#characters who are dead from the beginning >>>

[if-whats-new]

What's New In IF? Issue 3 (2025)

By Aj, Bex, Dion, Briar and Peter

Now Available!

Itch.io - Keep Reading below

If you read the zine, consider liking the post: it helps us see how many people see it! And sharing is caring! <3

~ EDITORIAL ~

It’s time for a revival!

As you might have noticed, our Column section has been dead for a while. We feel like it’s time to do something about that!

Want to write 1-2 pages about a neat topic, or deep-dive into a game and review it in details? Share personal experiences or get all academic?

Send us a message and we will be happy to feature it in our future Issues!

There’s power in numbers!

Are you an IF fan and would like a way to give back to the community? We’re once again looking for new members of our Team!

Do you enjoy keeping up with updates and finding new gems? Maybe you even enjoy working with Google Sheets?

Then our Tracker of News position is made just for you!

Contact us on any of our socials or email and help us stay on the top of our game and make our Database even better!

AJ, BEX, DION, BRIAR AND PETER

~ EVENT SPOTLIGHT : Global Game Jam ~

35,371 jammers and 12,098 games, just wow!

The Global Game Jam® (GGJ®) is the world's largest game creation event taking place in physical locations across the globe. Think of it as a 48 hour hackathon focused on game development around a theme.

GGJ’s mission is to stimulate innovation, experimentation, and collaboration in games. The annual event begins on a Friday afternoon in January and kicks off with video keynotes and advice from leaders in the game development industry. The GGJ encourages collaboration and its events are not a competition. Anyone can apply to host a jam site as long as they have a dedicated jam organiser who agrees to follow a few GGJ rules, and a venue with internet access. The event is renown for fostering friendships while increasing confidence and opportunities within participating communities. Each GGJ event poses an intellectual challenge where people are invited to try new technology and tools while exploring new roles and skills.

Be it bubble tea, bubblegum, the housing bubble, soap bubbles, speech bubbles, air bubbles, social bubbles, blowing bubbles, bursting bubbles, and more, this year's theme was: Bubble.

Check out the games here! (There’s a fair share of IF too!)

(source)

~ ENDED ~

Feeling nostalgic about the golden age of text adventures? Relive those days by checking out PunyComp 2024!

IF Short Games Showcase 2024 is a great way to shine some new light on projects made in the past year and the results are now in!

Once upon a time, a game jam was held to create stories around the theme of fairy tales… and that game jam is the Once Upon A Time VN Jam.

The eighth annual Ace Jam is a game jam about creating games with asexual spectrum characters.

~ VOTING ~

ShuffleComp is a musical interactive fiction competition where you make games based on songs, which are submitted by other entrants. You can now vote for your favourites!

Sealed With A Kiss Jam 2025 is a fantastical romance jam for all VN lovers!

~ ONGOING (SUBMITTING) ~

Media depicting healthy examples of polyamory isn’t that common. The PolyJamorous 2024 is trying to break the status-quo!

Concours de Fiction Interactive Francophone 2025 is for all French-speaking enthusiasts. Submissions are accepted March 3rd 2025.

The Black Visual Novel Jam is all about working with creative professional developers who work in visual novels to bring more Black stories to life. The goal is to create a space where Black creators can show their unique storytelling through visual novels.

SeedComp! is a 2-round interactive fiction game jam, focusing on creativity and the growth of ideas and the Sprouting Round has just started! Check out the Planting round for inspiration.

BL stands for Boys' Love, a genre that focuses on romantic and emotional relationships between male characters. The Ultimate BL Visual Novel Game Jam is all about that!

Are you a fan of Vampires? Then lucky for you, because the Queer Vampire Game Jam is back!

The Make Visual Novel Assets! is 2 weeks long jam for making (surprise, surprise) visual novel assets!

The Smoochie Jam is a month-long unranked jam for interactive fiction about kisses, love, and romance.

bitsy jam #88 is here! This time with the theme Snakes!

~ NEW RELEASE ~

Travel back thousands of years and step into the awe-inspiring halls of the Library of Alexandria, where the discovery of a mysterious papyrus sets you on an unforgettable quest. Unearthed from a hidden tomb in Egypt, the secrets contained within this fragile scroll whisper of an ancient world lost to time. But this is only the beginning. Do you have what it takes to unlock the secrets of Atlantis and bring its forgotten knowledge back into the light? The past is calling in Echoes of Atlantis (GAC) —will you answer?

Once upon a time, Savvarah was a desolate land: icy winds, a dirty canvas of clouds, lifeless earth. Nuelli witnessed nothing of the kind. She was born in a blooming paradise. The tales of the past had transformed into a kind of fable. Almost a myth. Now Nuelli is set to unravel the mysteries of her visions, learn more about the history of her people, become part of a conspiracy, find herself at the very center of the confrontation between divine entities... Or not. Everything is in your hands in Legends of Savvarah: Children of the Sun.

Two short IFs written on a train, in car 13, seat 26. the train will always pass you by (Twine) was written on a way to a friend, while she came from the fog (Twine) was written on the way home.

The A.D.A.P.T. Entries, equal parts interactive fiction and narrative adventure, it is a space thriller about Judiasm, the building and falling of communities, the necessity of resisting dehumanization, and how even the best of intentions can be twisted in the face of systemic corruption and unaddressed prejudices. You can now read Entry 0.1 - Introductions (Twine) - In which we begin to investigate the writings of Rivkah Kadish, PhD. @thehallstara

Rusalka (Twine) is a short looping story about a woman who drowned (and all those after).

In Stronghold: Caverns of Sorcery (CScript), deep beneath the earth, the dragon is rising! Quest into mysterious underground caverns and forests to learn magical secrets, draw strength from friends and family, secure alliances that can save your home, and carry on the heroic legacy of Stronghold!

A machine and a ghost, in the wasteland. Walk (Twine) is a post-apocalyptic romance with multiple endings and paths. @thatsrightdollface

As always, don't forget to check out the submitted entries to the events mentioned in the previous pages. They deserve some love too!

~ NEW RELEASE (WIP) ~

Historians and politicians would call it The Proelium, a righteous battle against the traitorous Iredicci. What it really was, was the systematic genocide of your people. In one night, soldiers attacked every settlement camp across the empire. No one was spared—not the elders, not the children, not your mother. Will you abandon your song in favor of machine? Join the rebel forces against the tyrant regis? Will you heal the wounds of the realm and restore balance? Or plunge it further into chaos? Cantata (Twine) is a low fantasy IF about song, strength, & finding your voice. @fir-fireweed

From the Mud (CScript) is a Midwest gothic inspired horror set in a solitary countryside occupied only by two small towns and stretches of untamed nature. You play a troubled cowboy/girl/puncher who‘s ground deep into a maddening, repetitive routine that a string of deaths suddenly upends. As you’re hunting for the culprit and running from yourself, your quiet life on the ranch is disturbed, forcing you to keep your cards close and choose your company carefully. But the most pressing matter proves to be whether you can trust your own mind. @beckwritesif

Step into the digital consciousness of an AI chatbot in Onionionionion (Ren’Py), an intriguing visual novel that blurs the lines between artificial intelligence and human connection. Your sole window to the world is through text messages with a mysterious high school student named Éve - but nothing is quite as simple as it seems.

As a government agent who works for a national security intelligence firm called Halcyon Tech, your position is the beginning of a bright future ahead and a name to hold, and you’re happy with that until your boss decides that it’s time for the Government and the Company to part ways. Are you willing to protect the Halcyon secrets with your life? Or are you going to blow them up for the world to see in The Archives of Halycon (Twine)? @thearchivesofhalcyon

This Grave Calls You Home (Twine) is a sci-fi thriller set in space after humanity is forced to leave Earth's ravaged surface following nuclear devastation and an environmental collapse. When a patrol flagship discovers the ARCADIA-II - a long-forgotten relic from humanity's past - and finds within slumbers an astronaut who had failed at delivering humanity from destruction, the routine of your life is thoroughly interrupted. As the mystery of the ARCADIA-II and PROJECT ODYSSEY unfold, you learn that your part in this could mean humanity's salvation. Or you could be its extinction. @blood-teeth

In Rogue Adventure (CScript) you play a rogue lad whose aim is to liberate his family from the debt they owe a crime syndicate and also survive this cruel medieval world.

In Project Vampire (CScript) you play as a marvel of bioengineering and the attempted cure to death and disease. The only successful specimen dubbed “Vampire” created by a black op organization funded by UCA.

Weydosa Island (CScript) is a cursed place that is most feared by all residents of Alberal, even the bravest people will turn pale when they hear the name of that place, a folk legend that every mother often tells to scare their children into obeying. Many people consider the island to be a manifestation of hell. You are the unfortunate soul who was made a scapegoat for someone’s rotten heart and cast into that cursed Lazaretto. As if isolation alone is not enough, you must also race against time because the evil force has awakened from its slumber. It would be better to address this immediately if you still want to see tomorrow.

In the aftermath of World War II, a classified mission pulls you into the shadowy remnants of a conflict no one dares to acknowledge. Whispers of rogue Nazi scientists and reality-warping experiments have surfaced, threatening to plunge Europe—and perhaps the world—into chaos once more. As an MI5 field agent, you’re tasked with uncovering the truth buried beneath layers of secrecy, lies, and betrayal. Redacted: Ground Zero (CScript) is a story of espionage, moral dilemmas, and the unraveling of truths hidden in the shadows of history. Will you rise to the challenge, or will the truth consume you?

Born as a child of a soon to be pirate king. But tragedy strikes, your ship got ambushed by a rival pirate, Balthazar, who speak of “The greater good”. Alone, stranded. You got saved by a local pirate captain. Will he lead you to goodness or destruction in Voyage of destiny (CScript)?

In The Midnight Bay (CScript) death haunts the people of Albach Bay. For fifteen years, ‘The Bay Slasher’ has stalked the streets, preying on victims with no apparent goal or motive. You were seven years old when you witnessed the murder of the Slasher’s first victim—your own father. Impatience swallowed your childhood, desperate to come of age and solve the case that has left the local police department stumped.

~ UPDATES ~

Ashenmaw - Dragons of Marrowoods (CScript) added new content to their demo. @ashenmaw-if

Grey Swan - Birds of a Rose (CScript) updated their demo. @reinekes-fox

Heart of the Mountain (CSscript) released Chapter 2.

Hunter's Requiem (CSscript) updated their demo. @huntersrequiem-if

In Plain Sight: Operative (CSscript) released version 0.4.0.0 of their demo.

Meteoric (CScript) released Chapter 6.

Path of Martial Arts (CScript) updated their demo. @nicky-if

Replica: Between Universes (CScript) released Chapter 9. @replicabetweenblogs

The FANTASTIC Clash (CScript) updated their demo. @heysoyeah

The In-Between (CScript) released Chapter 12. @dalekowrites

The Soul Stone War 3 (CScript) added new content to their demo. @intimidatingpuffinstudios

When Stars Collide (Ren’Py) released Episode 2. @steamberrystudio

Zombie Exodus: Safe Haven (CScript) released the majority of Chapter 15.

Gods And Villains (CScript) updated their Patreon demo.

The Eternal Library (CScript) released the rest of Chapter 3. @leiatalon

The Onryō Of Osaka (CScript) released Part 1 of Act 3. @osakaonryoif

The Story of Sin (Twine) added new content to their demo. @devilishmango

Esper: Fugitive (Twine) released Part 1 of Chapter 2. @esper-game

Mind Blind (CScript) is back with quite a huge update! @mindblindbard

~ OTHER ~

Parley Games just launched a hands-free, audio & voice based mystery adventure game: RYFT: A Timely Manor!

Episode 16 of The Retro Adventures Podcast is out! Jason and Dave welcome classic text adventure author Jonathan Partington to the program. While studying at Cambridge University, he created and contributed to several memorable games including Avon (featured in Episode 12), Crobe, Sangraal, Fyleet, Monsters of Murdac, and Spy Snatcher.

A Train to Piccadilly post-comp release 2 is out.

January 2025 ChoiceScript Release, new WIPs, and update digest by @hpowellsmith is out!

The Radiants v2.0 brings an extended Epilogue, new romance route and few other updates to the base game!

As always, we apologize in advance for missing any update or release from the past week.We are only volunteers using their limited free time to find as much as we can - but sometimes things pass through the cracks.If you think something should have been included in this week's zine but did not appear, please shoot us a message! We'll do our best to add it next week!And if you know oncoming news, add it here!

~ MAYBE YOU NEXT? ~

We did not get a submission this week. But if you have an idea for a short essay, or would like a special space to share your thoughts about IF and the community...

Shoot us an email!

~ HIGHLIGHT ON ~

A couple of games that we thought were cool.

Press Play by girlfromthecrypt (CScript)

hi!!! just here to recommend my favourite game. i just read @pressplay-if, and it's… it's so good. it handles harsh topics with such ease and the writing style is consistent and everyman. everytime i hear there's an update i've got to replay the whole thing, i just love it so much.

//submitted by anon//

Your favourite game here?

Do you have a favourite game that deserves some highlighting?

An old or recent game that wowed you so much you spam it to everyone?

Tell us about it! And it might appear here!

WE LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU ALL! WHETHER IT'S GOOD OR BAD, OR EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN...

Have something to say? Send us a message titled: Zine Letter!

As we end this Issue, we would like to thank:

our anons

For sending us a Highlight and news!!

And as always, huge thanks to all you readers who liked, shared, and commented on last week's issue! What might be tiny actions are huge support and motivators to us!

Thank you for cheering us on this journey!

See you in two weeks!

AJ, BEX, DION, BRIAR AND PETER

WHAT'S NEW IN IF? 2025-ISSUE 3

THIS ZINE ONLY HAPPENS WITH YOU!

Want to write 1-2 pages about a neat topic, or deep-dive into a game and review it in details? Share personal experiences or get all academic?

WRITE FOR THE COLUMN!

Prefer to be more low-key but still have something to share? Send us a Zine Letter or share a game title for Highlight on…!

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Came across something interesting? Know a release or an update announced? Saw an event happening? Whether it's a game, an article, a podcast… Add any IF-related content to our mini-database!

EVERY LITTLE BIT COUNTS!

Contact us through Tumblr asks, Forum DMs, or even by email! And thank you for your help!!

[mysteryanimator]

Breaking down "Even the Iron Still Fears the Rot" (almost) shot by shot!

The fan-animatic can be viewed here!

HEADS UP: This is a fan-made content. I am a fan. I just love Castlevania/animation a lot and I love storyboarding nuances and making people cry over character dynamics. Also apologises for any grammatical/spelling mistakes!

I wasn't planning to do another breakdown of my own work, simply due to imposter syndrome but I genuinely put so much love and care into this animatic! I want to talk about it! Also, people have been really open to hearing about my inspiration and notes, and why I take the directions I do for my work, even if it's fan-made, so here we go!

(Also the reciprocation of my animatics has been so kind and uplifting, and I'm really glad that there's a lot of love for them as much as I love doing them! I learn and grow with every single board I make, it's been really fun! I hope I get to shine this much passion in the future in actual work!)

Since this is also an adaptation of a fan one-shot by Aquila, (which you can read here!) I knew I wanted to evoke what they had written and interject some of my own nuances/personal readings to their story to elevate what they had! In turn, kind of created this monster (positive) of a fan creation haha. There are some changes/rearranging the placement of aspects of the one-shot to strengthen the existing tension going on!

With this out the way, let's begin!

(heads up, for any shots I completely skip over, it is because I'm reaching image limits here)

I wanted to evoke that strong halo light you see in a lot of media. Often than not, this visual is used to depict the character as a divine force of nature and/or when a character is bobbing in and out of death. It can also be a very very terrifying image, as, for example, s02e8, Mizrak is literally all dark with a brightly lit background. It is scary- BUT people will say hot because it's Mizrak but hey, look, all I can say is I fully understand haha. It all depends on your intentionality and what follows before and after to give context to your scene!

Mizrak is dead. Well, undead now. Olrox is the so-called angel giving him life and love and this halo of light gets repeated a few times!

By the end, not only do their literal positions switch, but their roles shift too so I hoped to convey that visually by also giving Mizrak that halo glow for the second last shot. At the start, Olrox consumes Mizrak’s love, and then it ends with Mizrak consuming Olrox’s love. Guh I love blood themes in vamprisim.

This shot honestly took me a bit to do, since I was going a lot cleaner than usual, the expression for Mizrak was super important for me to get right. I wanted him to look like he was about to die- yet still have an unwavering amount of life in him. (Also I hadn't warmed up drawing in this cleaned-up style so it definitely was me messing around). It was important for me for this to feel like a POV shot to contrast the first scene so we can get inside the mind of Olrox!

This too is where I only have sound effects since I can't have voice so I limit my SFX to the only most vital things to elevate things I personally find better elevate the scene with audio. It only happens TWICE. The heartbeat. His wrist is shown and from context clues from not only S01 of Nocturne with Tera's turning, but a whole bunch of other vampire media- the wrist is a place where the dead accept their new life of immortality!

Also, the pulse effect was definitely inspired by the transformation of Sekmet! I'm not sure personally if this went to a further stage I'd want to keep this since I'd personally want something more unique for vampire turning, more specifically for Olrox, HOWEVER, I think it still does a good job conveying the supernatural pull for the time being!

Wow who saw this coming HAHA

Immediately when I saw the line where Olrox said he went to straddle him immediately, my mind went to go and try to parallel this scene again! I don't have much to say about this shot rather than the feet are purposefully cut out for animation convenience's sake HAHA.

Jumpscare for sudden Olrox character layout (even though he's really off model and sketchy here HAHA)

I was again, wanting to depict Olrox BATHED in light and since this animatic is purely in greyscale (with accents of colour), I could really push for dramatic lighting when it called for it! This is also why some of the scenes just do not have backgrounds at all. I wanted to make some of the scenes as "heavenly" as possible and for Mizrak to be embraced by the light because Olrox is giving him a new a life.

If this were to ever be animated (I won't be since it would take too much of my time, but it's still a good thing to note when boarding anything... maybe I'll do cleaned screenshots since those are a breeze, or animate ONE scene from this animatic... we'll see what I have time for. I unfortunately don't have proper time to try and figure out the layout of s02e8 bgs and paint them. I did consider quickly doing a 3d mock-up but no haha), the light in the background can probably be lit with candles since it was already pre-established in s02e8! Also, the windows can reflect light into the room so there's that too since Mizrak was backlit in that episode too!

Fun fact, this entire scene was the first thing I ever thought up and why I started even making it. I thought about how cool of a visual it would be to have Mizrak's eye in the reflection.

I wanted to imbue the fact that Mizrak does not fear Olrox holding a blade, hell, he's not even looking at the blade. He's looking at Olrox. What is described as a relic from a terrifying past, Mizrak is not scared. Mizrak is not scared of Olrox.

This is where the heartbeat occurs AGAIN. This is mostly to signal to the audience what Olrox actually has planned. He's not feeding Mizrak from his wrist but from his actual chest, especially with how gently Olrox runs his hands over it.

I debated a lot on where the initial cut should go. The heart, for sentimentality, under the breast in the same way Christ had been pierced, etc etc- however I landed on just dead set in the middle so it could form a cross that would grow bigger and bigger as the animatic went on. (Fun fact, the blob of blood turns into a little heart as he squeezes his chest)

I wanted to put some weight to the repressed catholic guilt, so I thought a cool visual way to showcase that Mizrak has only known how to love is via worshipping God which has consumed his entire being and self. God has given him faith, a companion in the hardest of times when the world has abandoned him.

Now, once again, his world has abandoned him. The Hospitaller Order of Saint John of God is gone. In the face of death and fearing the devil will be waiting. Olrox has given him love, and he will be a companion in the hardest of times. He will not abandon Mizrak.

This aspect of the cross in the animatic gets expanded upon as time goes on. Both literally as the cross literally turns into a pool of blood more closely to the symbol Mizrak bares, but also it slowly expands upon Mizrak feeding off Olrox's love! I'll add some more of my personal notes when we get there!

Also by far one of my favourite scenes I've drawn. It's still rough but it decidedly made me go a lot cleaner with the rest of the storyboard!

This is supposed to be suddenly jarring because it cuts midway through Olrox in a midshot to a close-up of a hand! We need to see him actively halt Olrox for just a moment, but also to show that even when it's sudden- its not hostile, it's gentle.

This shot does a couple of things!

It showcases how gently Mizrak is reaching out to Olrox

It helps to continually establish Mizrak submission to vampirism. He is constantly placed on the bottom from the composition, or we as an audience, are always looking down at Mizrak! Seeing parts of Olrox here really cements this fact as Olrox towers over him to the point we don't even see him fully!

It helps to lead into the Fallen Angel reference!

This shot makes me sob because it is so gentle. Despite being placed constantly much higher in the composition in the animatic, therefore making him the most powerful in this dynamic- in no way Olrox is intentionally made out to be an intimidating figure. He is comfort. He is a companion. He will not abandon Mizrak. The act of turning Mizrak might be read as selfish. It may be read as cheating the natural cycle of life, it may be everything wrong and doomed as your mind makes it to be, however, it is done out of love. Morals, whether good or bad, no longer matters because Olrox is in love. Love has such a strong chokehold on this series, so I'm shoving as much love into these characters as I can. Both literally make these characters so sickly desiring love that it will be their doom and saving grace, but also me as an artist deeply putting love and thought into this board because care a lot about how to convey these complex emotions! Sure it is quite easy to churn out boards without care, but without putting care into your boards, your characters and stories lack life (in my personal opinion).

Immediately, this animatic shook me and told me to put in a reference to The Fallen Angel by Alexandre Cabnel!

Also, how does one portray the soul? EYES. Eyes are the window to the soul. Mizrak’s eyes are also considerably the most important/crucial part of his design. His eyes in both seasons ‘glow in the dark’ due to the highlights in his eyes. Mizrak is considerably really emotive too and that was important to me to emphasize. I wanted to capture his essence, his soul if you will, into this shot.

This is also why this shot is done really prettily if you will.

The reflection of Olrox's eye in Mizrak's is important here! Olrox is here to act to comfort Mizrak. Even when Olrox is not on the screen with us, he is majorly present here. He will not abandon Mizrak. Also, since it is coupled with this line, people can choose to infer what they wish with Olrox! It can symbolize Olrox does have a soul, it can symbolize how Olrox and Mizrak are now intertwined together, it can symbolize Mizrak reciprocating Olrox's love. The list can go on! I give that room for open interpretation (same as the rest of the animatic, the only reason I'm going through, breaking down almost shot by shot is that I deeply care about this sort of thing, and I know other people do too!)

This shot, is deceptively simple but it's here to actually initiate a bunch of scenes I wanted to happen after this!

Firstly, I needed a very nonchalant but easy way for Olrox to let go of Mizrak's hand without needing to overcomplicate. I needed something that gave it just enough importance for the hand kiss BUT not too much where it is the sole focus on the shot.

Secondly, I needed a way for Olrox to lean down to Mizrak and initiate him being way closer to him.

Thirdly, it acts to parallel another shot that happens with Mizrak where instead of going diagonally down, he goes diagonally up!

This is one of the points where I visually slightly deviate from the one-shot! I really REALLY wanted to emphasize Olrox's dialogue here so I chopped up and elongated the scene to make it that much more intense and tender. Which is why we get the next two close up shots!

Look it was very VERY important to me to have Olrox cup Mizrak's face and intentionally cut off his eyes. The important part I wanted to focus on solely was his hand and Mizrak looking up because genuinely, Mizrak's eyes are 'distracting' and it would remove the focus on the gesture! Also I am saving Mizrak's eyes for the next shot haha

After this shot too, you may notice the blood from his neck disappears for the rest of the animatic. This is because, after this, it began to take too much of a visual focus away from the blood on Olrox's chest since it is bright red against greys in the shot. We can chalk it up to Olrox wiping the blood off when he goes to cup him.

"The most beautiful soul a vampire can posses."

It was so important to me that we get a BEAUTIFUL shot of Mizrak. I needed the audience to see his entireeee face close up, unobscured by anything. Olrox is holding a beautiful soul in his hands. He's holding Mizrak. Actually makes me sob.

This shot by the way has been repeated 3 times with slight variations by this point. Yes, this is a very pretty shot so how could I not help but repeat it? HOWEVER, I was trying to make a reference to how Mizrak has said Olrox's name only 3 times in the show with a variation of what was said around it. After that, Olrox calls him my love, basically unlocking a new stage in their relationship.

So here, three times when he looks at Olrox, he's mentally calling out his name. After this, Olrox brings him to a new stage in the relationship.

Also in Catholicism, a lot of things are in 3s. One of the major ones is that three times, Christ fell over carrying the cross. On the third hour of that day, he died and on the third day, he was resurrected from the dead. The three sacraments that welcome someone into the Kingdom of God are Baptism, Communion, and Confirmation as they all build off one another! I could go on both those are the main points AND I feel you might get the gist now!

It was very important to me that when Olrox makes this promise, we HAVE to see his full face. This is why it's a close-up.

It lets for no shadow of a doubt that Olrox means what he says here. He's looking AT Mizrak. He's telling the truth to him.

This is a parallel to a much earlier shot of Olrox! He moves closer to Mizrak by going from top right to bottom left, while Mizrak moves closer to Olrox by going from bottom left to top right! You also both see them exit the screen too!

In this shot, we bring back that halo vibe but also this is a reference to S01E04 and S02E08! The curtain! It is BOTH their first-ever shots to establish a new scene, so I wanted to go “Hey this is establishing a new scene- a new life for Mizrak and Olrox.”

The camera is super purposefully cut just below the eyes. You can see them open then closed, but we will never ever get to see the look he had in his eyes, the single decision in his brain that let him indulge. That’s only for Olrox, and only Olrox will know.

From here on out, A LOT of the shots of Mizrak get segmented/have his face hidden for that reason too (except for one shot, also done intentionally).

When Mizrak actually closes his lips around the blood- it’s on the growling sound in the song. Mizrak has turned into the animal that he’s been calling vampires. In this new life, he is now given the choice to be freed from the man-made shackles of shame and guilt. To be untamed and unrestricted. A wild animal so to speak!

Honestly, I spent a lot of my time here (besides the pretty Olrox frames) because I was super particular about how I wanted to portray Mizrak giving into sucking the blood. The way he accepts vampirism is vital because it sets the tone and mood for how the rest of the board feel since his face gets hidden and you now have to infer from when you saw his face last.

If you have seen my analyses or my work before, you will know how much I enjoy having a frame within a frame. I loveeee my boxes! They're in the box! TOGETHER! THE CENTER TOO! There are no real divisions with the exception of Olrox's head which is important because it's not Mizrak we're focused on at this point in time, it's Olrox~

This is because the one-shot, even in third person, is mostly through Olrox's perspective!

Also, the camera is moving around in this shot, and the following subsequent shots! It hopefully gives off the "hand-held" feel, which often is associated with feeling as if you're right there in the moment with them.

Why pillows?

This is me shaking you to say how the blood-drinking is an allusion for sex if that wasn't already obvious enough. So showing pillows coupled with Olrox groaning really goes "Yes they are technically doing it."

Originally this shot (and the previous shot) was supposed to be way more pulled out, but I was saving it for the very last shot of the animatic so I went to pillows with the tinest hint of their body in the frame to make it seem super scandalous. Like what on earth could they be doing for me to cut them mostly out of the frame? Also also, the pillow was supposed to have an embroidery of a painting from 1790s or earlier BUT, for the life of me, I could not decide what I wanted and I did not want to keep reusing the same references I have had in past work. I didn't want to fuss about it for too long since its more of an easter egg rather than adding to the story. The main point is pillow = fucking HAHA.

Side tangent, you can get away with SO MUCH by having blood drinking be an allusion to sex. Like obviously when you have an age rating you must abide by, you must be creative with how you go about mature topics (my age rating is YouTube hahaha)! Not only is blood drinking in vampirism just inherently queer-coded, but the intimacy of it can convey so much more if it was just a regular ol' sex scene! I actually deeply enjoy conveying nsfw topics into art because you can discuss character dynamics at a much more vulnerable, raw state that literally bares them to just their essence and their current desires/needs. However I am getting off-topic, let's get back to it!

This shot was actually heavily inspired by the statue Adoration by Stephen Sinding!

While there are a lot of differences now simply because Mizrak is at Olrox's chest, I still hope that the vibe of that statue is still imbued. It also gives the sense of not only Olrox adoring Mizrak in this very moment, but Mizrak is too despite not seeing his face. Again quite intentional because it's only for Olrox to see.

Also, a lot of people have been telling me how Olrox is breastfeeding him, and in technicality, they're not wrong, he's feeding blood, from his chest. It is the funniest thing ever LOL

This shot was important to really focus in on his throat and how, much like in the one-shot, Mizrak is literally not taking breaths and is just continually consuming Olrox.

Wet sounds fill the room as his throat bobs with each steady gulp...He doesn’t stop, doesn’t take a moment to gasp for breath.

I also just wanted to make this scene feel very slow in order to contrast with a much more passion-filled desire that consumes Mizrak in this animatic! Also hopefully the descent of blood and the descent of the camera helps to strengthen the idea of Mizrak descending into vampirism!

It felt really cheesy to have this close-up shot of his eye HOWEVER at the time, I thought this was by far the clearest way to convey the immediate switch from gentle devotion to devouring devotion and how suddenly rapid it is. In my brain, the stylization for his eyes open would be textured and pulse in the same way Olrox's wrist did, which is why it's just outlined. I'm once again not 100% set on the pulse look and it probably needs some iterations if I ever came back to it again.

Also, the green hearts in his eyes only come through when he's actively consuming blood from his chest! The heart motif comes back later when Mizrak ends up throwing up the blood!

Here's the cross again, except it is growing bigger. This was very important to me that you see how "gentle" the blood-sucking is at first. A gentle devotion despite the "terrifying" shadow of Mizrak. Also, super an excuse to have kiss marks in my animatic, I love painting them in my art because it can say a lot with placement and how aggressively smudged they are!

Also, I thought it would be SO FUN to have Mizrak's turned self literally have his eyes overlay where Olrox's eyes are. It conveys how Mizrak and Olrox are now switching roles in this animatic! For the first half of this animatic, Olrox has been placed pretty high up in the shot composition, or where the camera looks up to put him in a high place of power! It makes him appear way more etheral and otherworldly, while Mizrak was placed lower in the composition, always looking up at him! Which I'm hoping invokes religious imagery of a God and his worshipper/follower!

When Mizrak's transformation is set, the dynamic switches up. For the rest of the animatic, Mizrak is now placed at a more supernatural/otherwordly position, while Olrox is just there passively, letting Mizrak BE in this position. He does not fight it, he embraces it, embraces how Mizrak reciprocates his love, his desire, and all his messy complications, much like how earlier in the animatic, Mizrak embraces vampirism.

Also if you slow it down enough you can see how I accidentally left my perspective grids in it HAHA, but it goes by fast enough it doesn't really matter! (I guess it's also kind of indicative of my natural style when it comes to digital painting too, I genuinely like having my sketch still peek through into the final painting!)

Wow even more shots to cement the new role switch AND how much much of the passionate need to consume is controlling his urges! Free to consume at his leisure, he is no longer bound by human nature (for now)!

This shot and his leg shot help to really strip Mizrak of his humanity. Faces in a shot really help to connect people to the characters because we see the emote, we see them breathe, we see them live. Especially for a character like Mizrak? He's super expressive face-wise and I'm purposefully not showing you the defining features of Mizrak. Here I am basically going "Mizrak is no longer human."

This is why in horror/thrillers with antagonist characters, we don't see their faces much and are saved for only key moments (usually, again your intentionality matters). It doesn't allow us to connect with the character on a much more human level. Think of Count Orlok from Nosferatu (2024). Purposefully a lot of his character is shrouded in darkness, focusing on his hands and other aspects, never his face, and even then it is really hard to make out because so much of him is obscured. It makes him that much of an imposing intimidating character! Otherworldly and something that we cannot fully understand.

This is a flipped version of Mizrak's close-up eye shot much earlier when he asked if his soul would remain. Again to hark on how Mizrak and Olrox are switching roles in this animatic! Olrox is looking at Mizrak's soul as we speak.

Despite us not seeing Mizrak's face, we as an audience noticing how unhuman Mizrak has suddenly become, Olrox looks quite gently at him and that was important to convey!

Woo! Lot's of horizontal lines here! While the camera is moving towards the left, Mizrak is moving right!

Originally this shot was going to have Mizrak's teeth sinking into Olrox like a very cool Olrox throwing his head back and Mizrak's fang reveal HOWEVER, I want to leave the "carnage" and bloodshed of the feeding out of the frame and only have it show up in very specific moments so I can have those moments actually have their proper impacts. I did not want to show any part of the front of his face at all since it would dampen the effect later on, so I opted for this instead. The legs give a sense of "something is happening but we don't know what, but it's to a point where Mizrak's entire body is moving oh jeez." Won't lie, this looks very sexual and I'm purposefully toying with that line again because blood drinking is an allusion to sex.

Also, I'm continuing the concept of having aspects of Mizrak's face only for Olrox's eyes. What does he look like when he's actively consuming him with such passion? Idk, Olrox you tell me.

This is everything I was building up for when I introduced the small crosses! The physical manifestation of how Mizrak reciprocates.

My thought process here was that Mizrak only knows how to love by fully devoting himself because that's all he's done for God. So he applies it here. He is reciprocating love, but it is FULL ON. It is intense. It is all-consuming.

The face once again is obscured for all the reasons I have mentioned before, but also it REALLY helps to really hard cut to Mizrak choking on the blood after because before it seemed like he was doing just fine. He is literally looking DOWN at Olrox, he takes up A LOT of the screen with just his back and head. He literally gets pulled into full focus while Olrox is blurred in the background. He appears like he is in control of the situation, however it could not be further from the truth.

Also, I was mostly inspired by the insane amount of bible verses talking about blood, so I'll drop some of those here!

John 6:53-56 ESV

So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.

Ezekiel 16:6 ESV 

“And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’

Matthew 26:28 ESV

"For this is my [Christ's] blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins."

Absolute contrast to most of the other shots, not only because I decided to add way more character acting here, but it's because we actually see his FULL face. It's intentional because Mizrak realizes himself now so we need to see him have this reaction. I wanted to show that he is still a person. He still has a soul. He may not be human, but he does have a mind that can think and a heart that can love. He still retains human qualities.

He's choking on all the blood (a physical manifestation of love) and his body is rejecting it. He's not used to consuming this amount of love and he's not used to being self-indulgent. It's deeply overwhelming.

I wanted to say I LOVED drawing blood it is SO FUN, planning the camera movement, and how Mizrak coughs at specific moments was sooo fun. I wanted this to be MESSY AND INTENSE. I wanted the audience to feel the weight of Mizrak's sudden distraught. I wanted to throw him around and to really hark on this line from the one-shot.

What has he done? What has been done to him? What has he become?

It helps to deeply contrast with how still and gentle the next scene is!

Yes, that is right, Olrox's pupils are DILATED :)

Coupled with the fact that the blood splatters are hearts! They're outlined in cyan! Olrox has a massive heart-shaped blood splatter on his cheek while Mizrak has a few heart-shaped splatters BUT there are gaps in his bloodied mouth that create heart shapes as if Mizrak spewed out those hearts!

Firstly this is because Mizrak literally eats at his chest where the heart is. Secondly, I'm again pushing for Mizrak to consume and throw up his love due to how overwhelming it is. Not only is Olrox's love for him literally beyond his imagination, but Mizrak is trying to love back in with that same amount of passion and utter devotion. A lot is happening for this new-born vampire that is pushing and pulling at him. His emotional state is so overwhelming that it is manifested in physical form.

The green reflections are shown to visually communicate Olrox anchoring Mizrak back, as, throughout the animatic, it is one of the things that ease or calm him down. I could not portray it through voice BUT I can portray it via visual (guys walk with me here, imagine the insane combo of audio and visual, it would be so tasty). The sole reason why I did not have hearts in his eyes here is simply because I reserved the heart motif for when he's actively drinking out of Olrox's chest (so he's literally consuming his love) or when he's spitting out the blood!

Also, the reason why I cut to his eyes rather than pan to them is purely because I wanted the violence of his mouth to be suddenly jarring to the gentleness in his eyes. I didn't want the slow reveal, I wanted the "OMG the blood- aw Mizrak...."

"Lulled into a sense of hazy compliance by Olrox’s voice, the former monk carefully lowers himself and continues though not for long."

This final shot was soooo important to me to include. The “musty inn room” was mentioned much earlier during Mizrak’s transformation but there was a poeticism by having what is considerably the blossoming moment of their complicated relationship be the final shot. With the lyrics also ending with "Take me back to Eden" how could I not? Clearly, both the rooms between s01e4 and s02e8 are parallel to each other. The only difference is that s02e8 has the room be both red AND GREEN, while s01e4 is just earthy/green. Olrox has taken them both back to their earthly paradise. This is their Garden of Eden.

Woo ok and we're done! Also yes I do thumbnails for these, it's half the reason why I'm fast (this entire animatic, cleaned and everything, was done in 3 days good lord. Is that fast? I can't tell) I make the barest of bones chicken scratch of sketches to get a feel of pace/vibe, then I do my roughs/cleans and add/take away shots necessary for the story that needs to be told. I normally would not let this see the light of day because these are AWFUL BUT, this post is also half a documentation of my personal process so I'm going to close my eyes and share this HAHA

If you got this far, thank you for reading me geek out about this! I find a lot of joy in the visual storytelling medium. As much as I do enjoy animating, (wow could you guys tell in the name?) I have a deep love and passion for storyboarding personally and I get sit back, and enjoy crafting the entire picture! I still have a long way to go but I'm having fun and I'm pursuing my passions of storytelling!

I desperately want to make more animatics, dealing with different tones, pace etc, but I genuinely have to go prioritize other things for now that will help me build these skills hahaha. I say this but who knows, seeing my current track record haha, look I can do both. I follow wherever my creativity takes me. I may have missed a few things but I have to wrap this up now!

Thank you again! The final takeaway, go watch Castlevania again and go be inspired by animation <33333

[isuckatwritingsobenice]

No one mourns the wicked

Synopsis: No one mourns the wicked except it’s Alastor and his loving wife after he dies and the people realize he was in fact the killer terrorizing New Orleans

A/n: i was listening to this song after watching the movie and it kind of reminded me of multiple characters, one of them being Alastor, so here we are :)

Warnings: timeline tweaked to fit the storyline, Major character death, grief, obsession, dark themes, implied past violence, mourning, religious elements

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The bells tolled for Alastor.

The sound rang out over New Orleans, a slow, deliberate chime that echoed off the cobblestone streets and wrought-iron balconies. A funeral procession wound its way through the city, black-clad mourners moving with somber grace, their eyes cast downward—though not for grief.

There was no grief.

Only fear.

Alastor, beloved radio host, lively entertainer, and charming presence in every parlor and ballroom, was dead. But the man the city had adored was not the man they had buried.

The real Alastor—the one with blood on his hands and a smile on his lips—had been unmasked at last.

And now, no one mourned the wicked man.

No one except her.

She stood apart from the rest, a lone figure swathed in black lace, her veil obscuring the grief-stricken expression beneath.

His wife.

The word felt hollow now, as though spoken from another lifetime. What was she now, if not the wife of the man they cursed? The whispers had already begun—how could she not have known? How could she have laid beside a man with the devil’s grin and never seen the hellfire in his eyes?

But she had known.

She had known from the very beginning.

She had met Alastor on a summer evening when the air was thick with the scent of magnolias and the sound of jazz curled through the streets like smoke. He had been charming, so very charming, his voice warm like the whiskey he poured her, his laughter infectious.

She had loved him immediately.

Perhaps that had been her first sin.

He had taken her hand and led her into a world no other woman dared enter. His world—one of secrets and shadows, where the missing never returned and the wicked were punished not by law, but by him.

It had frightened her.

And yet, she had stayed.

That had been her second sin.

And now, she committed her last: grieving a man the world had condemned.

The funeral was held in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, beneath a sky choked with heavy clouds, as though even the heavens refused to shine upon the dead man’s final resting place.

The priest spoke in measured tones, his voice a thin veil of piety stretched over the weight of judgment beneath. There were no kind words, no lamentations for a life lost too soon—only the murmured prayers of a man who feared for his own soul in speaking them.

She knelt at the grave as they lowered him down, her hands clenched in the folds of her dress. Her breath hitched, but she would not cry.

Alastor had never liked tears.

That night, the city rejoiced.

The terror was gone, the Monster of New Orleans put to rest at last. Music poured into the streets, the living celebrating while the dead turned in their graves.

She sat alone in their home, the ghost of his laughter still lingering in the walls, in the floorboards that creaked beneath her as she walked. The gramophone sat silent, its usual melody absent.

She could not bear to play it without him.

She could still hear them outside—people whispering his name, cursing it, spitting it into the dirt.

Had none of them loved him? Had none of them seen the brilliance in him, the fire that burned so hot it could only consume?

No.

Only she had seen.

And now, she was alone in her mourning.

The city moved on quickly, as cities often did. Another scandal would come, another name would replace his in the papers. Soon, he would be nothing more than a ghost story, a hushed warning spoken to children who strayed too far after dark.

But she would not forget.

She could not.

Late at night, when the streets fell silent and the candlelight cast long shadows against the walls, she swore she could still feel him.

She would wake to the phantom press of fingers against her wrist, the faintest trace of a breath against her ear. The scent of cigar smoke lingered when she had not lit one. The record player clicked on in the dead of night, playing a tune she had long since stopped hearing.

He was still here.

And oh, how she wished he wasn’t.

Because if he was here—if his soul still roamed these halls—then he had not found peace.

And she could not bear the thought of him suffering, not even in death.

The knocking began three nights after the funeral.

At first, she thought it was the wind, rattling the shutters in its restless wail. But then she heard it again—sharp, deliberate.

Three knocks.

Like a gentleman at a parlor door.

Like a husband returning home.

She hesitated only a moment before crossing the room, hands trembling as she reached for the handle. The air was thick with something unspoken, the kind of quiet that sat heavy in the chest.

She opened the door.

Nothing.

Only the dark, stretching out before her in endless silence.

And yet, as she closed the door, she swore she heard it—

The low, familiar hum of a tune.

A tune only he would sing.

It continued.

The soft shuffle of feet behind her when no one was there. The sudden flicker of candlelight when the air was still. The radio tuning itself to static, then settling on a voice she had not heard in days.

His voice.

“Did you really think I’d leave you all alone, my darling?”

She gasped, the breath stolen from her lungs as cold fingers brushed her cheek.

Not a trick of the mind.

Not a dream.

He was here.

He was with her.

She pressed a hand to her lips, a sob choking its way free. “Alastor?”

His laugh curled around her, warm as the summer nights they had once shared. “Who else would it be, dearest?”

She shuddered. “You—”

“I know.” His voice was teasing, affectionate. “A terrible shame, isn’t it? I had such plans for us. And now look—stuck haunting my own home! How embarrassing.”

She swallowed thickly. “Are you… are you in pain?”

A pause.

Then, softer, “No, my love.”

She exhaled, her body sagging with relief.

If he was still here, still him, then perhaps there was justice yet.

Perhaps the city had not won.

She no longer feared the voices outside, the ones that spat curses at his name.

Let them speak.

Let them call him monster, murderer, devil.

He had been all those things, and more.

And yet, he had loved her.

Was that not proof enough of his humanity?

So she loved him still.

Even in death.

Even in whispers.

Even as she sat alone, her fingers tracing the cool wooden surface of his coffin, her lips parting to hum the song he had so often sung.

The melody drifted through the house, carried by the wind, by the dark, by the presence that lingered just beyond sight.

And somewhere, just behind her ear—

A voice joined in.

Laughing. Loving. Hers.

Always.

[shurup-overt]

don't ever let go of what's beloved

these bastards made me cry! THRICE!!

@mari-lair I wanna thank you from the bottom of my heart, also this will be LONG. I'm sorry skdjkls

SPOILERS UP TO CH27 BELOW

(not super detailed but still can ruin the experience)

I'VE FINALLY read ycit after half a year of putting it off it just because I "didn't like the idea of akane being dead&doomed" skslsks I was wayy too superstitious. anyway I'm glad I stopped being stubborn

IT WAS HELL OF A RIDE (positive) and I finished it (27 chapters at that moment) looking like nene in ch107

I'm not even joking

where do I even begin.

the amount of research and thought and love poured into the fic is INSANE. it's always so nice to feel the author's passion through the work and this one overflows with it.

am I being too sappy? I dunno, I speak what's on my mind lol!!

as I said, it's noticeable that it's written with so so much love to the characters and this love is INFECTIOUS!! I didn't know I'd get attached to aka, so fast too. it's like my thought process was almost the same as teru's all the way through chapters 0-20 lmaoo

a small digression from the main topic - the thing is, what I wait for the most in tbhk is a flashback about terukane's first meeting & how the glasses were made. ofc there's always a possibility they were made by teru just for fun and as a way to make akane owe him (although this might be ooc) but the possibility of it is thankfully really really small because teru looks at them and handles the topic very gently. too gently for it to be just a forced prank. also akane has been keeping them with him on his bead near his head while sleeping (not even the bedside table or smth! who the hell keeps their glasses with them on the bed at night?? <- comes from a glasses person)

so, especially because of teru's wording ("he said he wanted to live his life like he used to"), I've been STRESSING over the possibility of akane BEGGING teru for help there, like what if he was struggling with switching forms at first and hence wasn't seen by students? what if the clock keepers didn't explain him almost anything about the supernatural world and so he was scared and confused? what if teru cornered him there and he had to prove he's human? (by the warmth of a touch?) what if he cried? what if teru comforted him? (or tried to lol) what if there were more struggles??

and so I was soo glad to see this topic being expanded!! I know it's an au and all (and the contract's gone worse here) but what I mean is, I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks about it!! reading akane's backstory was Painful As Heck but really Good.

my godd I wish the boy had some comfort. I can't look at ycit akane because I start tearing up immediately.

"I hope akane managed to use the bill" "I hope the seals helped at least a bit" I HOPE SO TOO. JESUS. THE POOR BOY WAS LEFT ALL ALONE WITH A TERRIFYING KNOWLEDGE AND THE TWO DIDN'T EVEN SAY GOODBYE TO EACH OTHER PROPERLY

and his backstory hasn't even been fully revealed yet. I feel like I'll die when that time comes. shaking

alright I don't wanna whine here too much now moving on-

this idiot. /affectionate

the attention to the smallest details!!!!

the amount of canon things implemented?? HELLO? I mean it's natural to expect a canon character act according to canon but it's the first time (I think??) I've noticed SO MUCH small facts THOUGHT THROUGH and carefully weaven into the fic to fit the narrative perfectly. sometimes they're really small and almost insignificant but it's like finding easter eggs!!! it fills me with so much joy to feel the love to the kids through the writing (I repeat it again ahahaha). teru's complicated (VERY MUCH SO) feelings towards his father, akane liking raspberry sweets, akane (and aka) liking when pride of a certain someone ( ^^ ) shatters in front of them and their facade falls, teru itching to jump headfirst into research as soon as there's a reason to mess with exorcist tools and invent something (oh I so adore this in canon I can probably ramble about this a lot), teru being eager to play in the snow, teru covering his face when he cries!!!! and that's just the things I remember right now THERE WAS A LOT MORE

it all makes me point at the screen with an "AH!!" expression and think "YES THAT'S MY BOY/GIRL!!"

YAKO AND TSUCHIGOMORI TOO!! I was so glad to see yako being involved so much and her character handled perfectly with all her traits and quirks and sillyness /affectionate hehe I love her so much and although tsuchigomori hasn't showed up as much, reading the scenes with him was a delight as well

also when I said about the passion, I meant not only the love to the fic's main cast, but also the passion to analyze the og medium itself as a whole. (am I making sense? I don't want to sound too creepy) explaining myself: take aka: his character, his quirks, his abilities, his drama, worries and experiences - for it all to be as deep and believable ( = excellent) as it is, it was necessary to take all the smallest bits about ghosts' and supernaturals' mindset we have in canon, be it hanako or sousuke or mitsuba etc, analyze it, and make aka one of their kind but still very much unique and closer to akane than to them, even though he doesn't remember being him. even if you didn't do what I said entirely on purpose, I'm just amazed by how aka is written. it's awesome

squeezes him.

thank you for being the extremely stubborn "leech" you are. mwah

aidairo sadly have given us very little info about exorcism and supernaturals in general (I'm biting the table as we speak) and the way you still took the crumbs, thought them through, added bits here and there, and made it all work perfectly is just amazing. I was overjoyed to read about mimics, other kinds of supernaturals, how spiritual energy feels, how touching a ghost feels in detail, weakening seals, blood pacts, boundaries, etc etc. it's like it's all canon, it doesn't make the reader question it whatsoever, so well-made. I'm clapping.

the description says you've never written a teru pov before and I'd say you nailed it from the very beginning!! you understand his mindset so deeply, reading your works is the best experience. the picky bitch in my ear never goes "he would not say that" and instead is just as amazed as I am

the first chapters before the bonding are HEAVY as heck. they're extremely hard to binge read but I mean this as a good thing. they're extremely painful by just how realistically they are written, so good you can't help but sync with teru and feel the same emotions as he does. And his life is SHIT at that moment so I was SUFFERING with him both the first and the second going through the chapters :'D again though, it's not bad, it's the opposite - it makes the happy moments thrice as good and the overall bonding brings A LOT of warmth. I feel like it healed me in a way after punching me in the stomach 10 chapters in a row

also I love it so much just how much the fic focuses on teru's everyday life before the manga's main plot. I mean, well yeah, it's a 14-15yo teru pov, but still. so detailed, filled me with warmth.

*slaps roof of ycit* this bad boy can fit SO MUCh fun ideas and good concepts in it

seriously, the range is insane. a questionnaire, a quarrel (multiple), siblings talk, beach episode, dancing, hugging, both crying, possession?? hello?? BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! summer festival, sleeping on the other, fighting for the other, fighting together, even working in food service together (aka the thing I'd expect out of a trkn fic the least lol). the list goes on. and despite how bizarre and random it sounds out of context, nothing from it feels like a filler, everything fits into the plot perfectly. I have no words mari how are you doing that

ever since I've read the bloodpact chapter, I was worried about how encounters with mimics will go from now on because now aka can go anywhere and, how it was stated before, aka's and a mimic's energy feel the same… the boys will need to come up with a strategy of some sort (which is tricky if mimics learn from the memories) ourghh makes my head hurt! but in a good way. or will mimics struggle picking a target between aka and teru now? what if they're weaker when faced by multiple opponents because of that? that would be fortunate. anyway! mimics leap at the target eventually, so that eases the task. and whether the boys encounter them or not, they will have each other's backs, and it warms my heart.

I've wanderend off the main topic again, oops. as you see, the fic made me think of all sorts of things lol and it's an incredibly good sign.

what if teru did take a picture of the swing set in ch13…..... ourghh I don't even know if it'd be better or worse...... it's over now though, so I'm glad either way

and ch27 has destroyed and rebuilt me several times I think .

I drew this before ch28 but then it came out and oh boy. I don't even know what to say. Good for them. so proud of them

I HAD SEVERAL SONGS FOR THIS but I don't want to make this too overwhelming so I've tried to pick the faves among faves (still kind of failed so . no pressure)

Bullet by Saint Motel (lyrics) for teruaka

The Song with Five Names a.k.a. Soapbox Tao a.k.a. Checkmate Atheists! a.k.a. Neospace Government (A.K.A. You Can Never Know) by Will Wood and the Tapeworms (lyrics) for aka - this one may be too extreme. it kinda clicked for me but I might be delusional

quiet room by ewe (has eng subtitles) for teruaka - makes me feel things similar to the ones 'therefore you and me' does

Yakusoku no Overture by Toki Shunichi (akane's VA hehe) - I haven't found a full version of this arrangement on youtube but it should be on spotify? or other streaming platforms I'm pretty sure? sadly, I've only found a russian translation (as unusual as it is lol) so I've tried to adapt it in english here, hope it looks right!

I might be delusional here sdslkds but what's certain is that I enjoyed the fic all the way from the start. thank you for creating this, truly

p.s.: please let me know if I made you in any way uncomfortable. I myself didn't expect to write so much; I only wanted to express my gratitude but this might be overwhelming. (I'm a very anxious person so I felt like I needed to say this sdskldj) you aren't obliged to respond in any way and this isn't me asking you to continue working on the fic. just saying thank you for the things you've made

that's it! wishing you a great day :)

[bluemoonscape]

Team Supernatural, I’m a sucker for the concept of nature as an entity neither good nor evil, and some things in the show don’t (yet) make sense without the supernatural angle (lottie speaking French in that one attic scene, for instance). I wouldn’t be opposed to Rational at all, though. It would be chilling.

Teen timeline favorite is a toss-up between Jackie and Tai, but Jackie has to win. Loved Ella since Arcane and so seeing her portray a live action character was a dream. Plus, Jackie is so genuinely sweet and there’s something about her (+Laura Lee and Javi, but specifically Jackie since she was eaten first) being the sacrificial lamb of the team that’s so beautifully tragic. Plus, her mannerisms and her dedication to her team even when they exile her, is just. Yeah. I bawl over Jackie. In the adult timeline, Shauna is my favorite for sure, with Callie as a close second. Her story is the most interesting to me and her relationship with Callie and flashbacks of Jackie are insane. And Melanie Lynskey!! Is reason enough!!

Probably an obvious one, but nothing beats Bullet with Butterfly Wings kicking in as Natalie runs from the cabin after drawing the Queen for me. It was a huge “holy shit” moment.

Jackieshauna has to be my favorite, love some toxic doomed lesbians! The story of season 1 revolves around them and their relationship so much, and Jackie haunts Shauna constantly even in the adult timeline. Always something with them. Taivan and Mistynat are close seconds - I also love Lottienat and Lottieshauna, though. I’ve been known to dabble in the Taishauna department too. I play every team so I can never lose

I’m so so torn between 1x01 and 2x06. The pilot forever has a special place in my heart for showing us the girls’ lives before the crash. It made me feral over Jackieshauna within the first few minutes. As for Qui, this episode wrecked me so hard and when something has the sheer emotional power to do that, it automatically makes me fall in love with it. The most memorable line in the whole series to me was “Why can’t you hear him crying?”

I want and am holding on hope for Nat to be the Antler Queen. I honestly don’t want another twist to throw us off the scent of who it is this season—we were already thrown off from thinking it was Lottie, and narratively, I think it makes the most sense for Nat to take on that role and be the tortured protector of the group. I do agree that there’s a non-zero chance they’re gearing up for it to be Shauna, though.

I would have to agree on the Jackie eating scene being the best of the show so far. It’s the most viscerally haunting shit of the whole series—it changes the tone of the show forever. And the cuts to the feast. Jesus christ. Just. Jesus christ. “She wants us to” like JESUS CHRIST

This is honestly more of a want than a prediction but I HOPE it happens regardless; more of the dead girls haunting the living ones. More of Laura Lee haunting Lottie. More of Jackie haunting Shauna. Sooo much of Nat haunting Misty. And on that note, more of the teen girls showing up in the adult timeline!! Show us the trauma!! Second, I think this season is going to show us why Misty is so obsessed with Nat since Nat is now gone in the adult timeline. I bet Misty will team up with Nat in trying to protect Coach Ben and will become her most faithful “follower.” They have that Coach Ben connection and I think that’s what ties them together in the beginning.

I think I’ve found myself relating most to Tai and Jackie? I joke about being Van exclusively for the ginger element but Tai probably wins out. Her relationship with death and with her own mind, her frustration with the group’s stagnancy and her determination to take things into her own hands, her ambition and need to “make things better” + her constant application of logic to an illogical situation, I can relate to all of those aspects. She feels the most down to earth to me because I feel closest to her personality and behaviors.

I would say just the fact that I’ve tried to explain the logic of the show to everyone I know and received the most wild looks in return is mine. It’s great.

A funny thing I’ve noticed about the fandom perception of men is how. You know. Hated they are 😭 I love that yj is a female-centric show and wouldn’t have it any other way, but there has been some crazy discourse about headcanoning some of the girls as transmasc so I guess I might have a lukewarm take about that (in that I’m transmasc and love those headcanons).

I’ll tag some Yellowjackets moots whether they just want to browse what other people have said or add their own (apologies if you’ve already been tagged!): @cringekind @antlerslayer @jupititties @amberpriceenthusiast

Starting a Yellowjackets tag!

I want to get my mind off of things so: If you want, answer any or all of the questions below and tag 10 people (or however many you want) who also might want to share! I would love to see what you guys have to say!

1. Are you team Rational or Supernatural?

2. Who is your favorite teen timeline character? Favorite adult timeline character?

3. What is your favorite needledrop?

4. What is your favorite ship?

5. What is your favorite episode?

6. Who do you want the Antler Queen to be?

7. What is your favorite scene in the entire series?

8. A theory or prediction you have about Season 3?

9. Which character do you relate to the most, and why?

10. What is the craziest thing you’ve done in the name of Yellowjackets?

Bonus:

11. What’s your most controversial Yellowjackets take?

—

Here’s mine!

1. I am mostly Team Rational because I love the way this show depicts trauma but I also love seeing the supernatural side of things through the survivors’ eyes if that makes sense.

2. Natalie in the teen timeline because I love her compassion and softness underneath the front she puts on. Lottie in the adult timeline because I love her internal battle with herself and how afraid she is of her own mind. Misty is a close second in the adult timeline!

3. “Cornflake Girl” playing while Nat sees the mossy tree for the first time, Callie seeing the Adam Martin driver’s license in the barbecue, and Shauna eating Jackie’s ear. It just goes so perfectly with everything that’s going on (especially the elevated piano while Nat and Travis are scaling the mountain and the lyrics while Shauna takes the bite!)

4. LottieNat is my favorite ship I can’t help it Nat and Lottie are my favorite characters so having them together is a dream (TaiVan, JackieShauna, and TravNat are up there, too).

5. 1x09 “Doomcoming” is just amazing and captures everything I love about Yellowjackets. I love when they let the girls go batshit crazy, hoping we get more Doomcoming vibes in S3.

6. I want the Antler Queen to be Natalie because that would show a true descent for her in the Wilderness from being the most morally grounded one to the leader of the group at their most unhinged and primal. But honestly I think that Shauna might be the AQ after all…

7. I think the Jackie-eating scene is the best in the entire show. The “Climbing Up the Walls” song choice, the bacchanal feast flashes as a way of coping with the horror of what they’re doing, seeing them go fully feral for the first time, it’s such a well crafted scene.

8. I know this probably won’t happen but I’m just going to throw it out there that Cabin Daughter is alive and she will be revealed to have been Javi’s “friend”!

9. I relate to Shauna the most because I also admittedly have a bit of an obsessive/intense personality and I, too, internalize my emotions to a very unhealthy degree sometimes. I also grew up being in love with my childhood best friend who is very, very much like Jackie (and now we have been dating for 7 years!)

10. Mine is a mix of going to a Yellowjackets panel and sitting like 5 feet from the showrunners, doing everything in my power to score early screening tickets to Heretic and Companion, and pretending I was sick so I could go home early from work the day that the S3 trailer came out.

11. The male characters on this show get too much hate🫢 I like Travis, Jeff, Kevyn, and Walter (even though his introduction and storyline are rushed and forced). I don’t like them more than the female characters, but I like them nevertheless and appreciate their contributions to the plot.

No pressure tags! (I’m tagging 15 bc I feel like it) @before-it-felt-like-a-sin @baked-potatoes-rule @jackiesnats @deerest-deer @whodoesnataliehave @stilllsage @fairytwles @glitterfairy-21225 @lesbianforlottie @tr4vnat @lauraleetaylor @cassioo @natsboygirlfriend @soapyjackets @pinkkkkat @natgf123 +literally anyone else who wants to!

[thegreatmelodrama]

Hamlet and Neil Perry

In a deleted scene of Dead Poets Society, Neil and Todd are running through lines together outside while walking to the lake. Neil can be heard reciting a famous line from Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “to be or not to be, that is the question”. While I’m not sure if RSL just improvised it or if somewhere in the original script it has Neil reference Shakespeare, I think the scene offers a potentially deeper understanding of Neil as a character. Hamlet has many themes and motifs, however I want to discuss those of play-acting, filial duty/father-son relationships, and death as it relates to Neil in DPS. 

Play acting

Within Hamlet, play-acting is a central motif with Hamlet constantly blurring the lines between reality and performance. In an earlier scene, Hamlet’s mother asks him why he stilll “seems” upset over his father’s death. Hamlet becomes takes offence to her usage of the word seems, but then comes to reluctantly agree after describing at length his clothes and outward appearance: “these indeed ‘seem’ for they are actions that a man might play” (Act I, scene ii). “But”, Hamlet adds, “I have that within which passes show” (Act I, scene ii). This quote is indicative of one of the main struggles Hamlet, and indeed the audience, must face throughout the play: telling apart those feelings which are pretend or performed from those which are within and which characters, including Hamlet, cannot show. 

Throughout the play, the distinction between reality and performance becomes even more blurry. Hamlet reflects this when he tells a troupe of actors, “the purpose of playing…is to hold as ‘twere the mirror up to Nature” (Act III, scene ii). For Hamlet, acting should be as close to reality as possible, however this is a slippery slope as it becomes harder for Hamlet and the audience to distinguish what is real and what is performance in Hamlet’s actions and feelings. 

As Hamlet lays dying, the motif of play-acting emerges once again as he acknowledges those “that are but mutes or audience to this act” (Act V, scene ii). His final request is to “call the noblest to the audience” in which he asks that his story be told and the events that led to all these deaths be repeated (Act V, scene ii). 

Play-acting also serves a role within Neil’s story. When Neil is talking with Mr. Keating after his confrontation with his father, Keating tells Neil that he is putting on a show for his father; he is playing the role of the “dutiful son”. Indeed, Neil struggles with this from the beginning of the film up until the end. He conceals his true emotions from his father, and even from those around him, putting on the face of a boy who is happy and without struggle. He only ever lets this mask slip a couple of times. This, I think, is one of the reasons why a handful of viewers reduce Neil’s suicide to simply being upset over not being able to act or see it as brash and out of the blue. However, if you recall the scene where Neil lies to Keating about his father letting him stick with the play or the scene where he quickly dismisses his care of having to quit the annual, then you will see these moments where Neil is play-acting. He puts on a performance that masks his true feelings the entire time. Before committing suicide, Neil takes a final bow, signalling that his performance is in many ways over. However, as his performance ends, the performance of others as they navigate life and the struggles of conformity persist. However, much like Hamlet’s story is destined to be repeated as he wanted, the film itself is in part a story about how societal expectations and norms can be dangerous in themselves. 

Father-son relationships:

Hamlet struggles throughout the play with his sense of filial-duty. He props his father up on a pedestal and when his father’s ghost comes to him telling him to take revenge, Hamlet struggles with this prospect as he struggles between balancing his morality with his sense of filial duty. 

This points to the struggle of living up to parent’s expectations and the toll that it can take. For both Hamlet and Neil, filial duty and parental expectations ultimately lead to their deaths. 

Death:

“To be or not to be” is a key line within Hamlet and for Neil, it is the central question he faces throughout the film. Neil was constantly searching for that spark and to know what he really wanted for himself. The Dead Poets society gave him that first taste of that joy and passion; a flicker of hope in the form of rebellion. Acting is what turned that flicker into a burning flame. However, his father’s expectations and the possibility of having to confront his father was always looming over him. Deleted scenes also reveal Neil having self-harm tendencies when he pricks his finger with his Welton achievement pins and draws blood. Neil masks his own troubles, but there is reason to believe that the question of “to be or not to be” was one that Neil had pondered before, perhaps only briefly.  

Hamlet wants to die but he fears what comes after death and if it is really worth it. Is it better to die or to go on in the face of insurmountable anguish and burdens. Hamlet is ultimately killed at the end of the play and his final words are “the rest is silence”. Such goes back to his famous soliloquy of “to be or not to be” and the question of what comes after death. As Hamlet lays dying, in that moment he accepts death completely as a rest. It is nothing more than silence–a freedom of sorts. 

For Neil, he sees death as his only escape, his only means of being free. There is an added weight in the fact that the gunshot which kills him is silent. If we view it through the lens of Hamlet, the gunshot being silent reflects the meaning of the quote “the rest is silence”. It is at once both a barbaric yawp and a marker of the finality of death; that once you are gone you leave a silence behind in place of where your voice once was. For Neil, death is a silence from expectations and the pressures which weighed so heavily on him. However, much like Hamlet gives his voice to Fortinbras to tell his story after his death, so too does Neil give his voice to Todd and the fellow poets to tell his story. 

[autisticsupervillain]

FTF Monthly Matchups!

Ranking: The Beta Trolls from weakest to strongest!

It took me.... a long time to decide how I was going to rank this. I'm going to be ranking each of the Beta Trolls based off of how powerful they are at their strongest. So for characters with multiple forms, that would be whatever their strongest version is. God-Tier Aradia, Ancestral Awakening Vriska, etc. I will usually discuss how strong I think their weaker iterations are when I get to them anyways.

I will be analyzing their Alpha Timeline counterparts specifically, as while we see a lot of doomed timeline counterparts that have reached God-Tier, we aren't really given any context to measure their abilities off of. I will also be completely ignoring feats featured in non-canon works. No Homestuck^2, no Epilogues, no Pesterquest.

Finally, no Sprites. I'll be restricting this to just the Base Beta Trolls. Sprites are fusions between multiple characters and if you want to go down that road, Lord English is a fusion involving Gamzee and Equius, so......

The criteria is as follows. The characters ranked highest are those who could most consistently defeat everyone ranked below them in a one-on-one fight with no outside interference. This does not necessitate that they can kill everyone ranked below them. If character A can incapacitate Character B but has no way to finish them off, that still counts as a win. This is to keep the immortal characters from winning by default against everyone who can't kill them. Not that they strictly need that boon to rank fairly high regardless.

With all that out of the way, let's begin.

12. Karkat Vantas

Yeah, you all probably knew this was coming. Despite being one of the best characters by a mile, there's just nowhere that the crabby friendleader can reliably place on this list higher than dead last.

Now, in his defense, Karkat's a very strong fighter in his own right. Despite being an ordinary mortal for the entire story, Karkat survives the longest out of nearly anyone in the entire main cast without dying once, only finally getting put down in Game Over by Jane and Gamzee respectively. That's nothing to sneeze at. He's a survivor for sure, but his strengths simply aren't suited to a one on one fight.

Positives first, Karkat's ability to unify his team was instrumental in ensuring they all survived long enough to beat the game, successfully keeping them all from killing each other even in dire circumstances until the dire straights hit critical mass. He also has a unique counter to probability manipulation. His luck is so terrible that it is able to counter out an opponent's good luck abilities, allowing him to fight opponents like Clover who are literally untouchable due to their sheer superhuman luck.

Besides that.... he doesn't have much. A lot of Karkat's best arguable showings come from things his friends would already having going for them by default. Surviving crash landing to Alternia in a meteor? Battling against the armies of Derse? Fighting against the Black King? All things other members of his team participated in to degrees to esceed him.

Karkat is a Blood Player. He's built to maintain friendships. His most impressive showings are him talking people down from fighting him by befriending them. But since Karkat already is/was friends with most of these people to begin with.... that doesn't really help him here. If one of your most notable skills combat wise is how much your luck sucks.... that's not a good look.

Given all the shit he's gone through, Karkat is genuinely a good fighter in his own right. Just not when compared to everyone else on his contacts list.

Maybe Karkat can just seduce them. Everyone loves flirting with this little shit.

11. Tavros Nitram

You might be surprised that Tav isn't in last place here, but I think this toreador has more going for him than meets the eye.

I've already covered Tavros vs Karkat as a matchup in more detail in its own post, so I'll be brief here. While Karkat is remarkably dexterous and nimble in his own right, he doesn't have a means of countering actual flight, which Tavros has with his rocket wheelchair. Moreover, Tavros has slightly more combat experience owing to his time spent in Fatal Live Action Roleplay. It's just like normal LARPing, but the Players actually try and kill each other. Which is doubly humiliating for Karkat because Tavros can say "I'm a better fighter than you because I'm a LARPer" and technically be right.

But, the thing most heavily carrying Tavros here are his animal communion powers. This telepathic ability allows him to communicate with and control animals and similar creatures, even if they are entire universes away. This ability expands to First Guardians, nigh-omnipotent, reality warping gods, so long as they are also animals in some way.

If Tavros uses this ability to its full extent, he has the potential to beat characters much higher up on this list. The issue is he's not very often going to be in a scenario where he can make the most of it and, even if he is, calling on a First Guardian would be outside help. Besides, it's pretty out of character for him to make a God wish you out of existence.

All that said, it's still pretty funny that Tavros technically has the means to likely solo your favorite universe so long as Bec is lying around somewhere. And even without that, his ability to fly away and sic the whole animal kingdom on you makes him an opponent you'd be loathed to underestimate no matter how you look at it.

10. Nepeta Leijon

Nepeta earns her spot on the list by being demonstratably much stronger and more skilled than either Karkat or Tavros. Unlike those two, who are either relatively bad at or actively dislike having to fight anyone, Nepeta is a proud Apex Predator. She's a huntress who fights the horrible beasts of Alternia for fun and is able to sleep through the vivid nightmares that Trolls get when they try to sleep without sopor slime simply because she views them as thrilling memories of the hunt. Certainly more impressive than glorified deadly LARPing.

Key difference being Tavros is such a sweetheart that he hates fighting, while Nepeta is a sweetheart who happens to deeply love fighting. While Nepeta can't fly, her experience in fighting deadly beasts should make her more than capable of slicing through almost any animal Tavros could through at her, reducing his flight to a stall tactic that drags out the fight more than anything else. Her biggest problem would likely be hesitating to hurt Karkat due to her crush on him.... which would be minor in comparison to his reluctance to hurt her because of his survivor's guilt over her death, so it all balances out.

Notably, she's one of the few characters we see actually being able to stagger her moirail Equius, even knocking him off his feet at one point. Given Equius's complete inability to control his own strength and the sheer ridiculousness of his own feats, that's impressive all on its own. Far moreso than anything Karkat or Tavros could manage.

Nepeta is only held back from placing any higher by her relative lack of screentime compared to everyone else. The fact that Gamzee was able to snap her wrist and kill her offscreen without much effort doesn't help. But for all her shortcomings, Nepeta called herself a mighty huntress for a reason.

9. Equius Zahhak

Here's someone I was going to place a lot higher.

The second half of the Meowrails duo is frequently hyped up as being one of the strongest members on the team and for good reason. This is the same guy who can bend and shape metal bear handed, punch the heads off of giant monsters with ease, and jump into the stratosphere in a single bound. He's even survived getting beaten down by Aradiabot. The same kind of beating that killed Pre God Tier Vriska outright.

Equius combines his freakish strength with a genius technical mind, frequently building and rebuilding training robots for him to spar with. He's the genius the built Aradiabot's body to house Aradia's soul, after all.

Needless to say, he'd handle Karkat and Tavros simultaneously with ease. The question isn't if Equius can beat them, it's if he'd kill them accidentally, as Equius notoriously can't control his strength. Equius frequently breaks people's bones just by touching them and can't properly wield a bow because he accidentally snaps it in half.

As a hoghblood much farther up on the hemopectrum than any of there characters prior, Equius has a lifespan hundreds, if not thousands of years longer than a normal human and he's incredible resistant to psychic influence.

Resistant, but not immune. When Gamzee first prioritized Equius as a target in his rampage, his psychically influenced his mind to make him unwilling to fight back because he knew Equius's strength would provide an issue. Given what Gamzee himself is capable of himself, the fact that he rated Equius highly enough to be cautious in dealing with him speaks highly to the threat Equius can pose.

8. Feferi Piexes

The heiress to troll kind and the future would be Empress, what Feferi lacks in direct feats and screentime, she more than makes up for in scaling. She can haul around whale carcasses under the ocean with ease and replicate Equius's feat of souring high into the atmosphere, hinting that they should be at least at a comparable level. Even the Condescension herself seem to consider her as a viable potential threat to her in line for the throne, as she would've killed Feferi herself by now if Gl'bgolyb wasn't actively protecting her. That's far more billing than Equius ever got. Equius is freakishly strong by the standards of his caste, but the Condescension is one of the strongest of all trolls period.

As the highest troll on the Hemospectrum, Feferi is completely immune to all forms of psychic influence, including those from the Horrorterrors. Gl'bgolyb, whose shouts can drive all of troll kind to extinction across the galaxy, has no negative effect on Feferi. Furthermore, she's biologically immortal. Just like her ancestor before her, she'll live for centuries and still be in her prime. Or rather, she would have if she wasn't cut down before her time.

Luckily, her connection to the Horrorterrors allows her to help her friends even in death, convincing them to build an afterlife for her friends so they don't cease to exist after death.

In a straight fight, I favor her over Equius due to her more impressive accolades and due to the fact that she can actually control her iwn strength. Equius literally can't even use his weapon properly because of his. Even in the event that the caste worshipping Equius would be willing to give his all in a fight with the Heiress, I see Feferi taking it more times than not.

7. Sollux Captor

Sollux is where things really begin ramping up in the feats department. Sollux is where a vast majority of the good feats for the mid-tiers comes from. As the Descendant of the Psiioniic, the most powerful telekinetic in Alternian history, Sollux has inherited an incredible amount of power. The same power that could move spaceships across entire galaxies in hours is his to command.

Sollux can push a meteor the size of a moon into the Furthest Ring at speeds bordering on light. Given the sheer weight of the moon, that would generate kinetic energy equivalent to 0.8 Foe. Nearly as much energy as a supernova!

He can reach across entire universes with this sheer telekinetic might, capable of destroying machines that are in another universe entirely or deflecting meteors that orbit around the Incipisphere, which is roughly 45 million times larger than the universe, traveling at 6 quinvigintillion times light speed.

Source:

In other words, these greasy hacker could more than likely solo most of your favorite universes just off stats alone. To compare to his fellows, Sollux has the unique ability to hear the words of the soon to be dead and he's treated as one of the most freakishly powerful characters on the team in general. He stalemated Eridan during their clash in the game and he's the only member of the team to survive a blast from Eridan's wand during Murderstuck. This puts him directly above Feferi, who was taken out in one hit. Not to mention his ability to telekinetically fly away and spam eye lasers from a distance would easily allow him to snipe Equius and Feferi from a distance before either could do anything to close the gap.

Noteworthy, though is the fact that this blow did still blind him and knock him out. The only reason he survived was because Eridan assumed he was already dead. Which should indicate pretty well who exactly is going to rank right above him.

6. Eridan Ampora

The genocidal seadweller prince arrives to close out the middle half of this ranking. Despite his ambitions of bringing about doomsday for everyone without gills, Eridan does not live up to his own grandeur. Though he's still one of the most dangerous people Alternia has to offer regardless.

Eridan proudly sports the laser canon known as Ahab's Crosshairs, a powerful beam weapon capable of punching holes in building sized monsters and matching blasts with Sollux Captor pound for pound. As the one tasked with killing Lusi to feed Gl'bgolyb, he has plenty of experience using it, even managing to slaughter an entire planet full of angels with it. His real ace in the hole, however, is his wand.

Despite being just a regular stick, Eridan's latent Hope powers empower this tool into a genuine magical artifact, completely capable of making mincemeat out of the rest of his team. He was able to one shot Sollux, Feferi, and Kanaya in quick succession and would've posed a genuine threat to both Vriska and Gamzee afterwards if he'd gotten that far.

Unfortunately, he's kept from placing any higher by his limitations. He's a massive glass cannon without his two major weapons, to the point that he'd likely place far lower on this list if he didn't have them, and he's not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.

Slaughtering all the Angels in his path was something he convinced himself he had to do out of paranoia, turning all of them permanently aggressive against him when they would've been completely friendly otherwise. Not to mention that, before the game, he got curb stomped by Vriska so many times that she got bored of his antics and left him. He makes it to this spot more despite himself than anything, as I consider a few who came before him to be much better at actually fighting.

Even Sollux vs Eridan is a bit more up in the air than it seems. If you throw current Sollux with all the experiences he's had throughout Homestuck into that same situation and he could easily just yank the weapons out of Eridan's hands. But that doesn't change the fact that, in a death match where both were at their best in story, Eridan still explicitly won.

5. Kanaya Maryam

Darling Kanaya brings us into the top five. This chainsaw wielding, zombie fighting fashionesta was a force to be reckoned with already, but upon becoming an undead Rainbow Drinker, she became a one woman army.

Upon resurrecting, the very first thing she did was interrupt the impending three way brawl between Vriska, Gamzee, and Eridan by solidly dunking on all three of them. She decked Vriska hard enough to send her flying, kicked Gamzee in the dick so hard he went soaring into the abyss, and snapped Eridan's wand in half like a twig before carving him clean in half.

As an immortal undead of the day, Kanaya is immune to otherwise lethal sunlight of Alternia and is immortal, continuing on even despite missing her stomach cavity completely. She long as she feeds some multicolored blood, she'll keep going even through otherwise lethal injuries.

I do think a good argument could be made for placing her even higher on this list given the threat she poses to Gamzee. Every hit she's ever landed on the clown has been absolutely devastating. But, there are a few things that hold her back from this in my opinion.

Firstly, we don't really know how the first encounter would've played out had the fight continued. Despite the truly devastating groin attack, Gamzee got right back up and both were raring up ready to continue into round two before Karkat intervened. Secondly, Gamzee still wasn't dead after Kanaya chainsawed him in Game Over. There's no Dead text we see whenever a troll dies, even though Karkat gets that treatment from dying in the lava moments earlier. As such, Kanaya gets vaporized by the Condescension before the fight can continue.

This means that, despite these two clearly being in the same league, they've never really gotten to fight on even ground before. And in that circumstance.... I'd have to favor Gamzee slightly.

Hear me out. While Kanaya is entirely capable of chainsawing him up and leaving him incapacitated like in Game Over, she has no counter against Gamzee’s mind manipulation. Whenever Gamzee has to fight someone who possesses an actual threat to him, he resorts to either mind manipulation or emotional manipulation. See Equius and Terezi for example. And given their history, Gamzee would absolutely see her as a massive threat. So, more likely than not, he'd mind control her in a similar vein to Equius in order to avoid that issue entirely.

That said, she's still and absolutely massive threat to him and the amount of characters who can actually force Gamzee to take them that seriously are few and far between.

4. Vriska Serket

Vriska Serket. The myth, the 8itch, the legend has climbed her way to the top, much to no one's suprise. I agonized a lot over where I wanted to order these next three characters and it might suprise a lot of people to see her put this low relatively speaking. But, rest assured, the Spider Pirate Queen will be getting her dues.

Vriska is one of the most experienced, versatile, and ruthless characters on this entire list. With a body count in the thousands before the story even starts, Vriska is cruel, brutal, and vindictive when provoked, be that mind controlling you to jump off a cliff or mind controlling your boyfriend to vaporize you utterly. As a Thief of Light, Vriska has a knack for lore finding and a tendency for luck. Her passive ability to steal and manipulate luck to her favor amplifies her fighting style, allowing her to use her dicekind for anything from putting you to sleep to decapitating you with a guillotine. Her going God-Tier only amplifies this further while giving her a healthy dose of immortality.

As a literally God, Vriska gains the ability to fly and is gifted with complete immortality. So long as she doesn't die in a way the game deems heroic or just, Vriska will be resurrected from virtually any kind of death. Some God-Tiers have resurrected even as reality was collapsing about their heads even.

But, even this is far from Vriska's full strength. If she so chooses, she could land a perfect roll with her dice and tao into her Ancestral Awakening form. With this strength, she can even match the power of a First Guardian infused Bec Noir, who could singlehandedly destroy universe.

Of note, universes in Homestuck are in all actuality composed of infinite timelines and infinite iterations of themselves, making them functionally infinite multiverses. And while Vriska ultimately died in the timeline this fight happened in, she went down as an even match against Jack.

The only thing keeping her from placing any higher on this list is her own shortcomings and weaknesses. Namely, her massive ego, which singlehandedly got all of her friends killed when she went to battle Bec Noir. For all of her claims of having "all the irons in the fire" her idea of a plan is usually to just use her powers to cheat. Certainly not a bad strategy, her body count speaks for itself, but Terezi is moreso the tactician of their duo than her. Vriska is not the master manipulator she fancies herself as and her deep seated vulnerability has been used against her on occasion.

Such as when, uh.... she was groomed into a romantic relationship by Meenah. Meenah was 19... and Vriska was 13. That's a college student and a middle schooler...

Vriska refuses to acknowledge this more vulnerable part of herself even exists most of the time, frequently grappling with the guilt and lack their of that she feels for her actions. Truth be told, she struggles to admit to herself that she doesn't actually want to be a bloodthirsty killer like her glorious ancestor. And against the following two in particular, that's a very glaring vulnerability to have.

3. Gamzee Makara

You can't the clown down. Or out of the top 3 for that matter.

It suprised me to consider that Gamzee could be considered to be in the same weight class as Ancestral Awakening Vriska, but it was while researching these characters again that I discovered something interesting. Recall Karkat's retelling of the fight against the Black King. Specifically, the part where he notes that Gamzee did more damage to the King in one attack than everyone else on the team could manage at the time.

Including Vriska, who we know for a fact used her Ancestral Awakening ability during that fight.

Combine this with the fact that Gamzee has canonically soloed everyone else on this kist by himself in at least one alternate timeline and it's safe to say we know why he ranked this high.

The biggest issue with ranking Gamzee is that he cannot die. Ever.

There is not a single timeline in the Homestuck multiverse where Gamzee Makara has ever died. No one on this list can kill him.

He's survived getting sucked into a planet sized black hole, endured a brutal beatdown from Caliborn, who himself tanked a solar system sized black hole, and has been craved clean in half and melted in lava. It did not kill him. Gamzee has literally plot armor ensuring he cannot die.

This plays nicely into his Rage powers, ensuring he gets stronger the angrier he gets. Sooner or later, he will be strong enough to kill you in turn as you fail to kill him.

Gamzee combines all of this with a frightfully efficient tactical mind. He's very good at using his mind powers in subtle ways to get his opponent to do what he wants. Convincing Terezi of Vriska's guilt while building up to their confrontation, negating Equius to keep him from fighting back, and influencing John's entire life throughout his childhood with nightmares, having him vandalize his own room in ways he couldn't even perceive.

Gamzee uses this to be as emotionally devastating to his foes as possible, playing on Terezi's grief following her killing of Vriska to trap her in an abusive relationship and keep her ineffectual, even leveraging their relationship at the crucial moment of the Game Over timeline to reduce her to tears.... before suplexing her through a bridge.

Combine this emotional ruthlessness with Vriska's weaknesses discussed above. Vriska is not a match for Gamzee in a battle of telepathy. While Vriska can at best put humans to sleep, Gamzee can manipulate them for their entire childhoods without them ever knowing. This is amplified by Gamzee’s telepathy specifically targeting emotional vulnerabilities like traumas and fears, as Vriska has a basket full of those that she refuses to acknowledge. Simply put, the immortal clown is almost perfectly equipped to take her down.

This may seem strange. Vriska is usually identified as a key component in keeping the Retcon timeline on track and keeping Gamzee from being a legitimate threat, right?

Well, the credit there can go moreso to our next contender....

2. Terezi Pyrope

Despite being the only ordinary mortal remaining on the front lines by the time of Act 7, Terezi is by far one of the most capable in the entire cast.

Above all, Terezi arguably is the best strategist of anyone here. For as much as Karkat postured about being the leader, Terezi and Aradia were really the ones calling the shots tactically. Terezi's plans can frequently span entire timelines and all of them almost always go up her way. Exploiting the Queen's hatred of frogs to keep her from transforming, manipulating John to his death so that Dave could travel back to become Davesprite, giving John detailed instructions on how to undo the Game Over timeline, and even manipulating the nigh-omniscient Doc Scratch into doing her dirty work for her to get back Vriska. Terezi is a consumate Magnificent Bastard and I have read her book.

For as much as Gamzee emotionally devastated her throughout Act 6, Terezi shows full well why he had to focus that much attention on keeping her in check. Because without the grief of personally murdering her best friend/worst enemy/Scourge Sister/girlfriend to save everyone else, Gamzee cannot take Terezi in a straight up fight. She hog ties him down as soon as she catches wind of what's going on together she and Vriska make sure he never sees the outside of a fridge for the next 3 years.

Between shutting Gamzee down completely, helping fight the Condescension on the front lines, and having knocking John on his ass while he was empowered by the Treasure, Terezi really is Hussie's favorite, isn't she? For as much crap as Gamzee and Vriska get for getting away with things they absolutely shouldn't have, Terezi is an ordinary mortal boxing against Gods.

Abilities wise, Terezi's most notable aspects are her precognition, which she uses for maximum effectiveness in her sprawling plans, and her superhuman sense of smell and taste, making up for her blindness by smelling the color of the blood in your veins and tasting your appearance. Not as impressive as some Abilities on here to be sure, but her established scaling alone would give her plenty of ways to muscle through all the competition that came before her.

But, for as much as I hesitated for the prefinal slots, there was only ever one choice for top spot....

1. Aradia Megido

Aradia is the strongest troll in Homestuck and it frankly isn't close.

Even as Aradiabot, she's admitted she could snap God-Tier Vriska's neck with a twitch. As an actual time goddess herself now, Vriska wouldn't stand a chance.

The first thing Aradia did upon being reborn a God-Tier was freeze Bec Noir in time, before making her escape by traveling through the portal in his body in a split second before he could react. This is despite the fact that Bec Noir can travel in the Furthest Ring. Where time does not exist.

Aradia froze time on someone who can move faster than time and then escaped before he could react.

Not only that, but Aradia can freely summon time clones of herself from other points in time, allowing her to overwhelm her enemies with an endless army of herself. These two abilities alone would freely allow her to just.... shut down anyone lower than her on the list. Stop time and dog pile. Easy. Aradia backs this up with tactical ingenuity, having been pulling the strings on her team the entire time to keeping them from dooming the timeline and prevent them from entering no win scenarios. Every situation that someone on this list has been in is a scenario she's examined or been through to make sure nothing goes wrong. She's really only rivaled in the planning department by Terezi.

But, finally, she's the only one on this list who could harm Lord English himself. The invincible demon who was destoying the entire Homestuck cosmology. Not just harming him, but riding him like helpless tamed bull with her whip.

Next to everyone else.... Aradia is just in a league of her own.

[leafnyx]

I definitely need a part 2 of the Nam-Gyu x male reader you posted! It was subtly cute asf

Death Games and Attachments # 2 (Nam-gyu x male reader)

Word count: 5.5k

Warnings: American reader ‼️, gunshots, betrayal, canon divergence, no forks 🍴, no use of y/n, dead characters in canon don’t die, probably ooc, Nam-gyu & reader aren’t together but have feelings for eachother, not proof read

Setting: Season 2 Episode 6

A/n: omg my first fic ask!!! I was thinking about writing a part 2 anyways but this gave me the push to do it :]

Faint music plays over the speakers in the room as you slowly begin to wake up. You open your eyes, your sight still a bit fuzzy, and see the blank ceiling of the game’s sleeping room.

The music is now louder as you realize you aren’t at home but at this game. You do somewhat wish you were back home but you push that thought to the back of your mind, you have more important things to worry about, with the man who is sleeping next you you and who you are hugging.

You quickly untangle yourself from Nam-gyu, your bodies craving the warmth of the other while you were sleeping.

Nam-gyu still seems to be sound asleep, snoring quietly, but you decide to wake him up. The next game will probably be staring soon.

You shake Nam-gyu softly, then a bit more rough when the first doesn’t wake him up.

His snoring stops and he lets out an irritated groan as he pushes your hands away.

“Fuck off bitch, let me sleep” He says towards you, probably trying to sound intimidating but he doesn’t at all because of how much he slurs his words, still half asleep.

“The next games starting soon, come on” You say, tapping him on the shoulder for emphasis.

He opens his eyes, blinking away the tiredness, more willing to get up after hearing your voice. He seemed to not realize the fact that he was in the games previously as now a look of dread somewhat crosses his face. You question that, since you haven’t seen him with that expression yet. It’s probably the lack of drugs.

“Why do they make us do these games so early” Nam-gyu groans and pushes himself up into a sitting position beside you.

You shrug. Nam-gyu quickly scans around the room, his eyes landing on Thanos and probably his drugs.

“Let’s get with the rest of the group” Nam-gyu says, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and onto the stairs. He puts the white shoes on and quickly rushes towards where Thanos has gathered with Se-mi and Min-su.

You quickly follow suit, putting your shoes on and tailing behind him.

“Nam-su, [name], good morning!” Thanos says excitedly, in English. Nam-gyu doesn’t bother correcting the name as he sits down beside Thanos and whispers something to him.

You sit down beside Nam-gyu and Se-mi gives you a deadpan, knowing, look. Most likely referring to Nam-gyu.

Thanos pulls out his cross and opens it, handing one of the brightly colored pills to Nam-gyu who quickly pops it into his mouth.

Thanos tucks the cross back under his collar.

The drugs seem to kick in quickly, a minute or so later Nam-gyu is already looking more up beat.

Right on time too, the masked guards walk into the room and announce that the next game is starting.

“No matter what game is next we’ll kick ass” Nam-gyu says, practically bouncing from where he’s standing. He goes up beside you, now directly talking to you. “I’ll help you through the next game if you don’t know what to do, ok?” He’s close enough to you that your arms are practically rubbing against each other.

“Alright” You reply, glad for the assured help.

You and your team get into a line, following one of the guards through the maze of stairs. You have to admit, as weird and terrible as the games are, the sets are pretty cool looking.

You reach the end of the stairs and walk into a large room with a bunch of doors on the walls, too many to count at first glance. There’s also a circular platform in the middle of the room with three statues of horses in the middle, it looks like a merry-go-round.

“Your next game will be mingle” The almost robotic sounding woman’s voice rings out through the room.

“Mingle?” Nam-gyu says.

“Mingle!” Thanos yells suddenly, making the people around him, including you, flinch. “I remember this game! They call out a random number and you have to get into groups with that number.” Thanos says.

“Oh yeah!” Nam-gyu says. “I remember this game! We’ll be fine as long as they don’t call out a number less than 5.”

“They definitely will” Se-mi says.

Nam-gyu doesn’t pay her any attention as he hops along beside Thanos who is now sprinting towards the circle.

You follow behind the two of them with Se-mi and Min-su.

The 5 of you huddle up on the circle as the lights turn off and the circle suddenly starts rotating.

You get pushes off balance slightly, holding onto Nam-guy’s shoulder so you don’t fall over. He doesn’t seem to mind.

Lights turn on in the middle of the circle and music starts up. Thanos begins beating his fist upwards to the beat of the music, Nam-gyu grinning and nodding his head beside him.

You feel nervous, worried that they’re gonna make you split up the first round. Suddenly the platform stops and the woman’s voice calls out a number. “10”

You look around frantically. You need five more people.

“We need five more!” Se-mi calls out, taking initiative.

“Five!” Nam-gyu yells.

A person bumps into you in all the chaos but you don’t fall over.

“How many” She quickly says.

“Five” You reply.

“We’re five too! Come with us!”

“I found a group!” You yell towards your team as the girl rounds up her group.

“Let’s go!” Thanos yells out in English, running towards a door labeled 47. Everyone follows him, dashing into the room. 10 seconds left.

You run into the room, being the second to enter after Thanos. You’re not able to slow down in time and slam into the back wall. Quickly, you turn around to see the rest of the group.

Nam-gyu runs in with Se-mi and Min-su, the other group of five following suit, all running in. The last person in shuts the door as the timer hits zero.

You let out a sigh of relief as Thanos cheers. Nam-gyu begins cheering as well, seeming to do everything Thanos does now. The other group with you looks uncomfortable, you see that all of them have red X patches.

“Let’s go team!” Thanos yells out in English again. No one seems to fully understand what he’s saying but they get the message.

“Woo!” Nam-gyu yells.

After yelling towards their hearts content the two go quiet, the room now silent. You can hear the gunshots outside. People from the other team flinch slightly at the sound. You begin to wonder how many people just died but you push that thought to the back of your mind.

Nam-gyu goes to stand beside you, nudging his shoulder against you, grinning. You do your best to replicate and smile back.

Thanos raps under his breath, hoping his head almost violently. You can hear the sound of machinery outside. They’re most likely bringing coffins in for the bodies.

You hate how the coffins look like gift boxes, it feels disrespectful but you suppose it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. The game is horrible itself, what does it matter what coffins the brutalized bodies are put in.

The lock on the door clicks open and Thanos immediately rushes out. You follow after him, walking, with Nam-gyu beside you. You step into something sticky, blood. Your face twists into a look of disgust as you look at the sole of your shoe.

Nam-gyu stood infront of you and looks back. You quickly walk forward towards him and the two of you step onto the circle where the rest of the group already is.

The room goes dark again, the circle moving. You now expect the jolt do you don’t move as much, your feet planted on the ground. The middle of the circle lights up and music starts.

Out of the corner of your eye you see Thanos nudge Nam-gyu and say something to him, though you can’t hear it over the music. Nam-gyu looks confused but Thanos links arms with him and begins dancing in a circle. Nam-gyu quickly catches on, grinning and shaking his hand as he skips around.

You’re somewhat jealous of how carefree the two of them are. You know it’s the drugs working but still. You now somewhat wish you’d asked Thanos for drugs. Before you can finish your thought process the circle jolts to a stop and the number is called out. “Four.”

You panic, there are five of you. All of you look around at each other, one has to leave. You want to sacrifice yourself, say you can go and find a group, but you’re frozen in place out of fear.

“Min-su” Se-me says. “Come with me, we can find a group.”

Min-su glances around quickly before grabbing Se-mi by the hand. The two of them run off leaving you as a group of three.

“That fucking bitch! I knew we couldn’t trust her!” Nam-gyu yells out at the same time as Thanos yells, “Min-su! My boy!”

You quickly glance around and your eyes catch on to a man yelling that he needs a group of three, his patch reads 001. You quickly rush over to him. You look back for a second and you see a look of betrayal on Nam-guy’s face. You quickly look back forward as you come to a stop before 001.

“We’re a group of three!” You yell above the chaos. His head quickly turns to you and he nods, following you as you run back to Nam-gyu and Thanos. Nam-gyu looks relieved as you run back.

“Come on!” You yell, running towards the first room you see with an open door. You don’t look back, knowing the three will follow you.

You run into the room and Thanos, Nam-gyu, and 001 follow in quickly. 001 shuts the door as you look towards the timer, 2 seconds left.

As the door clicks shut Nam-gyu begins to speak.

“I knew those pussies would betray us! You can’t trust women, man, and Min-su basically a woman.”

001 looks irritated. You now remember on the first day where 001 broke up a fight between Thanos, Nam-gyu, and that crypto bro. He was probably the worst person you could have brought but at least you’re all alive.

Thanos pushes up against the door, looking through the crack.

“Min-su!” He yells, acting like he actually cared for him.

Nam-gyu lets out a huff and leans against the wall beside you. His arm touching yours again. You only now realize how touchy he’s been. With anyone else you’d assume they might like you but you think this is just how Nam-gyu is. After all you saw how clingy he is with Thanos.

“Fucking bitch..” He mumbles, still not over the betrayal. You sigh.

“It doesn’t matter,” You tell him. “We’re alive and her and Min-su are off somewhere else. We can survive with just the three of us, we don’t need them.”

He looks over at you and lights up slightly. “You’re right, we don’t need those fuckers.”

“Hell yeah! Thanos team!” Thanos barges into the conversation, not caring about Min-su anymore.

He puts his hand face down in the air, after a second you realize what he’s doing and place your hand onto of his. Nam-gyu puts his hand over yours.

Thanos counts from three and the three of you lift your hands up and Thanos yells “let’s go!” In English.

Somehow, that made you feel a bit better. Just barely, as you can hear the fading gun shots in the background.

001 stands off to the side, not talking, just observing.

“We don’t need any girls!” Thanos says, bringing your attention back to him.

“Yeah, girls are weak anyways” Nam-gyu continues.

You don’t add onto what they’re saying, Se-mi seemed fairly strong but that doesn’t matter anymore. It’s just the three of you.

The door unblocks and once again thanos is the first to rush out. Nam-gyu bouncing along behind him. You follow Nam-gyu with 001 behind you.

Before you can say anything to him, 001 rushes off, probably back to his own group.

“What do you think the next number is gonna be?” Nam-gyu asks you, putting his arm around your shoulders.

“Hopefully three, then we wouldn’t need any more or less.” You reply.

Nam-gyu hums as a response as you glance around, unconsciously looking for Se-mi and Min-su. Your eyes lock onto them, walking out from a room with a random player. Min-su locks eyes with you but immediately looks away, probably for the best.

It starts up again, this time though Nam-gyu and Thanos don’t dance along to the music, the just stand there.

“3”

“Let’s go team Thanos!” Thanos calls out, making a sprint toward the door. Nam-gyu grins at you, your prediction correct. The two of you follow behind Thanos. You enter the room with 20 seconds left to spare.

“You were right!” Nam-gyu says, paying your shoulder.

“We got lucky.” You smile, somewhat genuinely for the first time since you joined these games, relieved that you don’t need to give anyone up.

20 second pass, the door locks, and gunshots ring out. To your shock, and slight disgust, you’ve gotten used to the gunshots and screams.

Your smile fades from the sound.

“We’re good at this.” Nam-gyu says.

“It’s cause we’re fast, and young, we can get to the rooms in time.” Thanos replies, shifting from foot to foot, unable to stand still.

“Hell yeah, it’s good that the weaklings got left behind, we don’t have to get dragged down by them. They’re probably dead by now anyways.”

“Do you think mg coin is dead?” Thanos asks.

“God I hope so”

“Why do you guys hate him so much?” You ask.

“He scammed us man!” Nam-gyu exclaims.

“That piece of shit scammed me out of all the money I got by busting my ass rapping!” Thanos says.

“You both bought the crypto?”

“He said we’d get more money.” Nam-gyu says.

“Huh, alright” You refrain yourself from making a comment about how stupid it is to trust some random guy on the internet with your money, especially when it comes to crypto.

The door clicks open and all of you walk out, Thanos first. As he steps out of the door he says “welcome back, my friends” in English, followed by Nam-gyu saying “skrrt!” You hold back a laugh.

You’re shocked with how quickly you’ve gotten attached to Nam-gyu, a warm dealing spreading through your body. You suspect it’s because you’re stuck here in this horrible place with him. Your mind latched on to the first person you got somewhat close with.

But you don’t feel nearly as close to Thanos as you do with him. You push this thought off, deciding to deal with it after the game.

The the of you reach the circle again and the process repeats.

“6”

Three more.

“We need three!” Nam-gyu yells out.

“Three people!” You yell alongside him.

Your eyes look frantically around and you spot three people. Se-mi, Min-su, and one other. You have no other choice.

“Come on!” You grab Nam-gyu and Thanos and run towards them. Se-mi spots you and begins running with Min-su and the other guy towards an open door. You run in behind her with Thanos and Nam-gyu, shutting the door once the six of you are in.

The awkwardness is immediately palpable, everyone seems uncomfortable. Except for Thanos, of course.

“Min-su! My boy! I was so scared you died!” He goes over and hugs Min-so, who tries to wiggle away from him.

Nam-gyu scowls.

“This means nothing.” Se-mi says. “We split up again after this round.”

“Yeah, I’m not being with these pussies again. They’re just being us down.”

“Calm down” Thanos says, putting his arms out.

“We weren’t-“ Nam-gyu gets cut off by Thanos again.

“Se-mi is right, we don’t talk about this, the Thanos team doesn’t include Se-mi, Min-su and the random.” Thanos says, suddenly sounding serious, but you know that he isn’t actually.

Nam-gyu seems disappointed that Thanos remembers Se-mi and Min-su’s names but not his. Se-mi seems disappointed that she’s agreeing with an idiot like Thanos.

The room goes quiet again, Thanos nodding his head a beat only he can hear and everyone else feeling too weird to talk.

The door clicks open and the six of you walk out.

“Final round” The voice calls out. You let out a sigh of relief, glad that you have to only deal with one more of these rounds.

You step onto the platform, Thanos and Nam-gyu beside you. Se-mi and Min-su walk to the other side of the circle.

The lights shut off and the platform begins to move. The light in the middle turns on along with the music.

You begin to zone out, the bright colors all blurring I your vision and the music getting quiet.

The music stops.

“2”

You quickly snap back, two. There’s three of you. One has to go.

You look wide eyed at the two men beside you.

Thanos quickly shakes his head from side to side, between you and Nam-gyu. He’s still not taking any of this seriously and it’s beginning to piss you off.

Thanos quickly stops and grabs Nam-gyu by the arm, running off. You freeze in place as Nam-gyu looks back at you. He looks regretful, being dragged along more than actually following.

But his survival instinct is stronger than any bond you thought both of you had.

A wave of betrayal goes through you, more than you’ve ever felt before, more than when Se-mi and Min-su left you.

You thought maybe Nam-gyu was as attached you you as you were to him but you were wrong. All he cares about is survival, not you. You suppose you can’t blame him though.

Suddenly, snapping you out of your thoughts, someone grabs you and drags you towards the one empty room, pushing you in and closing the door before the timer stops and the door locks.

The man lets out a sigh, you recognize him as the person with Se-mi and Min-su.

You don’t care all that much, though. Emotions crashing down onto you, all the adrenaline leaving your body leaving you feeling deflated.

You lean up against the wall, exhausted even though it probably hasn’t been more than an hour. You just want to go back to sleep, you want to go home.

You don’t think about the fact that you won’t even have a home if you don’t get enough money. But that doesn’t matter now.

The minute or so you spend in the room feels both like an eternity and lite it was over in a second. The lock clicks open and you walk out, not bothering to speak to the guy who saved you.

You don’t look around the room, not wanting to see Nam-gyu or Thanos now. You keep your head down and follow the pink guard out and back into the stairwell.

After a minute of walking you enter back into the ‘bedroom’, you’re one of the last people in. The mood is somber, theres not many people left.

“[Name]!” You hear someone rushing towards you, you recognize the voice as Thanos, the last person you want to see right now.

He hugs you, a feeling that makes you want to crawl out of your own skin, and of course Nam-gyu is behind him. Though Nam-gyu doesn’t look very happy.

“I’m so happy to see you again bro!” Thanos says in English, smothering you in a hug. You give up trying to escape as he unwraps from you, still holding on to your shoulders.

“”I thought I was running with you the I looked back and saw I was with this idiot” He points to Nam-gyu who tries his best to smile and laugh.

“Come on, let’s play just one more game, alright?” Thanos says, wrapping an arm around your shoulder and walking you towards you guys’ spot on the stairs. Nam-gyu follows.

Right when you guys reach the spot, guards enter through the front and announce that it’s time to vote. It’s from last number to first.

The voting starts with 456 who votes X, from then the votes seem fairly split.

Thanks goes up to vote and kisses the blue button. The thought of how many dirty hands had touched that before him makes you grossed out.

Nam-gyu goes up, but not before telling you once more to vote blue, sounding less convincing than he was before.

“Just one more game”

It’s your turn to vote now, you walk up to the podium and stare at the two brightly colored buttons before you.

Even though Thanos and Nam-gyu had just betrayed you, leaving you for dead, their words keep repeating in your head. ‘Just one more game’. The button lights up blue under your hand and you walk over to your side.

Even if you did go home now, you have no money. The amount that they’re offering now is good, but it’s not enough. You’ll soon be back to where you were before this game.

Either way you’ll probably end up dead, if not literally then figuratively. But still, you can’t help that part of your mind that yearns for home, even if that home is a shitty studio apartment that you can barely pay for.

You don’t pay attention to Thanos patting you on the back, saying that ‘he knew you would make the right choice’ and ‘he’s proud of you’.

Nam-gyu continues to stay unusually silent, almost like he feels bad for leaving you. You remember the look on his face as he ran off with Thanos.

The drugs are probably just wearing off.

The last person goes up to vote, 001. He stands there for a second, like he’s contemplating which button to push, but in the end he pushes red.

You look up at the board and it’s 50/50. A tie.

The guards say that you will all be able to vote again tomorrow for a tie breaker. You don’t mind this all that much, it gives you some time to get your shit together and hopefully even if you do say there will be a break from the games for the day.

The voting buttons are taken out and food is brought in. You, Thanos, and Nam-gyu are some for the first few people getting food so it’s not soon before you walk off with it to your spot on the stairs.

You do want to split off from these two, but it’s probably better to stay in a team, just in case. And now atleast you know that you can’t fully trust them, so if you get too suspicious you can break off and find someone else, maybe Se-mi and Min-su if they’re willing to let you back in.

You don’t acknowledge another part of the reason you want to stay with them. You’re still attached to Nam-gyu, you don’t want to leave him. Even though you’re pissed at him, you still want to stay for whatever reason.

You unwrap the food you were given and see sushi inside, atleast it looks good.

Only now do you realize how hungry you are. You haven’t eaten since yesterday and even then it was just some bread. You quickly eat one of the pieces of sushi. It isn’t amazing but it’s food. You scarf down the rest of it.

Once you finish your food you wish there was more, you’re still hungry, but there’s nothing you can do.

You drink the soda that you had forgotten about the second you saw the sushi.

“This soda tasted like shit” Nam-gyu says, breaking the silence.

“It’s like knock-off coke” You reply.

“Yeah! They tried to make coke but it just tastes like dirt.”

“I think dirt would taste better than this.”

Nam-gyu snickers and you smile faintly. You hate how easily you’re talking to him, like none of the last hour happened. You wish you could hate Nam-gyu, but you know that you don’t. Well maybe you do a little bit but not enough. Thanos, though, you do hate. But there’s nothing you can do about that, the two of them are basically a package. Buy one get one free.

As if on cue Thanos speaks up. “Those fuckers voted red”

You look to where Thanos is pointing and see Se-mi and Min-su.

“I knew that bitch was bad news from the beginning, we should kill her.” Nam-gyu says.

“Let’s just talk to her and Min-su first” Thanos replies.

You know that ‘talk’ will probably lead to a fight so you bud into the conversation.

“Let’s not, we should just leave them be, they aren’t worth our time” Both Nam-gyu and Thanos look over at you. “They’ll probably die in the next game with how weak they are, let’s just let nature take her course.”

You say the last part to save face, trying to not seem like the odd-one-out of the three of you.

Nam-gyu gives in easily, agreeing with you. It takes Thanos a bit more time though, but be eventually agrees.

The peace doesn’t last for long though. A group of O’s and X’s begin arguing in the middle of the room.

Thanos seems too eager to join the argument. Before you can stop him he jumps up and runs forward.

You lean back, giving up trying to stop him from being stupid, it seems like it’s just part of him.

To your shock Nam-gyu doesn’t follow Thanos and stays put in his seat.

“You’re not going with him? That’s a first” You say, jokingly bashing Nam-gyu.

“I don’t feel like arguing right now, I’m too tired.”

“That’s fair. You just usually follow along behind Thanos like a lost puppy.”

“No I don’t, I’m more like a guard dog. People see Thanos and they’re like ‘okay this guy looks stupid and weak’ but then they see me and they’re like ‘oh shit I can’t mess with him!’ Ya know?”

You barely hold your laugh in until Nam-gyu finishes his spiel, then you can’t help how you laugh in his face.

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard” You say, gasping between breaths before laughing again.

“Oh come on! It’s not that funny.” Nam-gyu looks embarrassed, that makes you laugh even more, until your stomach hurts.

“Oh my god, I haven’t laughed that hard in so long.”

“Asshole”

A feeling of disgust passes through your brain, you’re having this much fun with some asshole who just left you for dead, but you don’t dwell on it, preferring to focus on the good mood.

“You’re not an attack dog, look at you!”

“What do you mean look at me?!”

“You’re more like a tamed hyena, you follow behind Thanos and snicker and taunt along to his comments.”

“I’m the leader of the group, not him.”

“As if”

Nam-gyu rolls his eyes.

“Then you’re like a ratty street cat, we picked you up and you just stuck with us”

Before you can think of a comeback Thanos sits back down.

“Those asshole X’s” He says, practically pouting. “Who do they think they are.”

The fight looks fully broke up, everyone back in their previous spots with their groups.

“Thanos,” Nam-gyu says suddenly, having just remembered something. “Can I have another, you know”

“Yeah yeah, a reward for getting through the game.”

Nam-gyu grins.

Your stomach twists at the mention of the game but you ignore it.

Nam-gyu looks over at you and motions towards the cross Thanos is taking out of his jacket, as if to offer you one again.

But your mind hasn’t changed since yesterday so you shake your head.

“Hey man you can’t just go offering up my pills, we’re running low on stock.”

“I know I know, just gimme”

Thanos hands Nam-gyu a pink pill and Nam-gyu immediately puts it in his mouth and swallows it. Thanos grabbing another for himself and doing the same thing.

It feels a bit odd being the only sober one here but you’re not gonna give in to your fomo.

“After this game I should have enough to pay off my debts.” Nam-gyu says. But you know in reality it’ll never be enough, it’ll always be ‘just one more game’.

You’re gonna click X after the next game. Probably.

“Yeah bro, and then mg coin can pay us back” Nam-gyu eagerly nods along to Thanos’ words. You don’t bother to comment on the fact that they said, earlier today, that they hoped he was dead.

The woman voice on the speaker says you have 30 minutes until bed and the screen lights up with the timer.

It hasn’t felt like a whole day has passed, maybe the game took more than the hour you thought it did. Or maybe you just don’t have a good internal clock.

Thanos lets out a loud, dramatic, yawn.

“I’m tired man, that game took too much out of me.”

“Yeah, I’m ready pass out.” Nam-gyu says, agreeing with Thanos as per usual.

“Mhm” You hum, but you’re not all that tired, similarly to last night.

“Do you think any of the X’s are gonna switch sides?” Nam-gyu asks Thanos.

“Nah man, they’re all stubborn as hell, they won’t listen to reason.”

“Shit, well we can’t have another tie, it’ll drag this on longer. I just wanna be out of here with my money.”

“Yeah bro, I miss my vape” Thanos says, speaking like this vape is his child.

“I’m craving a cigarette so bad” Nam-gyu says.

You still don’t fully know how you got caught up in this group of junkies but it doesn’t matter now.

“I need to piss” Thanos says suddenly, not holding back with how he speaks.

You realize that you haven’t peed all day so you decide to go along. Nam-gyu follows the both of you.

The three of you enter the bathroom and piss, you finishing first.

You go up to the sink and wash your hands before getting some water and splashing it on your face, getting a bit into your hair too but not drenching it. You grab a paper towel and wipe your face as well as your hands.

You look back to the other two to see if they’re done and you catch Nam-gyu staring at you. Once he realizes you saw him he looks away, pretending like he wasn’t ogling at you.

The three of you walk out of the door, through the hallway, and back into the main room.

You look up at the screen which says 20 minutes.

“I’m gonna head to bed early” You say even though you aren’t too tired, you just don’t want to sit around for another 20 minutes.

“Goodnight bro” Thanos says in English. Why does he speak in English so much?

“Night” Nam-gyu says.

You nod towards them and walk up to your bead, taking your shoes off and climbing in.

You get yourself under the covers and just lay there, staring at the ceiling. You can hear the noise of 99 people talking around you but you’re not close enough to any conversation to hear what exactly they’re saying.

Soon enough the timer says 10 minutes, the chatter dying down, then it hits 0 and the lights go out. Everything is now quiet, almost eerily so.

You hear footsteps walking up the stairs and you think you already know who it is if yesterday was any indication. You look over and see Nam-gyu who says nothing this time but you scoot over in the bed and he quickly gets in.

He isn’t even trying to make an excuse this time, and you don’t fully know why you’re letting him sleep beside you. You think part of you craves the closeness, especially in this situation.

Nam-gyu gets under the sheets and turns away, lying on his side and looking towards the other beds.

You move your arm over and lay it over Nam-gyu’s body. You immediately regret it, feeling somewhat embarrassed at the thought that he might not reciprocate, and try to pull your arm back but Nam-gyu grabs it. He hold your arm to his chest. You don’t try to move it away anymore.

You don’t know why you decided to hug him in the first place. Could you have developed feelings for him in the span of a day? Maybe, and It seems like he might have caught feelings for you as well.

Like yesterday you begin to get tired with Nam-gyu there with you.

After a few minutes you give in and fall asleep.

——

A/n 2 - I don’t plan on writing a third part because if I did it would probably be them out of the games (majority voted X) but if anyone would want to read that lmk

[jessconsumesmedia]

Ghosts 4x10 The Not-So-Silent Partner

I thought that I might put together a well-organized piece of writing for this episode, but who knows how that is actually going to work out. I LOVED this episode and I have so many thoughts (many of which I am thinking about giving their own posts) So buckle in and enjoy my wild ranting about fictional characters.

Freaky Spoilers below the belt (they are so not i promise i just think im funny)

Overall thoughts: This episode was Really strong. I loved both of the main plots as well as the little background moments. The stories this season are building up gorgeously and I can't wait to get more payoffs as the season progresses. Pretty much as always I am just going to break up A and B stories and then add any other random bit at the end! (buckle up or leave this is going to be a long ride)

Issac - The not-so-silent partner

I love Issac and his bitchy little attitude; it brings us back to the fact that almost always his bitchyness* is just who he is. He is at heart a bitchy man who is realllllly trying (at least for him he is really trying) but he is also a deeply scorned man. By love, by society, by Hamilton, and even by his friends. The restaurant is his way of being seen, it is his way of being something in an afterlife where he feels like nothing sometimes. He of course is not going about it the right way but this guy has spent his entire life and afterlife being one upped often by people who don't even care about his existence. His hand in the restaurant is important to him. That being said I believe it was a really good decision to have him give up his partner position. He not only realized that he has stakes with his friends but it also is baseline Jay's restaurant.

Jay deserves to have the creative decisions plus he deserves a billion pats on the back for dealing with their eight idiot children/every other ghost on the property at some point. At the beginning of this episode I figured there might be a lead up to Mark finding out about the ghosts but I was surprised with the way they yes/anded their way out of that situation. But I realized it doesn't make a ton of sense for a network tv show to somewhat reveal two big bits (and subsequently lose a layer of jokes even if there are new joke possibilities) Mark finding out that the ghosts exist and Sam can see them takes away the Mark thinks Sam is a weirdo vibe and that is objectively a very silly dynamic. Also **Sam is a weirdo but mostly because of her small/odd family dynamic and also a little bit because of the ghosts. Poor Mark, bro is so gullible.

**"I think we sometimes forget that Samantha once hit her head really hard." definitely not the reason she is desperate for family but it is a good excuse actually for a lot of the situations she finds herself in. But also I wonder if she does have lasting effects, like I would assume considering she was literally dead for three minutes.

*"Issac complain about monarchy, must be day ending in y" oh Thor you are a comedic genius and you are very correct.

Hopefully I got everything I wanted to put in that lol.

IRISH HETTY

Holy shit. I knew, of course I knew. But having confirmation of something that hits you straight in the face is just really nice. This reveal is perfection. Poor Hetty believing whole heartedly that she is somehow British royalty and then she gets hit with one of the things she hates most in life. Love it. This managed to coincide with my English literature class going over a bit of Irish history so I was having a grand time sticking the two together into one big nerd pb&j. Plus I know generally that I have a good chunk of Irish somewhere in my history lol.

The actual implications of Hetty knowing she is Irish now are insane. Much like her encounter with the washing machine, dalliances with Trevor, and brief run ins with feminism, her finding out about her Irish ancestry is just another wall she is breaking. Almost like a another layer that is keeping her from "the real world." She is so stuck in her very stuffy uptight ways but these giant -for her- moments keep happening. They keep adding cracks and craters to the layers of her being. Much like Issac they don't change her fundamental elements so she is still the sam character/person but she has that growth we long to see. Mostly I love to see her views get challenged and she has to deal with the aftermath of those challenges.

Thor's part in all of this is also really interesting. We know he knows things about probably all of the ghosts but he has managed to keep these secrets for an incredibly long time. Thor is just a big guy who loves and cares about his friends. There is also another layer of Hetty being one of, if not, the only ghost who Grew up at Woodstone. The ghosts before her had an attachment to her because they were there for her whole depressing backstory TM. They know what all she went through (some stuff they probably have never said) But Thor specifically fell into some sort of protective figure for her (even if she didn't consider him as that protector for a long time after her death) Whether Sass and Issac just chose not too be as involved or even if they were Thor was there and chose to be there. He knew being Irish would be a huge crack in her worldview so he kept it to himself all to protect her. And let me tell you that made me cry. The Thor and Hetty relationship is one of my favorites not only because of the comedic aspects but also just the sheer care he has for her. She can't do much besides accept her friend and even affirm that friendship. (HETTY LOVE GORDON) Like guys she doesn't even say his pelts are gross and nasty it is such a huge moment for the both of them. They have to feel real life feelings which is a problem for them both, and as they tap into those feeling they are able to settle each other.

Trevor's part in this is smaller but it is still Very much there. He is quick to affirm that he loves St. Patrick's day. Quick to let her believe that her ***"Flaming red hair and alabaster skin" aren't particularly Irish traits. He stays by her side nearly all episode. Yet he was delighted to find out that she was in fact Irish, but he didn't make fun of her? Their whole relationship is based off of their conflict wouldn't he as the little shit that he is want to crowd her with snide witticisms? No he wouldn't. Their relationship genuinely makes me feel insane sometimes because we are clearly moving towards some sort of impasse. Whether its that we find out they have been getting closer but are just friends still or if they have been secretly hooking up off camera or any number of possibilities. There are choices being made that bring them together. Trevor likes Hetty's qualities simply put and Hetty apparently Loves Colin Ferrell who in many ways favors the pantless crusader. (He also uses that tone of voice that it seems like he literally saves for Hetty) I just cant wait to see more of their "complicated and diabolical" relationship.

***Now Trevor explain why you said that with a sarcastic air but at the same time plausible enough that Hetty would probably take it at face value. Plus why was he so poetic in his descriptions???

I believe that I have written what I can about Hetty but also I probably could think of other things lol.

Miscellaneous

Pete is such a good teacher. I love that he shows Hetty a bunch of Irish things.

"This man has plans for someone and I for one respect it" How even would he execute that plan lol?

If they wanted to take Issacs money I really think all they'd have to do is ask Trevor. He wants to be Mom and Dad's favorite.

Doctor Hoo

"No, baby, that was the scam."

Kelsey is so real for the gift card and seven dollars lol. (She is hilarious and a really good person to bring back)

Gaslight that poor man

Also Hetty looking too Trevor to calm her fears like she could have asked anyone in that room and she chose him.

Rebecca Wisocky the woman that you are. The line read on that bit about Whiskey is Hilarious.

I love Pete and his love of the craft. The improv your way out really worked I am curious if it could come up again somehow with Mahesh and Mark.

I love Jay that is the tweet hit send

"Except for Danes who brains are rumored to be mostly cabbage" He just can't get past his own prejudices.

That is the end of my very long rant sesh! Thanks for sticking around

He is down bad

I just like how for most of the scene she can’t look him in the eyes :((((

-Jess🫡

[morganski-19]

If Maddie Buckley has no defenders I am dead! Deceased, gone from this world.

Because tell me why this character has so much unnecessary hate surrounding her. I cannot search ep 4x05 on here without seeing this one Maddie hate post and it angers me so much.

Maybe this is just because out of everyone in the show, I relate to Maddie the most cause we're both eldest daughters and have complicated relationships with our mothers, but I would stand by this statement even without this.

I swear we need a Maddie begins so fucking bad, because all that we've gotten from her past was from Buck's perspective. I understand why they think they wouldn't need to do one because we already saw her life with Doug in flashbacks and her home life in Buck Begins, but there is still more we don't know.

What about actually seeing Daniel as a child, him getting diagnosed. Buck being born and Maddie slowly realizing why he was at all. Seeing her new baby brother get taken to the hospital just to get a needle stuck in his arm. Like her trauma with Daniel is never fully explored.

Not to mention the series of events that I know would have happened. "Oh why don't you smile, Maddie. I need to see your beautiful smile." "Our strong Maddie, keeping our spirits up." Come on it's right there.

Maddie was their perfect little daughter, so strong during the whole process. From the beginning to the end, she was their strong little girl. So when she acted out, or did what they thought was acting out, she broke that image. Her parents didn't want her to break their image of her.

It's why they hated Doug, not for what he did to her, but what it meant for them. He wasn't up to their standard, fit for their picture. They made a portrait of their life after Doug and anytime that Maddie or Buck broke it, they got angry. They needed Maddie to be the perfect one, and they needed Buck to be Daniel. Two things that are unattainable.

Not to mention that she is the only other person in the house who knew Daniel, and what they lost, so anything that she does to hurt them, they would use that against her. They use her as a sounding board for their grief and their anger about the situation.

Maddie has so much trauma, from her childhood, from her first marriage, and she doesn't always deal with it in the healthiest of ways. But tell me who in this show does. I never understand how people can hate her for what she's done when it's arguably at the same level as some of what the other characters have done, but they get passes.

Long ramble aside, I love Maddie, she's one of my favorite characters on this show, and I will never understand the hate that I see for her.

[blackout-files]

matchstick

cassidy 'matchstick' stone is a girl who was born and raised in the worst part of a terrible city.

as a toddler, she developed pyrokinesis; the only member of her family to do so since her great grandparents.

it always seemed to be one thing after another with her family (two parents and three siblings), things like being robbed or evicted, her parents both losing their jobs more than once, the bathroom flooding or a tree falling through their porch railing. they seemed riddled with terrible luck - and whether it was a product of living in the guts of void city, or just some kind of generational curse, it seemed never ending.

between the ages of 12-13, cassidy loses her leg to an infection after cutting herself at the park (delirious with fever, she'd thought to burn the infection out at the source, and barely left anything for the doctors to salvage.) and then loses her oldest brother in a shootout at his job.

after her schoolmate/tutor ronnie dies, she drops out of high school - not seeing the point in even trying anymore. whenever she passes by one of his memorials, she can't bring herself to look at the photos, but she always makes sure the candles are lit.

by this stage of her life, cassidy was so fucking tired of feeling and being helpless. it still always seemed like one thing after another with her family and it wasn't fair, they were good people, they didn't deserve the endless shit void city dumped on them.

she snaps when she's seventeen, after her sister came home bruised and crying, again. realising that the only thing stopping her from taking matters into her own hands was the law (which meant fuck all in The Guts), she tracked down her sisters boyfriend and beat him to death with a pipe she'd found on the way there.

she goes home afterwards to pack a bag and grab all the cash she'd earned doing stupid party entertainment gigs, and only sticks around long enough to say goodbye to her family. she doesn't want them to get in trouble if the cops do miraculously come looking for her, she loves them too much to even ask them lie for her.

she sends them money when she can, taking jobs where she can - theft, drug running, info gathering, intimidation visits. anything she can get her hands on really. she learns a lot of skills and makes a lot of allies in this time.

she earns the nickname 'matchstick' from her habit of burning evidence before the cops can find anything, and her budding talent with explosives (funnily enough, no one is aware of the pyrokinesis)

she starts to build herself a reputation in voids' criminal scene, makes herself a familiar face, known for never snitching and never turning down a job.

(it's around this point that her and panic attack are starting to 1v1 each other - going from "you seem familiar..." to "YOU."

she calls him sparky and he calls her matches and she loves to make his job difficult)

she joins a gang and finds out her new boss likes underage girls. she, with the kind of dramatics she'll later become known for, hits him with the to the pain monologue from the princess bride while using a wood saw to cut his hands off.

she finds she doesn't feel bad for killing, sees it as "cleaning up" her city.

it's that kind of violence that allows her to quickly build the reputation she has in the blackout files.

she tries to go home exactly once "just to see how they're doing" and she got turned away. they knew she was that Matchstick person showing up in the news and basically disowned her

("she has a family she never speaks to, because she's scared they'll condemn her for how she chooses to love them, but she loves them anyway." AND THEN THEY DO. BUT SHE STILL LOVES THEM ANYWAY.)

matches carves out her own territory in the guts, and rules it with a bloodied grin. in the beginning it's a chaotic mess of explosions and bloodshed. matches uses all the insider info she got working for various gangs and crime lords to fuck up their operations; stealing shipments, plans and employees, destroying supplies, killing and torturing her way through allies and informants.

she falls in love with someone who doesn't know who she is, someone who only knows her as cassidy and not Matchstick; and it's wonderful. it's passionate and fast and she gets pregnant and she's kind of like fuck because that was Not The Plan. she doesn't know how she feels about it, and sits him down to be like "sooo we fucked up?"

he loses his shit and breaks up with her after telling her she's an idiot and accuses her of trying to ''trap him" and then he lets slip that she's not his only girlfriend and he's been lowkey playing her this whole time bc she's got money.

within a half hour matchstick is washing blood out of her hair.

originally it was spite that made her decide to keep her baby; but cassidy stone had never known how to love anything by half and her baby girl quickly became the most important thing in her life.

she cleans up her act a little bit, focusing more on organising her empire and keeping things running smooth, than antagonising the other void city crime lords.

she builds an odd camaraderie with panic attack, where they still work for different sides but occasionally might briefly ally themselves against a common enemy

it's still a dangerous life though, which was something she'd never really worried about until kirby was born. she hasn't got friends, and her family don't talk to her, and she has this terrible terrible fear that there's no one else in the world who would protect her kid the way she would.

when she's lying in the rubble, choking on her own blood, she realises maybe there's one person she can trust.

facts and extra info

matches actually rarely uses her pyrokenisis 'on the job' which means most people aren't aware of her power, she prefers a more classic approach (gasoline, gunpowder, etc)

was taught how to fight by an ex-boxer who ran the local gym in her neighbourhood, and learned how to aim by playing darts

abilities include: business management, interrogation + intimidation, deception, surveillance, weaponry + firearms (my girl LOVES explosives)

she has a rocket launcher covered in stickers that has those fun little phone charms attached to it

she loves her food spicy and charred

hates sweets

has a prosthetic leg gifted to her by sundown inc's tech department

has multiple scars including a cesarean

wears cargo pants with thigh holsters + fingerless gloves

spotify playlist

pinterest board

[otaku553]

New blorbo :)

Also a silly interaction with this piece

[lunaicfantastic]

fav part of gideon the ninth is for the first pre-canaan house chunk of the book, she's all "ugh I'm so normal surrounded by all these weirdo goth freaks when I blow this popsicle stand everyone will see how cool and normal and charming I am" and then she gets to canaan house and realizes that while she might have been a normie jock in the ninth house she is not exempt from being a goth weirdo who hides important doors behind tapestries and sneaks around in the dark so she doesn't have to talk to people. like we talk about her being a jock forced to be goth but nature v nurture babey she's not shedding that bone freak skin anytime soon

[hallowclave]

What a whimsical looking young man I wonder if he has received any job offers recently

Original photo

[orb-weaving]

I have not been so physically unwell about a ship as chronohaul in a long, long time.

[cthoseris]

JUST FINISHED TDK: REIGN

HOLY SHIT THAT WAS GOOD