tell Y/n that I have feelings for her.

And that's exactly what I plan to on doing once I get up to the apartment.

I turned my car off and stepped out, taking a deep breath as I walked up the stairs and down the hallway to apartment B30. I set my suitcase to the side and got my keys out of my pocket, unlocking the door. As I walked into the apartment I started to give myself a pep talk, hype myself up a bit before I gave her my "speech".

Come on Joe, you can do it. Just tell her you love her. WAIT NO-. Don't say you love her. Just be honest and tell her you like her, a lot. A lot more than you should and you'd love to see where things go if she's willing to do the same...yeah? Yeah, yeah that's good.

I was about to call out for Y/n when the sound of her soft voice coming from her bedroom stopped me.

"It was great, Macee. Seriously."

She must be on the phone with Macee. I stepped further into the apartment, careful not to make too much noise. I didn't mean to eavesdrop on Y/n’s conversation, but I couldn't help myself. I heard Y/n laugh before she started talking again. It sounded like she had a smile on her face as she spoke.

"His name is Jake. Yeah, we did go there. It was really nice."

Jake? Who's Jake? I furrowed my eyebrows as I continued to listen, curious to find out who Jake is.

"He actually asked me out on another date."

Oh no...

"I said yes."

I closed my eyes and threw my head back in defeat.

"I feel really good about him Macee. I really like him."

I felt my heart drop to the pit of my stomach. It felt like someone was ripping my heart out as I heard those words leave her mouth: I really like him.

There goes my plan of confessing to Y/n.

I frowned and let out a sigh as I picked up my suitcase and went into my bedroom. It may sound dramatic, but I haven't felt defeated like this since we lost the Super Bowl. Y/n just means so much to me and I want to be able to tell her that. But I can't now.

She's happy with someone else.

I cant help but think, maybe if she would have gone to Athens with me the situation would be much different. She would have been with me and not on some date with this Jake guy—who I have a feeling I'll be seeing a lot of if their next date goes well.

Maybe if she had gone to Athens with me, we would be coming back home to our apartment together as a couple. But we can't think about the "maybes" and the "what ifs" can we?

This Christmas was one I never want to forget. I loved the company I was surrounded with and I appreciated all of the thoughtful gifts everyone gave me.

But the one thing, the one thing I truly wanted was Y/n. I wanted to be able to tell her how I feel and now that chance, that may have been my only chance, is gone.

All I wanted for Christmas was her...

hey loves!!!

so this was kind of trash, BUT i just needed to finish it and get it updated for all of you :)

but AHHHH the ending, poor joe :( he just can't catch a break. BUT you and Joe hugged for the first time , how sweet! AND we got another almost kiss👀

i know we want to see it happen, but i cant let y’all kiss just yet. but trust me, it's worth the wait ;)

also, i got very carried away with this chapter, haha! so i apologize for how long it is. i just kept getting so many ideas for it and you know how i am, once i get an idea i just go with it, even if it's super random lol

i hope everyone enjoyed this chapter!! we’re getting super close to the part you have all been waiting for… ;)

i'll be posting more soon. thank you so much for all of your continued love and support on this book. your comments keep me motivated to write, so thank you🤍

tags:

@jackharloww @ilovejoeburroww @dandelionwrites8 @ijustcrypretty @sinners-98-world @a-moment-captured @stainednailpolishremover @spooky-stoner @xoxokiaraaxoxo

[necrotic-nephilim]

Hello! New to comics and I don't really feel like the New-52 comics are for me and would really like to read and understand Pre-flashpoint and all the dark and good stuff there. Is there an order or starting point you would recommend? Thanks for your time, and I hope you have a great day!

hi! i'm so glad you want to get into comics! i'd love to help with some recs! since you're here, i'm going to assume you're a Batfamily fan and most of my recs will cater to that, but i will try to encompass a bit of everything to help you just understand some big moments and all this mess that is DC canon. adding a cut bc jesus this got long.

so your starting point for pre-Flashpoint is going to be Crisis on Infinite Earths. the TLDR of this event is: DC had a big multiverse in the 70s and early 80s that wasn't friendly to new readers. to try to push their titles more and become a proper competitor to Marvel, they created an in-universe storyline that nuked the multiverse and gave a solid entry point for new fans going forward. this is why you hear terms like Pre-Crisis and Post-Crisis. it refers to the comics canon before and after this event, in 1985. some characters had some big changes (for example: pre-Crisis Jason Todd was a circus kid whose parents were killed by Killer Croc) but most remained largely the same, just simplified. you don't *have* to start with Crisis on Infinite Earths if you don't want to. it's a *good* storyline, but it's a big one and a lot of big multiverse-scale stuff happens. so as long as you understand it as "big event that nuked DC's multiverse and gave the world a clean slate in 1985", then you've basically got the gist. also Barry Allen dies during it, but he comes back so don't worry about it.

in general, if DC has some big timeline/canon-altering event, they're going to call it a Crisis Event. the only Crisis Events that will matter to you, trying to get into pre-Flashpoint are

Crisis On Infinite Earths - the above, starts the Post-Crisis/pre-Flashpoint timeline

Zero Hour: Crisis In Time - an event in the 90s that sought to fix some of the kinks that the above Crisis caused, like fixing the origins of the Legion of Superheroes and other Golden/Silver Age characters, not *super* important tbh

Infinite Crisis - this was a big event that brought back some characters who got nuked by Crisis on Infinite Earths, unfucked Power Girl's backstory, and set the groundwork to bring back the multiverse. if you've heard "Superboy Prime punched a hole in reality and it brought back Jason Todd" yeah, this is the story where it happened

Final Crisis - a big event that was partly meta commentary but heroes fought Darkseid, Batman died for a hot second, it was all a big deal about evil winning and all that

Flashpoint - the event that nuked this timeline, a big storyline to do with Flash and the timeline that would result in the New-52 in 2011

are you confused yet? good embrace the confusion it's going to become second nature of a comic fan. you don't need to read these events as a beginner. you really don't i promise. they'll sound big and important, but besides Crisis On Infinite Earths and Flashpoint, the start and end of this era, the rest you can just kind of breeze by so long as you understand the big plot points like Batman dying or Superboy Prime punching reality. unless you really care about a character central to these stories, skip 'em for now.

now for any character, if they have a Year One comic? that is a very safe bet as a place to start. it is what it sounds like. Batman: Year One is going to be Bruce's first year as Batman. same as Green Arrow: Year One, Batgirl: Year One, etc. when in doubt, if there's a Year One, start with Year One. (note: for Superman, his "year one" type story is called Superman: Birthright and it is worth reading if you like Superman)

for Batman, i am holding you by the shoulders when i say this: people will tell you to read The Killing Joke. they're liars. do not listen to them. it's a bad story. you don't need it. do not let the Joker fanboys lie to you. people will also say Dark Knight Returns. don't listen to *them* either. i *like* DKR, i talk about it a lot here. it's not a good intro to Batman. it's an AU story, it's not canon, ignore it for now.

now where you *should* start with Batman, imo, is as followed

Batman: Year One - as said above, Year Ones are good, this is solid to start with

Batman: The Long Halloween - this is an iconic story and it's a followup to year One

Batman: Dark Legacy - the followup to Long Halloween, also a very good story

Batman: Hush - this story is a solid starter if you want to understand the general vibe of Gotham, the typical characters you see in the Batfamily, and a good Batman villain

once you've got the basics down, you *can* get into the big boy storylines like Batman: Knightfall and Batman: No Man's Land, but don't worry about those right now. they're long and complicated and shouldn't really be your starting point no matter how good they are.

other very good pre-Flashpoint comics that are easy to pick up and iconic storylines

Death of Superman - this is a long arc in the Superman run that if you collect in trades, goes Death of Superman, Funeral For A Friend, Reign of the Supermen, Return of Superman, Doomsday. it's long, but a very iconic storyline

Wonder Woman by George Perez - this the run that helped define modern Wonder Woman within the pre-Flashpoint era

JLA: Year One - if you want a good Justice League story where you get characters besides Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman taking the shine, this is a great place to start

Green Arrow by Mike Grell - start with Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters and then go into Green Arrow (1988). this has the darker, very 80s vibes that gets a bit gritty and very realistic with the issues it faces bc Green Arrow comics tend to be more rooted

The New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman - this technically starts before pre-Flashpoint, don't worry about it it's fine. a good run for all of these characters, can get a little confusing, it is okay to be confused do not be afraid to google shit

so, some big stories out of the way i'm just. honestly going to run down the line of the major pre-Flashpoint Batfamily members and give you comic recs for them that you can start with. (besides Bruce obviously, bc well. see above)

Dick Grayson

NIghtwing: Year One

Robin: Year One

Nightwing (1995)

Tim Drake

Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying

Robin (1990)

Robin II: Joker's Wild

Robin III: Cry of the Huntress

Robin (1993)

Barbara Gordon

Batgirl: Year One

Birds of Prey (1999)

Jason Todd

Batman: The Cult (as Robin)

Batman: Death in the Family (as Robin)

Batman: Under The Red Hood

Red Hood: Lost Days

Cassandra Cain

Batgirl (2000)

Batman: No Man's Land

Jean-Paul Valley

Batman: Sword of Azrael

Batman: Knightfall

Stephanie Brown

Huntress/Spoiler: Blunt Trauma

Batgirl (2009)

Selina Kyle

Catwoman by Ed Brubaker

Helena Bertinelli

Batman/Huntress: Cry For Blood

Huntress: Year One

Birds of Prey: Manhunt

Damian Wayne

Batman & Robin (2009)

there are other very important pre-Flashpoint stories for all of these characters, but these are starting points more than anything. figure out what characters you're interested and go from there. understanding the universe at large helps, do not get me wrong. but at the end of the day, comics are a choose your own adventure of who you want to give a shit about. you're *never* going to read everything "important" and you're probably not going to understand everything. that's okay. don't treat it like a media you need to "complete" like a tv show or a movie, but more like an open world game where you decide what characters/teams/stories you like the most.

pre-Flashpoint covers a lot of ground. some stuff will be darker and grittier, some stuff will be more light-hearted. it will all be about what titles you pick up and what characters you decide you want to read about. you're obviously going to get a much more grounded storyline out of Green Arrow than you are say, a JLA comic. i prefer the more grounded, "street level" sorts of characters. (if you like gritty detective stories, i will be biased and highly recommend the Question (1987) just because. i love him okay.) but you might find you like sometimes more worldly and big scale. at the end of the day: don't force yourself to love a comic you're not enjoying, even if you like that character. you can put that shit down. sometimes, "important stories" are by shitty writers that you won't enjoy reading and you shouldn't make this hobby a chore. i don't care how "critically acclaimed" it is, you don't have to like it if it doesn't click for you. and on the flipside, a comic might be considered "bad" but you may enjoy it (a personal example: Robin III: Cry of the Huntress is considered a very weak comic. don't care. i love it anyway.) accept the cringe, have fun, and enjoy yourself at the end of the day. none of it will make sense anyway so just read what sounds cool to you.

this was all over the place and rambly, but i hope it helps at least a little! welcome to comics anon! if you or anyone else would like more character-specific recs, feel free to ask! if i don't know, i can at the very least hopefully point you in the right direction <3

[my-rose-tinted-glasses]

My Love Mix-Up - Episode 1

Before anything else. To say I was skeptical would be an understatement. I am a massive fan of the japanese version. I have also read the manga. Both Aoki and Ida are on my top favourite ql characters list. And I have a weird a relationship with remakes of all kinds. I question the need for them a lot. I get too attached to the original work and have trouble separating that. This is not a ql exclusive thing btw and I know it's a me problem.

Just a couple of things that I've been thinking about.

Both @lurkingshan here and @bengiyo here have written already that the main roles seem to be playing against the actors strengths and I completely agree. I don't think Fourth excels at the physical comedy bits that are a big part of the character imo. I think Gemini might've done better here. Perhaps even better - @happypotato48 made a great observation here about how Aungpao would be such a good choice for this. I agree.

Gemini's not doing necessarily a bad job at playing Ida Kongthap although he's leaning too much into the confused look and I'm not a fan. That first reaction to the eraser read more aggressive than confused which I thought was weird but I guess he made up for that by looking confused the rest of the episode.

Also about the cat. I love cats. So I'm not at all bothered that Kongthap has a cat instead of a dog Mametaru, like it's about the sponsors I get it. But I wonder if they chose a white cat to match the one that can be seen lounging outside of school in Kieta Hatsukoi.

Cause if that is the case, it's great.

Moving on. The rhythm of this episode felt off to me though. Considering that they covered as much ground as the first episode of the JP version and still they added the sports, cat bits and the dinner date, it all felt a bit really rushed to me. Like they added stuff but at the same time it's like they skipped steps. atm can't really find a better way to explain it.

I like Matmi a lot. And I like her and Fourth together. I think that friendship could be well done here.

I'm not really sure about the dynamic between Atom and the bff, like I'm not hating it but also it seems forced somehow. I'm not sold on their particular chemistry yet.

There are a couple more things but it's the first episode and let's see if they improve on some of the editing choices.

Overall, this is better than the trailer advertised (which is not saying much because that trailer was a mess) and I'm gonna stick with it for now. I'm curious how much of the manga they will cover and after CM did some wonderful choices with adapting a japanese story with thai elements, I wonder how they will do this one. I wonder if the trip to the mountains will be the beach episode in this version.

[zombeebunnie]

Trembling Essence:💙Quality of life changes + choice progress + backgrounds💙

Hi and welcome new followers! :]

This week focused on quality of life changes with the story based on your choices at the start of the game. There was some art practicing again but I managed to get stuff done!

In my previous game development posts I kept talking about making parallax effects in the game! Here's an example of what it'll look like! I learned a lot and had so much fun doing this. :]

Here's some quality life changes for certain effects in the game:

When I initially added an effect for losing HP it was suppose to light up the edges of your screen. Sometimes it can be hard to see if there's another effect happening on the screen so I went back and gave a small hue effect every time you lose HP instead of it only occurring on the edges of the screen. I don't have an example of this only because I have to go through the entire game to fix it, maybe next week I'll have it all done! :,]

Before:

After:

If the player(Y/N) is feeling very cold a icy effect will be shown around the screen to indicate this. I really loved the original way it looked but the new backgrounds can make it very hard to see now. To fix this I added a touch of white frost around the center of the screen so it'll be more noticeable. I also optimized this image so it takes up less space in the game! :]

Choice progress:

I have been going through and writing out what happens with each choice you make.

Without giving spoilers for this ending I want there to be a variety on what happens when you make a choice but I don't want there to be too much branching for this one in particular. It's pretty straightforward. When it comes to the dialog I found out a way to combine sentences together in a way that makes the pacing flow better. It's a little hard to visualize but when you get to the next statement sometimes it'll stay in the same line instead of dragging the dialog out. I also managed to catch a very early bug that caused the screen to go black if you skipped through the dialog, I am very happy I caught this versus finding this problem later into the game. :,,]

Almost half way there! I redid a few more backgrounds and added some animations to them. Since this game development post is getting very long I'll show more of them next week. :D

Q&A / Ask box is open:

If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask here or on itch.io please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I would really like to hear from you guys!

I appreciate the asks I got recently these past couple of days! I'm trying to get to them when I can including the ones I remember that got deleted. I just need time to answer since I like to respond with doodles/drawings as practice. :]

I think that's everything I have to say right now, thank you guys very much for all of the positive support, I appreciate it! :,,]

[suzuran777]

Review: Lamento stageplay

I've been waiting for a Lamento stageplay since the DRAMAtical Murder stageplay in 2019, so I'm really happy that it's finally real and that I got to watch this one! Since I also wrote a blog post about the sweet pool stageplay, I wanted to write one about the Lamento one too. I really enjoyed it! As usual the pictures I used in this blog are pictures posted by the staff and the official Twitter account! Please check it out if you want to see more.

First of all, this stageplay is pretty long! It's almost three hours long, an hour longer than Nitro+Chiral's previous stageplays. As usual, the first 45 minutes were a bit of a common route in which all the characters appeared. This was mostly the same in every route, but it did change a bit near the ending. After a short 10 minute break, it split into three different routes, so I had to watch three different shows to see all of the endings. It's technically a "musical drama (音楽劇)" which means it combines elements of a stageplay and a musical. I was kind of expecting only the Sanga to sing, but the main characters (Rai, Asato and Bardo) also sing together with Konoe sometimes! My favorite song was probably the opening song, when all of them sung a new version of Itou Kanako's "Lamento" with different lyrics! They also sang a slightly different version at the end of the stageplay. The common route also has two duet songs sung by Rai and Konoe, as Konoe learns about his power as a Sanga.

The new music was really nice, especially the background music. I love how they brought back the composers who made the game's OST to create new songs! I lowkey wish the devils had more songs because whenever they did sing during the opening and ending song of the stageplay, they sounded amazing together! I think it would also be great if they released studio recordings of the songs, as they are always a bit better than the live versions. So far they did already release an album of the instrumental songs which you can buy here, Ototoy shouldn't be region locked, so I think anyone can buy it!

The stage This time the venue was the same as the DRAMAtical Murder stageplay (Shinagawa Stellar Ball), which I've actually been to before, however it looked completely different this time! I liked how they turned the stage into one big forest. Whenever Leaks used his power on Konoe, they used this effect which made the stage look strange and trippy, it was really cool! I also really liked the green light effects they used whenever Konoe would use his Sanga abilities. The screenwriter Uchida Hiroki posted this picture on his Twitter account which kind of gives you an idea what it looked like!

Plot I was curious how they would turn a rather long game into a stageplay, but I think it worked surprisingly well. They kind of skipped over some of the stuff that happens early in the game when Konoe is still in Karou, but they do explain the general story, like the problems caused by the Void and the Sickness. Shui's character also kind of functions as a narrator in the stageplay, similar to Kamiya in the sweet pool stageplay and Virus and Trip in the DRAMAtical Murder stageplay, which is always a nice addition. It's not unusual for fans of the actors to watch stageplays without knowing the original source material, so I think this makes it possible for everyone to enjoy the show, no matter if they're familiar with the game or not.

Now for the different routes, I think all of them were great and the actors definitely put a lot of effort into their roles. Bardo's actor was really funny, especially in the scenes in which he teased Konoe (when he wanted a kiss lol), but I think he also did a great job during the serious scenes! I think Bardo's and Rai's actors had a lot of fun messing around with each other, like jokingly pushing each other, or fighting each other with their tails, which happened during one of the curtain calls people were allowed to record. Asato's actor definitely was a lot more calm compared to these two, but he did a great job at showing Asato's gentle personality! His actor mentioned listening to the drama CDs too including Lamento Love Love Gakuen, doing some extra research! (And for some reason he suddenly got into Togainu no Chi if I look at his Twitter account now...). They ended the stageplay performances on Sunday with Rai's route. Rai's actor, Katou Shou, did an incredible job as Rai during the more emotional scenes, like when Rai insists Konoe finds another Touga because he's afraid he will hurt Konoe. That scene in which Konoe realizes Karou (his hometown) had been completely consumed by the Void was also incredible.

I should probably mention that they showed the good ends only, so no devil endings in this one sadly. Razel's actor agreed that Razel should have his own route because every devil gets quite some scenes depending on the route, but Razel is always kind of left out! Also, can I just say that I absolutely love Froud's stageplay actor, he did such a great job at making the character look intimidating (he's also very tall...) even his voice sounds similar to Froud in the game. I also really liked Leaks' actor, he has a nice deep voice, and Shui's actor liked teasing him sometimes!!

I'm just happy that Lamento has been getting new content again lately, first the webtoon and now the stageplay. You can find lots of pictures and recordings that were taken with permission if you look for the ラメステ hashtag on Twitter! I saw that both Froud's and Konoe's original voice actors (Sasanuma Akira and Hatano Kazutoshi) actually went to watch the stageplay in person. Slow Damage's artist Yamada Uiro, who's also in charge of lots of other official Nitro+Chiral illustrations, also watched the stageplay and drew some new art of it! Always happy to see new Lamento art in the year 2024, I've been enjoying all of the new fanart posted on Twitter as well.

I wonder what stageplay they're planning on doing next, only Slow Damage and Togainu no Chi remain (unless they're planning on bringing Itsuwari no Alkanet or World End's Nightmare back). Next year is Togainu no Chi's 20th anniversary, so I am curious if they are going to release anything new! The director of Nitroplus (Digitaro) also mentioned that N+C is currently working on a new project, though it's currently unknown if it's a new game, Slow Damage fandisc or something else. I guess I will be patient!

[notebookishtype]

Hello, do you have any recs for star wars books and comics with the best lukeleia content? In my lukeleia era and I really wanna start reading some OT legends stuff but I don’t know where to start.

Stories that take place during, between, and shortly after the Original Trilogy? We are lucky to have decades worth of content set in this time period! It’s the only place we can find things published before the sibling reveal, and/or acknowledging that Luke and Leia were attracted to each other.

✨I’ve included links to every book and comic mentioned below. I don’t think it’s immoral to pirate from a corporation. If you (general) take issue with that, I have bought most items listed at least once, and I would lend it to you if I could.

✨Some of the comics are only available in large collections, you may need to scroll to find the correct issues.

Legends Books

The first that comes to mind is Splinter of the Mind’s Eye. It was published in 1978, Luke and Leia were still love interests, and it takes place after ANH. They crash land on a mining planet and discover there is an Imperial presence there.

Fun Facts:

This story was commissioned to be a low budget sequel if A New Hope flopped.

This novel also inspired some of the canon lore for kyber crystals.

I started an impromptu reread earlier this year, and I did not remember how shippy this book was. This is just four pages into the book:

Splinter of the Mind’s Eye was also adapted into a comic in 1995… and it was still incredibly shippy? I recommend both if you have the time and executive function. If you’re low on focus or time, go with the comic.

I’ve been told the novelization of A New Hope also has the same vibes, and is by the same author. So if you enjoy Splinter thats another place to look.

As far as other novels, we’re mostly looking at crumbs. Off the top of my head I know both Shadows of the Empire and The Truce at Bakura acknowledge their feelings for each other.

Shadows of the Empire:

The Truce at Bakura:

I would only recommend these if you’re interested in the rest of either story.

Shadows is a take on what happened between ESB and ROTJ, published in ‘96. Want to see how the Rebels get the plans for the Second Death Star? Read this. Want to see Darth Vader forced to play politics? Read this. If Han and Leia’s relationship is a no go for you, you might consider skipping it. Content Warning: the antagonist attempts to “seduce” Leia via pheromones. Read: rape. He is a serial rapist.

Truce takes place immediately after ROTJ, and has some great character moments for our heroes, again a lot of focus on Leia and Han. I do, however, choose to view the fact that Luke’s love interest in this book is a young Imperial Senator who we are meant to compare to Leia, through a shippy lense. I cannot escape the idea that Luke is projecting. Otherwise this book is about dinosaur looking aliens using human’s life energy to power their ships.

If you’re interested in checking any of these books out I recommend looking here or here.

Legends Comics

Splinter of the Mind’s Eye (1995)—as mentioned above.

Star Wars Tales (1999-2005) 15, Do or Do Not—Takes place immediately after ROTJ. Luke is processing after the Battle of Endor, and uncertain of his place. His feelings for Leia are acknowledged.

Star Wars (2013) 1-6, In the Shadow of Yavin—Takes pace after ANH. Leia is working with a handpicked X-wing squadron, to expose a spy. Her position in command causes friction between her and Luke. This is one of the few stories really leans into Leia having feelings for Luke.

Star Wars (2013) 15-18, Rebel Girl—Leia accepts a political proposal in exchange for a secure base location. Luke is a jealous brat about it, puts himself in danger, and plans to run away.

Marvel Star Wars (‘77–86)—I haven’t read these yet, but I’ve seen plenty of panels and pages posted on Tumblr that give lukeleia vibes, even some that take place after ROTJ. These have been gathered into several omnibuses. (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Disney Comics

Star Wars (2015) 1-6, Skywalker Strikes—After ANH, the gang is infiltrating an Imperial arms factory, Vader shows up, Luke has a crisis. The Luke and Leia interactions are primarily in issues 3 & 4, but it’s a solid story arc.

Star Wars (2015) 33–Actual Publisher’s Summary: The Hero of the Rebellion & the Princess of the Revolution! Luke and Leia finally get some time alone… Unfortunately, it's stranded on a desert island.

The Storms of Crait (2017)—After ANH. Our heroes travel to Crait, in hopes of establishing a base there. Luke is delightfully flustered by a kiss on the cheek from Leia.

Star Wars Adventures (2017) 4 & 5, The Trouble at Tibrin—Leia and Luke are on a diplomatic mission that goes awry. Leia rescues Luke in this one. Acknowledges Luke’s feelings.

Star Wars Adventures Annual 2018, Mind Your Manners—Another diplomatic mission gone wrong. Not all that shippy, but discovered it while making this list, so it felt wrong to leave it off.

Star Wars Adventures (2020) 7 & 8, The Princess and the Bog, A Twin Tale—Leia and Luke are scouting base locations. Luke is terrible at following Leia’s orders, and wants to pet all the animals.

Star Wars Hyperspace Stories (2022) 2–Another search for a base location. There are several cute moments between them in this one.

Deleted Scenes & Behind The Scenes

I know the ask was about books and novels, but I’d also recommend—if you haven’t already—searching for deleted scenes, alternate takes, behind the scenes photos and promo photos, etc. There are goodies from each film, but the most substantial stuff is from/for ESB.

Is That Everything?

I doubt it. There are many other stories that take place in this time frame that I haven’t investigated yet. Here are some that are on my list:

Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor (Legends novel)

Heir to the Jedi (Canon novel)

Heart of the Jedi (unpublished Legends novel)

Star Wars (1977-1986) (Legends comics) (mentioned above)

Star Wars (2020) aka Star Wars V3 (Canon comics)

Razor’s Edge & Honor Among Thieves (Legends novel duology)

I’d bet on there being content down the timeline that reads as shippy, but that’s a whole future post.

[imthepunchlord]

I'm actually glad that romance would be a B or C plot. Honestly, romance is the best when it's not center stage, let me brainrot about them in the background, lemme see them being high schoolers first and grappling with the struggle of being full-time students and part-time heroes. Lemme see the shenanigans of that time and gush over how cute they are. LET KIDS BE KIDS DAMN IT.

SAME!

I also want to actually enjoy the FRIENDSHIP. Most of Marinette's friendship and time hanging out with her friends comes down to Adrien in some shape or form.

And Adrien himself just... didn't have a social life. I know there were a few hang outs with Nino in later seasons, but it seemed like post DJWifi Adrien and Nino's friendship just blipped out of existence. Origins sets up he wants to make friends but it just never comes up. I know Party Crasher says he's friends with all the guys and I'm just scratching my head at when cause he never really even talked to anyone outside Chloe, Nino, and occasionally Marinette.

And to add to it, personally, romance and the possibility of it, is just a lot more enjoyable when I'm not getting a lot of focus on it. Romance for me is a meal I like to have in small portions, little samples, little teases. Enough to taste and I can fill the rest and relish it. But when romance gets more focus than it needs, especially when it's taking over or taking away from other stuff in a media, then it becomes a meal that's like too big to consume and I need a break.

It's probably partly why a lot of my preferred ships are non canon or crack as the romance is either non existent and I can enjoy the interactions/potential and fill the gaps myself, or if there's little hints but not the main focus, I can just enjoy what I'm sampling.

Either way, yeah I think romance priority really hurt Miraculous in the long run. It was fun and cute in s1, and then it just dragged on, and there was so much cringe, and so much toxicity, so much that was skipped over or hand waved away, and it was not a good time. And them not valuing friendship just didn't help with their romance. Cause friendship does play a part in strengthening that bond. And they missed out as romance took priority.

[ping-ski]

Hewwo!!! :3 I hope you are having an amazing day, here is a whole plate of cupcakes! Would it be possible for you to share a few lore details about your Eclipsed By You AU story? I keep looking at the designs and I am so curious about what will be happening, I would wish to nibble on tiny lore crumbs, pretty please?

ama!! hihi! ! i meant to answer your ask much sooner! anyways, since you asked so nicely (and because i am pathetically weak to any sweets </3) prepare for some SERIOUS yappage under that cut

✦ AuDHD demands that I explain EBY origins before any details but you can totally skip this if you want! (Scroll till you see blue text! :3) So... Eclipsed By You was intended to be au/fic just for myself after work when I first got into DCA. I literally was pantsing a self-insert fic from just gameplay, voicelines, and a collection of scenarios I wrote in my notes app before I actually interacted with the DCA fandom lol. I was already in the process of writing it to be a proper fic and planned to make an AO3 acc to post it! I took some time away from it tho cause I got busy irl. During my break I did start to interact more the fandom! The first proper DCA fic I read was 'Solar Lunacy' by BamSara a few months back as a recommendation from a mutual I had from another fandom. I had told them about my fic idea and they suggested I read the fic as my fic had reminded them of SL. After reading through, I was kind of bummed initially because I really didn't think I had anything unique to offer with my own fic that I was hoping to share. I stopped writing it cause damn comparison truly is the thief of joy. SL and EBY had similar ideas going on and I just didn't feel like it was worth posting my fic cause it didn't feel "special" to me anymore. It was easy to give up since writing is really not my strong suit at all, so then I fell back to just drawing! I only came back to it despite the 19 other DCA aus I have lined up rn cause honestly I remembered that wrote it for my own enjoyment! Why did that have to change? Albeit, I did scrap lots of what I initially wrote and started fresh cause my interpretation of DCA changed. Regardless, EBY was always going to be a self-indulgent DCA/Reader fic taking place at the Pizza Plex. Sure not anything original, but that's just a fact of being a creative in general tbh. I felt silly when I realized that haha. I'm having fun and they make me smile, so who cares if its been done before lol. I still enjoy Solar Lunacy and still am a fan of BamSara! (the cotl content has been fueling me lmao)

✦ Some bits on Eclipsed By You- The main part of your ask lol! ✿ On the au/fic name: I actually stole it from another au (of the many) I have. No particular reason for it! I was writing EBY and that au around the same time and alternated working on the two throughout the day. That au is now nameless (actually it's nicknamed "Messiah" as I type) cause EBY grew onto me for what it is now! ✿ On DCA's designs: This might be kind of disappointing lol but- there isn't much of a lore/plot reason for their designs? They just look that way cause... why not :3 It's also part of just how I interpret DCA into my artstyle. Otherwise, they can be interpreted as the canon designs early on! Atleast until some future upgrades! ✿ When in SB are we? Everywhere /hj. EBY will have some pre-virus and post-virus stuff just for funsies! I'm dying to yap but if I say anymore I will get carried away 100%. ✿ On EBY!Eclipse: For this au, Eclipse is his own "person" you could say. With his own AI and personality chip to pair! Carefully built to be a dedicated host and theater bot. He is, including Sun and Moon, the entertainment <3. They are a singular animatronic in this fic! (like those 3 in 1 soaps except it's DCA /j) ✿ On EBY!Y/N: (EBY is a reader-insert, but intended to be written as gender neutral and an adult.) Y/N gets their own bit of lore and issues that may or may not be the stress/frustration from my 2 irl jobs thinly veiled lmao. They work part-time at the Plex as a general theater staff member! Each week, their tasks rotating between concessions, being an usher, and working along side the theater bots! (Kind of like a theater tech.) This is a part-time job just to keep them afloat while they work on their last bit of certifications and training to be a caretaker! They are pretty passionate about helping those in need. A sweetheart honestly. Though, if you don't like kids, maybe look away. Wholesome moments with the littles and DCA + Y/N is pretty decent with kids themselves. (Lots of projection from my own experiences working with children and elderly, as a caregiver turned caretaker. I kind of want to highlight some of my experiences with Y/N.) ✿ On EBY!Sun and Moon: These two are goofballs alongside Eclipse through and through. They all get to be sweet, soft, and doting I promise. Originally, before scrapping a good chunk of the og writing, EBY had a beloved sweetheart anxous Sun and aggressive Moon who was kind of an asshole(Before the rewrite, EBY felt so different. Like everyone was just tolerating eachother and fragments being held together with glitter glue n' dreams. I am very very glad it's different now lol.) Eclipse stayed fairly consistent though. Sweet house husband that he is. Now, Sun is just as unhinged as Moon (making him just as much as a threat!), but we will persevere with the power of friendship <3 We're gonna have some aloof Sun moments. He takes his job pretty seriously! Some goofy Moon bits who's giggles are light and airy. He is very unserious I fear. They're both trying their best, in their own ways. There's not much I can say rn without spoiling haha. It's hard to stay vague hrm. Or atleast I can't think of anything specific to add right now. (I may be able to answer some specific questions if you have any, my brain is just foggy rn) ✿ I'm simplifying it down to your "typical pizza plex fic" with pre-virus and post-fire shenanigans. I'm sorry if none of that is telling I can't think of anything specific cause I'm pretty sleepy rn so maybe it's a little boring sounding but I love it anyways haha Expect some canon-typical violence and non-sexual intimacy! I have intentions on writing the relationship between Y/N and DCA ambiguous so it can be seen as queerplatonic or romantic. (But this could very easily changed, I'm a shameless robokisser sigh.)

[heronoegg]

Bubble Girl being fish-like (fish qualities)?

i wanted to draw art for this ask cause i really like Bubble girl like a lot - sadly i don't have any new art for her :( but i'll still talk about her

YES she is a fishy girl, like i said before "know shes not the fish lady but i wanted to give her fish qualities like glassy eyes and gills kinda, homegirl seems a little boney in the ribs"

the thing about her and the actual fish lady Tsu interned with or workstudy or whatever is that lady actually isn't a fish lady and those ears are fake gjknjknjkthj remember that octopus villain broke one of them cause it was a communicator? - ALSO i did some looking up about Bubble girl for another reason but i found out two things, there was a controversial about her revealing costume and she was supposed to be 16 but they changed it to 21 in her concept art by the person who drew her (i believe? im not very sure )she was wearing a UA Uniform

i got this from this post it talks about Bubble girl facts

one of them ones i actually think is something interesting is - "Her body is also supposed to be translucent like a bubble as illustrated in the original art, but I guess Horikoshi went for an opaque blue skin instead" from that post, might include that by making her a little shiny next time i draw her

ME PERSONALLY i always thought she was like freshly graduated never gave me the actual functioning grown women vibes, she acts childish, she apologized to a yakuza member when she manhandled him to the floor, that's a child your honor

Have some headcanons i have about her

-She can stay 16, we just cover up her chest - shes not as new as Mirio but she hasn't been here longer then Centipeder

-she's such a seasoned fighter Nighteye thought it just a great idea to have her on the team, she makes him laugh and they are genuinely friends.

-He met her one day and she was all frazzled out about not being able to be accepted by a agency cause she woke up late and missed a train and wah wah wah! - he simply told her "tell me a joke and if you can make me laugh you can work for me" - she made him laugh by being a girl failure and shes been on the team ever since.

-It wasn't necessarily about her making him laugh but the fact she was really trying hard when he asked that of her told him everything about her - she started crying when she thought he was never gonna laugh at her attempts at being funny

-Deku reminds Nighteye of Bubble girl alot and that's a small part of why he agreed to let Deku be here

-She skipped a grade at like middle school or something for one reason or another, that's why shes younger then Mirio but graduated from UA as a 3rd year she was younger then all her peers not sure how that works but it did, my cousin skipped a grade so it can happen - and like i said shes a seasoned fighter shes just out of sorts all the time

-She has a crush on Deku - who doesn't lol - she doesn't make it known at first but Deku kinda knew when he was there and didn't say anything cause he 1) didn't know what to say back and 2) he kinda friend-zoned her cause he didn't feel the same, he just met her lol poor thing

-She asked him out and he slowly avoided the question lol danced around it so he could get out of responding cause he didnt know what to say. She thinks about asking him again but she doesn't wanna be weird or push the issue like shes desperate

-Shes very jealous of Mirio being Nighteye's "golden boy" but she and Mirio have a very good friendship going. She has told him this many times thats shes jealous of him, she complains about it sometimes and she complains about it to Mirio "Can you kinda like, give me a chance to show you up?"

-Bubble girl and Mirio know Nighteye so well they be escaping when he's mad about stuff, Mirio will clock out and leave, Bubble girl will clock out and make the jump from the window to leave the building if hes mad

-Bubble girl and Mirio fight alot kinda, like Mirio is never really mad but they like "no you, it's your turn no you!" when neither want to do a task for Nighteye that's kinda weird/strange.

-Bubble girl gets put in the tickle machine more then anyone in this agency and quite honestly she is the only person who gets put in it Mirio once said "it was built for you"

-Centipeder patronizes Bubble girl when she acts like a child, she doesn't know when shes acting like a child she thinks this is her normal behavior and reactions to certain situations but she is a little childish

-When Nighteye gets injured he doesn't die but he retires cause he has a bad heart now and a hole in his chest and a robotic arm and he isn't stupid, Centipeder is the head of the agency it belongs to Nighteye and if he isn't so sure on what to do he asks him but ultimately he's kinda running the show now. He choose her to be his personal sidekick over Lemillion because shes more responsible then him

[arimiaromage]

Mana's "Death" Theory

Full spoilers for DGM up to chapter 244, brief mention of 245. Here's a crack theory I haven't seen around, despite new evidence.

Mana died and Allen brought him back as an akuma. Except Mana is also the Earl, both as his vessel and the doppelganger of the original/previous Earl. And the current Earl!Mana is changing emotionally, as if he still has memories from being Mana submerged deep under being the "Earl", despite his memories being wiped by Innocence in chapter 242.

I don't think it's a huge stretch to say that Mana, in some form, is still alive. Not only is he a pivotal character but given how much Earl!Mana currently has shifted his goals to want to be with Nea (something the actual Earl should not want), I wouldn't be surprised if we see Mana return in some way eventually.

Okay, but let's get back to Allen turning him into an akuma, cause that totally happened, right?

We also (much later) have the Earl remember something similar to this...

Let's note some things here, if this scene happened just as Allen & the Earl remember it:

Mana died in some way

Allen was able to bury him and buy a tombstone

Despite being 6 feet under, the Earl was able to appear to Allen

Allen called for Mana, bringing his soul into an akuma shell

Mana curses Allen- both an actual curse upon him and general yelling at him for doing such a thing

Allen invokes his innocence and destroys Mana

Earl leaves

Only Allen and the Earl / Mana were present for this (Cross appears afterwards, it's unknown if he witnessed it)

...With everything we know now, this sequence of events is kind of ridiculous, right??

For one, Mana died. We don't know how tough he is as a human, but the Mana that Allen knew was already the Earl for some time. It's safe to say he still had his Noah abilities that awakened around Nea's death.

Being a Noah isn't something you can just turn off for good- even if you don't look like a Noah, you are still a Noah.

As Wisely says- "Noah are Noah. You cannot escape."

Earl!Mana can get shot in the face several times and laugh it off but amnesiac Mana can just die off screen? Okay, sure...

I'm gonna skip over the idea that a broke orphan was able to properly bury and get a tombstone for someone. We'll let that pass since there's more damning stuff here.

In Allen's memory, the Earl was essentially in 2 places at once. He was both 6 feet under, in the grave, and standing behind him, by the tombstone. Of course, Allen didn't know they were the same person, but still- how is he there twice?

Well, he already has been in the same place twice... Or has he?

At the circus, the Earl that appears is a shell. It doesn't say anything, it can only command akuma. Cross specifically refers to it as something akin to a shell or a husk.

But the Earl that Allen meets is not an empty husk. It speaks to him, it encourages him to call on Mana like the Earl does to every grieving person.

Let's say that the Earl that Allen met was Earl!Mana, who, after dying, turned into the Earl and... escaped... somehow... idk maybe they buried an empty coffin or he just dug his way up.

If the Earl can essentially possess a dead body, why didn't he posses Nea when he died? Mana returned to his senses as Nea was dying- he had awakened as a Noah but he was himself for a brief time. If Mana had somehow overpowered the Earl to reclaim his senses, then why didn't the Earl try to possess Nea once he died?

There's a few more things I could nitpick, like how out of character akuma!Mana acts, but I think you get the point. Even if we accept that some things will have changed in the vision over the past almost 2 decades since Hoshino illustrated the scene of Mana's "death", there's still a lot of discrepancies...

So let's assume the Earl can't possess a dead body. That the Earl needs Mana or Nea to be willing to let him take over, at least somewhat. There's still one major part we haven't picked at yet.

Allen and Mana were the only ones there that day.

We've seen how, ah, hand selected Allen's recounting of his past can be. I don't think it's unfair to call him an unreliable narrator- that's not a bad thing, a most of why he glosses over or changes some details is because of his traumatic history.

We've also seen how easily the Earl can rewrite his own memories to accommodate "facts"- when the 14th is first mentioned, the Earl hated him. When the 14th is shown to be alive, the Earl can't live without him. When Mana fully awakened as the Earl, he couldn't be "Mana" anymore- the Earl was a 7000 year old sorcerer, not a 17 year old human, so Mana and Nea never existed in his mind.

And what better way to alter their memories than the antagonist roaming around following them who has been known to fully alter people's memories??

Apocryphos can alter memories. He knew where Allen and Mana were and was actively following them. He's been shown to be aggressive towards Allen and Mana and doesn't care about their memories- he erased Mana's memories of Nea already.

But what did Apocryphos erase?

OKAY HERE WE ARE FINALLY CRACK THEORY TIME. BUCKLE UP

The Earl can't possess Mana or Nea just whenever. We saw this most prominently at the circus. But there's one thing that Cross said to the Earl that stuck with me.

"You may have been summoned by Mana's grief, but it's not like he's fallen into despair."

"So long as Mana remains unwilling..."

In an earlier scene at the circus, Mana thinks something along the same lines:

The Earl is summoned when people grieve. But for Mana and Nea, their grieving is a gateway for the Earl to take over them.

If they are willing and they are grieving, the Earl can possess them.

So how did Mana become the Earl again?

Theory: Mana did not die, but Allen did.

Specifically, Mana didn't die, but Allen either died or became extremely injured to where Mana thought he died. I've seen some people speculate as to Allen being dead/an akuma or such, but I'd like to posit this newer evidence.

I imagine the scene could have played out something like this:

Allen and Mana travel to that town and get separated briefly. Something happens to Allen- either he dies or becomes badly injured. Mana finds him. Mana is overcome with so much grief he inadvertently summons the Earl. Mana's memories have been erased so he doesn't know to fear the Earl, and willingly lets him take over. The Earl curses Allen and leaves when his Innocence invokes on its own and attacks him. Allen later wakes up, healed from possibly being a Noah, his Innocence reviving him again, a passerby patching him up, something. Cross finds him.

This sequence of events could provide answers for:

Why did Mana curse Allen? It was Earl!Mana, not Mana

How did Mana, a Noah, die? He didn't

How did Allen summon Mana into the akuma shell when his body was already there? He didn't

Why did Apocryphos go out of his way to erase Mana's memories at the circus rather than kill him? So Mana wouldn't fear the Earl and would be more likely to return to him

I feel the weakest part of this is Allen somehow reviving/being healed, but we've seen his Innocence revive him before so I feel it's not that much of a stretch that something would heal him, especially compared to the amount of leaps in logic the current sequence of events has.

To reiterate my evidence:

Not once but TWICE it has been explicitly shown in the past 10ish chapters that when Mana grieves, the Earl shows up, and is even further elaborated that the Earl cannot possess Mana without his consent.

Several parts of the "Allen turned Mana into an akuma" scene don't make sense with what we know now, even giving Hoshino some leniency that she changed some stuff over the past 2 decades

Apocryphos was following Allen and Mana. He can not only change memories but he's already done so at least once with Mana

What killed Mana, a Noah????

The sequence of events I've laid out is just an idea of how things could have played out- I doubt it'll be exactly what we see in the story. However, I do believe that Allen's memories have been altered or at least the way he's presented the akuma scene is not how it actually happened.

so yeah that's my crack theory on why my favorite character surely can't be dead ♥ if you read all of this wow, have a happy Allen & Mana for your time

[dailybayonetta]

sorry, if im bothering you with this (you don't need to anwer if you don't want to), another one of these discourses about bayonetta i've seen with queerbaiting with bayojeanne and that one spoilers thing. do you agree it's an actual thing that happened?

Okay, so BIG SPOILERS AHEAD (metion of them, but not explicit) and lots of text ________

So let me start by saying, usually, as a gay person myself - I've been in this situation. When you clearly have a dynamic between friends of the same gender but it's written much more deeply and with the care and with the actual tropes that get used for het couples and filled with love (and that word gets thrown around, but like, we talking about any kind of love). That happens. But what also happens - is that writers / devs usually never confirm these. Fans and fandom do more job of putting lgbt rep into something that originally doesn't really have it or hidden in narrative (pushed, that also common with censoring) and then act like devs or writes or show runners own them something they invented. Again, it's a complex issue, because sometimes authors take time or have to push for relation ships (LoK / adventure time) and sometimes authors take credit for the ships fans popularised (that one supergirl show comes to mind???) However, in Bayojeanne cause, I can kind of see where people coming from because: a) Bayo herself is an ambiguous character, people been saying for ages that she's bi coded (i can't speak on that honestly) b) Kamiya called Bayonetta and Jeanne couple - not a pair, not duo, and compared them with other couples (that also semi-canon / canon)

c) a lot of promo material art, just as concept art depicted them in way that would couples would. especially couples that have "different side of the coin" dynamic and that complement each other some examples: 1 // 2 // 3 // 4 // 5

Fanservice? Sure. Still. A thing that did happened. d) the scenes they had were also common for couples, shots on the reaching hands (the recent one i can think about with cloud and tifa in ff7remake), bayonetta holding jeanne "bride" style, bayonetta holding jeanne when saving her soul (do i need to mention how later they did that scene in familliar way with luka and bayo but just without the kiss, riiiight) and like, i could go on, but you get the idea

d) And what I also think Bayojeanne isn't just that kind of ship that was "oh fans hyped it up and they never interacted in canon" or something. It's in the story. Again, maybe it wasn't explicit and writers probably didn't intended to be that way (maybe Kamiya did but looking at bayo3 who knows), because once again it's a common thing when writes do this type of dynamic and "oh, the bond is so strong" and that kind of thing has a right to exists, if it wasn't for the othert stuff i said about. Again, it's a complex idea and situation. And many things matter in the case. And I'm not a professional and not that type of person who cared about it in Bayonetta of all things. Does that falls under "queerbaiting"? Hell, if I know, because I never expected them somehow to get canon or anything (and if you go through my baoyjeanne tag you know I love them dearly), cause not only being a game from japanese devs but also that I know better now because I got baited enough in various media before. Can I blame people for thinking this was queerbaiting? No, I don't think I can. Especially because it's just bad for the script. What this implies of such strong and impowering fantasy character as Bayonetta is even worse. And like, Bay///o/lu//ka doesn't in any way erase Bayonetta's bi-coding or her being into Jeanne (afterall it's not the same Bayo and we got multiverses now🙄) but I think people are upset because it was executed reeeeeally poorly and untasteful for such character. And people saying it's kind of character assasination are right in a lot of ways. Hell idk why anyone skips the part that Luka also didn't got any development and got thrown in this mess as well. And also THAT PART. What happened with it - who knows what was even going on in the writing room of Platinum.

[milkydraws8]

Hey milky!!! I just wanna say two things: firstly, I love, love, LOVE you're work. My sister and I practically worship it. Secondly, do u have any reading recs for marvel? I'm a big DC girly and wanna get my toes wet with thst sweet Stan Lee goodness... OKAY THANKS LOVE U BYE!!!!!!!!!!!!

:3

jumps around yaayyyyy!!! TY! YOU AND UR SISTER HAVE MY OFFICIAL DUCAL BLESSING... NO HARM SHALL BEFALL U FOR 8 MOONS...

also forewarning, im not a marvel head but some reccs under the cut

THINGS TO KNOW

Unlike DC, Marvel doesn't reset their timeline, they scale it. The Avengers you see in 1963 are the exact same Avengers you see in 2024, but every so often events are pushed around to keep the characters modern.

There's a few major events/storylines that shake up the status quo both in and out of universe

Kree-Skrull War (1971) Secret Wars (1984-1985) Infinity Trilogy (1991-1993) Introduction of Marvel 2099 (1992) MC2 (1998) Introduction of Ultimate Marvel (2000) House of M (2005) Civil War (2006) Secret Invasion (2008) Fear Itself (2011) Avengers v. X-Men (2012) Age of Ultron (2013) Secret Wars (2015) Civil War II (2016)

---

INTRODUCTIONS These cover the origins for many of Marvel's big dogs. They're just fantastic introductions to various teams and characters, as well as the general feel for the world.

Mythos Six issues that serve as introductions to The Fantastic Four, X-Men, Hulk, Captain America, Ghost Rider, and Spider-Man.

MARVELS 4 Issues chronicling Marvel's history, from their 'Golden Age' to the 90's.

Avengers Origins Five issues that serve as introductions to The Vision, Thor, Luke Cage, Ant-Man & The Wasp, and Scarlet Witch & Quicksilver

---

STATUS QUO Now that you're familiar with the big shots, here's some stuff you can jump into. Don't be afraid to skip as many issues as you'd like. Hell, skip years at a time if you wish.

Fantastic Four (1961)

Uncanny X-Men (1963)

Avengers (1963)

Daredevil (1964)

New Mutants (1983)

The Sensational She-Hulk by John Byrne (1984)

Weapon X by Barry Windsor-Smith (1993)

Alias By Brian Michael Bendis (2001)

She-Hulk (2004)

New Avengers (2004)

She-Hulk (2005)

House of M

Age of Ultron

Astonishing X-Men

Fantastic Four by Waid and Wieringo

Hickman's Fantastic Four

Uncanny Avengers (2012)

Ms. Marvel (2014)

Spider-Woman (2020)

Wasp (2023)

These are just all the guys I like off the top of my head, I'm sure I'm forgetting even a lot of my darlings. I'm also very much a Marvel noob, so try looking up omnibuses for characters/teams you're interested in or just can't get enough of. Half of my faves I locked in on because of something I learned in passing dialogue, or just cause I liked their costume.

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OTHER These guys are off-shoots of 616 and best enjoyed after you've got a solid grasp on the world/universe

MC2 Marvel Comics 2 was a series of comics in the 90s that take place in an alternate future of the Marvel Universe

Spider-Man 2099 (1992)

Spider-Girl (1998)

Old Man Logan

What-Ifs (Literally just look up Marvel What Ifs and read whatever)

The 'The End' Series Kinda the opposite of Mythos, gives various endings to different characters/teams. Pretty wild at times

Spider-Man Noir (2009)

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A few names I never really called out but ought to put out there Carol Danvers, Hank Pym, The Defenders, Doctor Strange, The Illuminati, The Guardians of the Galaxy, Patsy Walker, Venom, and SHIELD. Also Deadpool's fun!